 Good morning everybody and thank you for joining us this morning for this webinar. Great to see how a large amount of you have turned up already and are introducing yourselves in the chat box there. So that really is it, it's a very simple business this webinar. So I'm about to hand over to our moderator for today, Andrew Lawton, the director of IED. Here we go, over to you Andy. Thank you very much indeed David and also huge thanks to the panelists and to everyone joining us. I'm Andrew Lawton. I'm the director of IED, the International Institute for Environment and Development and it's my pleasure to moderate the session today. I'd like to kick off by thanking E3G, the organisers of London Climate Action Week, for pulling together such a rich and diverse programme. And IED is delighted to be involved again and to be hosting and participating in a wide range of events throughout the week. This event I should say also is made possible through funding from CEDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. And a very warm welcome to participants who are joining us from all parts of the world today. It's great to have you with us. And of course a particular thanks to our four speakers who I'll introduce shortly. Some quick housekeeping, David's covered I think most of it, but just also to say that this Zoom session will be recorded and uploaded to our website. And if you're on social media please use the hashtag, hashtag LCAW2020, the Toronto Climate Action Week. We're also delighted today to have a graphic reader and illustrator with us, Jorge Martín, who will be bringing today's discussion to life through his illustrations. And this is part of our continual effort to support innovative and creative ways to communicate with impact. So let me now say a few words about the topic. The world is dealing with multiple crises, the climate crisis, the crisis of biodiversity loss, rising inequalities. And now also of course the pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges exacerbate pre-existing dynamics of marginalisation and exclusion on a global scale and also on a micro scale. And the results are unequal and impact generally the poorest people most. Today's event will focus on a really important topic, which is in seeking to find ways of coming out of the pandemic of investing in a green recovery after COVID-19. How can we ensure that the vital dimensions of climate action, action to stem biodiversity, loss and protect nature and to find development solutions and reduce inequality? How can we ensure that all of those are at the heart of a green recovery from COVID-19? 2021, which is just coming up, is a pivotal year for decision-making on climate nature and development issues, which have traditionally been taken in silos. And of course we have both cops postponed from this year to next year, COP 15, on the Convention for Biodiversity and COP26 on climate. Here at IID, alongside a growing number of organisations, we are working towards approaches that coherently address climate and nature and development issues together in a linked way. And we think this is critical for long-term and sustainable development. The benefits are tangible, it will reduce duplication effort, but it will also make it real at the grassroots level because people don't see things in silos and resilience is a property that applies to all of these crises as well. There are multiple opportunities to bring these issues together through the work that's ongoing on the global biodiversity framework currently being negotiated by influencing countries who are designing climate plans, both the short-term NDCs and the long-term strategies required by Paris to be presented over the coming year. Through the implementation of recently launched Leaders' Pledge for Nature, which more than 70 countries signed up to at the UN Summit on Biodiversity in September this year, and opportunities also exist through current and emerging initiatives being driven by civil society organisations and the private sector, just to name a few. So we're heading into the 2021 Superyear with two major negotiations in play on climate action and biodiversity, and now is the time to push for effective combined action, which reaches the grassroots. And at the same time, the world is turning its attention to recovery from the pandemic, which has exposed and made worse deeply entrenched vulnerabilities and inequalities in societies the world over. But the recovery is also an amazing opportunity for us to become more resilient, for us to address climate justice and other aspects of social and environmental justice, and also to improve our capacity for adaptation. So many are calling for a green recovery from COVID-19 and to ensure that we build back better and fairer and to leave no one behind. So what do we mean by green recovery? We mean including measures in pandemic recovery strategies that seek to achieve cleaner air, healthier water, reduce the environmental impacts on the poorest communities, enhance biodiversity conservation, and also, of course, produce urgent global action on climate change. Initiatives that support these outcomes can boost economic activity, generate income, and reduce inequalities. A key element in understanding recovery packages of any kind, and particularly perhaps this one, is to match the need in the short term to reach the people most directly affected in COVID-19 by the pandemic. And we know the results have been highly unequal and that the world over, of course, people have been hit hardest. But to match that with long-term impacts in some of these areas, climate change and biodiversity loss, so matching that short-term addressing the immediate need of the long-term priorities is really critical. So solutions exist and new ideas are emerging. For example, we're working at IID on the concept of large-scale debt for nature or climate swaps, and these would be programmatic in delivery. So able to deliver at scale, rather than small-scale project work. And also, our work shows that locally led initiatives are often the most effective across most of the range of adaptation challenges for building resilience. So it's vital to get finance and assistance development aid into the hands of local institutions, particularly in the poorest and most vulnerable communities. And to that effect, we are testing principles for locally led action that could be applied in the context of a green recovery. And finally, nature-based solutions are increasingly viewed as a credible alternative approach to addressing the triple agenda of climate nature and development. And integrating these in green recovery from COVID can deliver multiple co-benefits for climate nature and development priorities. No doubt we will hear additional examples from our speakers. So let me now turn to the panel, and our first speaker I'm delighted to introduce because IID has worked with the least developed countries for many years. Sunampi Wangvi, who is the secretary of the National Environment Commission of the Kingdom of Bhutan. He is also the current chair of the least developed countries group in the U.N. climate negotiations. The LDCs are 47 nations that are especially vulnerable to climate change, but of course have done very, very little to create a problem in the first place. And they work together as a group at the Intergovernmental Climate Negotiations and have been doing so since 2000. The Kingdom of Bhutan will chair the LDC group from 2019 to 2021. So let me introduce Sunampi, our first speaker. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Mr. Moderator, Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, it is nice to know that all of you are safe and sound in these difficult times. Let me begin by thanking the IID and the London Climate Week Action Week for giving me the opportunity to join this session today. I'm honored to be here to share perspectives of both my country and the least developed countries group that I represent. In terms of my presentation, I will reflect on the importance of linking nature, climate, and development and conclude by outlining how critical it is for LDCs that nature, climate, and development form a part of the green recovery from the pandemic. The climate disasters that dominate headlines and disrupt lives are no longer features of a dystopian future. They are here, real and now, worsening for the next generation and perhaps longer and the impact falls most significantly on the poorest and most vulnerable. At the same time, we're experiencing a global environmental crisis. Biodiversity is essential for human life. It underpins the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. It directly supports export earnings, gross domestic product, and jobs in a wide variety of economic sectors from tourism to agriculture. Biodiversity has a direct impact on the livelihoods and income for billions of people, yet it is underestimated in its value. What is worse, we are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. This presents as great a risk to economy, society, and environment as climate change does. Here in the Kingdom of Bhutan, as in many LDCs, our development is highly dependent on climate sensitive sectors such as hydropower, agriculture, and forestry, but these sectors are heavily reliant on nature. Our health, well-being, and prosperity as a country is undermined by both climate change and impacts to nature. We must strive for a climate resilient future that is supported by strong and healthy natural resources. This is why Bhutan recently signed the Leaders' Pledge for Nature at the Biodiversity Summit in September this year. It is a pledge to help reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and more than 70 countries have signed up to date. Now in terms of COVID-19 and the green recovery plan, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed our vulnerabilities. It has also shown what can happen when we do not live in harmony with nature and upset the balance. The people most exposed to the pandemic and resulting economic crisis are also those hurt most by climate change impacts, the poorest and the most vulnerable. If COVID-19 doesn't kill us, climate change and loss of nature will. Many LDCs are already dealing with multiple crises, climate, environment, and now the pandemic. The pandemic is risking progress made in the SDGs. At a recent address to the UN, the Prime Minister of Tovalu, Kossia Natana stated, while COVID-19 is our immediate crisis, climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security, and well-being of the Pacific and its people in the long run. We have seen that in the face of a crisis, swift and bold movement is both possible and necessary. In response to the global pandemic, governments have taken rapid action at scale and mobilized public resources. Individuals have changed their behavior to minimize the risk for others. It is clear that early and informed action saves lives, reduces cost and minimizes impact. For instance, in the case of my country, Bhutan, such emergency calls for extraordinary leadership, and this came in a form through the government, under the guidance and leadership of His Majesty the King, who were quick to put in place strategies and measures to combat COVID-19 and prevent local transmission. These strategies today are being seen as best practices due to the success in keeping the virus out of the country. As of today, Bhutan has 377 positive cases, with only 22 active cases, which means 94% recovery rate, and no deaths, no mortality. But as seen in many other countries, as the COVID-19 situation unfolded, the usual economic and development programs across the sectors gradually slowed, and with imposition of lockdowns, almost every business came to a complete halt. In particular, the loss of jobs in tourism and related hospitality services has added to the growing unemployment rate, further compounded by many of our Bhutanese workers returning home unemployed. In terms of the measures the government has put in place, several innovative measures that has direct benefits to the people and boosts economic activity. For example, we set up a national resilience fund of about 40 million US dollars, that's about close to 2% of GDP, to support comprehensive national response to the challenge of COVID-19 pandemic. Also, a national economic contingency plan was launched to front-load the five-year development activity to ensure that economic security and we are able to build resilience. The Central Bank of Bhutan devised a series of measures to support businesses and citizens by providing working capital, waiving interest on loans, deferring loans, and issuing microloans for agriculture. Such innovative and heartening response by Bhutanese financial institutions during this pandemic has become one of the most popular and appreciated measures in Bhutan. Most profound of the measure is the direct cash transfers provided to the most needy people, which form about 10% of the employment market, leaving no one behind, especially to those who have lost jobs by His Majesty the King from His Majesty's Relief Fund, that is the most heartening. We are covering about 10% of the unemployed. As the world moves into recovery phase of the pandemic, we have a choice to fall into the trap of status quo or recover better and fairer. Recovery spending can either drive climate and nature action or set us back, placing climate, nature, and development at the heart of a green recovery from the COVID is critical for LDCs to bring about a change we need to lead to real and tangible sustainable development. Without this, we worry that resorting to old habits will lead to a more substantial climate and nature impacts as western of few countries use our land resources to gain fast and unsustainable economic growth. For the climate and nature crisis, the time for such coordinated and rapid action at scale is now a better world and a safe future for all is possible. Now is the time to invest in the future, to invest in the lives and livelihoods of many, not the few, by ensuring climate, nature, and development is at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery plan. I thank you. Thank you so much, Sonam. That was incredibly vivid, both as a statement of the problem, but also these incredibly powerful examples that you gave also of actions that can be taken, whether it's cash transfers and social protection or building local resilience and using indeed COVID recovery spending to drive climate and biodiversity action. Great to have those examples from the field and thank you so much for kicking us off with that really strong presentation. Let me move now to the presentation from the UK, which is in two parts. First, we will have a short film from the Honourable Lord Goldsmith, who is the UK's Minister for Pacific and for the Environment at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Environment through the Rural Affairs. He was first appointed as a Minister of State in the Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development and DEFRA in February 2020. And after we have the film from Lord Goldsmith, we will have some words then from Andrea Ledwood, who is the International Biodiversity and Climate Director at DEFRA, the Department for Environment through the Rural Affairs in the UK. And her responsibilities include the UK's international nature and biodiversity strategy, DEFRA's international development and policy responses on the illegal wildlife trade and various other environment issues. Prior to this she was the domestic natural environment director at DEFRA and the director of the civil service group in the Cabinet Office. So let's start with the film from Lord Goldsmith. I want to thank IID for bringing us together for this critically important discussion. The pandemic has undoubtedly laid bare so many of our vulnerabilities, but in these challenging times there is nevertheless a green shoot of opportunity, an opportunity to build our societies back and to build them back greener and better. For too long now governments and businesses have behaved as if we're somehow separate from the natural world that we inhabit, as if we exist in some kind of parallel universe. Well Covid reminds us that we do not. It is itself very likely the consequence of our disrespectful and abusive relationship with the natural world and we know that if we allow trends to continue it will be dwarfed by others. Now it should be self-evident that we cannot expect to cut tropical forests down at a rate of 30 football pitches per minute or bring the world's great fisheries to the very brink of collapse, put two in every five of the world's plants and around a million species on a path to extinction without paying a terrible price, but that is nevertheless what we are doing and despite all the fine words that we hear from world leaders year after year the trends are not only not reversing they continue to accelerate, so something profound needs now to happen. We need to match those words with action. I want to acknowledge the huge progress that we are making in terms of carbon emissions reductions. Country after country is committing to bringing their emissions to net zero by 2050. The transition to a cleaner economy is happening and faster than really anyone predicted. Renewables are overtaking fossil fuels as zero electric cars will soon become mainstream. Millions and millions of people are employed in businesses around the world that are delivering that change, but we've made very little progress with nature and its destruction is not only causing climate change it threatens the world's poorest people who depend most directly on the free but criminally undervalued services that nature provides. A billion people depend on forests to the similar number of people depend on fish for their main source of protein, so this in a world where the current pandemic is threatening to push an additional 100 million people into base poverty. So delivering a green recovery isn't merely a nice to have it is a duty and as incoming COP26 president we're ramping up our efforts to protect and restore nature and we're calling on others to do the same. While nature-based solutions could we believe provide at least a third of the most cost-effective solution to climate change they currently receive less than 3% of the finance. So in addition to calling for ambitious nature and biodiversity targets and to run up to the biodiversity and climate cops we're pressing also for significantly more finance for nature recovery and recognizing that public money alone won't be enough we're working also to build a coalition of ambitious countries committed to identifying and deploying the levers that drive destruction of nature the annual 700 billion dollars for example that's dished up by governments to subsidize often highly destructive land use but which if shifted could deliver exactly the kind of change that we so desperately need we know the views and experiences of our least developed country partners are critical they're on the front line and while they contribute disproportionately so much less to climate change many are nevertheless leading the way in tackling it so we want to work with them amplifying their voices and doing all we can to deliver a year of meaningful action on a par with the scale of the challenges thank you so much. Well many thanks to Lord Goldsmith for that very strong video to introduce the UK's contribution do we have Andrea Ledwood now? Hi Andy yes thank you and thank you to IED for hosting this session and also for giving me the opportunity to speak now and compliment the words of Lord Goldsmith so as this session calls into focus as we build back from Covid we've really got to do it in a way that is better than before so the interim dusk up to review into the economics of biodiversity emphasizes that nature is not separate to our growth development and well-being it is in fact an essential part of it and if we break down that relationship we break down our ability to prosper so such degradation of land and resources is negatively impacting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people pushing the planet towards a six mass species extinction that cost him more than 10% of annual GDP in loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services I won't go more into the impacts as we've just heard Lord Goldsmith so eloquently setting out a moment ago so what I will talk about is how the UK is strongly supporting a focus on climate nature and people much of it is about a core focus on land it's about water, forest, agriculture but it's also about the incentives and the systems which are driving current behavior and which we can change so first we'll need to debunk the myth that there's a trade-off between economic growth jobs and sustainability there's compelling evidence on the positive impacts of nature-based projects which can be deployed quickly and have a high job creation ratio which are often but not exclusively in rural areas recent research from WWF has shown that on average the benefits of ecosystem restoration are about 10 times higher than the costs and as Lord Goldsmith mentioned nature-based solutions could deliver up to a third of climate mitigation by 2030 needed to stay within the Paris Agreement targets as well as supporting livelihoods and helping to protect biodiversity nature is also critical in supporting resilience the impacts of climate change on droughts and floods and reducing the risk of future pandemics food provision and people's health for the UK to lead effectively at COP26 next year though we must walk the talk our COP26 and G7 presidencies as well as our influence in the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 gives us an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the green recovery making the links between public health climate change and biodiversity loss we see the leaders pledge for nature as an incredibly important vehicle and coalition and movement for change and we're working closely with Costa Rica and the European Commission on this and the 10 actions within that leaders pledge over 75 nations have now signed up and we now want to turn those words into action we want to work very closely with leaders across the world and community groups in the run-up to COP26 to build on the momentum we want to turn that into real genuine action with Indigenous peoples and local communities really working together to tackle biodiversity and climate crisis and making sure that COP26 is inclusive and bodies and all society approach I very much look forward to the insights of the fellow panellists Stanley as he shares in his remarks yeah you might be wondering whether the UK's domestic record is enough to give us credibility internationally so I just want to talk about some of the highlights as trail just this very last weekend in the UK the Prime Minister has set to announce a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution later this week and one part of that is a very strong focus on nature the government's just announced an extra 40 million pounds on a green recovery challenge fund domestically to kickstart a program of nature based projects while creating and retaining jobs in conservation we've also got plans to reforest Britain by increasing tree planting across the UK to 30 000 hectares per year by 2025 with a previously announced 640 million pound nature per climate fund and we're also working hard with the Environment Bill back in Parliament now the Agriculture Act passed last week as we drive the agricultural transition here through the UK and look forward to the future environmental land management program to support global growth and build resilience to future stocks the Prime Minister announced at the UN General Assembly in 2019 a doubling of the UK international climate finance to 11.6 billion over the next five years and also committed to increasing our spend on nature and nature based solutions we're encouraging other donor countries to demonstrate similar ambition maintaining progress on our global 100 billion pound climate finance goal recent research from vivid economics has shown that announced stimulus to date will have a net negative impact in 16 of the G20 countries and economies so we don't think this is good enough the UK is committed to providing leadership and we recognize that we've got more to do but we are calling for a global effort and if there's ever a moment for a seismic shift clearly that's now thank you Andy Thank you so much Andrea and really fantastic contributions there from both the speakers important to take on the point that COVID-19 was really strong evidence that it's a consequence of the loss of biodiversity particularly in forest environments or at least that raises pandemic risk considerably so you know this is something that impacts on human society in all kinds of ways and can have impacts on the poorest and also everyone at a global level also great to hear that perspective on this quite recent sense of accelerated momentum and climate which is fantastic but also taking on board the point from Lord Goldsmith that the same kind of urgency in the biodiversity and nature loss space we still have to achieve that it feels like that but also from Andrea if we get this right we can have really high impact short-term help to the poorest communities coming out of the pandemic and address these global challenges in the longer run effectively as well so many thanks let me move now to our next speaker who is Kimaren Riamit who is an Indigenous Peoples leader from the pastoralist Masai community in southern Kenya a founder director of Indigenous livelihoods enhancement partners which is a community-based Indigenous Peoples organization based in Kenya working on pastoralist communities and their pressing concerns. Kimaren is a holder of a master of arts degree in development anthropology a postgraduate in primary project planning and management and a first degree in foods nutrition and dietetics and it's a real delight to have you with us Kimaren please go ahead greetings to you all and very much honored to have this opportunity to share that perspective of an Indigenous pastoralist in this very important agenda I will share my contribution from an Indigenous human perspective and I should begin by saying Indigenous traditional occupation and production systems represent the epitome of integrated action on climate, nature, and people. These actions of Indigenous people have actually been tested and proven intergenerationally. The case and the practice of pastoralists and pastoralism for centuries who have successfully act and living within deserts arid and semi arid lands ecosystems of our blood exemplifies this approach. For pastoralists where I belong people and nature are inseparable. The peoples or the social aspects are reflected in nature in more ways than one. We for example have totems that reflect our Indigenous clans in the wild so you have a clan of a lion, a clan of the elephant and it becomes a reason for conserving nature. We also have taboos that allow us to take care of nature. Eating game meat for a pastoralist is a taboo so long as you have a car or a goat with you for example. We also have nature reflected in the people within our social setup through the rites of passage and through sacred sands and trees. Every single rite of passage of the Maasai has a particular type of land involved so it is difficult to imagine the Maasai outside of nature. Land and natural resources are held collectively. They are managed through vibrant Indigenous knowledge systems and practices. These practices are regulated through customary law that is very environmentally friendly and enforced by Indigenous robust Indigenous institutions that help regulate behaviour and enforce the values of the community. These communities therefore Indigenous people more generally and in particular pastoralists have a low carbon footprint. In this respect, they represent the future we aspire to achieve as a modern world. Adaptation to climate variability is the daily rhythm of life for these renderings. Life-sucking people's mobility as a strategy to cope with these elements of variability in this disequilibrium environment becomes critical in accessing pasture and water over space and time. So this people-nature relation, pastoralism ensure that through mobility the interdependence of ecosystems and complementarity of the landscapes are tapped into through pastoral mobility to access this pasture and water. Yet despite the vibrancy and the demonstrated resilience of these Indigenous systems, a lot of pressure is being exerted on these Indigenous systems through globalization, market-oriented, extractive and exploitative activities, violation of their land rights and their right to self-determining development, their right to define the development that works best for them. Ultimately, this compounds a triple challenge of poverty and inequality, ecosystem degradation and the challenge of climate change. But I see this is not enough. COVID-19 has come into a compound and already difficult situation. For Indigenous communities who have historically remained at the periphery of the provision of basic services by the state, including hardly in a hardly existed healthcare infrastructure, COVID-19 has done another big blow to an already worse situation. But if we move a little forward into the policy arena, what we have observed with the global processes around the environment, such as a convention on climate change, a convention on biodiversity and sustainable development, is that increasingly we are seeing recognitions of our right on paper. We are seeing the recognition of Indigenous knowledge, the recognitions of the right to participate, the recognition of land tenure, all this in paper. And so what we notice is increasingly it is no longer politically correct not to recognize Indigenous people's rights on paper, including establishing dedicated policy arrangements for Indigenous communities. But then what we are seeing, our fear now, the shift moves from policy recognition to what it means in real life. And so we are fearing of a situation of death by paper recognition, in which case our recognition is devoid of meaningful action on the ground in our daily lives. So it becomes tokenism, give them on paper, but the reality on the ground is rarely the rights that we fought for being recognized or our Indigenous knowledge being applied. And so as we look ahead in the context of all these challenges, we must give life and meaning to the many policies and safeguard gains by Indigenous people's across level in ensuring a human rights-based approach in the post-COVID era or building back better. We need to enable the robust and practical application of tools and instruments for social inclusion, such as free prior and informed consent and community protocols. FP is now on the landscape, but these are principles on paper. They mean nothing to us unless they are enabled to facilitate engagement directly with Indigenous people. We need to facilitate a continued application, documentation, sharing, and integration of Indigenous knowledge system into development practice, including climate response action. This Indigenous knowledge should feed into the intergovernmental panel on climate change, the scientific body. Indigenous knowledge is not less than knowledge. It should feed into the local communities and Indigenous people platform of the UNFCC. It should inform that called HJ or a biological convention on biological diversity. This knowledge should be enabled to feed into red at the national level, adaptation plans, the nationally determined contributions. It should meaningfully inform solutions. We must place resources therefore directly in the hands of Indigenous people and give space for Indigenous people to self-determine the kind of development that enhances resilience for them. We already have from one to our moderator saying, locally let action have proven to be most effective, but we have a layering of access to resources and it's only a trickle that reaches communities. We must meaningfully ensure direct representation of Indigenous people in all relevant decision-making arrangements, nothing for us or about us without us, including ensuring mutually respectful partnership across levels. And as I close, I need to mention that Indigenous people are the champions of nature-based solutions and the so-called green economies, despite being the most impacted by climate change and unsafety-guarded response action. We need therefore to reward and incentivize the good stewards of nature and those who have contributed the greatest conservation of biodiversity in the world. And I should thank you by saying we really need to move and bring actions on the ground outside the boardroom and out of papers. Thank you. Thank you so much, Cameron. That was incredibly powerful and let me just add in support of what you said that the sort of the best science, the Ip Best Report on Global Biodiversity Loss from April of last year highlighted that these factors, the protection of nature and the prevention of biodiversity loss on a global scale, this is definitely goes better in areas geographers and spaces under the management of Indigenous peoples. They have norms, practices, institutions and knowledge and this applies as a global conclusion. So it's incredibly important to recognize that and also recognize the importance in building on that of recognizing both resource rights and human rights in diverse areas, including FPIC as Cameron so clearly outlined. So many thanks for that. Let me move now to our final speaker who is Professor Harriet Buckley, who is Professor of Geography at Durham University and the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at the University of Eutracht. Her research is broadly concerned with governance and politics of climate change, energy and sustainable development and she has a particular interest in cities. Harriet, you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much, Angie and I'm really delighted to be here and among such very good company and thank you to all of the panelists so far for some really inspiring and interesting insights into the kind of challenges that we have ahead but also the solutions that we also have to hand. I'm going to switch focus a little bit from some of the questions that we've been talking about so far to think about what it is going to be the important role of cities in the green recovery that we're talking about. I think sometimes it's notable that when we start to think about the relationship between climate and nature the urban seems to disappear from view but I want to bring it strongly back into focus because it's clear that if we don't bring cities on board with the kind of challenges of addressing climate change of addressing the loss of nature and of trying to ensure a just recovery from the crisis that we see at the moment as well as addressing underlying inequalities then we will really not get very far. I know I am probably biased having worked on the role that cities have in relationship to these issues for over a couple of decades now but nonetheless I think as we witness the global population moving increasingly to cities they have to be part of our focus in our discussion here. So let me just say something a little bit about why it is that I think cities need to be part of our conversation and part of this agenda and it stems really from looking really at two kind of key questions if you like. What do we already know about what cities have been able to contribute to addressing these challenges and where are they currently on the journey towards some of the key challenges we need to address in 2021 through the negotiations that other colleagues have already mentioned. I'm going to particularly also bring into spotlight the idea that nature-based solutions are going to be a very critical way in which cities can help us to address both climate and the nature challenge while also contributing to a green recovery. So let's start with just looking back a little bit about what has happened in this space over the last two decades and one of the you know if you like one of the great success stories of our response to climate change over the last 20 years has been the growing role of cities in responding to this issue. So when I first started my research back in the late 1990s you could really probably count on a couple of hands the number of cities that were involved in meaningful action on climate change but now we can see over 10,000 cities globally have made commitments to acting on climate change both in terms of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and in terms of trying to improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change and that has really been driven by three key things firstly a recognition of the contribution that cities make to the climate change challenge so cities have been undertaking a great deal of work to understand where their greenhouse gas emissions come from and the kinds of vulnerabilities that they have as well as what they can actually then act on where their capacities lie so a second key aspect is really recognizing the diverse kinds of capacities cities have and this is often not just cities own capacities they're kind of regulatory or planning powers but their powers that they have for working together with communities together with other kinds of partners and fostering action on the ground to address these challenges and thirdly it's very noticeable that a lot of the action that cities have taken on climate change so far has really been driven by what we might call a co-benefits agenda so not only thinking about the climate change contribution of the efforts that they're making but also how it can really play into what cities have as priorities whether that's air pollution whether it's creating livable city streets whether it's creating you know space for children to play whether it's addressing health and well-being issues so climate change has become wrapped up with a whole set of other urban agendas that has made it a very kind of powerful agenda at the city level so in a sense then one of the things we can say is that climate change is really high on the urban agenda we can see really strong potential for continued action by cities in this space but today their role in addressing the biodiversity challenge and the challenge of the crisis of nature that other colleagues have been talking about today has been much less marked now that may be because of the relative you know seems in in sense a little bit obvious that cities feel a bit kind of distant from nature when we think about nature we often don't think about nature in our cities but of course in some places in the world one of the things that the COVID crisis has done has bring further attention to the importance of the nature that we do have on our doorsteps and we can see part of a project that I'm leading which is called Naturevation has been funded by the European Union of Horizon 2020 project has been to try to map out the kinds of nature-based solutions that we can see in cities at the moment we focus mainly on Europe although we have also done some international work and in in the European case we've looked at a thousand different nature-based solution projects in 100 cities across Europe and we can see really strong efforts being taken to protect and conserve biodiversity in cities alongside efforts to to work with nature to realise nature's contributions to people as it's called and the language of it best and the language of the biodiversity convention probably to you and me it's just the benefits the nature brings to us on an everyday basis are really strongly taking place across cities now as they might not be as formalised they might not be the basis of commitments they might not be you know organised in transnational city networks and other things or biodiversity plans but nonetheless we can see a huge amount of action again as my colleague who is just now recognising in terms of the work of Indigenous people coming from the ground up lots of different things happening on the ground all sorts of different partnerships and and coalitions emerging where nature is taking really central place in what cities are trying to do for the sustainability challenge and so I think as we move forward we can think about how can we support cities in the work that they're already doing to conserve and to protect nature and to try to thrive with nature for their societies and for their communities and how can we ensure that the kinds of policies are programmes that we're going to get through the different conventions in the next year and the sorts of really ambitious proposals outlined to us by the UK government also take the urban dimensions of these questions seriously so that we can make sure that the benefits of nature based solutions the contributions that cities can make to biodiversity and climate goals can be realised and you know there are lots of different examples we could talk about whether that's about how cities are using forest strategies to call their cities working with artificial reed beds to try to clean rivers in increasing coastal resilience through working with natural ecosystems you know the many different things also particularly in European cities of course concerns about flooding and water management in general where nature based solutions are playing an increasing role so we can see in terms of climate mitigation climate adaptation the conservation of nature but importantly health and well-being the nature based solutions are increasingly deployed at the European at the European scale definitely and of course also internationally we can see initiatives happening in many African cities on this topic also in South Asia in particular so there seems to be huge potential here but also you know when we think about the financing that's going into nature based solutions and you know we had some figures for that earlier most of the financing little bit as it is is going to rural nature based solutions and very little attention at the moment being placed on how this can help support making more resilient and more just cities and I think one of the things we can learn really here is that there are going to be trade offs when you bring nature based solutions forward they can't address every goal all of the time how are we going to make sure that the communities that need nature based solutions most in cities stand to benefit from the most I think we've got lots of lessons to take from colleagues experiencing in bringing communities together around in the indigenous management of nature think about what what could we learn from that to how do we deliver nature based solutions that work for the communities in cities who also use nature to support their own livelihoods in that environment as well there's lots of cross learning that we need to be able to do so I think there's a really promising agenda here to bring nature based solutions forward to support a green recovery from COVID it's going to be important that we think about the trade offs involved it's going to be important that we think about how to ensure that nature based solutions don't exacerbate urban inequalities and are in fact able to to meet social justice agendas but at the same time of course if we want cities to play a really strong role in both the biodiversity and climate change challenges working at the city scale is going to be key building those relationships but we also have to get to the heart of questions around consumption and their heart of questions around how some cities are consuming way more than their fair share of resources globally and what those impacts are that is beginning to happen at city level but for me you know nature based solutions in cities is going to be one step and then moving onwards from that once we've established these connections between cities in nature to really think about what cities global effect on nature is going to be is going to be the hard yards we need to win in the next decade so I'll leave it there Andrew I'm sure we've got lots of things to talk about together thank you again for having me on the panel and I hope that those opening remarks that stimulates and what further debate thank you very much yes that was great Harriet thank you so much again it's really important to have the urban dimension in I think in these discussions we need cities in view when we talk about nature those solutions when we talk about protecting nature and be aware of the the benefits to people that it brings in in that space and indeed the political energy that that can provide to the overall agenda and also many thanks for emphasising the links to mobilisation from the grand up that we heard also very strongly in Camara's presentation so huge thanks let's move to Q&A now and just to direct the audience if you want to ask questions it's probably easier to use the Q&A box which is where you can upvote as well as David illustrated at the beginning but let me kick off now with I think a general question which has come in from Mark Kelleher a lot of people understand that there doesn't need to be a trade-off between nature and the economy however transitions to greener economies with all the elements that includes need take time and require political leadership and political capital so how can that be built how can that political leadership be built Sonan can I ask you to take that one yes I I believe it's a it's a it's a difficult question in terms of the definitely they are trade-offs and and that is why it's so difficult to go on the green path but I believe that this covid has shown that there is a possibility there is solidarity among nations even within countries among communities between political parties so I believe that if what is very important the world over and especially in LDCs I believe that this leadership some form whether it is these UNFCCC or UN environment or some other forum through which it comes and where a kind of template is there for all to follow it's it's it will only then be possible I believe otherwise all are it's a little in some way uncoordinated little ad hoc actions happening here and there definitely I believe there is they are trade-offs that is why you know it would be difficult unless we have this coordinated approach and that can only come through these multinational multilateral forums which would be able to then through broader agreements to impose on governments so political will I think is very important there and and to do that this I think a joint kind of action is necessary thank you thank you very much so none Harry I was wondering if at the city scale you could comment on maybe some of the best examples you've seen of sort of accountable democratic leadership on this agenda in the urban space sure I mean I think leadership is a really challenging question when it comes to these green transitions I think that we can see leadership taking multiple forms really so you have leadership that's coming from city councils themselves where democratically elected candidates are standing on green mandates so I'm thinking here particularly of some cities that that I know fairly well that I've been been working in but in in Melbourne in Australia there's a very strong core of green councillors who've been elected to the city council on on a green mandate to try to improve the resilience and green recovery of the city and they've bought in things like an urban forest strategy a green recovery fund and so on so forth working also with the Victorian government and and then in turn with the federal government in Australia to some degree and then Malmo in Sweden but also cities like Manchester in the UK where coalition of local authorities led by by the Greater Manchester Regional Authority and of course also in London I should mention London at this time in London climate action week of course so there's you know New Yorkers are there's plenty of cities where we can see that democratically elected governments have been providing leadership and mandated to do so through their electrodes but also I think what's critical is where you get leadership by between coalitions of community organisations business and democratically elected organizations because the the mandate of local government in terms of what they can deliver on the ground is crucially dependent on working on partnership with those other organisations so yeah I mean when you have leadership of the coalitions of public institutions like museums, zoos, botanic gardens, school, the educational authority coupled then with other kinds of leadership that's where you really get change moving faster. Thank you so much Harriet and just sadly we've lost Andrea at this point so you had to go but Kim Maren I was wondering also I mean a lot of the stories about Indigenous peoples in this space emphasise kind of vulnerability exploitation can you think of examples where if you like the local or national politics has worked to empower Indigenous peoples both to promote their own rights but also on this agenda around protection of biodiversity and climate Kim Maren any thoughts on that? Thank you very much Andrea well I think that's a very difficult question but anyway I will try to speak to the Kenyan example. You know the sorry state of Indigenous people is essentially because of their relationship with their national government so national government policies that less socially inclusive that are driven by dominant groups in the national spaces this is what produces the marginalisation and exclusion status of Indigenous people and the challenge is the trend we are seeing now is that we are seeing a move towards more nationally driven oriented approach with very little nuance about the dynamics of exclusion within the national space. If you look at the climate change convention they talk of common by differentiated responsibilities and capacities but they only go as far as a state level but that common by differentiated responsibility needs actually to be nuanced with international spaces which is rarely the case. When you look at the Green Climate Fund which is supposed to be the future a big bug for climate money the central principle of accessing resources is country drivenness and country ownership approaches but essentially that approach will exclude Indigenous people but I want to say that increasingly for example in the context of Kenya where I come from after many years and Africa has been a little problematic in the sense that African government say we are all colonised who is Indigenous so the question of originality may not be a foundation for indigeneity in the context of Africa but then if you look at the structural violence and exclusion of those spaces where the colonials are left a few communities experience the same even though we were all colonised so we've managed to push to to the level that now we have community land acts we have a seat in the national climate change council where the president coordinates we have legislation on indigenous knowledge systems we have guidelines for free prior informed consent so I would say policy wise in the context of Kenya which is rare for Africa is positive but the back of the front now is translating this recognition to meaningful gains in our daily lives giving traditional decision-making arrangement to lead when it comes to indigenous people because they understand better they're aware of the issue they know where the issue has so I would say increasingly the policy space as I said earlier okay I think we've lost Kim are in on the connection so hope for us yeah you lost me again so again this is the environment we find the last comment I wanted to say is that in the conservation space we are seeing an emergence of a conservation arrangement called community-based conservancies which essentially you don't lose your life you enter into a mutually respectful partnership of equals where the indigenous people contribute their land not surrender their land but the landscape that they have managed and the others bring in the infrastructure and so they remain as primary right holders to learn and they have a space to opt out should the thing not work so I think these innovations are increasingly becoming a little positive and encouraging for indigenous people I should thank you thank you Kim are in that was really interesting salutary in terms of the challenges but also great to hear about some some progress at least as well a question now which has come in is about depth nature and climate swaps it was actually addressed to Andrea but she has gone so this is the motion which I referred to in my introductory remarks of basically a way of channeling funds at scale we know that in the recovery context rich countries with hard currencies in a low-interest environment can easily borrow at scale but the challenge of accessing resources for green recoveries far greater for lower and middle income countries so I would like to ask Sonam if he sees this as an important part of the way forward that is debt for climate and nature swaps as an instrument if it can be made to work at so now yes the LDCs in in particular developing countries and LDCs in particular are in fact debt-ridden in terms of climate finance the recent OACD report says that that most of the climate finance that went to the LDCs which is about 14 percent of the total climate finance available which is somewhere close to in 2018 about 78 billion 14 percent went of the 14 percent 66 percent were loan debts that had to be repaid so I believe that in many of the LDCs they've had to borrow in fact to meet the climate emergencies and this is in fact not allowing them actually to invest enough for their development activities poverty eradication so yes definitely you in terms of this if the debt could be there they could be this mechanism to solve that I think that is that is the the way forward otherwise they're caught in the debt trap that there is they can never do to scare because they're already in terms of they have let's say they have borrowed beyond what is permissible in terms of even the credit rating and so on so forth that is there as it is they fare poorly and with these additional burden so this rather instrument I believe would be useful not only useful I think it would be the way forward is that thank you Andrew thank you very much Sonam Harriet's we've got a question in on urban inequality and the sense that the presumptions of nature in the urban space are often associated broadly with rich people's environments not poor people's environments in the urban area so what's the way forward on that to a sort of equitable approach to access and appreciation for human benefit of nature in the urban space yes thank you Andrew I mean this is this is definitely a key challenge and it's not only a challenge about how nature is currently distributed in cities which is that there's sort of nice bits of nature tend to be in nicer areas of cities where by those of us who have a better economic situation than others get to enjoy nature in some of the riskier parts of nature tend to affect those who have less social and economic resilience if you like but it's also true for the development of new nature based solutions in cities that we can see a definite potential for for gentrification and the widening of urban inequalities so I think there's there's two things there firstly it's about how do you deal with uneven distribution of nature already and secondly how do you make sure that new forms of intervention don't widen those inequalities one of the things that you could start to look at is around questions around the planning and development system where such systems exist in cities of course and they're not functioning in all cities but this for example some at some city and regional level governments and also in the UK and the national level new schemes around biodiversity offsetting are being developed but those schemes so far do not have a justice or equity component to them whereas they could do so you could insist that new land development as part of that kind of the the development right if you like also has to contribute nature to other or nature by solution to other areas of the city equally there's quite a lot of land ownership in those poorer areas of cities held by utilities held by religious organizations held by schools which is currently relatively closed so nature might be there but not accessible so there's also questions about how do you work with existing landowners to open up access and we do see some of those schemes happening there's quite a nice example in New York where school yards have been opened up for use in the evenings and during weekends so to give people who don't otherwise have access to open green space more access to space in the city for example so those things can take place it is a matter of political will and negotiation and getting the right partnerships in place thank you very much indeed Harriet um the top ranked kind of question on the listing is another one that I think is is quite challenging but I do want to ask him if he wants to come back on it it's pointing out that in the context of COVID-19 in many parts of the world indigenous peoples have been particularly vulnerable and there's the the incidents such as with the other mommy in Brazil with who proved very vulnerable to the infection and been exposed to it through change so the question is how can indigenous practices and knowledge help mitigate climate change but also can they do can they at the same time be mobilized to help protect people in the context of pandemics for emergent disease prevention I'm Kim Aaron yes as you say it's not and there's a question that again my own perspective from this is that first I think the rest of the world need to come back to nature they need to learn from indigenous people these positive people nature relation and they should not see nature as a commodity to be exploited commodified and commercialized nature is more than a commodity and I think this is one thing that the cost more vision of indigenous people that the rest of the world need to pick second we need to give space to the privileged deep knowledge of local spaces held by indigenous people they have such deep knowledge that a western classroom cannot unpack because these are lived intergenerational experiences and observation of nature so we need to privilege this local indigenous knowledge space for for local knowledge the second thing is that we need to tap from the intergenerational lessons of adaptation and resilience of indigenous peoples are built around their traditional occupation and try and build on this there is also an opportunity to tap on the indigenous medicine or from indigenous people our people for example in this context of covid have resulted to this indigenous medicine and ways of treatment to deal with a pandemic if you look at the medicine most of it has its roots in nature so we need to also visit and check how are indigenous people coping with a pandemic of covid 19 so I would say there's really quite a bit that rest of us can borrow we have had quite a bit of science we need to hear a little more we need a neutral space where science and indigenous knowledge can interact safely and which are you thank you thank you very much indeed Kimaren I'm going to move now to a question of each of the panelists the same question but to a by way of trying to draw the discussion to a conclusion and also please feel free to highlight anything else in the discussion which has come across as important from your perspective so Harriet I'll go to you first the question is what do you think the biggest challenge is in implementing linked solutions to climate nature and development crises and how can this challenge be addressed Harriet may be talking specifically about the urban space that's a very big question Andrew thank you for that I mean I think the biggest challenge is that addressing those things in a linked way will always mean that there are some losers and some winners and in an urban space that's going to be highly uneven and so I think the biggest challenge is going to be keeping equity considerations front and center at the same time as trying to secure finance for the kinds of nature-based solutions and other interventions that will deliver on climate and nature goals it may be that there may be some tensions there because the most financially attractive projects and those where a calculated return on investment can clearly be identified may not be those that fully address questions of equity because sometimes the most important things are difficult to count in the terms of financial return on investment and balance sheets need you to count them in so it's going to be a question of how to persuade both public and private finance that they have to play a long and relatively patient game with investment for these kinds of solutions but and also take account of the justice and equity implications of what they're doing I think I'll stop there that's probably a big enough answer to the big enough challenge thank you that's a great great answer thanks very much Harriet can I go to you next from your perspective what are what is the biggest challenge in implementing linked solutions and how can that challenge be addressed and again yeah very big question so so I think one of the biggest challenges global power in balance so you have actors across caves who exhibit serious power differentiations and this power differentiation is reflected in the kind of decisions that are privileged it is reflected in where resources are directed with this reflected on which actions are privileged and and given the front seat it is reflected also I think so other than the power in balance is also the issue of privileging certain knowledge systems and the meaning and the value of other knowledge systems and then of course the question of a very raw appetite for profit and blind accumulation that as I say sees nature as a mining space totally disregarding the interconnectedness of all forms of life in this case I don't know how we are going to deal with power in balance I mean it's a big question but I think it's good to recognize that we are in this sinking boat together and by not hearing others and listening to others and giving them space we are not any safer because we are powerful when climate catastrophe strikes it will not separate the developed world from the developing world we need to realize that we're in this sinking boat together we also need to appreciate that the sooner and the more effective the knowledge systems speak to each other the chance of the harder chance of the world would be the world would be a better place in terms of understanding the different challenges from different perspectives that we experience and also thinking about affirmative action for those who have been left behind in the context of sustainable development roles we really must put forward not just not leaving behind we need to put forward those who have historically been left behind so that then we counsel the historical lack that they have left behind so that we meaningfully bring everybody to the table and shape our destiny as humans together as I said in terms of major resolutions indigenous peoples represent the future we are looking for they are already there we need to spend time to reflect and learn from them thank you thank you so much Kimara great thoughts um Sonan can I now put that question to you what do you see as the biggest challenges in implementing linked solutions in the space of nature climate and inequality and development and what do you see as the key answers to those challenges Sonan thank you I believe the challenge is evident the status quo we are facing today in terms of even climate negotiations is that challenge that Kimaran just raised in terms of this power balance they are in terms of these solutions there's there are so many vested interests national priorities nobody thinks for the common good so it is very difficult if a country like for example my country we are a leader in environmental conservation we are carbon negative 52 percent of our country is reserved as national parks biological corridors animal sanctuaries and 72 percent is a forest cover with it written in the constitution that 60 percent for all time to come but we do it but the others are not doing doing it so so it is in fact it is very difficult and for me the ray of hope is this covid which I raised in the beginning about this solidarity everybody realizing that you know we are all affected that must sink in into the political will of all nations then only I think can we link in a manner that is to the benefit of us all otherwise that remains a challenge thank you thank you very much fantastic contributions from all our panelists both when they were speaking and also responding to the questions as well I'm now going to check in with our illustrator David mentioned at the beginning that we have somebody working with us on images to illustrate the discussion Jorge Martín Jorge can you share some of the work you've been doing and with us now on the screen thank you very much so we've got the yeah that's great isn't it we've got the thriving and just societies in the middle we have the illustration of biodiversity loss as a big threat to blue town and that the impact is most up on the poorest a lovely illustration there and yeah I mean some with the covid 19 and the pandemic exposing vulnerability and inequalities and covid of course makes an appearance in the cartoon but fantastic work okay thanks so much and there's lots of people on the chat asking if we're going to make this available so yes we will do we'll definitely do that probably through iid's twitter feed I believe so yeah and other elements coming up as well now I love the the little illustration of nature there but also the need to amplify voices and the politics of the discussion featuring really throughout this this incredible graphic so Jorge thank you so much for that and maybe we can leave that up while I say a few closing remarks many thanks to all of the panelists many thanks to all of the participants for sort of great comments in the chat and some really good and challenging questions as well my final thoughts I think we've heard how the impacts of these challenges are hugely unequal and there is also a risk that green recovery action is hugely unequal because it's easier for richer countries to mobilize resources in the current environment than it is for lower and middle income countries and indeed the least developed country group that Senem has spoken so eloquently for in this webinar so there's a real need in that case to make for a determined global effort to make resources available for green recovery both to help communities that have been hit by the economic impacts of covid as vividly described by Senem and by Kimare but also to build for the long term to build forward in ways that tackle these multiple crises the climate crisis the crisis of biodiversity loss but also finally although we've talked about nature climate and developments running like a thread throughout all of the contributions today have been themes of inequality whether at the global scale between countries but also inequality at the local scale and power imbalances and these questions of who gets to determine value and who gets to determine the strategies that we need to move forward so it's been a fantastic discussion just huge thanks to everyone um and i think i can close at this point just a couple of minutes early but again many thanks to Harriet Buckley um to the contributors from DFID Andrea Lebedwood and Lord Goldsmith to Sonam P Wangde of the Kingdom of Bhutan and the leader of the LDC group in the UN climate negotiations and to Kimaren Riamit who gave us really some very vivid and striking accounts and stories of life on the frontline in these crises in from an indigenous perspective so huge thanks to everyone um and i think we can close now many thanks goodbye