SPARC at COP28

Climate change is already posing increasingly intense disruptions to lives and livelihoods in the drylands of Africa and the Middle East - yet these areas often receive the least climate finance, despite having some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable people. At COP28, SPARC researchers will be leading conversations on a number of topics, including access to climate finance, scaling up climate action in conflict-affected countries, and addressing transboundary climate risks.

At COP28, representatives will share SPARC’s 2023 research on the conflict blind spot in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and how to scale up climate action in a number of SPARC’s focal areas. 

• 1 December, 18:30 – Strengthening Climate Action in Countries Affected by Protracted Crises (SE Room 7). This event will convene high-level representatives from States including the Government of Somalia, as well development and humanitarian organisations, to discuss how we can scale up climate finance and action in countries affected by protracted crises. It is coorganised by the Government of Somalia, the Islamic Development Bank, ODI, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
• 2 December, 10:00 –  Launching Somalia’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Implementation Plan: A Round Table Discussion (Somalia Pavilion). SPARC Risk and Resilience Advisor Rebecca Nadin will speak in a panel discussion alongside Ministerial-level representatives from Somalia, FCDO, FAO, UNDP and UNIDO. 
• 3 December, 16:15 – Towards Climate-resilient Development in the Greater Horn of Africa (UK Pavilion) This event, which coincides with the COP28 Relief, Recovery and Peace Day, will convene Ministers from the UK and elsewhere, and other senior representatives, to discuss how to advance the climate agenda in the Greater Horn of Africa. The discussion will be moderated by SPARC Risk and Resilience Advisor Rebecca Nadin. This event will include the launch of the SPARC co-funded report, ‘Building forward better: a pathway to climate-resilient development in fragile and conflict-affected situations’, which builds on SPARC’s research into what meaningful climate action looks like in areas affected by armed conflict, violence and fragility.

Related reading: climate and conflict

Supporting climate action in conflict-affected settings will be a key issue at COP28. Countries affected by protracted conflict and fragility, including those in the drylands of Africa and the Middle East, are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, yet face a number of obstacles to climate finance and action. 

SPARC has done a lot of research, convening and raising awareness on supporting more meaningful climate action in conflict-affected countries, and how to scale up climate finance so that pastoralists, agropastoralists and farmers will be able to increase their resilience.

• Climate-resilient development for Somalia (October 2023) This report outlines ways that policymakers in Somalia can increase access to climate finance and better integrate adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk management in socioeconomic development.
• Bridging the WAEMU climate policy gaps to access climate finance  (September 2023) An analysis of the gaps in climate finance in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), a region among the most exposed to climate impacts, and sets out the policy implications of action.
• Synthesis report: Exploring the conflict blind spots in climate adaptation finance (2021) An examination of whether climate adaptation programmes have been conflict-sensitive in fragile and conflict-affected regions, and the barriers to increasing adaptation finance to these contexts.

Related reading: transboundary climate risks and regional adaptation planning

SPARC research in 2023 has also looked at regional climate risks and adaptation priorities, namely, supporting enhanced understanding of transboundary climate risks in Africa and how to manage them, including a focus on the climate risks facing pastoralists. This work, which has already fed into discussions at the Nineteenth ordinary session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in August and the Africa Climate Summit in September, will be relevant to COP28’s work agreeing on a framework for the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA).

• Issue brief: Transboundary climate risks to African dryland livestock economies (January 2023). This brief explores how policies at the sub-national, national and regional levels can help and hinder options for the management of transboundary climate risks at local, national and regional levels.
• How can Africa manage the transboundary climate risks it faces? (August 2023) This policy brief, produced for AMCEN 2023, highlights five significant transboundary climate risks in Africa that urgently need consideration for management.