 You are listening to Make Change Happen, the podcast from IEED, the International Institute for Environment and Development. In today's episode, we'll be exploring why it is important for countries to include nature in their nationally determined contributions or NDCs for climate action, and what it means for the COP26 conference of the challenges and opportunities that lie beyond. Hello, this is Liz Carlisle, welcoming you once again to Make Change Happen, and today sees the opening of COP26, and this is the much awaited next meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There is a growing focus on what decisions will be made there, and these decisions will shape the next decade and beyond. They'll determine the key actions that we take globally, not only on climate, but on nature and development. And today, I'm talking with our guests about NDCs, nationally determined contributions, and we'll explain a bit about those in due course, but we will be looking at why they're important to both climate but also nature. We'll be looking at how the crises of climate change, nature loss, the rising inequality demonstrated to the COVID-19 pandemic are deeply interconnected. And in May next year, in Kunming in China, the 15th meeting on the Convention of Biological Diversity, COP15, presents possibly a huge opportunity to land a strong new framework for delivering a sustainable relationship between people and nature. And all of this we believe to be critically important to our futures. So I'm going to start by asking our guests to introduce themselves. Sarshan, would we like to start with you? Hello, everyone. This is Sarshan Skorji. I work at Conservation South Africa based in Cape Town, South Africa, and I am the Director for Climate Strategy. Welcome, Sarshan. Harriet, can you say a little bit about yourself? Hello, everyone. My name is Harriet Drani, and I work at IUCN as a program officer, specifically leading on ecosystem-based adaptation in Uganda. Thanks for having me here. It's great to have you with us, Harriet. So Bob, over to you. Thanks very much, Liz. Bob Natif is my name, and I work as the Acting Commissioner of Climate Change in the Climate Change Department, the Ministry of Water and Environment. So what we essentially do is coordinate national climate change response in Uganda. Thank you. And Maria? So hello. My name is Maria Caballero-Spejo. I'm a climate adaptation specialist from the Ministry of Environment of Peru, and I'm happy to join this podcast. Great to have you with us, Maria. Natalie. Hello. It's great to be here. I am Natalie Seddon. I work at the University of Oxford, where I am, a professor of biodiversity and director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative. And perhaps we could start with you answering the question for our listeners. What is an NDC? Great question. So an NDC is basically a nationally determined contribution. That's what the letters stand for. Now, these are non-binding national plans that form the basis for countries to achieve the objective of the Paris Agreement. They contain key information on targets, action plans and policies and measures for reducing national emissions, and also around adapting to climate change impacts. These nationally determined contributions also contain information on the needs for the provision of finance, technology, and capacity building for these actions. One of the key things about these NDCs is that countries communicate newer updated versions every five years starting in 2020, and in signing the Paris Agreement, nations have committed to increasing ambition described within those NDCs every five years. So we've got a lot of work to do. We have. And what I also understand is that these NDCs can be important for thinking about nature-based solutions. So I wonder, could you say a little bit about, again, for our audience, what is a nature-based solution and why are they so critical right now? Okay. We'll put very simply nature-based solutions and ways of working with nature to support societal goals. And the evidence is very clear now that we cannot meet the goals of the Paris Agreement unless we work with nature. So in other words, to keep warming to within 1.5 degrees and to reduce vulnerability to climate impacts, we need to massively scale up the restoration connection and protection of our natural and semi-natural ecosystems, not only on land, but also in the sea. We also need to sustainably manage our working lands and seascapes, including with nature-based agricultural practices such as agroforestry. And we also, and this is critically important, we also need to bring nature or green infrastructure into our towns and cities. Now, we know that such actions can overall help to cool the planet by drawing down carbon to the tune of about a third of a degree towards the end of the century and can also protect biodiversity within those ecosystems, but perhaps even more critical are the ways in which they can support human adaptation to climate change. So ecosystems provide natural barriers that can reduce the exposure of infrastructure, agriculture, and communities to extreme events, such as flooding along our coasts or heatwaves and cities, and properly protected and sustainably managed. They can also limit our sensitivity to climate impacts, for example, by supporting diverse alternative sources of food and income during times of shortage. And the third aspect of this is that they can also increase our ability, our capacity to deal with future shocks and changes, because social capital, as well as natural capital, is built through the process of protecting and restoring and sustainably managing the work of the natural world. So sort of in recognition of these benefits, many signatures to the Paris Agreement over two-thirds, in fact, include nature or nature-based solutions in one form or another in their climate pledges in their nationally determined contributions. And we've found that more include them in the new versions of the NDCs recently submitted. But interestingly, it is the world's poorest nations that are leading the way, at least in terms of including nature-based solutions as a key adaptation tool in their NDCs. So what we're hearing is that nature is offers us rich potential if we play our cards right and we take the right actions now. Absolutely. There's a lot of important things to talk about there. What does good look like when it comes to nature-based solutions? And there's certainly currently a lot of confusion about that. Can perhaps come back to that point later. Yes, no, that's great. Thank you very much for unwrapping those definitions for us. So, Bob, it's really great to have you with us today to share the government perspective on this. And I know that you've been right up until now at the start of this COP, you've been reviewing your NDCs in Uganda. And I wondered if you could give our listeners some thoughts on what have been the challenges or some of the lessons that you might wish to share to others doing the same task. Thanks very much again, Liz. At the start of the discussions about INDC, if you may remember, there's been challenges right from the start when we were thrown into the deep end. First of all, we didn't even know what an INDC or NDC looks like. Over time, I think we've had a series of learnings addressing challenges and learnings as we go along. The first understanding is that putting together an NDC is not only a responsibility of one entity. So what essentially that means is that we have a challenge of bringing all sectors together. As we know too well, we are not so much comfortable working together because there's always that kind of having works in our different silos. So one of the challenges that we're trying to correct, how do you ensure that you bring all sectors together on one hand? There's also a challenge of ensuring that you have the credible data and information that we have to use within the NDCs. And then this whole idea of INDCs and climate change being a fairly new phenomenon within our different workings beyond merely the rainfall patterns that we are first with, but also bringing to the development perspective that we're supposed to deal with. And the general understanding and bringing together all other stakeholders including state and non-state actors because we think that climate change is a collective responsibility. So that is some kind of summary, the kind of challenges that we've been first with and the lessons learned out of that is that there has to be continued persistence and engagement, stakeholder engagement of all these actors if we are to work the talk. Well aware that this continued engagement what happens propels action and once action is underway will propel more action. That's really helpful Bob, thank you for that. I mean another thing that has been suggested is that NDCs are a really good vehicle for including nature-based solutions. Has that been a strong discussion in your efforts to review your NDC? Well addressing climate change requires two nuanced responses, the technological response on one part but also the conventional way of taking forward issues like tree planting and so on and so forth. On our part nature-based solutions are a low-hanging fruit. They are central to our climate response and then the question will be why is that? Our understanding is and the strong conviction is planting trees for example or maintaining these open pool resources can help save the planet but only if we put people first and any proposed or planned afforestation activities or any activities that we have to do have to be subject to open democratic decision making and relevant impact assessments first if they are to benefit our community. So in trying to shape the narrative around our NDCs we see nature-based solutions being taking center stage in trying to help us address the low emission and low carbon development pathway that we envisage to achieve not only in the NDC which is a short-term measure but also ensuring that we move this forward into our vision 2040 and all the long-term strategies and aspirations that we want to achieve and in that regard we've made sure that forests for example take center stage and we've set particular targets of what we need to achieve between now and 2030. The same applies to wetland conservation and this by extension the sustainable use of the wetlands to ensure that wetlands are conserved because we know the destruction of wetlands just like it is for forestry contributes to emissions and we've tried to look at this in our greenhouse gas inventory under the land use change and forestry. So we see these as quick wins a hanging fruit that we can take advantage of to address the climate crisis that we are faced with. Thank you very much for that. My question to you Maria is about the participatory approach that I know you took in Peru to developing your NDC and we're very lucky to have your government perspective on this and to tell us how did that work and why did you feel that that was the best way to go about it? Actually in the case of Peru we had this talking about climate change for probably more than two decades. Peru has had a multi-stakeholder coordination space that deal with climate change even before the 90s probably. Later on we organized the COP20 before the Paris Agreement was signed and that kind of event generated a lot of expectations in the public space so after the Paris Agreement we decided that if we are going to go with our NDCs we needed to add these voices into the conversation into the discussion and into the contributions that Peru was starting to develop and that is why we had the idea to create this space that was called in Spanish Dialoguemos that in English will be like let's talk about climate change and this space was organized as a multi-stakeholder space for participation for this permanent dialogue between different sectors different climate actors the public the private sectors and also indigenous people the academia and so on. I guess that for us that participatory process was really a way to connect with the whole country and also to commit to a really ambitious climate deal let's say and we try to address three different things with the Dialoguemos one is to address the emphasis on adaptation because we consider that adaptation is a key strategy to tackle climate change because I mean we are a highly vulnerable country but also we want to talk about the NDCs on mitigation because we consider also that we have a role on this problem and this global issue so we put together different sectors and different actors private public and they discuss about this and about probable NDCs that we can implement in the country the second thing that we want to do with the Dialoguemos is basically to have this multi-level space for talking that means that not just the national officials will have these big decisions but also the sub-national leaders will have the opportunity to contribute and put their voices on these NDCs and the NDCs basically and the last thing is that with this kind of space we try to compromise the implementation of all our NDCs at different levels in different territories and with the different participation of people and I guess that that is why this space this platform this initiative was a success that's a very impressive story Maria I think to see to see such a wide participation and I think quite impressive because Peru has gone through considerable changes in administration so I guess this process has continued regardless yeah exactly I mean this process didn't stop since it was established after the Paris Agreement it continues even right now we have a different let's talk about change spaces in every single month I will say it with different people different actors different sectors etc so yeah this process is permanent and it won't stop unless we don't care about climate change anymore but that all happened for sure so yeah that's great thank you let me hear from Sarshan now why is nature important for South Africa Sarshan how is nature currently featured in your NDCs thanks Liz so I wanted to talk a little bit about South Africa and our ecosystems and nature so South Africa's ecosystems are recognized globally for their biodiversity and high levels of endemism where basically species are only a found in South Africa and not anywhere else in the world but these same terrestrial ecosystems and species face pressures from a range of human activities which are now obviously further exacerbated by climate change so we've heard already from Natalie how important it is to protect manage and restore these ecosystems plus also the livelihood benefits that nature-based solutions provide additionally in South Africa we have one out of five people who are living in poverty but yet we know that nature can also support livelihoods and provide jobs which is really important it's helping people to cope better in the face of climate change and then if I can touch on our current NDC it's it's very encouraging to see the inclusion of nature in our NDC particularly around adaptation it focuses on nature through the implementation of our national climate change adaptation strategy which highlights the importance of ecosystem-based adaptation the role of nature biodiversity and ecosystems and the only area which is not so strong in terms of nature is really around oceans and we're really wanting to work on increasing the amount of the recognition of oceans within the national determined contributions then on the mitigation side of course South Africa being having a high dependence on coal there's obviously a huge a big renewable energy focus in the NDC but importantly we have included nature in the follow section in terms of the avoided forestation and land use section which is really important in terms of bringing nature out more strongly but again we would like to see much clearer targets being set for the sector but this and again the science is showing us the soil carbon potentials particularly in range lands for example our savannas and grasslands so again there's huge opportunity for not only adaptation benefits by restoring nature but also mitigation through soil carbon sequestration so what I'm hearing is that there is a lot to think about a lot of different communities evolved a lot of different environments a lot of different landscapes themes so I wanted to ask you Harriet how's this been in Uganda in terms of developing your NDC how has the process been in terms of engaging different groups thanks Liz the process for updating Uganda's NDC has been really good I must say because this time round we've witnessed a very transparent process with a lot of vigilance and clear communication by the CSOs to the rest of the stakeholders about how the NDC will be updated when the consultations will happen and how the different stakeholders can contribute and so there's been really strong participation from different groups at all levels right from the grassroots at regional level and also to the national level and for example at the grassroots level this time we've had active participation from the indigenous groups where they have had their say and given specific recommendations on what they really would want to see especially in terms of how nature is integrated in Uganda's NDC and Harriet I think you mentioned indigenous groups have you got a couple of examples for our audience on on how they're working with nature to manage the impacts of climate change yes we have five different indigenous groups in Uganda for example the indigenous groups like the Benet in the Mount Elgon region in eastern Uganda are using agroforestry practices like establishing contours across their farmlands and planting agroforestry trees and shrub species like the Kaliandra like the Lucina to mention but a few to significantly reduce water and soil movement and also help really to enrich the fertility of the soils in order to stabilize our crop yields especially in the drier climate and not only that leads at the Kaliandra most especially is also used by these groups as animal feeds which are really palatable and also to help to increase on milk production which helps them in the long run for sustained household food security thank you that's really nice to have specific things for people to think about so Natalie what are the risks around nature-based solutions that countries perceive what are the things they're thinking about I think one of the major risks is that nature-based solutions are being seen as an alternative to keeping fossil fuels in the ground when they are not and the science is very clear that unless we rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels nature won't be able to provide any solutions at all because the warming that will result from not keeping fossil fuels in the ground will produce more intense more frequent fires diseases and so forth all of which undermine the capacity of the biosphere to draw down and store carbon for the long term so we absolutely have to scale up nature-based solutions at the same time as radically scaling back greenhouse gas emissions it's not an either or we need to do both that's the one of major risk another major risk is that when it comes to nature-based solutions there is an over emphasis on forestry particularly on commercial forestry plantations that involve one or two usually exotic tree species while these are often labeled as a nature-based solutions they don't qualify as such such plantations often only offer very short-term high-risk carbon stores and can have negative outcomes for biodiversity and if they replace perfectly good intact biodiversity ecosystems and they can also involve you know transgressions of human rights land grabs and so forth and can harm and dispossess local communities so it's critical to hold to accounts or to ensure that those claiming to invest in nature-based solutions have ambitious credible and verifiable action plans to phase out fossil fuel use and only support those projects on the ground that a community led and biodiversity based thank you i was really struck by your comments around the relationship between fossil fuel and the success of nature-based solutions and i think you know that does move us to thinking very much around what the possible hopes for in this next COP on climate change can possibly be it really shows you the deep connection here doesn't it it does absolutely so bob what is your ambition for COP26 ambition is always queued around mitigation ambition as i've said at the start and i'll emphasize it even more emphatically that ambition for us goes beyond mitigation as is but also ambition in terms of adaptation ambition in terms of finance ambition in terms of technology transfer ambition in terms of capacity building as i've already enlisted our NDC is already ambitious enough but to walk the talk of this ambition the means of implementation that have been listed finance adaptation elements be it loss and damage is central now ambition on our part when going into these discussions should be any conversation to unlock the vast amount of resources another opportunity is that there are to help us address be it the nature-based solutions that we've put forward or be it the adaptation and mitigation actions that we put forward that will help us walk the talk great thank you Maria what would be your ambition for COP26 particularly in regards to you know this question around the relationship between climate and nature i i guess that in the case of our country we consider nature as a great opportunity for tackling different challenges not just climate change but also other challenges that as a country we need to go for because i mean the lives of our people depend on that and especially in the case of climate change we see nature-based solutions especially as a way of giving back the value that our ancestors were given to the nature i just remember because i'm from the central Andes of Peru when i was a kid my grandparents were always looking at the sky they were always looking at animals and they were learning from from them in order to do something i mean in order to probably to to have crops they were looking at these things learning from them and then applying actions to tackle some hazards that could probably put in danger in the production system and i guess that that was one thing that Peru with nature can really address climate change because our country has a lot of diversity not just in terms of ecosystems but also in terms of cultures in terms of climates in terms of people's mindset also and the way that we address these global issues that affect the country needs to to put again the value of the knowledge that people i mean the indigenous people our ancestral knowledge has in order to tackle a big issue of climate change and i guess nature there is the key element that we are using to do so for Peru nature based solutions represent a good opportunity because we have a lot of biodiversity to protect to conserve and also to use it as a way to address development issues that we have or to address poverty biodiversity laws social development in general and so on so for that i guess that in the case of our indices and in the case of this cup that it's this upcoming cup we really need to put forward the agenda and nature based solutions in adaptation and mitigation in order to have a more integral approach on the issue of climate change basically thank you harry what's your thought on ambition in uganda's indices the ambition we are seeing in uganda's indices and probably other indices from countries in the global south is great i must say but one important thing is if you will notice that some of the ambitions are presented as conditional meaning they will largely be implemented if we get the right support and that includes the financial support the technical support and whether we have the right technological capacity even within our countries really to deliver on them and it's good that at this cup 26 there's really going to be a big focus on the pledge to mobilize the 100 billion US dollars per year the question that remains is are the developed nations really going to deliver on this and the only way that we can turn these ambitions in our indices into action is only if we see some of these finances coming through but please it's also not only about the finances but it's also about having the right financial instruments and the mechanisms i must say to make sure that the finances is actually accessible to all for instance we would really want to see this time around that the flaws of this climate finance is more in terms of grants than loans to ensure that there is equitable access to this finance by the developing countries thank you harry i mean we're seeing that across so many of the pieces of work that we do and the partners that we work with it is all about getting the right kind of money to the right people at the right time and if we can't do that progress is hampered but i'd like to come to you against sarsian how will we move this ambition from sort of cop 26 to cop 15 you know moving from the end of this year to the middle of next how can how can we keep the momentum behind this ambition and make the connection between the climate change convention and the convention on biological diversity thanks liz yes you know i think it's really important to to recognize this high level of ambition that is coming through of course there's a lot more that we need to do but we need to recognize that these commitments along with the financial support as harry it was saying it also requires detailed implementation planning so you know we need to recognize also the synergies and the tradeoffs between climate action in the various sectors so thinking about the positive and negative impacts of biodiversity and natural ecosystems have on the other sectors in terms of water agriculture transport infrastructure etc so this really requires an integrated approach where we're thinking about linking our adaptation planning as well as our mitigation plans and then very closely aligning that to our government service delivery and and their implementation plans and approaches so for this we require a lot of cross sectoral inter-ministerial coordination and strategy development and making sure that we also coordinating our commitments between the different conventions as you were saying we have the the UNFCCC and the CBD how do we make those connections strongly between the commitments and how do we also see that that filters down to what's happening on the ground so we need to ensure that we're also able to demonstrate effective implementation models on the ground through these implementation plans this is a question that i'm thinking about sarge and you know it's always very difficult to get a kind of cross-disciplinary approach to things you know we end up in our sort of ivory towers how are you finding that the kind of conversation either within communities or within your government is is opening out to embrace other disciplines and other areas is that beginning to happen yes exactly so we definitely seeing a lot more cross sectoral collaboration happening within government i feel the the processes like or being part of these conventions like the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as having national processes like recently developing our national climate change adaptation strategy brought the sectors together as well as it fostered a lot of dialogue from local government as well as communities on the ground to contribute to what the adaptation strategy and planning would be so we're definitely seeing a lot more cross-sector coordination but what we feel is important is to also now link particularly the adaptation and the mitigation benefits and coordinated planning together including the trade-offs and synergies that I mentioned earlier so it's really important to get that integrated planning and continue this cross-sectoral integration and talking but we should also think a lot more about nature's contribution both from an adaptation and mitigation point of view in a much more integrated way thank you so Natalie what are your hopes or expectations for COP26 well I think whatever the sort of the politics around emissions reductions and climate finance there's a there's a good chance that this will be a successful COP for nature but for it to be a successful COP for nature we do need bold commitments backed up with actionable plans to stop investments into activities that lock in long-term damage to both the biosphere and the climate so such as subsidies of high-emitting agricultural commodities we need that alongside equally bold and actionable commitments to scale up investments in community-led biodiversity-based projects to support adaptation and mitigation and we would want the parties to acknowledge the role of nature-based solutions in both climate change mitigation and adaptation plan within the COP26 decision text and we want resource commitments to enhance ambition and to include nature-based solutions in the NDCs alongside increased targets on emissions reductions so this would involve evidence-based targets comprehensive plans for improved protection restoration and management of a range of ecosystems and as I say we would need to see clear commitments to defund ecosystem loss and damage from supply chains do you think we're likely to get this things are looking good for some aspects of that statement for sure but so there's still a lot of work to be done in mobilizing support across across across all the parties but in a way it's not too late so we can we can hope that the discussions go the right way yes which is really good to hear so I think we perhaps need to wrap up now and what I always ask our guests because this is our make change happen podcast is what is one change you would like to see or what do you think a change that's really important that could help make that difference Harriet what's your change yes for me the change I really would want to see is finance in order to help us to turn these ambitions into action that's nice and clear thank you and very much appreciated by many of the partners and communities we work with very much their sentiment Natalie what's your big change we need all the world's wealthy nations to commit to increasing near-term ambition on greenhouse gas emissions reductions and to pin those pledges with actionable well-financed action plans whilst also committing to eliminating deforestation from supply chains by 2025 great thank you again really nice clear message Sarshan what about you I really want to see action on the ground so a translation of a lot of the policy and plans but seeing that on the ground and particularly around increased action in the ocean climate nexus and then improving our target setting to actually achieve land-based targets Maria what's a change that you would like to see right now the change that Peru in general I think wants to see in this upcoming COP is to implement the things that we were basically trying to put in our national contributions so it's time to to do more action and not just you know to have the ideas but to put it on the territories to put it for people to to use to to do and to be benefited by thank you so Bob what would your change be that you would like to see well time has come to to walk the talk we've had lots of talks and discussions around how to advance climate in action and central to this forthcoming COP we so much look forward to ensure that countries put their best foot forward but also consideration be taken to those that really have challenges as enlisted to help all of us walk the same path together so climate action will only succeed if we're all trying to pull strings together collectively to address the global climate crisis that we are first week brilliant well as you've heard from all my guests this morning there are very clear actions that can be taken there's huge progress that is being made and that actually with this COP that starts today there is the potential to make those decisions that could really lead us into a more promising future so finally can I just say thank you to your all for your time and we will keep our fingers crossed for a positive meeting in Scotland over the next couple of weeks thank you and you can find out more about today's podcast our guests and the work at www.ieed.org slash podcast where you can also listen to more episodes you can leave us feedback or follow the podcast series at soundcloud.com slash the IED the podcast is produced by our in-house communication team for more information about IID and our work please visit us at www.ieed.org