Earth Today | Progress with talks on National Adaptation Plans
Published:Thursday | December 7, 2023 | 12:29 AM
THE NATIONAL Adaptation Plan (NAP) Global Network is on the ground at the international climate talks (COP28) in Dubai, offering its support to countries in need of accelerating adaptation actions amid the prevailing climate crisis.
Speaking from Dubai on Wednesday, Dr Orville Grey, who heads the network, explained that they were making inroads in their discussions with a number of countries on progressing their NAPs.
All of the countries, he explained, are counted among the most vulnerable to climate change threats and impacts and, therefore, are well suited to planned-for and scaled-up adaptation actions – informed by a plan.
The conversations, he said, have been with countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as from the Pacific and a number of least developed countries.
“There is still a strong recognition of the NAP process in countries and the need to support that, and move countries further down the path of implementation of their adaptation priorities,” Grey noted.
“The conversations I have been having with countries have been going pretty well. There are a lot of countries that need support to advance their National Adaptation planning processes,” he added.
NAPs, he explained, are geared at helping countries build their capacity to prepare for and recover from climate impacts while also strengthening national development plans.
“The NAPS are strategically positioned to help countries build resilience in their people and infrastructure through the adaptation priorities that can be identified, costed and structured into investable projects,” Grey said.
“Also, from the perspective of institutional strengthening through policies, programmes, strategies, action plans, etc, to ensure that the resilience we want to build in country, there is a good footprint for that and for the adaptation projects that are going to come on top of it,” he added.
“It is about climate-proofing our climate policies, plans and peoples as we react to and prepare for the changing climate,” he said further.
Caribbean and other small island developing states are counted among the most vulnerable to climate threats and impacts, including temperature increases, extreme weather events and associated impaired food and water security, as well as public health. SIDS stakeholders have therefore long championed the prioritisation of adaptation, that is, those changes made in ecological, social or economic systems to cope with climate threats and impacts.
At the NAP Global Network, they provide support for countries through their ‘Country Support Hub’, which offers “expert advice and short-term technical support”; as well as through their in-country support programmes that provide “long-term technical support and capacity development”.
The network has reportedly provided technical support to more than 45 countries so far.