Welcome back to Reshaping Multilateralism, a newsletter from the team at the Nexus25 project. Every month, we bring you the latest from the climate-security-migration nexus, with a particular focus on how to make multilateralism work for everyone - not just the Global North. After a brief hiatus for the summer holidays, we’re back in the office and preparing to head to NYC next week for the UN General Assembly, Summit for the Future, and Climate Week.?
While there, project staff will be hosting (and attending) discussions on food security, climate migration, climate finance, the gender-climate nexus, and more. Here’s what we’ll be looking out for on the agenda:?
- Progress on Multilateral and Private Sector Climate Finance: The gap between climate finance commitments and needs
(currently estimated at several trillion USD) has dominated discussions at this year’s World Bank and IMF meetings, multilateral summits like the G7, and within local civil society implementers. While upcoming climate finance commitments - including contributions to the loss and damage fund - will be more concretely negotiated via the COP frameworks, mobilizing private finance and supporting the SDGs should be consistent themes throughout this year’s discussions.?
- Outcomes from the High-Level Meeting on Sea Rise:
During recent trip to the Pacific Islands, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned of
the immediate and “grave danger” that sea level rise poses to this region, where “90% of people live within 5km of the coast and about 50% of infrastructure [is] located within 500 meters of the sea.” Action on sea level rise is closely linked to climate finance commitments - and it will be critical to see whether these high-level discussions generate further funding to mitigate this threat.?
- Operationalizing the Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery, and Peace
: At COP28, over 90 countries and 40 organizations (including Nexus25 co-lead, The Center for Climate and Security) called for “bolder collective action to build climate resilience at the scale and speed required in highly vulnerable countries and communities, particularly those threatened or affected by fragility or conflict, or facing severe humanitarian needs, many of which are Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States” - as well as a significant scale up of climate finance. Since then, limited progress has been made in operationalizing this Declaration, but UNGA and UN Climate week can help build this momentum ahead of the next COP in Baku.?
We’ll be keeping a close eye on these outcomes leading into key events this fall - including the first-ever Nexus25 conference on climate change and the EU-Africa relationship in Rome next month. Until then, we’ll be reading:?
Nexus25 is a joint initiative from global experts at Istituto Affari Internazionali and the Center for Climate and Security funded by Stiftung Mercator. For more from the Nexus25 team, go to www.nexus25.org
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