Agenda

Join us on a journey across landscapes from across the world, and experience a day in the life of a changemaker. From the wetlands of Mindanao in the Philippines to the hills of Bamunkumbit in Cameroon and the forests of El Salvador, we will explore how the GLF’s Restoration Stewards and Chapters are taking action to build sustainable landscapes.

The proposed session aims to raise awareness in the climate community, highlighting Ecosystem Restoration in general and Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in particular as nature-based solutions (NbS) contributing to mitigation and adaptation for the fight against climate change and benefiting biodiversity conservation. It will highlight approaches and experiences on FLR communication and awareness raising by the Dutch NGO Justdiggit and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, specifically focusing on mobilizing youth. It will showcase Justdiggit’s practical experiences from ongoing local FLR awareness-raising campaigns in collaboration with GIZ’s project Forests4Future in Ethiopia and the UN Decades approach to empower a global movement in #generationrestoration, striving for restoration-friendly consumption.

Relevant resources

• White paper: Youth at the frontiers of change

Restoring degraded land contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity enrichment and equitably improves the livelihoods of local communities. This session will highlight that large-scale land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa is possible and discuss key ingredients of success. We will explore partnerships and inclusion, drivers for restoration in policy and value chains, matching restoration practices to local contexts and the central role of evidence in magnifying the impact of interventions. Finally, we will look forward to restoration ambitions on the continent and the opportunity for land restoration to bridge people, climate, biodiversity and land.

GLF Climate offers a unique opportunity to meet and connect with individuals from all over the world working towards a sustainable future. During this networking session, you will be randomly matched with other participants and will have the chance to discuss for a few minutes. After that, the platform will automatically assign another participant so you can start another interesting discussion. Make sure to always briefly introduce yourself and start your discussions by elaborating on your interest in the conference themes and how they relate to your work.

Humanity is facing a barrage of interconnected crises: climate change, conflict, hunger, high inflation, and the enduring impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. From heatwaves to hurricanes, fires to floods, the effects of the climate crisis are already being felt across the globe. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is causing energy prices to spiral and exposing our addiction to fossil fuels.

So, where do we go from here? What should we have done yesterday, and what do we need to do now?

This plenary will highlight how interconnected crises underscore the need for urgent, collective and integrated efforts. Join climate activists, local champions and leaders in policy, science, and business to identify pathways and opportunities to accelerate climate action, deliver on climate justice, and ramp up climate finance.

As the world increasingly understands the consequences of the triple planetary crisis, there is an opportunity for humanity to reorient ourselves towards the earth and natural systems. Many grassroots efforts have realized how values-based approaches that integrate culture, Indigenous knowledge, and lessons from spiritual traditions can help motivate and sustain meaningful shifts in behavior and attitudes. Within the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration context, this session will explore how diverse stakeholders can engage with these themes to heal and restore the living Earth.

The climate crisis’s most extreme weather events and impacts are hitting the most vulnerable communities and landscapes. According to article 8 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, “parties recognize the importance of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change including extreme weather events and slow onset events.”

But is recognition of these realities the best we can do as humanity? With no concrete answer from COP26 for heads of state of the majority world and young activists in the Global South, the issues of “adaptation finance” and “loss and damage” continue to be their top priorities on the agenda for COP27. For this Youth Daily Show, we are sitting down with activists from the frontlines of the climate crisis to shine a light on what these issues really mean for the world today and tomorrow.

This session will present findings from the recently launched 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment, including an answer to the question, ‘Are we on track for 2030?’ In addition to global findings, we will also present perspectives from the Congo Basin, where the first-ever Regional Assessment was conducted this year. We will also discuss civil society’s role in enabling accountability to forest pledges.

The panelists will highlight the importance of journalism, education, and outreach cross-sectoral efforts in tackling climate change, derived from the multi format rainforest journalism by Pulitzer Center fellows on rampant deforestation, the absence of indigenous community safeguarding, as well as ground-level developments related to carbon trading. This session showcases the power of rainforest journalism to inspire engagement and action by educational communities and civil society groups to address the climate crisis in the global south, accelerating actions of the climate goals, as well as revealing social injustice in the process of climate change reduction.

Register now for the conference, and if you don’t want to miss this panel, bookmark and add it to your calendar.

During GLF Climate 2021 and GLF Africa 2022, several speakers emphasized that climate solutions and climate action are already happening within local communities. Among what they are missing is access to suitable funding that allows these communities to scale these projects and businesses. At the same time, there is a rise in the number of “green funds.” Still, there is a risk of missing positive impacts by designing funds and financing mechanisms without sufficiently considering the local context. This session aims to explore how to develop financing mechanisms and products aligned with the local context and the needs of local communities and smallholder farmers. More broadly, it seeks to answer the question of which innovations are needed to effectively support local climate action through sustainable finance.

Useful Websites

• Sustainable finance for local climate action

Why is it essential for non-state actors to follow common principles that ensure their climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development investments are rights-based? How can we elevate the rights and aspirations of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-Descendant Peoples? And what is the role of women and youth in all of this?

In a 30-minute launch, get answers to these questions and learn about the importance and potential impact of the Standard. You will also interact with the panelists and hear the stories from participants in the Indigenous-led process that led to the Standard.

#GLFClimate #LandRightsNow

Are you a journalist and want to request an interview or join the session as a press member to ask panelists questions live? Contact Kelly Quintero at k.quintero@cgiar.org

Useful Resources

• CIFOR-ICRAF Tree Planting
• Doing better than ‘Do no harm’
• Tightening the net: Net zero climate targets – implications for land and food equity
• Carbon Financing, Offsetting and Corporate Mitigation Strategies – Video and white paper
• So you want to offset emissions?

The world’s food systems urgently need to be reset. Our current systems encroach on the land – particularly forests. This session focuses on three commodities which drive forest loss: beef, soy and palm oil. It will look at how we can best accelerate action to reduce Scope 3 emissions, where deforestation features so prominently. A moderated dialogue will bring forth key interventions we can take to identify, manage and reduce these “last mile” emissions, essential to achieving a net zero world. This session is hosted by the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration Impact Program (FOLUR).

Join us for a virtual tour in the Peruvian Amazon to learn about the efforts to preserve the forest, the people who live there and how agroforestry initiatives can combine human and natural well-being. The tour was recorded during an event to promote the exchange of experiences between multiple stakeholders, organized by the GCF Task Force in October 2022.
The GCF Task Force is a Coalition of 39 subnational governments from 10 countries across the world dedicated to reducing deforestation and advancing equitable and low-emissions developments in their regions.

Learn more about the GCF Task Force.

Ecosystem restoration is a key strategy for achieving a net zero future, providing opportunities for climate mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable economic development. Scaling up investments in restoration is critical to meet these goals, as well as a stronger collaboration between private financial entities, governments, multilaterals, and local communities. Speakers and participants in this session will discuss the challenges and opportunities for increasing restoration finance, building on the work of the UN Decade Finance Task Force (FTF). The session will provide a space to exchange promising solutions for financing, projects and business models that serve a blueprint for replicable and scalable approaches.

The soil, a key component of land, remains a vital support for plant growth and livestock rearing, but its misuse or mishandling can impact food production broadly. Climate change has adversely affected agricultural production, with many farmlands already degraded, resulting in meager yields. Landscape restoration is thereby eminent for sustainable food production. During this session, we will zoom in on two countries of Sub-Saharan Africa: The Gambia and Nigeria, and we will explore what practices are applied, or need to be applied, by local farmers and other stakeholders to restore landscapes while ensuring productivity and respecting natural resources.

Drought is an increasingly relevant topic in the wake of the Glasgow Climate Pact, which reemphasized the urgent need to address global climate challenges. The 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) followed soon after, concluding with a united global pledge to boost drought resilience and invest in land restoration for future prosperity today. In this context, it is more important than ever to highlight and upscale integrated land use and management techniques that mitigate and adapt to drought, including agroforestry and silvopastoralism.

This session will explore the question: What needs to be done – and who needs to do it – to implement Integrated Drought management through silvopastoral systems to ensure countries in the Near East North Africa (NENA) region are better prepared for drought? Using examples from the NENA region, speakers and panelists will highlight the benefits of drought management through silvopastoral systems, evidence of how they have been used effectively and discuss how to upscale these practices further.

The session will be available in English, Arabic, French and Spanish.

Relevant resources

• White paper: A turning point for drought management

Rainforest Alliance, CDP, Clarmondial, Conservation International, and USAID announce a transformational public-private partnership to reduce commodity-driven deforestation, contribute to global climate and biodiversity goals, and drive new investment in inclusive development across some of the world’s most important tropical landscapes.

This robust public-private partnership brings unprecedented reach in finance, markets, sustainability standards and large-scale landscape management. Over the next five years, Business Case will convene the private sector, governments, and local producers and organizations in some of the world’s most important tropical ecosystems and sourcing regions to address global environmental challenges associated with commodity-driven deforestation, including greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Working in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Indonesia, Business Case will pilot a novel landscape approach that leverages the complementary expertise of its partners while benefiting local and indigenous communities and enterprises.

Join the Business Case initiative launch on Friday, 11 November, 17:00–17:45 (UTC+2 | Cairo) / 10:00–10:45 (UTC -5 | Lima).

#GLFClimate #theBusinessCaseInitiative

A live, interactive panel bringing together Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) representatives, on-the-ground practitioners who are strong advocates for global forest communities, and experts from the carbon markets for a discussion on what strategic action is needed to direct climate finance towards securing and protecting IPLC lands, and in turn helping countries achieve their climate targets and commitments.
The event will allow experts to unpack jurisdictional approaches to conservation finance, including the complexities of “nesting,” a methodology to include forest conservation projects into a country’s national climate targets. It will also touch on how we can ensure equitable investment partnerships with underrepresented demographics and enable greater participation in the carbon markets to achieve the best for both the people and the planet.
The Peoples Forests Partnership was announced at COP 26 in Glasgow late last year to address why only 1% of current climate finance reaches IPLC groups, despite half the world’s land being managed and held by IPLCs. Indigenous people and their cultures have been guardians of the forest for centuries. In the current climate crisis, saving carbon-rich tropical forests is recognized as one of the most important mitigation strategies. Rights-based carbon projects present a scalable solution to leverage international climate finance to make forest conservation’s environmental and economic investments equitable for all stakeholders.

Almost 25 years ago, Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for recognizing freedom of choice as both the main goal and the principal means of development. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that only a minority of humanity has the freedom to choose a healthy, prosperous and safe life.

It’s time for a paradigm change to place the well-being, livelihoods, and equity of stewards of land and nature at the heart of development. This session will explore the potential of What is a stewardship economy?, which ensure that land users receive fair compensation for their investments in environmental services while meeting consumer expectations that the commodities they purchase have been sustainably produced.

Useful pages

• What is a stewardship economy?
• Why we should care more about “stewardship” Can COP27 deliver on being “Africa’s COP”?

Join us at the GLF Climate Evening Reception in the Egypt Hall Blue Nile area to meet other participants, enjoy drinks and vegetarian canapés (hot, cold and sweet), discuss the conference, share experiences and learn from each other.