Eng
n 30-31 March, the 3rd online regional “Webinar on National Adaptation Strategies and Plans” brought together around 100 participants, including government officials and climate change experts from the six EU Eastern Partnership countries, representatives from the UNFCCC, DG CLIMA, Environment Agency of Austria (EAA), European Environment Agency (EEA) and UNDP regional office. The webinar was organized within the EU4Climate project, funded by the EU and implemented by UNDP, that assists EaP countries to reach the ambitious mitigation and adaptation targets set in their NDCs.
The two-day workshop focused on integrating disaster resilience and natural hazard management into the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and actions on sub-national level, like urban adaptation.
On behalf of the RA Ministry of Environment, Ruzanna Grigoryan, the Head of the Department of International Cooperation, welcomed the participants and briefed on the strategic framework of adaptation, country’s efforts and current achievements towards national adaptation planning. She emphasized the stocktaking exercise launched to identify legal, institutional, vulnerability assessments, adaptation gaps and barriers in six priority sectors, as well as the sector adaptation plans already piloted in two provinces of Armenia.
“Conscious planning to address current and projected vulnerabilities to climate change will in the long-term period result in savings, better public health and security, reduced damage from disasters, new business opportunities and greater security for investments”,- concluded Mrs. Grigoryan.
The EU’s new Adaptation Strategy, its components and contributions to NAP process, its elements for disaster risk reduction and urban adaptation were shared by Liviu Stirbat from DG ClIMA.
National and transnational experiences and examples of climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and mainstreaming in the NAPs, benefits of enhancing the coherence of these two processes across Europe were presented by the speakers from EEA, EAA and Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism (BMLRT) of Austria.
The second day of the webinar began with representatives from six EaP countries delivering the results of the group exercises, where the participants discussed and identified the types of climate-driven hazards per country, their possible intensification and actions towards risks reduction, current gaps and necessary actions to be taken towards better adaptation planning.
To enhance knowledge and information sharing, the second-day session of the webinar mostly concentrated on introducing national and transnational web portals for knowledge exchange in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, such as “Climate-ADAPT”, CAPA (Climate Adaptation Platform for the Alps), European Climate and Health Observatory, Swedish and Danish platforms of climate change adaptation and a range of useful knowledge management tools. The participants, in their turn, shared with the visions of developing adaptation portals of knowledge exchange at local levels.
Following presentations focused on major climate change impacts in the EU’s cities, factors influencing cities ability for adaptation actions, types of support at national levels, as well as strategies, policies and activities on urban level adaptation.
Moreover, successful urban adaptation examples implemented in the EU’s cities through measures of smarter spacial planning and infrastructure design, better disaster preparedness, public knowledge building and civil society engagement were presented. The success factors of these examples include clear vision on adaptation, citizens’ awareness, strong sectoral cooperation, early planning of measures, as well as financing through sectoral mainstreaming and crowdfunding.
At the end of the webinar, the plenary discussion among the participants revealed key climate-driven hazards and risks, actions taken for reduction of risks across the cities in EaP six countries, as well as participants’ views on necessary national support and mechanisms of addressing urban adaptation within the NAPs.
The webinar was productive in terms of not only identifying the relevance of disaster risk reduction and natural hazard management in the NAPs, but also sharing effective experiences, best practices of the EU institutions and member states and tools of knowledge management on climate change adaptation.
