COP27 brings together SIDS representatives, the donor community, and the private sector. This High-Level Panel will bring together SIDS representatives from the Eastern Caribbean, Maldives and Palau providing an opportunity to discuss collective responsibility for ensuring the health and sustainability of the world’s oceans, and their vital role in future NDCs.

The objective of this panel discussion is to explore the blue economy—how it is defined, what it encompasses, and what/where is driving the demand. 

This event highlights the various roles that cities can play in addressing climate change: as regulators, project sponsors, fundraisers of capital, overseers of multi-connected systems, and as partners with the private sector, leveraging their relationship for green standards, innovation, technical expertise, and green finance.

The mountain ranges of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, and the Karakoram span 2,400 kilometers across six nations and contain 60,000 km² of ice – storing more water than anywhere besides the Arctic and Antarctic. Climate change and air pollution are speeding up the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of 750 million people who rely on the water from these glaciers and snows. Melting glaciers and loss of seasonal snow pose significant risks not just to the people who live at their foot but to the stability of water resources in the South Asia region more broadly. The impacts will only get worse unless greater efforts are made to curb black carbon deposits from factories, fires, and vehicles that are accelerating melting. Our expert panel will discuss challenges and solutions to address glacier melt, improve water and energy security, and air quality, and thus create a better future for millions of South Asians. Opening Remarks: Hartwig Schafer, Vice President, ...

Eight hundred million South Asians– or half the region’s population—are at risk to see their standards of living and incomes decline as rising temperatures and more erratic rainfalls will cut down crop yields, make water more scare, and push more people away from their homes to seek safer places. This worst-case scenario and relevant adaptation strategies to climate change underpin the upcoming report South Asia’s Hotspots, whose main findings were presented yesterday at a panel on building climate change resilience in South Asia at the World Bank Spring Meetings. Its main author, World Bank Lead Economist Muthukumara Mani detailed how specific geographic areas across South Asia or “hotspots” which –until now—were relatively immune to climate change threats could be badly affected by 2050. To build resilience, the report recommends that South Asian countries better prioritize their financial resources where they’re most needed and target the most vulnerable individuals and families.  Following the presentation, government, civil society, ...

We’re thrilled to welcome Matt Damon and Gary White, co-founders of Water.org, to our Mission: #ItsPossible Facebook Live booth, from the heart of the World Bank – IMF Spring Meetings. They’ll be discussing why providing safe water to everyone in the world is important to development with Raj Kumar from Devex.