WCC 2020 Res 030 - Progress Report

On (a): IUCN collaborates, amongst other with the Global Green Grey Community of Practice, which holds monthly webinars and develops various knowledge products, including on coastal resilience. For example, in December 2020 the Community released Practical Guide to Implementing Green-Gray Infrastructure (co-authored by IUCN). Established in 2020 and led by Conservation International, this CoP is a collaboration of organisations across the conservation, engineering, finance, and construction sectors to generate learning and innovation to achieve climate adaptation benefits for communities, their future generations, and biodiversity. More information: Global Green-Gray Community of Practice (conservation.org)

As part of this collaboration, the joint UNFCCC-IUCN policy brief Innovative Approaches for Strengthening Coastal and Ocean Adaptation: Integrating Technology and Nature-based Solutions was launched at the UNFCCC SBSTA Ocean and Climate Dialogue in Bonn, June 2022. Produced in collaboration between IUCN, the Friends of EbA network, the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee and the UNFCCC Nairobi Work Programme Expert Group on Oceans, this policy brief provides an overview of the value of innovative adaptation approaches that integrate technology and nature-based solutions in oceans and coastal ecosystems and communities as well as the challenges and opportunities to increase their uptake and scaling. The policy brief is available to download here; and 2021 UNFCCC event series details available on the UNFCCC TEC website here: https://unfccc.int/ttclear/events/2020/2020_event07.

Recent guidance from the Community of Practice is focused on engineering & construction guidelines for integrated seawall-mangrove ecosystem green-grey solutions (available at https://cicloud.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/default-source/s3-library/publication-pdfs/guyana-green-gray-infrastructure-engineering-guidelines-inclexecsumm-final-updatedfront.pdf?sfvrsn=fa704d98_2). This work will also be integrated into upcoming Global Mangrove Alliance mangrove restoration guidance in Q2 2023.

On (b): IUCN provides key knowledge products on the integration of environmental risk screening on one hand, and NbS inclusion, on the other hand, linked to finance options (Blue Infrastructure Finance).

Efforts ongoing through projects//mechanisms such as the IUCN-led Global Ecosystem-based Adaptation Fund (GEBAF), the Blue Natural Capital Financing Facility (BNCFF), the Blue Carbon Accelerator Fund (BCAF) and the IUCN’s Technical Advisory to the global Subnational Climate Fund (SCF), where relevant IUCN screening tools and standards (incl. are being used (incl. NbS).

On (c): For the request on the Global Coastal Forum there has been extensive work with the resolution sponsors, that IUCN Secretariat has been supporting to advance the creation of a World Coastal Forum. This has high level leadership from China, and the IUCN DG was part of an event to support this process in 2022. The consensus document has been extensively discussed and developed between partners, incl. with input from IUCN Secretariat. The Forum will be officially launched during the 2022 Ramsar COP 14 in November 2022.

Various resolutions/decisions of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS, 2017), Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (2018), Convention on Biological Diversity (2018) and this resolution of IUCN (2020) have called for a multi-stakeholder global coastal forum that brings together key actors to facilitate the protection, conservation, effective management, wise use and restoration of coastal ecosystems and ecologically associated habitats.

To help answer this call, a range of informal consultations and meetings organized by multiple international NGOs supported by government agencies, conventions and experts has taken place since 2017 to provide science- and evidence-based processes to support and mainstream local, national and international conservation imperatives. An International Advisory Meeting on the World Coastal Forum held in January 2022 in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China, hosted by the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government, where 19 organizations approved the initiative to organize the WCF, forming the WCF Establishment Group coordinated by BirdLife International and Eco Foundation Global (with support from IUCN).

The Consensus Document has been developed – with input/support from IUCN – that will be signed by the founding Partners of the WCF during the WCF launch at a Ramsar COP 14 side event on 8 November 2022, Geneva, Switzerland.

From Coalition Clean Baltic (CCB) under policy influencing/advocacy: In 2021 CCB continued advocacy actions at the policy level and continued monitoring different projects development; within this work CCB communicated mostly with local Member Organizations and addressed intergovernmental organizations such as HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, an intergovernmental organization governing the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, also known as the Helsinki Convention) and national authorities in the countries concerned. This work has comprised of the following major activities: We have expressed concerns at HELCOM HOD 60-2021 on D33 Offshore Oil Drilling, Lynetteholm Artificial Island and Deepwater Container Terminal in Swinoujscie; CCB appealed to the Danish Parliament with a copy to the European Commission, calling to postpone the decision on Lynetteholm project until proper EIA is performed and consultations done; CCB also co-signed an open letter to the International Commission for the Protection of the Odra River against Pollution (ICPO), and the Water Directors of Czech Republic, Germany and Poland regarding lignite mine Złoczew in Poland.