Foreword

Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General,
International Union for Conservation of Nature

We have made it to Copenhagen, a critical milestone for international climate change policy, and an opportunity for establishing a fair and effective post-2012 climate change regime. We face the challenge of committing to reducing our emissions at a global level, of finding solutions for both adaptation and mitigation, and ensuring sufficient means are made available to support developing countries in facing these challenges. We need to strike a deal to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change, on both people and biodiversity. We are already facing human deaths and species extinction due to climate change.

To ensure an equitable deal, particular attention will need to be given to gender in the post-2012 regime. Gender inequality is part and parcel of the process of causing and deepening poverty in society and must therefore constitute part and parcel of measures to address climate change challenges. Women are not only victims of climate change, women are decision-makers and powerful agents of change and their leadership is critical.

In the lead up to Copenhagen, IUCN has been actively promoting nature-based solutions to climate change. The potential of forests in reducing global emissions is widely recognised and REDD-plus is one of the hot topics on the Copenhagen agenda. REDD-plus is reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries. REDD envisages to offer multiple environmental and social benefits, including biodiversity conservation and, once adequate inclusion mechanisms are in place, can provide for the livelihoods of local communities. Robust, flexible and combined financial mechanisms should be ensured for REDD and adequate distribution mechanisms need to accompany these global efforts. Participation of indigenous peoples needs to be ensured in all phases of REDD-plus.

Nature also can offer solutions for adaptation. Ecosystem-based adaptation is the management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to ensure that they continue to provide the services that enable people to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. For example, watershed management can ensure water storage and flood regulation services are maximised, and the management of agricultural lands using local knowledge of specific crop and livestock varieties can help secure food supply in a variable climate. IUCN is supporting the inclusion of Ecosystem-based Adaptation in the Adaptation Framework as an adaptation action.

The post-2012 agreement in Copenhagen should include nature-based solutions for adaptation and mitigation. Nature will not provide all the needed responses, but should be seen as an integral part of broader adaptation and mitigation plans and strategies – as cost-effective, rapid solutions that build on the lessons learned from natural resource management. Sufficient financing and support will be needed to harness these opportunities and help the most poor and vulnerable in facing the challenges imposed by our changing climate.

For more information please visit:
www.iucn.org