Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, colleagues, and urban change makers here in the room, but also online across the world.
Welcome to this special session on stories from the climate Frontiers Frontlines.
My name is Anne Maria Borges, and I'm absolutely delighted to be with you today to be addressing such a vital conversation.
Climate change is no longer a distant threat or a bullet point on a future agenda.
It is actively permanently reshaping how people live, build, and survive in cities right now, all across the globe.
The climate crisis is an urban crisis and its impact is felt most acutely in our homes, our neighborhoods, and also in informal settlements, the very places where human vulnerability and resilience intersect.
So ladies and gentlemen, during the next couple of hours, we'll trace a clear narrative path from frontline realities straight into scalable institutional solutions, and together, we'll address four critical questions.
How are frontline cities adapting? How do we ensure climate finance actually reaches local governments and communities? What can the Amazon teach us and teach the rest of the world? And also, how do we convert massive global climate commitments into real local impacts on livelihoods? And your voices will also be heard because there will be a QR code behind me on the screen.
You'll be able to use your phones and answer two very interesting questions and they'll also allow us to take the temperature in the room, so get your phones ready.
But right now, to help us set the stage, it's an absolute honor to welcome our first speaker, the Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Honorable misses Oya Tyva Okay.
Good afternoon.
It is my honor to take part in this important event dedicated to stories from the climate frontlines.
They come together to discuss how climate change is shaping cities and housing every day.
It is not difficult to imagine how many cities strangling in climate frontlines today and how many stories are not shared even they exist.
According to the global statistics, 58% of the world's population lives in cities, making urban areas highly vulnerable to heat waves, floods, water scarcity, sea level rise, inland water body decline.
Coastal ecosystem degradation and other climate related hazards.
There is no way to escape the growing impact of climate change.
The IPCC six assessment report, particularly from working group to underscore a rising risk cities face.
Nature is also under pressure.
The world today is facing a triple planetary crisis, climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution which together threaten ecosystem, human well being, sustainable development, and the resilience of our cities and communities.
Due to this fact, environmental challenges are different across region of the world, yet they stem from the same pressure, a disconnection between economic development and ecological balance.
The worst scenarios is felt in vulnerable communities in the developing countries who experience reminds us that climate action must always remain people centred and inclusive.
Integrating climate consideration into urban planning has become increasingly important for the cities that are major actors in this combat.
Sustainable urban development begins with national vision and long term policy commitments, including stronger global cooperation.
Let me share my homeland experience.
Azerbaijan cities and communities faced a range of environmental challenges and climate related hazards.
In the assessment of the vulnerability index for Azerbijan but reflected in our initial national adaptation plan.
During the past ten year in our country, floods events increased more than 18 times.
Duration of droughts, 18%, the number of days of temperature above 35 degrees and rainfall events six times.
The amount of water entering the country has decreased by 30%.
The decline of Caspian C is another complex challenges.
Still, this environmental crisis has not received the global attention it needed or deserved.
Colleagues, they must respond to and adapt to new realities.
We recognize that timely and accessible early warnings for climate hazard can dramatically reduce loss of life, damages to infrastructure, prevent from environmental disasters.
They must ensure all countries access to innovative technologies.
An important factor here is also our technological choices.
In some cases, simple nature based solution can have more effective results than large scale engineering solutions that require significant financial resources.
It is global call that the standard living in harmony with nature is no longer a choice but a necessity.
That is why World Environment Day hosted by Azerbijan this year will celebrate it under the slogan inspired by nature for climate for our future.
In this regard, they consider nature based solution in Azerbijan's urban development priorities.
Socioeconomic Development Strategy 2022, 2026, and its extension up to 2030.
Identify clean environment and green growth as national priority.
They are determined to transform the territories of Karabakh and Eastern Zang Azur into a net zero emissions zone by 2050.
This include green energy, sustainable agriculture, eco friendly transport, smart cities and villages, as well as ecosystem restoration and reforestation, covering thousands of ctres of land.
Each countries has his particular stories.
The belief based experience can help guide more responsive urban policies.
It is also a chance to turn knowledge into action and build future cities and communities.
Initiatives as zero waste is an example of what successful collaboration can achieve by bringing together stakeholders from all sectors.
Joint cooperation of states, international and non governmental organizations, academia and private sectors, and ensuring inclusive engagement, including every small action taken by each individuals are valuable.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, honorable Deputy Minister.
Thank you for this compelling call to action and also for reminding us how important and vital it is to really remain human centered in every action that we take.
Thank you very much for your contribution.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's now turn our gaze to the Amazon and to the urgent need that this region has to prioritize its urban agenda in global finance discussions.
To tell us more, it's my pleasure now to hand over to Mr.
Juan Pablo Bonilla, sector Manager for climate change and sustainable development at the Inter American Development Bank.
Welcome.
Thank you very much.
It is a pleasure being here with all of you today.
We're going to talk about two very important regions of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The first one is the Amazon, and the second one is the Caribbean and the important role of cities in the development of the Amazon and the Caribbean.
First of all, the future of the Amazon will not be determined solely by its forests, but also in its cities.
Protecting these bio requires working alongside Amazonian cities to advance more sustainable models of growth, governance, and financing.
In this context, resiliency in the Amazon has fundamentally become a Eurban agenda.
In the Caribbean, Eran resiliency is an imperative condition for development.
Anticipating risks, protecting populations and sustaining the economy is a key role of cities in the Caribbean.
Today, the Amazon is home to nearly 60 million people, more than 70% of whom live in urban areas.
However, it is approaching the critical tipping point, driven by the combination of deforestation, inequality, and unplanned urbanization, driven also by illegality in the Amazon, which is a key issue.
We need to see the role of cities and people in addressing this agenda to understand better what sustainability means for the Amazon.
In the Caribbean, this paradox is reflected in cities that concentrate population, tourism activity, and essential services.
Remain highly exposed to hurricanes, floodings, and shocks that can reverse years of investment.
This is why the shared challenge is to better connect urban development and financing to generate meaningful impact across regions that ensure continuity before, during, and after climate shocks.
Why cities matter? First, cities as a turning point.
Cities concentrate the region greatest opportunities, jobs, services, and innovation, while also facing some of its most pressing challenges informality, infrastructure gaps, and environmental pressure.
The question is not whether these cities are growing, they already are.
The question is how they grow and whether that growth can become a driver of resiliency and conservation.
This is where the regional dimension becomes essential and is shared by the Amazon and the Caribbean.
Why does it matter to act regionally? The regional challenge? We need to start thinking from isolated projects to integrated regional approaches from short term solutions to long term resiliency.
To achieve these, it is critical to turn resilient urban development into bankable projects, and this is what enables impact and scale in the future.
The Amazon and the Caribbean stands out as a strategic region for the IDB action.
This implies a shift in approach from a country by country focus towards an integrated regional vision.
Initiatives such as the IDB Amazonia Cm has been key to scale up financing, to strengthening multi level coordination and regional coordination, and promoting solutions, generating and disseminating knowledge among and across the Amazon.
The Amazonia forever presents a holistic approach in the Amazon, thinking about not only combating deforestation with options for people like bio economy and creative economy for the Amazon, sustainable cities, infrastructure, connectivity, and digital inclusion, and sustainable agricultural livestock and forestry.
I would like to emphasize the Amazonian Minorbi working group.
For the first time and with the support of the bank, Minorbi established a dedicated working group for the eight Amazon countries.
Together, they are advancing the development of a strategic framework for sustainable urban development in the region, and it's a key working group for the Minorb right now.
Ambassador, thank you for being here.
It's a joint effort that we're working with Brazil, but for the eight Amazon countries.
The Amazon Cities Forum At the same time, we're supporting the implementation of the Blaine Declaration through our collaboration with the Amazon Corporation three organization, ADCO or ALCA, which brings together 45 cities from the eight country members to advance also in the Eurban agenda.
Priorities are clear.
We need to strengthen local capacities through better data, planning, and technical assistance alongside with developing project pipelines, investing in people, housing, water, and mobility, and integrating nature into urban development, particularly through nature based solutions and stronger forest city linkages.
ADB has invested in financing and innovation to enable a model that values standing forest biodiversity and the well being of local populations.
Over the past two years, Amazonia Forever or Mason Siempre has grown from 1 billion in 2023 to almost 5 billion in 2025 in investments.
More than 1.6 billion has been mobilized through different donors and coordination and support for about 180 organizations through different networks like ministries of Finance, research institutions, cities, national development banks has been key to advance in this agenda.
In 2024, IDB Invest, which is the private sector armor of the IDB Group, also developed Amazonia forever private sector roadmap, and they did the sustainability week of bidding bells for private sector in the Amazon as well.
And for the first time in history, Day history, indigenous, Afro descending and traditional people organizations are directly executing projects that we have developed together with different donors like the Green Clamthon.
Now let's switch and talk about the Caribbean.
If in the Amazon future, the biome is also shaped by cities, in the Caribbean, the future of development depends on cities abilities to anticipate, withstand, and recover to natural disasters.
This is why our president led an initiative similar to the Amazon about integration in the Caribbean called an Caribbean and we develop an IDB group program called ready and resilient in the Americas and B invest the private sector part of the bank is developing ready and resilient enterprises to help as part of these initiatives connect urban development and financing better with risk information to invest wisely, stronger regional coordination and respond to natural disasters and climate shocks.
One Caribbean supports Caribbean countries in strengthening the mutual assistance amongst them, and is designed to also mobilize financing and strengthen preparedness and execution.
Ready and resilient Americas is a new program of the bank as well to strengthen disaster resiliency with more than $10 million in grant financing for preparation, and we have three main areas of action, improve risk information, coordination among countries, sub regional networks and cities, and innovative finance to invest resiliency also and transfer risk through different financing mechanism.
The Caribbean can serve as a laboratory for regional resiliency and open risk data, coordination, and innovative financing.
Here, I would like to strengthen the example that we developed in Barbados.
In 2024, a program was approved to strengthen Barbados climate and financial resiliency, including not only guarantees from the IDB and the European Investment Bank, but also grant resources from the GCF And the idea was to unlock resources to do resilience investments such as wastewater treatment plants.
DaBs expanding this model to another Caribbean countries.
Also, the expansion of the contingent coverage.
The bank has prepositioned 1.1 billion in contingent finance across Caribbean countries to reduce response times and mitigate impacts on the most vulnerable populations and cities when disaster strikes.
An insurance solution that is part of the agenda is the Caribbean Water Utility Insurance Collective that was created to strengthen the resiliency of water and sanitation utilities in the Caribbean.
It brings together the AB Group, the Caribbean Catastrophic re Insurance facility, and countries like the United Kingdom and the Caribbean Development Bank.
To close, Amazon cities are not peripheral.
They are central to the future of the planet.
Ensuring livelihoods in the cities is one of the most effective ways to protect the forest and the planet.
And in the Caribbean as well, the urgency is very clear.
Urban resiliency is not just another item on the agenda.
It is the condition for cities to continue functioning when the next hurricane strikes.
Many things.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Bonila, for these very insightful remarks and for setting the tone, in fact, for what we are going to be talking about today.
Indeed, saving the Amazon protecting it is protecting our planet.
We are indeed all connected.
Now before we move on to our first panel, I would like you to grab your phones, please, because I would love to take the temperature in the room.
If you could scan the QR code behind me, you didn't know that you would be taking an exam, did you? Please do scan the QR code and you'll have a chance to answer two questions.
The first one, as you can see, what is the biggest barrier preventing climate resilient housing and urban solutions from scaling in your context? I'll give you just a couple of minutes to answer this and we will analyze your results.
Let me move away.
Is everyone able to access the lidder platform? Wonderful.
I can see that you've started writing.
It's going to be very exciting to see what you come up with.
We have planning, translation, finance is a big one.
Unsurprisingly, no money.
I like that.
I think this is very clear.
Finance.
Look at that.
We have concessional finance, localization, culture.
Culture is interesting and we've been talking about one size doesn't fit all that we really need to take cultural differences into account.
We also have low income housing focus, lack of planning, willingness.
That's a nice one as well.
Regulations, actions, But finance that is really quite prominent.
Let's give you another 30 seconds and see what our final result is.
I think we have it.
We have finance and then awareness.
Articulation as well has been mentioned.
But yes, finance, lack of funding.
I think that unsurprisingly, we have finance, local policy alignment showing up very heavily.
I suggest that we move on to the second question.
Which solution is already showing real impact in your city or country.
So far we have capacities, communication between institutions, that's a very important one as well.
Problem resolvtion.
At the moment, all of our solutions are equally being shared.
Let's see which one will be the most prominent and that will be a good basis for our panels coming up.
We have greening, urban greening, solar energy.
Yes.
Well, we have some Russian, unfortunately, I can't help you there.
Lack of capacities, housing improvement, drainage.
But green solution and greening is being major here.
Are you surprised by what we're seeing on the screen? No.
Yeah.
I think that we are all on the same line for this people centered approach, which was mentioned by our minister, wind energy, urban growth.
I think that greening is quite astingly number one here.
Thank you very much for your contribution.
It's wonderful to know what you are thinking as well and especially to see that most of us absolutely agree with greening as one of the solution that is being already showing real impact where we are.
Well, I think this is a wonderful time now to move on to our first panel and build on that.
Please join me in welcoming on the stage honorable Ambassador António DeCosta I Silva, Head of International Affairs at Brazil's Ministry of Cities.
A big round of applause, please.
Let's also welcome warmly Honorable Ambassador Pedro Leon Cortes Ruiz, ambassador and permanent representative to UN Habitat at the Embassy of Colombia to the Kenyan Republic.
Let's also welcome Mayor Paola Vans Chaves, Mayor of Maas in the Republic of Peru and President of the Amazon Cities Forum and also Mr.
António Ppindi Olivera, Chapter four IPCC coordinating lead author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
What a wonderful panel we have with us today.
Please, thank you so much.
Thank you for being with us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's wonderful to have you with us today.
The format of this panel is really meant to be quite dynamic and we'll start with a three minute presentation from each of our panelists, followed by about 15 minutes of a discussion.
I would like to start with you, Honorable Ambassador António Dacosta Silva.
I would like to start with your 3 minutes presentation, please.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon to all.
Wonderful to be in this panel, wonderful to be speaking about frontlines because the Amazon region is certainly one, one that's always in the imagination of all of you.
But the imagination is usually green.
Juan Pablo Barilla has made my life easier by showcasing that there is, I would say, an essential need to have a people centered approach to sustainability in the Amazon region, and in the whole of the Amazon region, this means looking not only to the forests, but certainly looking to the cities and understanding the intimate correlation that exists between forest sustainability and cities sustainability and resilience.
In Brazil, I think Juan Pao Bono already pointed that out, 77% of the population of Amazon Biya live in cities.
Some of them fairly large cities like it is the case of Belen and Manas, and not surprisingly, because of the problems of urbanization in the whole of Latin America, which are certainly no exception in the Amazon region, one of the cities that have the most percentage of slums in Brazil are actually in the Amazon region.
57% of the population of the housing population in Belen lives in slums.
I think Maas is not far apart.
I'm going to take a look.
Maas is 55.8% of the population.
The two other cities that are in the Amazon region also have high percentage of slums, which is Santaren around 30% and Makaa around 27%.
As you can see, inequality and vulnerability walk together in the Amazon region and there is no way we're going to be speaking about sustainable Amazon region without us addressing the issue of urbanization of inclusion, and all vulnerability.
Bear in mind, people that spoke a lot about the flooding in the South or Brazil, But last year we had drought in the Amazon region.
People who used to travel by boat in the Amazon region had to walk the riverbeds to get water to go to school.
Life was completely put heads up because there was no water in one of the regions that concentrates the biggest capital of natural waterways.
Globe.
That is the reality that we face, and that is why Brazil has spearheaded together with the other Amazon countries, a number of initiatives to try to address this.
Those initiatives have what I would call a multi level multi governance approach in which we are trying to bring the voice of cities who share problems, who can help each other to get together, the cities of the whole Amazon region.
To the Forum of Amazonian cities that we created in 2023.
Then later on, because we understood the need to address this from a regional perspective, we also organized what we call the Forum of Ministers of Housing and Urbanization of the Amazon region in order to address this in a systemic way, both from the national level and the local level.
Obviously, the regional level is always there because we are talking about the Amazon region.
But happily, I think we have institutions that have worked this out.
I won't get any length here because Juan Pablo really made my life easy.
But I want to make sure that we understand what we're talking here.
We need to start looking at the Amazon region, not at the trees, but at the people, at the cities, at the territories and how they articulate life sustainability and development.
If we don't do that, there will be no sustainable solution to the Amazon region.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Honorable Ambassador.
Let me now move to you for your 3 minutes presentation, please, Honorable Ambassador Cortes Ruiz, please.
Thank you very much, Madam Moderator.
It's an honor, a pleasure to be with my colleagues here.
As an ambassador and permanent representative of Colombia in Nairobi, and participating in the forum is very refreshing because sometimes in negotiations, there is a little space to really have free deliberations.
I think here, this issue we are discussing today among, especially the country that share the amason basin is very important.
It's obviously that a one country approach is convenient is not necessary.
Thank you, doctor Bonilla, also for highlighting obviously the need for a regional approach.
Colombia, as you know, has the privilege to be the second most biodiverse country in the planet, but also at the same time, the disadvantage of being highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
This dual condition is very evident in our urban settlement in the Amazon region, where the immense biodiverse potential for bioeconomy, natural based solutions, and carbon sequestration meets challenges like extreme weather events that can lead very quickly to natural disasters and loss of housing and critical infrastructure.
This was the case of one of our Amazon capitals, Makoa, where in 2017, a landslide caused by extreme rainfall raised entire neighborhoods with more than 300 people death and 17,000 people affected, having lost their houses and livelihoods.
The remoteness of sub urban centers brings challenges on its own in relation to waste management and access to basic services that become even more challenging in the face of the impacts of climate change.
As Colombia insisted during the Cp 16 of biodiversity in Cali, we need to include biodiversity as a core strategy for climate action, and most importantly, this needs to include the voices, needs, and contributions of indigenous people, of local communities, and people of African descent.
The human settlement in our Amazon cities are the perfect setting where all these converge.
This is why we promote the vision of our biodiverse habitats as an approach to urban land and housing policy that is centered in water sources, the native people and the local ecosystems where communities are the stewards of the entire process.
Another aspect that the Amazon offers in terms of housing and land policy is the opportunity for regional cooperation.
Many of our Amazon cities are at the border with other countries, Peru, Brazil.
Indeed, most of them are in any case, closely connected by the ecosystems themselves and the peoples that inhabit them, which is why beyond the national measures that each of our countries can take, we can, in the framework of OTCA and with support from our regional financial institutions, develop joint strategies to build climate resilience into our communities and ecosystems through biodiversity Center habitat Management.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
So let me turn to you now, Mayor Vances Chaves, for your contribution as well.
And please note that Mayor Chaves will be speaking in Spanish, so do feel free to use the headsets that are on your seats if needed.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce myself.
I'm Paola Vans Chavez, Mayor of Mines Capital of Quitos in Peru, and I'm here on behalf of the Forum of Amazon Cities.
I'm honored to share this space to be a panelist on this important discussion about how to build urban resilience.
Please and people that share and are committed with this and all types of stakeholders working on building a sustainable future.
It's worth noting to say that in the forum of Amazon Cities was created in 2023.
So the presidency was assigned to our province to minus.
I'm the current mayor of this region in Peru, and nowadays this forum is made of 45 cities from eight Amazon countries.
This forum has the main aim of of stating that urbanization in the Amazon region is a really unique phenomenon.
One of our aspirations is to provide an open space for cities so that they can exchange knowledge, experiences, and insights so that their potentialities are well regarded and considered by the member cities and the joint and an objective is to strengthen efforts to develop our communities by preserving our environment.
At the same time, that's the main purpose in the creation of the forum, and we represent the Peru, and Quitos is one of the main Amazon cities.
Thank you.
And lastly, let me come to you, Mr.
Pupinlivera, for your opening presentation.
Yeah.
Well, I would add that you mentioned before that Amazon is actually urbanizing area.
But I would say also important part is one of the poorest regions in Latin America.
In Brazil, particularly, and also very weak local governments.
That's my area of work.
And one of my projects now is looking at local governments in the Amazon.
When you think about cities not only about housing and infrastructure livelihoods and the big challenge in the Amazon experience in the last few years I've been there in this project is actually drought in the infrastructure because the rain we had here three days ago is normal.
Just going to meet after the rain and then finish the rain and just go and meet.
The problem is a drought that's long period.
All the infrastructure many of you may not know, Amazon doesn't have roads, many places or rivers by boat and then disturb a lot when you have a big drop, and then you have issues about transportation also, a lot of health services in the Amazon is by boat and the hospital boats cannot get to the places.
Also, a lot of the goods that people produce cannot be delivered.
They see a lot of issues also local governments actually they receive some money when they have a calamity.
Most of the money I was in Santa as a second city in Paradise State in 2023 when we have this big drought and all the money they got for calamity actually went to transportation.
To bring people in and out, people are locked in some neighborhoods.
Even the city, some neighborhoods, you can only access by boat when there was no water and then issue particularly I think improved resilience, not only adaptation, but issues about loss and damage, insurance and finance and that you touch that.
I think these are the points that sometimes people don't think Amazon flooding.
But this kind of rain actually people use is not a big flood in there, but issue about drought and then access to infrastructure.
The Amazon infrastructure really poor and the local governments are also very weak capacity to respond and there's not enough the resources that get from all levels of government when you have those kinds of ct.
Thank you very much for your presentations to you all.
Before we proceed to a more moderated discussion, I just want to thank you first of all, for putting a very human face, in fact, onto the issues that the Amazon is facing because I think that for a lot of us, the Amazon seems so foreign and alien almost.
And I just want to stress that we are all connected to your region.
Every single breath that we take in some ways depends on the living organism and ecosystems that the Amazon rainforest sustains.
So thank you very much for being here.
This is such a vital conversation.
Let's get really technical now and let me go back to you, Honorable Ambassador Dacosta I Silva, to ask you what needs to shift now to move from the commitments made in Billing at Cp 30 into real implementation on the ground.
Well, we didn't have any specific commitments to the Amazon region made in Bing, although we did host a cop there.
But I do think Professor Poppin pointed out, I think the main issues that we need to tackle.
First and foremost, obviously, I saw when you asked what the issues were, I saw that finance was there with significant highlight.
Absolutely true.
We need resources, but more than resources, we need capacity building.
That's why actually we created the Forum of Amazonian cities as the mayor of Manas, who presides the forum currently pointed out, which is cooperation amongst cities allow us to at least to diminish the lack of technical capacity, ensure that we have common knowledge to common problems, that we address the issues of the cities in a systemic way.
Because you can put a lot of money if you don't have the technical capacity at the city level is an issue.
The second issue Professor Poppin pointed out is infrastructure.
The Amazon region needs an Amazon approach to infrastructure.
Yes, you can think about building public transportation, but how do you address public transportation in cities where people travel by boat most of the time? You can talk about sanitation, but sanitation in places that are significantly wet and where you need to preserve the river systems requires a different approach to sanitation.
Waste management.
Sometimes waste management is also an issue.
Finally, there is an issue that people seem to forget, which is contrary to what happens in the rest of Latin America when sparse cities are fairly close to each other and there is a network of cities mostly in the coastline.
Amazon region, some cities are very far apart from each other.
So yes, they share problems, but they don't necessarily will be able to share resources because distance are so significant.
Some of the municipalities in Brazil have territories that are the size of countries and it is significant.
These municipalities are usually poor, poorly staffed, far away from the resources, technical, financial capacity building that we need.
Those are the issues that we need to tackle.
I think the forum is the first answer to that in 2023, and we were really happy Brazil to move that process forward.
I think the Amazon maneuver is the second, I think, response to that.
But I think the third one, and I think this is one that this particular meeting addresses, is making sure that the international community understands what Juan Pao Bonilo pointed out, the connection between the biome and the people and where they live and thrive and need to develop.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ambassador.
Let me come to you now, Ambassador Cortes Ries to ask you.
What does just adaptation in fact require from a housing and urban policy? Thank you, Madam Moderator.
Let me begin reiterating the importance of the deliberation of these issues here in this European forum because just adaptation is something that is very contentious.
I don't want to say frustrated, but I remember negotiating some decisions in environmental multilateralism.
That's just like a taboo word because obviously, but we need to deliberate about that.
It's clear that there are different approaches to that.
From the perspective of Colombia, I'm focused on the situation of the Amazon.
First, as indicated by the intergovernmental panel on climate change, more than 75% of global CO two emissions come from fossil fuels.
So at the baseline, we need to collectively acknowledge that we need to transition away from fossil fuels and that the way we build and manage our human and human settlements has to incorporate this imperative.
I know this is contentious and each country attending on its national capacities is approaching to that reality, but we need to recognize that.
Secondly, Just adaptation has to be based on differential approaches that consider the specific vulnerabilities of indigenous peoples, peoples of African descent, peasants and other historically marginalized communities, not only in terms of effective participation, but also in terms of governance, direct access to resources and capacity building, ensuring that decisions and benefits derived from climate action and housing policy reflect their realities, territorial rights, and priorities.
This includes the consolidation of more dignified, sustainable and inclusive habitat conditions based on the full recognition of their natural and cultural diversity and guided by a territorial planning model that places integrated water management as the main pillar of development.
It also means the prioritization and promotion of self management and community led projects for new and improved housing, both in rural and urban contexts and self construction and delegated construction modalities that are cognizant of the potential and capacities of each community and each ecosystem.
None of this is possible without proper articulation with local governments and recognized authorities of indigenous people that have relevant mandates on land management and environmental protection.
Finally, Gs adaptation for Amazon cities also means removing the significant barriers that middle income countries with high environmental ambition face in accessing climate financing.
This continues to be the case for the countries in the Amazon basin.
For this reason, we insist on the need for innovative mechanisms that do not increase depth, such as depth for nature swaps.
Reduction of capital costs and freeing up fiscal space for climate action and adaptation.
These instruments must channel resources towards climate and human resilience and sustainable development with social justice, always guaranteeing macroeconomic stability and without adverse effects on investment.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Honorable Ambassador.
Thank you.
Like you said, no one should be left behind anymore.
Thank you for stressing that.
Let me turn back to you, Mayor Vans Chaves, now.
Because I want to ask you, we asked about some local responses that are working in the cities, but let's focus now on Minas.
Can you please tell us what local responses are working in mains and what actually prevents them from being scaled.
Thank you so much for the question.
It is important to understand that the Amazon region is a complex and dynamic territory, not only for the biome that surrounds us and isolates us as cities.
This biome shapes the way we inhabit, how we occupy, how we coexist.
In the city of Qtos, for instance, to give you a practical example, We have to live with extremely high temperature, we face common challenges to the rest of Amazon cities.
Despite the fact that Amazon cities are located in the same region, we can lack urban vegetation inside the cities.
They are not green.
So Also, we have a changing river system.
Every six months, the water level can go up and down up to 14 meters.
There are important differences leading to floods, droughts, and as a consequence, our urban geography changes continually, also water supply.
We face plenty of challenges.
These are unique issues that are aggravated as a consequence of climate change.
Climate change and its impacts affects especially these cities has a special impact on our cities, the forum of Amazon cities and the urban areas that our members try to reflect about how to grow our cities, how to achieve urban development, but focusing on the real needs and challenges of their populations, how to articulate, how to foster development of the urban fabric in harmony with our biome.
As mentioned before, always endeavoring to build a balanced area, preventing isolation.
We try to connect to be connected.
The forum of Amazon Citizes evolved over the years by creating spaces for the exchange of insight, best practices, and solutions within a very unique and specific context with our well devised strategy focused on our realities so as to mitigate the effects of climate change on the Amazon Beijing and region.
You asked which are the main local responses we are giving.
Which ones can be showcased here as an example.
At the forum of Amazon Cities, in the last two years, we managed to obtain quite encouraging results and outcomes in the field of cooperation among cities and climate resilience.
The first acts is to experiment pathways that this was created in alliance with the Inter American Bank through its initiative of always Amazon, Amazon.
What it did is to establish a pilot test to determine and show evidence to do better urban planning and public policies.
Within these pilots and instruments implemented by the forum, there's one that was implemented on 2025 called automated Identification of Trees.
This pilot was implemented in the city of Belen, in Brazil, and also in San Jose de Gubar in Colombia.
In this pilot, They took satellite images that create a geo map of reference in the city in order to determine the distribution.
This insight enables the integration with the existing data in the municipality to be able to plan better their cities.
In this way, with this insight, what they want to do is to provide diagnosis for data driven solutions in regards to their green areas.
Another tool that's within this experimental as is a pilot test that is called automated estimation of carbon emissions due to change of soil.
This initiative has been implemented in Colonial de Portillo in Peru and also in the city of Georgetown in Guyana and has had as goal to analyze the expansion, the changes in the uses of land in the last 20 years.
The other goal that this tool has had is to project scenarios of growth to calculate the carbon emissions, and the other one is to provide an aid for sustainable urban pification.
The forum, as I mentioned previously, has also two axis of intervention.
One is called strengthening the layers of the city.
This action seeks to Establish strategies of financing and resilience so the cities can create better projects and have more visibility and access to resources, technical resources, financing.
This has impacted 18 cities of five countries in the Amazon.
Another acts of intervention of the form of Amazonian cities is called Connecting experiences.
Here, we seek to promote the exchange of initiatives, the disclosure of good practices that are innovative in the Amazon.
Another project that's interesting to talk about that has been promoted by the IDB.
We have 1 minute left.
That has been piloted in my city is the globe is the index of governability and public policy in risk management.
Here, what was done was to create a pilot, an exercise to articulate the disaster management in an Amazonian scenario in order to strengthen urban sustainability.
Last, I'd like to close by pointing out that the form of Amazonian cities has a solid framework for this 2026, 2027 oriented to strengthen the technical capacities of each city and to find urban innovative solutions in order to point at the innovative Amazon.
And leverage our platform to be that platform for climate change, also to articulate within governments, international organizations, communities, and academia.
All this in favor for a living Amazon that empowers our Beautiful piece of land, which is the Amazon.
Thank you very much.
Finally, and quite quickly, I'm afraid, let me move to you.
To ground all this in science and global data, please, Mr.
Pupin delivera.
How can science better support urgent decision making and investment for Amazon cities and communities, please? Okay.
Thank you.
Mayor Paola Bans mentioned that Amazon is very complex in the sense that many ecosystem but particularly culturally diversity and huge, larger than Europe.
Even from here, I'm going to Blaine.
I am arriving the same day.
I'm leaving Saturday, arriving Saturday in Blaine.
But the place in Amazon, I go, I take three days to get there from Blaine or to Blaine.
It's huge because of the infrastructure issues that you have.
And the problem science is exactly, I would say, can hurt.
Also science is very decontextualized can inform you, but you have to put into context.
Best way to put into context, you have on the other side, all kinds of knowledge like indigenous knowledge, local knowledge that on hand, they are also very slow to change in the issue, for example, climate change, how is happening.
It takes time, a lot of this knowledge they built on and learn by doing and takes time to adapt.
I think the best ways to blend those kinds of knowledge because this knowledge is very contextualized, but also not very strong sense of to understand larger issues that the science like climate modeling, S I think the best way is to have the science contextualize in where you use.
The best way to do that is co producing this knowledge.
I have here for you in climate change in the report.
One way you can get involved is actually reviewing, you just up for review in our second draft.
The report will come out in March next year, but you are now the second draft.
If you are interested in getting involved, you don't need to be scientists.
Practitioners, people who have ideas, who reports very quick, you don't need to review the whole report, just the parts that you are interested.
I will show you a care code next, and if you are interested, you can go to care code to just Google, climate change cities IPCC review it and then you can be review and help us to contextualize the science because you basically do assessment on science but general, but you really need the voice of people here in all session also exactly to contextualize science.
Thank you so much, Mr.
Pupin de Olivera.
I love this contribution.
I'll contribute as well.
I want to thank you, all of you on the stage for making such a compelling presentation today and grounding us in the realities of the Amazonian frontier.
I want to say Muchas gracias Mo Rgade and a big round of applause, please, for our experts here and Excellencies.
I would like us to take a group photo before saying goodbye.
I Well, this was fantastic.
Absolutely.
I mean, we learned so much, didn't we? Well, I would like us now to all turn our attention to the screens, please.
Because we have been talking about realities of our communities, what's happening on the ground.
We have brought to you a video from some of those voices that we recorded at Cp 30 and where you will hear about experiences from the people who are at the front lines.
Let's watch.
Think of the place where you grew up.
The streets, the sounds, the air, that world, as we know it, is changing.
To progress.
Destroying us flourished, D Africa.
For millions of people, the change is arriving without warning.
Climate change is not a distant or abstract crisis.
It is already transforming the places where people live, especially their homes.
Growing up, Lahore was not a small city, but over the past 20 years, it's more than doubled in size when that's brought by the challenges like congestion and traffic, air pollution, heat, flooding.
Floods, extreme heat, and rising seas are already reshaping the places people call home.
23rd Housing is one of the sectors most exposed to climate change.
The choices we make today will shape the lives of generations to come.
A better urban future is possible.
I would hope that in the future, the way the city develops and continues to grow is more people centered.
Every policy decision about climate, housing, and cities begin here with us.
We need to act now.
We need to act now.
What a powerful reminder that behind every statistic, every financing framework, there are real people, real lives, real communities who are just striving to try to live a better life with dignity.
This was quite powerful actually.
Well, we have heard so far that different faces really face the same challenges all across the world and whether this is degrading land, rising sea levels, it's ultimately about people losing livable space.
This is why the real conventions must be seen together.
To connect these threats across land, climate and biodiversity, while I would like now to welcome our next speaker, Scanlon, Chief of Communications, External Relations and Partnerships at the UN Convention to combat desertification, let's welcome misses Scanlon.
Thank you very much, Madam Moderator, Excellencies, distinct delegates, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues and friends.
The title of this session was really to tell stories about resilience, about living on the climate front lines, and we've seen and heard a lot of these examples just in the last hour.
Indeed, there is another story, the story of the three sisters who were all born 30 something years ago in Rio de Janeiro at the Earth Summit.
Those were the three conventions known as the Rio conventions, one dealing with climate, one dealing with biodiversity, and the third, the one that I represent here today is the convention dealing with desertification, but more broadly with land and also with drought.
So 30 years on, we definitely understand that all these crises that honorable Deputy Minister was reminding us about are very much interconnected and that resilience is that red thread that connects the conventions.
We know that and we've heard already that droughts have been a shared concern, and we've seen how droughts have intensified in recent years.
They've grown by one third since the year 2000.
What we've also heard from experts is that our future collectively will be indeed hotter, it will be drier, and of course, it's going to be more urban.
So how do we cope with this new reality? Again, I would like to share some of the stories that come from different parts of the world.
I'm not an Amazonian expert, although it was really surprising and also alarming to see the Amazon to be on the list of the global drought hotspots that was produced by our convention last year.
And indeed, we are seeing that the Amazon region, Brazil, is increasingly facing the impact of drought and aridity.
So the stories of resilience come from places around the world.
The first of them is probably one that most people associate with very prolonged and serious droughts.
It's the Horn of Africa and specifically Ethiopia.
Jima, which is a city in Southwestern Ethiopia, has had for many years to cope with prolonged droughts that depleted the soils.
What that meant is that the crops that people used to grow there, tomatoes and corn would fail year after year after year.
I'm looking at my sister here, I know what it means when there is a season of missed rains and indeed, this has devastating impacts for people who do not have any other alternatives.
So in Jima Ethiopia, the first focus was on restoring the quality of the soil, the productivity of the soil.
Despite years of depletion, it did show promise and actually what made a difference is choosing adaptable crops and adaptable ways of growing food.
Switching, for instance, from annual crops to agri forestry and planting trees such as papaya, bananas, avocado that actually could be more drought resistant.
And indeed, this is part of a country wide initiative on planting trees and planting trees that are adapted to those more arid conditions and that actually can sustain us in terms of our food.
The second example I'm going to use is from Central Asia, again, a region that knows firsthand impacts of climate change, impacts of aridity, but also increasingly the impact of a phenomenon that is known as sand and dust storms.
I don't know how many people in the audience know what sand and dust storms are.
I don't know if you would like to just maybe lift your hands and Say, if it's something you've heard about? Yes, I see some hands up.
Well, indeed, these are just tons and tons of sand and dust that are being dispersed around the world.
Actually, every year, there is about an equivalent of 300 of great pyramids of Giza that are being transported around the world through those sand and dust storms.
Some of them are positive.
For instance, the sand that comes from Africa pollinates the Amazon region, actually provides nutrients to the soils.
That's a positive impact.
But in other cases, sand and dust storms actually have very profound impacts for human health.
This is very much so in the Aral Sea region, where toxic dust that comes from that dried up seabed is having very significant impacts on human health, from respiratory diseases to some eye infections and actually has been post qualified as a health emergency.
So through better prediction of sand and dust storm, the region is also trying to adapt to these new conditions and indeed restoring that degraded land and planting salt resistance and drought resistant sacal trees and others.
The third example that I'd like to give is actually about aridity.
Aridity is very different to drought.
Drought is a periodic phenomenon, whereas aridity is when our land and our planet is becoming dryer permanently.
In fact, three quarters of our planet has become drier over the last three decades.
That's why there are a number of cities, including the city of Riyadh, for instance, in Saudi Arabia, which is currently the presidency of the UN CCD, that have been working on learning from these increasingly dry conditions and conducting urban forestry projects.
Again, knowing that we will have more and more populations sharing these increasingly dry cities in the years to come.
To sum up, ladies and gentlemen, I would say that When we see and our message here is that we're only as resilient to climate change as our land is.
When we invest in land restoration, when we invest in drought resilience, we can see returns that will be in terms of economic, social, health, and of course, environmental benefits.
And when we restore land, we do restore hope for our communities, our economies, our societies and our collective well being.
With this, thank you very much for the opportunity to connect those dots.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, misses Scann.
I'm going to get it right one day.
Thank you so very much for connecting those important dots and reaffirming this very, very strong link that we have with our land.
When we look after our land, we look after ourselves, so thank you very much for that.
Of course, on our path to discuss various climate frontiers, we could absolutely not ignore the small island developing states and coastal communities which are, of course, experiencing as well, accelerating climate impact.
To discuss, let's welcome to the stage now another round of exceptional speakers.
First, a round of applause for Honorable Harry Teki, Minister for Culture and Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kribai, please.
Let's also welcome to the stage, misses Gillian Hey Oti, performer and theater director at Dream courses Theater from the Solomon Islands.
Welcome.
Professor Carol Archer from the University of Technology of Jamaica is joining us as well.
And finally, Mr.
Simon Springer, United Nations resident coordinator based in Barbados.
Welcome to you all.
We are moving from the Amazon to beautiful island countries.
It's wonderful.
We're traveling with you all.
We'll keep the same format with a 3 minutes presentation then followed by one targeted question.
Allow me to start first with you, Honorable Minister.
Can you please start with your 3 minutes presentation? Thank you, moderator.
My name is Sari Takis, and I'm the Minister for culture and Internal Affairs from the Republic of Guinea.
I'm honored to be here to represent my country in this panel discussion.
Yes.
For a brief background, Gillis is a small atone nation in the Pacific made up of 33 low lying islands and it's about just three above the sea level.
As a small island developing state, we are highly vulnerable to climate change and the environmental impact.
Rising sea level, coastal erosion, flooding and droughts and salt water intrusion to continue to affect our communities, livelihoods, food security, and infrastructure.
We also face growing urban challenges, particularly in South Tarawa, where rapid population growth as placed pressure on housing sanitation and waste management, land, and public services.
At the same time, our remote and scattered geography makes our infrastructure development and services delivery difficult and costly.
Despite these challenges, Gubest remains committed to building resilience and sustainable communities through stronger urban planning, climate adaptation, and partnership within the regional and the international partners.
Thank you.
Could we please bring some microphones, please, to that last table there.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
But let me turn now to you, misses Oy.
What is the situation on Solomon Islands? Thank you for the chance to share perspectives from the Solomon Islands.
For us, climate change is not an abstract concept.
It is life reality.
Rising seas, drought, coastal erosion, and flooding.
Thank you for sharing with us today.
We understand how distressing this is and thank you for your courage.
Thank you.
A swallowing our ancestral lands.
These lands are more than territory.
They hold our stories, our reefs, our villages, and our lineage.
When they disappear, it is not geography that is lost.
It is identity and belonging.
Relocation, whether to Honara or provincial islands brings deep emotional stress.
Families live behind sacred sites, burial grounds, and traditional meeting places.
Custom practices, our cultural rituals become disrupted when communities are uprooted.
Livelihoods tied to fishing, gardening, and reef harvesting weakened and with them, the sense of stewardship that bind us to land and ocean.
Urban migration adds another layer.
Overcrowded settlements, dilute cultural identity, leaving many feeling disconnected from traditional ways of life.
For our youth, climate impacts reshape opportunities and aspirations, shifting how they see themselves, their culture, and their place in the world.
Yet, amid these challenges, there is resilience.
Communities are finding ways to carry culture into new spaces, to adapt custom practices, and to nature belonging even in transition.
This is not easy, but it shows that identity can evolve while still honoring heritage.
The lesson is clear.
Climate change is not only a crisis of infrastructure.
It is a crisis of culture and belonging.
If we are to respond meaningfully, we must protect not just homes and roads, but also the intangible heritage that makes people feel rooted.
In doing so, we can ensure that adaptation is not only about survival, but about sustaining identity, dignity, and the human spirit, Pgo.
Misses Oti, thank you very much.
I think that your emotions really spread across the room, and this is precisely why we're here today to hear real stories and not just look at statistics only.
These are real lives at stake.
So thank you very much for mentioning also the youth because at the end of the day we are here to build a future where just like we said, we don't have survivors, but we want leaders.
So thank you very much.
Let me turn to you, Professor Archer, to ask you what is the situation in Jamaica.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak and represent the Seeds Caribbean.
I'm indeed honored to speak about the SDS Caribbean and the issues we are faced with as a result of climate change impact.
Why the Caribbean you ask? Because our size is relatively small, 44 million people, less than 0.5% of the world's population.
But nonetheless, we are impactful globally and the extent of the impact is positive and negative.
Just preparing for this presentation, I reflect on a well known African proverbs that said, if you want to know how small things can be impactful, sleep with a mosquito.
That's what the Caribbean is when we look at issues relating to climate change impact, but we have to discuss the issues of climate change impact within the context of social, economic, political, and historical developments.
Because these factors impact land ownership, economic development, settlement patterns, our laws, and other institutions.
When we look at how the history has shaped the development of the Caribbean coming from periods of enslavement, emancipation, apprenticeship, and independence, we note that the legislations The economic development has shaped how our towns and cities have grown and developed.
This, in fact, has negatively impacted to the point where almost all of our capitals All of our major institutions are located along coastal areas.
In Jamaica in particular, October 25th, 2025, last year was a reminder of how vulnerable we are to this climate change impact.
And so what we now have to do It provides the opportunity.
Again, the mosquito might be annoying, but it also provides opportunity for us to rewrite the legacy.
How do we rebuild? How do we introduce new legislations? How do we approach the issue of land management? I will leave it here because then we will talk about how we would benefit from that renewal and the opportunity that it offers.
Thank you.
Wonderful.
Thank you very much, Professor.
And, um, Allow me to now come to you, Mr.
Spring, for your presentation, please.
Thank you very much.
It's a real pleasure to be here representing ten small island states and territories across the Eastern Caribbean I think what I would like to comment on is I think a natural segue to what the professor just mentioned.
What she didn't mention was that event on October 25th took out nearly 50% of Jamaica's GDP, which is a phenomenal figure by any stretch of the imagination.
I think there's a lot of global commitments that have been made around climate change, climate finance.
However, the implementation rate to try to deliver on those global commitments is falling well short and this, particularly for SIDS, is not due to a lack of ambition, but really a structural mismatch between what global systems and commitments are and what the local realities present.
First, I think financing is not reaching the front lines at scale speed or, quite frankly, the simplicity that's required.
Available funding is fragmented, difficult to access, and not aligned with how small administrations actually are able to deliver results.
Secondly, many of our countries across all SIDS are operating under very severe structural constraints, high debt, repeated climate shocks, limited fiscal space, which means many countries really have to prioritize recovery in replace of long term resilience.
It creates a never ending cycle.
Third, implementation capacity is really overstretched.
Many of the CDs have exceptionally small administrations and they're being asked to navigate complex global systems through multiplicity of partners with different requirements.
So to access a loan from one of six different banks or six different vertical climate funds is six different not only processes, but ways of making the application, which makes it very difficult.
And finally, a huge amount of climate action is really short term and project based, which isn't the best way to, I think, manage our financial requirements.
What we really need are integrated system wide approaches that connect housing, land, infrastructure, and livelihoods.
The need to be designed from the local level outward and even better at scale.
So closing the gap is not really only about more commitments.
So this is really a story about a requirement for better alignment.
So we need better alignment of finance with vulnerability, better alignment of systems with capacity and better alignment of solutions with the lived realities of our communities.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I think it's the perfect time to bring you back, your Excellency Minister Tekiati because I would like your reaction and ask you what kind of international support and solidarity is still missing according to you for SIDS on the front lines.
Oh, well, for small island developing states like Calibus, what is still missing is not the recognition of our vulnerability.
It's an urgent and a practical action.
We need climate finance that it's accessible, timely, and able to reach our communities on the f lines.
Too often funding process are slow, complex, and difficult for small island countries to assess while climate impacts continue to intensify.
We also need a stronger investment in resilience infrastructure, housing, water and sanitation and coastal protection, and sustainable urban developments, particularly in the vulnerable and overcrowded areas such as South Aa.
At the same time, SITs need long term partnerships that builds the local capacity, strengthens institutions that's the national and the local governments level.
And supports the local elite solutions rather than a short term approaches.
Most importantly, we need a genuine international solidarity.
STs climate change is not a future threat.
It is already affecting our homes, livelihoods, and our security.
The voices of our frontliners communities must be heard and the cb commitments must not translate into real miserable and actions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Allow me to jump to you, Professor Archer, to ask what lessons from locally led adaptation in seeds should be better recognized and scaled.
There are several There are several lessons that we've learned.
The first, I would want to put on the table because it really brought home in very stark contrast, housing and land ownership.
How we deal with, and again, because of the legacy, the colonial legacy and how land has been appropriated or misappropriated, we've not dealt with that in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, we do not have effective land tenure.
Processes and procedure.
With that, we know the impact it has on housing and communities and the wider society.
There have been good examples.
In fact, I've attended a couple of sessions which I've learned community land trust an approach which we could scale up in the Caribbean.
Um, the professor spoke earlier of some excellent example that occurred in Jamaica, but I think the opportunity exists for it to be widespread not just in the Caribbean, but in other small island developing states, the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Fund.
Developed in the Caribbean as a result of Hurricane Ivan, and we see the positive impact of that where the government of Jamaica and directly the people of Jamaica were able to benefit.
They have the insurance one for the livelihood.
Those small scale entrepreneurs, they were able to benefit as well as the wider.
And I also finally think that we need to this is an area we really need support in scaling up, which is that of real community involvement, participation, consultation, along with building the capacity of the local government and at the local level.
I think we have enough examples globally which we can adapt in the Caribbean and in particular, Jamaica.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Professor.
And let me bring you in actually, Simon, because representing the multilateral lens, what would a truly locally led and well supported resilience approach look like in practice across the UN and partners? Thank you.
I think from the vantage point of the Eastern Caribbean where I'm living, probably a truly locally led and well supported resilience approach would probably look fundamentally different than how we operate today.
Because I think across all of the small island development states, I don't mean to speak for my colleagues, but governments are very clear about what resilience requires, safer housing, protected livelihoods, and infrastructure that can withstand repeated shocks.
The priority isn't really about defining the agenda, but actually aligning ourselves behind it.
Moving away, as I said previously from fragmented projects and standalone investments and really putting all of our support behind national development plans and resilience strategies.
What does that actually mean? It means institutionalize our projects within government institutions, not simply project based, placing national and local institutions and importantly, the communities they serve at the very center of delivery, which requires predictable multi year financing that flows through national systems and reaches municipalities and communities rather than bypassing them.
We really need to take, and I think you'll probably hear this in every room that you go to across the wolf.
We need a system wide approach and not a sectoral approach.
Without that, we're going to be probably spinning our wheels.
And finally, we need to shift how we define success.
It has nothing to do with the volume of financing approved or the number of projects delivered.
But the true measure of success is whether our people are safe or our livelihoods are sustained and our communities can remain securely in place.
So we have the tools, we have the national strategies and plans, but we do need to align the system behind those with our full weight.
Thank you.
Thank you very, very much, Mr.
Springer.
You know, redefining how we measure success, that is huge.
Thank you very much.
To conclude our discussion, let's go back to the human soul of the heart of the topic, back to you, misses Oti.
As a performer, a director, can you tell us about the role of culture, using art to heal and communicate? Tell us about that in bringing people's realities from seeds to the forefront of global issues.
Thank you.
The role of culture, storytelling, and the arts in making the realities of small island development states visible is profound.
In communities like the Solomon Islands, storytelling, or we say talk story becomes a vital way of expressing experiences of loss, resilience, and hope.
It honors our customs and collective memory.
Traditional songs, chants, dances don't just preserve knowledge about our lands and weather patterns.
They make the emotional impact of climate change visible.
Carving, weaving, and visual art communicate environmental change through symbols and cultural motives, while community theater and youth performances give a voice to those living through relocation and disaster recovery.
From digital storytelling and film to cultural festivals that showcase how climate change impacts our identity, these creative forms ensure our realities are shared regionally or globally.
A Dremcas theatre in Solomon Islands, for example, we blend theatre, music, visual arts to address climate change as not just an environmental issue, but one that reshapes identity and cultural continuity.
We've partnered with local sustainability initiatives to dramatize climate adaptation in rural coastal schools, turn plastic waste into meaningful act, and create performances that give women and youth platform to advocate for their environment.
In a place that 98% ocean, these artistic expressions turn the abstract concept of land and ocean protection into deeply personal, culturally rooted in.
In summary, for the Solomon Islands and other SIDS, culture and storytelling are not just storytelling.
They are tools of surviving and global advocacy.
They keep our voices central in climate discussions from local planning to regional, global platforms like Wolf and COP.
Are we target to mass and thank you very much for listening.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to you all for sharing your realities on the ground with us today.
A big round of applause, please, for our experts.
Thank you very much.
Let's now proceed to our closing remarks.
And it is my absolute distinct honor now to call to the lectern, a sister, a defender of human rights, and a great voice from Africa.
Let's all welcome her Royal Highness, Princess Abs Jigma from Burkina Faso.
Welcome.
Thank you very much, dear sister.
Before I start, Your Excellency, my sister, Minister of ecology, it's a true honor for me to be back in Baku since at this point it's more than negotiations at the G 77 coordinator on adaptation with our cop presidency.
I think as a traditional leader, this has been my role today.
Listen to all the parties and see what we can come together and do.
Brazil has shown us the concept of the mucho, and the mucho come together and to deliver on the common task and our common task today and for life is to make sure that everyone has a decent roof over his head, that we have economical empowerment tools all combined.
That's the cross cutting nature of banization We need social services and having a home is not only the four walls surrounded.
That's why sometimes when we take our people out of the favelas and build nice buildings, you will see that they will go back because there is something that's missing, as my sister from the Solomon Island was, the intangible part, the soul.
When we are somewhere, we are belonging.
It's not depend on the color, It's not depend on your social level, but what you are sharing, and that is about sharing.
The Wolf, it's a platform where we can meet, where the private sector can discuss with the civil society, where the bankers, the multilateral, we have seen how they bring up solutions like coordinating at the regional level, making sure that we aggregate, integrate, and deliver and implement.
Contextualizing, that is the keyword that I have been listening and hearing and all the statement that has been made.
And making sure that we're co creating.
But co creating comes from me with shared IPR.
Often we talk about traditional knowledge.
But traditional knowledge, they are knowledge.
When you have science, if I'm sick and the plant that has been transmitted for millionaires in the Amazon or in the forests and Burkina Faso or in the mountains and and Azerbijan, it's a knowledge that has been transferred.
It's a science that has been transferred.
How are we going to capitalize that? This also.
We don't need to be shy and to push the button on that.
An example from my country, Burkina Faso that's where legal framework matters, and that's where our MPs and our ministers need to execute what we the people want.
Without a legal framework that is fit for purpose, Whatever you bring has a funding, it will be difficult.
Democratizing, knowledge, also decentralizing the finance all the way down to the municipalities, it is important.
Sustainable procurement, this is where we need to go to.
Sustainable procurement is not that we bring the sustainability part, the greening up the supply chain part.
Is that where you take an example, you built an airport.
You have an ecosystem around, you will displace people, you will have other surrounding cities, and some informal sector who are there.
You sustainable procurement is to say, well, being human entered, looping back to what His Excellency was saying at her opening remarks.
Being people entered is making sure that the local ecosystem of entrepreneurship, we bring them in.
So the world also like brands.
Informal sector, it's a brand.
When you're informal, you don't exist, then therefore, you don't have a budget.
When shocks happen, how are we going to support you? I think it is our responsibility as a traditional leader, we bring those into the heel of our leaders.
In my case in Burkina Faso, we do have a legal statute that's what you see me performing all the way up to the G 77 level and coordinating and talking to CP presidency.
We do have knowledge, but we have been treated as informal and I need to prove My legitimacy.
When I heard it in the panel, I said, No, listen, I don't need to prove that I'm a human being.
I came to her in the same way like you.
I learn and school the same way like you.
Let's have that mutual respect.
I think when we design Our uban cities, those are the component, the mutual respect.
I have been in Rosina in Rio giving a lecture in my capacity as executive advisor for the United Nations University.
We have learned a lot.
I say the academy, you need to step out, go to the people, and you learn.
The findings, the big culprits, when they win the call proposal, who, at the end of the day will go into the field, help build and make the roads is the one that we call the informal sector that will be paid on daily basis without sometimes a social safety net.
That's why I think that multilateralist need to take this as well and to the global stage and it's a good platform to raise and to engage.
It's not about finger pointing.
What I'm saying it's a call to engage and make sure that we're delivering that we're implementing the fit for purpose rules.
I Blemlcky we have decided to put in place the just transition mechanism.
When you were talking, I said, Well, those are the key points that the just transition mechanism will need to address and making sure that the national and the NDCs will be also integrated.
Because most of the NDCs, you won't see the ubanization part.
I think that is very important.
Cubans, we have also Nature, and we need also to have our nature to protect, to recycle, to make sure that we're living in a safety environment.
When you have floats, how are we doing? When Rosnia when it rains goes down, there is technology.
That's where science and academia comes in with water harvesting system.
And you have beautiful companies in Brazil, Sabespe just to name one, who's doing underground lakes.
Those technology can be also transfer within the South South corporation.
I heard also this word and sharing the expertise, experiences from one city to another.
The issues, we all share issues.
We should also share our knowledge and cities, local governments are well placed to make sure that we are delivering properly.
Capacity building, and again, capacity building and capacity building.
In my capacity as a co chair of the Paris Committee on capacity building in Blem we reach out to the Troika of the COPs.
I want to thank you again.
The CP 29 presidency has been very instrumental and we put in place the Muchia Burk Kindi Coalition on Capacity Building Initiative.
That has been ten to mobilize 1 billion to support the implementation that has been said there.
Because without budget this will be difficult.
It's important that and I'm very happy to see that the UN agencies they are collaborating together because it's the same one person that you're going to support.
Then for us, it is important and we're happy to see that the UN agencies, giving the hands to each other to deliver.
The bur Kindi and my mother tongue more means whatever you do, you put integrity at the core.
Humanity, humility, and beyond.
So our youth are our strong assets.
In my culture, a baby is an ancestor, and I have a due respect for him because he also have the solutions that I don't know yet.
But he will need our advice, all of us here because we do have expertise, we do have our This long term vision also that has a young ancestor, he may need our guidance to move along.
It is always important, of course, we do need a change in the financial architecture.
You have the compromiso of severe that has been discussed.
We expect that the work will be to and the path that we can mobilize because sometimes the legislation and the international finance also tight our hands and it's difficult even if a country want to help With the legal framework, it is difficult for him, even if you want to pass through the UN agencies as would be way difficult.
I think that those combines the good news is that we have defined the bottlenecks.
What I learned in mathematics is that the most difficult is to pose the equation to solve it is not the issue under your control, Professor here.
I think that with that, Madam Moderator, I was so emotional today to meet her.
I have been seeing her on screens and admiring her way of moderating, always knowledgeable, deep diving, and you are our pride.
Those are the examples that our youth need from the global South, knowing that it's possible to reach a certain level with a true respect.
Once again, very happy to be with you today and thank you for the excellent moderation as usual and thank you for this powerful moment of love that you shared, my sister from Samoa.
That's what we're here for.
Let's go back to settings where human being.
Once again, thank you very much, Baku, and I look forward to continuing with you.
Thank you to the people and the government of Azerbaian.
Another big round of applause for Her Royal Highness who really graces us with her presence today.
Thank you so much for sharing so much with us today.
And for those who do not know, Burkina Faso is also called L Pele destre the country of honorable and upright people.
And I think that today you are the best ambassador for Burkina Faso.
Thank you so much.
Merci Mercy.
Well, to conclude this fantastic segment, it is now my pleasure to welcome the Deputy Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbijan, the Honorable Mr.
El Nour Sultanov welcome.
Thank you so much.
And Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends I was looking at the questions that you posed.
I wanted to start with what was going on with COP processes.
As you know, with COP 28, the world was trying to stock take, try to understand what is happening in the world in terms of climate change and climate crisis.
Cop 29 in Azerbaijan in Baku was about raising finances to meet the challenge and specifically to encourage ambitious NDCs, which was the topic of CP 30 in Brazil.
CP 31 in Turkey, in Brotherhood, Turkey is really about implementation.
Regarding CP 29, we are proud that we pulled off some middle ground, some golden middle in terms of climate finance.
As you know, the result was $300 billion till 2035.
Is it enough to solve the climate crisis we are facing? Definitely not.
Is it on par with what developing countries, including small island developing countries, were legitimately asking? Definitely not.
But was it more than what the developed countries were willing to pay? Definitely, yes.
At the same time, again, I also want to draw your attention to 1.3 trillion till 2035.
The importance of Turkey and Cp 31 is really about implementation.
And what we see is that, as you know, per intergovernmental panel on climate change, the amount of resources needed to tackle climate crisis was actually $350 billion and it was required till 2030.
But what we say is that what is happening in Turkey, in terms of implementation, there is nothing that says that we cannot and should not reach that goal, say next year.
We shouldn't be waiting till 2035 to reach $300 billion.
That's not enough, as I said, to solve the problems, the crisis that we are facing.
And to me, Paris Agreement, perhaps the most important aspect of the Paris Agreement is attempt to keep global warming below two degrees and pursue a force to make sure that it's around 1.5 degrees.
But at the same time, to me, as important as is another celebrated phrase, Paris Agreement talks about common but differentiated responsibilities.
This is very, very important.
There are developed countries, there are developing countries.
There are countries that are historically and currently are the reason why we are experiencing global warming and there are countries that did not do and contributed the least to global warming, but are suffering the most Small island developing countries, they are contributing less than 1% of global warming in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
African countries, they contribute less than 3%, around 3%, but they are suffering the most.
Honestly, I don't think that we have human beings can properly comprehend the moral calamity of the countries who are being lost.
There are countries simply because certain countries developed and having a good life, there are some other countries that are not being damaged, they are being lost.
And therefore, in terms of climate justice, we do believe that, and this is what we have been doing during CP 29, it's not just about mitigation and definitely not just about adaptation, it's also about loss and damage.
So we have to think about that part of it as well because as I said, otherwise, this attempt is morally inconsistent.
So in that sense, we are also proud that in terms of Article 6 and loss and damage fund, important steps has been taken.
But again, implementation, implementation and implementation.
Decisions only are as good as their implementation.
Otherwise, they are going to be remaining as decisions.
I really was, and thank you so much for the inspirational speech.
I really remember this Cop 29 is that there have been two things that really inspired me.
One was definitely this spark in the eyes of individuals who are truly trying to make a difference.
At the same time on par and perhaps even morally speaking, higher than that was this call and cry coming from those countries, as I said, who contributed the least and suffering the most.
This inspiration, I'm glad that we are keeping it alive.
Although in the last year, somehow this global moral rallying cry we call climate crisis is slipping away, I don't think we should be discouraged.
I think this resilience regarding climate is also about our take on climate issue, we should not be discouraged and we should be also willing to think that we can grab it back and move forward one more time.
Because to me, the struggle with regard to solving climate crisis, I don't want to with all due respect, to me, whatever inspiration we had regarding decolonization, anti racism movements in terms of economic development, climate crisis is that kind of a moral global goal and that inspiration, I believe will come back.
Yesterday I was reading this New York Times article and I found one good news and one bad news that I want to share with you.
Good news is, I think in the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change Report, we expect to see that the worst case scenario, which was expected to happen until 2,100, which was about more than five degrees increase in global temperatures will be reduced to around 3.5 degrees.
This is good news.
But bad news is, we already warmed up the planet by 1.4 degrees Celsius compared to pre industrial era, compared to 1850s.
For many people, 1.5, which is indicated in the Paris Agreement, is no longer attainable.
We don't believe in that and we emphasized at Cp 29 that we should really still paint in terms of 1.5 and not two degrees.
But at the same time, I want to draw your attention to one fact that if we have some good news, it's not because of the consciousness that we have, it's not because of the conscious activities we are taking and steps we are taking to solve the climate crisis.
It's happening because of some exogenous unrelated factors.
I don't know whether this is bad news or good news, but it's a fact.
We are today on a better path as per yesterday's initial report because of geopolitical things and issues and crisis happening in the world.
And we are there because also certain countries, because of their energy security has been taking certain measures to ensure their energy security, which in turn resulted in the decreased precipitous decline in the cost of some green solutions, which in turn enables us to think about greening up in a revolutionary manner and hopefully, again, to meet the target of two degrees.
What I'm trying to say is that it's really technology and the cost of technology that is driving what is happening.
I don't know whether this is good news or bad news.
In a sense, again, it's good that again, it's taking us towards solving the problems that we are facing.
But it hurts my feelings that it's not because only because or mainly because of the fact that we care so much about the climate crisis we are having, but good or bad, again, we are moving towards that.
I was very happy to saw that kind of report.
Thinking about housing and the climate crisis and the point, the intersection, I was also thinking that what the climate crisis is hitting harder, which are least developed countries, least developed countries.
And within those countries, climate crisis is hitting people with lower socioeconomic status.
The same thing with housing.
I think housing crisis is hitting the countries that are least developed, less developed, or developing, and at the same time between those countries, it's hitting those with a lower socioeconomic status.
And To me, also regarding the spirit of this WF 13, what are those things that we could do that could solve climate crisis and at the same time housing crisis? I wanted to give you some examples from Azerbijan and then conclude my speech.
In fact, when you look at this issue and what we are facing in Azerbijan is urban planning actually could help a lot of good urban planning could help a lot in terms of both housing and definitely in terms of climate solutions.
Because when you have good planning, that means that basically when it comes to energy, we housing means natural gas and electricity mostly.
In many countries, but not in all countries, definitely.
If you plan well, that means that energy basically is lost in the distribution much more than in transmission.
That means that your distribution lines will be losing much less than in unplanned urbanization.
Second thing is that definitely it's about the insulation of the houses.
In a country like Azerbaijan, when the energy prices are where they are, it doesn't always make sense to spend additional dollar for insulation because it doesn't pay back.
Uh, fast enough, but at the same time, another technological development that makes the cost of insulation lower are really helping us.
Again, I'm sorry to place to declare the technological change the main hero here, but whatever it is, we celebrate and welcome everything that solves the problem.
Another thing that we are facing in Azerbijan is that good urban planning also means that you can, for instance, like in Azerbijan move from individual boilers to central heating system, which is helping the climate, which is helping people in terms of safety, security, and at the same time, uh, enables them to live in better environment in terms of housing.
All you know, when you look at these things, I think that we are doing really great job, especially in Karabakh region and Eastern regions of Azerbijan because after liberating those lands, again, one bad news was that the buildings were erased from the face of the earth.
But at the same time, we saw an opportunity there because that meant that instead of brown fields, we had green fields and we could build things a new and then we were building things in you, we paid attention to all those issues whereby we helped with the housing, with the return of the people to their liberated land, but also making sure that our energy solutions, especially help the climate crisis.
For instance, when building those houses, we made sure that they are facing the sun such that when you place solar panels on them, you get the most efficiency out of them.
Insulation wise, we are making sure that that's happening as well.
Central heating wise, the same thing.
One last thing that I want to indicate is that in this process, One great discovery that we are making is that we always talk about public private partnership, three Ps.
This is important in housing, this is important in climate solutions.
But at the same time, we shouldn't forget about people as well.
Let's add another P to those three Ps.
It's public, private and pupils partnership.
Why am I saying that? Because housing essentially is a household level phenomenon.
That is not private sector, that is people, that is individuals, that is households.
Families.
What we discovered is that you can outsource a lot of solutions to the pupil's level.
For instance, instead of building those big solar power stations, you can talk about consumers whereby each individual house places those solar panels on top of the roofs and that produces energy at the same time energy from green sources.
We discovered that by encouraging them through different policies, we can make sure that again, they are paying attention to insulations.
P, the government is doing its job.
For instance, we banned in Azerbijan incandescent light bulbs.
We cannot import them to Azerbijan anymore and we are proud of that.
Private sector is responding very well, but with true policies in terms of awareness rising, making sure that people are also educated, including myself, are adding a third dimension to that.
And again, to us, Karabakh region, liberated territories of Azerbaijan are some of the best examples that we can export to the entirety of the world as a proof of concept that when those three things combine with all the inspiration that is coming from morally legitimate sources, we can really solve both climate crisis and the housing crisis.
Thank you very much.
Thank.
Thank you so much, Honorable Deputy Minister Sultanov.
Co.
I hope I'm saying that right.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Ladies and gentlemen, I really want to thank you as well for being with us today.
This has been a fantastic session, 2 hours where we learned so much and my goodbye is going to be very simple.
Let's look after each other, let's look after our planet, and let's make sure that our generation is really the one that turns the tide and turned these global commitments into thriving lives.
So thank you once again.
Enjoy the rest of the forum and goodbye.
Oh, I'm being reminded.
Let's take a group photo, please.
I would like to call all our speakers back on the stage for a group photo, please.
Thank you for joining us onstage.
CONF
Conferences
Special Session - Stories from the Climate Frontlines (WUF13)
The thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 17 to 22 May 2026. The theme of WUF13 is: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
Description
How can frontline experiences reshape global climate action for housing and cities?
Climate change is no longer a distant threat—it is already reshaping how people live, build, and survive in cities across the world. From rising waters to extreme heat, climate impacts are felt most acutely in homes and neighborhoods, where vulnerability and resilience intersect. This special session explores how cities on the frontlines are responding to these pressures and what their experiences reveal for the future of housing and urban development.
The session will examine how climate finance, policy frameworks, and local action can better align to support resilient housing, secure land, and sustainable urban systems. Particular attention will be given to Amazonian cities, where rapid urbanization meets acute environmental risks, offering powerful lessons for global climate adaptation. Through a dynamic and reflective format, the session will synthesize frontline experiences into an "Urban Climate Action Capsule," capturing insights and commitments that connect global ambition with local realities.
Guiding questions
How are frontline cities adapting housing, land, and urban systems to respond to increasing climate risks?
What mechanisms can ensure that climate finance effectively reaches cities, communities, and local governments?
How can lessons from regions such as the Amazon inform global approaches to climate-resilient urban development?
What actions are needed to align global climate commitments with tangible, local impact on housing and livelihoods?
Expected outcomes
The session will strengthen recognition of housing and urban systems as critical entry points for climate action, grounded in lived realities from frontline contexts. It will highlight practical pathways to mobilize climate finance and scale resilient, inclusive housing solutions while fostering stronger collaboration across levels of governance. The session will also generate a synthesis of insights and commitments that connect global climate processes with actionable, people-centered urban responses, contributing to the broader outcomes of WUF13.
Objectives Elevate the role of cities and housing as central to climate action, linking global frameworks with local realities.
Showcase frontline experiences and practical solutions for climate-resilient housing and urban development.
Identify pathways to better align climate finance, policy, and implementation to support vulnerable communities.
Strengthen collaboration between governments, financial institutions, and local actors to scale people-centered climate action.
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