UN report calls for transformative approach to climate adaptation
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E-mail Xinhua, October 28, 2021
GENEVA, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The world needs a transformative approach to climate adaptation, with large-scale public investment programs to handle current and future threats backed by industrial policies to drive growth and job creation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) urged in a report on Thursday.
Released ahead of the upcoming 26th UN Conference of Parties on Climate Change, the second part of the UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 2021 also called for a transformative approach to climate adaptation with advanced economies ensuring that multilateral institutions can support developing countries to manage the pressures from a changing climate without compromising their development goals.
An approach that is "proactive and strategic rather than simply retroactive" is needed, said Rebeca Grynspan, UNCTAD's secretary-general.
But developing countries need adequate policy and fiscal space to mobilize large-scale public investment to face future climate threats, while ensuring these investments complement development goals, she added.
The report proposed a "retrofitted" developmental state, empowered to implement green industrial policies and tuned to local economic circumstances.
According to the report, activities related to renewable energy production and the circular economy can operate at low scale, opening business opportunities for small firms and rural areas and helping to diversify economic production.
"Climate adaptation and development are inextricably connected and policy efforts to tackle adaptation must acknowledge this in order to have a sustainable and meaningful impact," said Richard Kozul-Wright, director of UNCTAD's Division on Globalization and Development Strategies and lead author of the report.
The only lasting solution, he suggested, "is to establish more resilient economies through a process of structural transformation and reduce the dependence of developing countries on a small number of climate-sensitive activities." Enditem
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