This event will present new research by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on feasible 1.5°C-aligned energy scenarios and their implications for various sectors to inform policy interventions. The event connects international research with policy developments currently happening in Canada, including the proposed cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector and clean electricity regulations, with a view to bolstering the level of ambition in domestic federal and provincial policies. This research also provides clear guidelines for decision-makers to set their policies in line with the best available science.
This event will include a discussion of how energy scenarios guide public investments internationally and in Canada to clarify how Canada’s overseas investments could align with ambitious, Paris-aligned scenarios while supporting developing country priorities.
European governments are accelerating their decarbonization in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the gas crisis, and Russia's war on Ukraine. The majority of European countries have already significantly stepped up their ambitions in terms of renewable energy deployment since 2019 while simultaneously decreasing planned 2030 fossil fuel generation to shield themselves from geopolitical threats.
This in-person event at COP 27 aims to discuss the changes in European policies that have happened since February 2022 due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The event will examine challenges and ways forward to achieve the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping temperature rise to between 1.5°C and 2°C while ensuring energy security and social justice. Speakers will also touch upon the role of Ukraine in the decarbonization of Europe.
Agenda
Introduction
Panel Discussion
Svitlana Grynchuk, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine
Fossil fuel subsidies have many negative economic, social, and environmental consequences. Under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, United Nations member states committed to rationalizing inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. To measure progress on this target, SDG indicator 12.c.1 tracks the global size of fossil fuel subsidies, primarily using data provided by international organizations. Despite being classified as a Tier I indicator, the data reported varies in terms of depth and scope depending on the country.
To improve the quality of the data and better inform policy making, SDG 12.c.1 aims to make this data collection process more country driven, with governments taking full ownership. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the custodian agency of this indicator; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) have therefore collaborated in developing a methodology to provide governments with guidance and build capacity through various regional workshops. However, few UN member states have submitted data so far.
This session, organized by IISD with support from UNEP, aims to raise awareness about how this indicator can help increase transparency about fossil fuel subsidies. This comes at a critical moment when many governments are adopting new subsidies to shield their populations and economies from current high energy prices or ensure a stable energy supply, which is becoming a large drain on their budgets.
The session also highlights the latest available global fossil fuel subsidy data and invite governments from both the Global North and South to present their approaches to measuring their fossil fuel subsidies to allow the sharing of good practices.
This hybrid event will explore the nexus of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Speakers will demonstrate the potential for significant health gains by taking a just energy transition (JET) approach, including clean air, mental health gains, and improved access to health and nutrition. Our panel of experts will also present an action agenda for implementation.
Building a JET is an essential part of addressing both the energy and climate crises, ensuring that no one is left behind. The G7 and middle-income partners including India, Indonesia, and South Africa are looking to establish Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) to support the coal phase-out. A just transition is also a core ask among those calling for an incremental and decisive phase-out of all fossil fuels.
This event will explore the key principles for JET needed to deliver a clean energy future for a thriving and healthy society. Creating a healthy fossil-free world requires re-imagining a new energy future and delivering a system of diverse technology, innovative solutions, and decentralized ownership, with a focus on people, health, and the environment.
The speakers at this event will present a vision for delivering JET to create a healthy fossil-free world encompassing three components: economy and jobs, cities, and delivering energy access.
This event is organized in partnership with Health and Climate Network and SLOCAT Partnership for Sustainable Transport.
This event will elevate the security risks that are directly and indirectly linked to nature loss, environmental change, and ecological degradation. The moderator and panelists will discuss the importance of nature as the foundation for human, national, and global security, as well as how the nature-security nexus can and should be used to provide a more holistic understanding of the pathways from environmental degradation to security outcomes to better protect people in the places where they live.
Background
As the world confronts climate change and ecosystem degradation, it is becoming increasingly clear that the cumulative impacts of both crises threaten the security of people and countries around the world. Most immediately, these crises are causing individuals, households, and communities to struggle to meet their basic needs while maintaining their health, livelihoods, and economic security. They are also exacerbating tensions around migration and resource access, challenging political stability and contributing to conflict.
Mitigating these climate- and nature-related threats to human, national, and global security will require a multi-faceted approach, including the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions and economy-wide transition away from fossil fuels; increased investments in climate resilience and adaptation; and a reversal in the destruction and degradation of ecosystems.
COP 26, held in Glasgow in November 2021, featured a strong focus on the intersections of climate and nature. Based on the Leaders Pledge for Nature and the G7 Nature Compact, the U.K. Presidency of COP 26 shaped the summit around a “Nature Campaign” theme that strongly advocated for increased ecosystem and biodiversity conservation. The theme also highlighted nature’s contributions to and synergies with climate action and sustainable development. The Glasgow Climate Pact recognizes the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss and the critical need to protect, conserve, and restore nature and ecosystems. Several pledges, such as the Glasgow Declaration on Forests and Land Use, also underpin the strong commitment by countries to sustainable land use, production, and consumption.
COP 27 stands to build upon this progress, with its focus on developing greater resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change—objectives that necessitate the conservation and restoration of nature. This event aims to reinforce these connections, while establishing the ways in which nature must be embraced as the foundation for human, national, and global security—thereby reshaping decision making among traditional security actors and potentially unlocking new sources of finance.
Keynote Speaker
Monica Medina, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Moderator
Richard Florizone, President & CEO, International Institute for Sustainable Development
Panelists
Alice Ruhweza, Africa Region Director, Worldwide Fund for Nature
Natalie Unterstell, President, Talanoa Institute
Chiz Aoki, Lead Environmental Specialist, GEF Programming Unit
Nature-based climate solutions (NBCS) hold promise in helping people adapt to the impacts of climate change. To enhance their legitimacy and effectiveness, greater emphasis must be placed on approaches that ensure social inclusion and gender equality.
Hosted by IISD, this event will feature panel presentations, an interactive Q&A, and capacity-building products developed through the Nature for Climate Adaptation Initiative, supported by Global Affairs Canada. It will examine how to generate biodiversity co-benefits through NBCS while following rights-based approaches, highlight examples from different regions, and discuss the expected outcomes for NBCS and social inclusion in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
How can policy-makers, investors, and companies align energy decision making with Paris Agreement goals and simultaneously resolve the short-term gas supply crunch? Building on a new International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) report, Navigating Energy Transitions: Mapping the Road to 1.5°C, this event will explore the implications of 1.5°C-aligned energy scenarios for phasing out gas consumption and production in Europe. Speakers will discuss how Europe’s energy needs can be met while also reducing dependence on the Russian gas supply by accelerating renewable energy and energy efficiency.
In the midst of the energy crisis, this webinar examines the likely energy and economic consequences for Europe and for developing economies affected by European decisions, including those affected by European Union overseas investment in energy projects.
Financing a fair energy transition is a challenge: it involves mobilizing and directing resources toward renewable energy sources and moving away from fossil fuel revenues. Furthermore, governments are increasingly redirecting subsidies toward potentially dangerous distractions, including fossil fuel-based hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.
This event will provide insights from different geographic regions—including Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, South Africa, Canada, and India—with speakers taking a close look at the trends, challenges, and opportunities associated with ending fossil fuel subsidies, as well as the unproven technologies that could delay the energy transition.
Speakers
Iara Pietricovsky, President, International Forum of NGO Platforms (FORUS)
Guillermina French, Research Assistant, Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN)
Livi Gerbase, Policy Adviser, Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (INESC)
Julia Levin, Senior Climate and Energy Program Manager, Environmental Defence Canada (EDC)
Chido Muzondo, Policy Advisor, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
Geneva SDG Community Coffee: Toward COP 27 – Climate action & the SDGs
This Community Coffee will focus on the interlinkages between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on climate action and the triple planetary crisis, which was formally recognized last year in the Glasgow Climate Pact at COP 26.
October 27, 2022 8:30 am - 9:30 am CEST
The Graduate Institute, Geneva (IHEID), 2 Chemin Eugène-Rigot, Cafeteria, 1202 Genève, Switzerland
On October 27, a few days ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27), our monthly Geneva SDG Community Coffee will focus on the interlinkages between SDG 13 on climate action and the triple planetary crisis, which was formally recognized last year in the Glasgow Climate Pact at COP 26.
David Goodman, Policy Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), will speak to us about biodiversity in the context of COP 27 and where we stand with the proposed post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
This community coffee will also be a chance to discuss expectations ahead of COP 27 more broadly, and we welcome input from all participants in the discussion.
October 17, 2022 8:00 am - October 21, 2022 6:00 pm CEST
(Open to public)
IISD participated in the 2022 edition of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade and Environment Week, which took place from October 17 to 21, 2022, both in-person in Geneva and online via Zoom.
The event brought together the community working on issues at the trade and environment nexus, from government officials and intergovernmental organization representatives to civil society and academia, to take stock of the latest trends, opportunities, and challenges in this field and what it will take to achieve a more environmentally sustainable approach to global trade.
IISD Organized & Co-Organized Events
Trade and Climate Change Adaptation
Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 1:15–2:45 p.m. Geneva time
Together with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, IISD co-organized this session to look closely at the role of trade policy in supporting climate change adaptation, along with what we can learn from adaptation planning efforts to date and how this can inform our understanding of trade policy’s role.
Climate change is already reshaping our world, but its impacts on different regions vary. It is also posing new challenges to the global economy and is changing previous patterns of international trade. For instance, extreme weather events can severely damage infrastructure, temporarily or permanently cutting communities and countries off from trade opportunities. Gradual temperature rise can make agricultural trade more volatile, such as by increasing the risk of crops failing simultaneously, while also disrupting international shipping routes and the marine environment, thus reshaping the tourism sector.
While climate change will clearly drive changes in international trade, international trade also has a role to play in efforts to adapt to climate change. This discussion is still nascent and demands a closer look at climate change’s various impacts in different parts of the world, along with a deeper understanding of how adaptation takes place in practice. This session brought these policy fields together, looking at what we can learn from countries’ experiences with national adaptation planning, such as adaptation needs in developing and emerging economies, and how trade can help.
Speakers included:
Alice Tipping, Lead, Sustainable Trade, IISD (moderator)
Ambassador Nella Pepe Tavita-Levy, Permanent Representative of Samoa to the World Trade Organization
Anne Hammill, Senior Director, Resilience, IISD
Joel Richards, Senior Technical Specialist, the OECS Geneva Mission
Dr. Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue
The WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement: From words to action
Thursday, October 20, 2022, 2:30–4:00 p.m. Geneva time
WTO members agreed at their Twelfth Ministerial Conference to a new set of binding multilateral rules to curb harmful fisheries subsidies, creating the first WTO agreement with an environmental goal. The Fisheries Subsidies Agreement aims to ensure that public funds do not support fishing activities that undermine the sustainability of marine resources and the livelihoods of fishing communities. For the agreement to achieve these objectives, WTO members must now ratify the treaty and prepare for its implementation.
This event provided a concise overview of the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement and its disciplines, after which WTO members and civil society representatives gave insights into key considerations for implementation. Finally, the event included the presentation of a self-assessment tool produced by IISD to support WTO members’ efforts to prepare for the agreement's implementation.
Speakers included:
Alice Tipping, Lead, Sustainable Trade and Fisheries Subsidies, IISD (moderator)
Sainabou Taal, Acting Head of Fisheries Subsidies, WTO Rules Division
Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR): Challenges and opportunities in the context of an energy crisis
Tuesday October 18, 4:30–6 p.m. Geneva time
The issue of fossil fuel subsidy reform is gaining prominence in a range of international and regional forums, including at the WTO. This session explored the challenges and opportunities of advancing FFSR in the current context of high energy prices, bringing together experts in the fields of energy supply, environmental and trade policy, and development. This session was organized by the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform.
Speakers included:
Toru Muta, Senior Energy Analyst, International Energy Agency
Grégoire Garsous, Economist, Trade and Agriculture Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Jonas Kuehl, Policy Analyst, Energy Program, IISD
Marcel Vernooij, Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Netherlands (moderator)
