New York – Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, said on September 18 that it is important to launch a platform that determines climate change risks and solutions in a way that helps local actors and communities properly and early cope with the impacts of climate change.
Mohieldin made the remarks during his participation in the opening of the second day of Google – HLCs design sprint on developing a platform to bring climate risks and solutions together, within the events of New York Climate Week. The event was also attended by Justin Keeble, Managing Director of Global Sustainability at Google Cloud.
Mohieldin said developing a platform or application that shows users the locations of potential risks of climate change and offers possible solutions to deal with these risks – similar to the services provided by Google Maps on forest fires and air quality – will contribute not only to the implementation of these solutions but also to proposing how to finance them.
“Developing a map platform that provides strong evidence of climate risks and solutions will enable local communities and their economies to know the places threatened by climate risks and how to address them through identifying methods of adapting and addressing the impacts of climate change when or even they occur, and the amount of finance required for these purposes,” Mohieldin said.
Mohieldin noted that the HLCs focus, in this regard, on feeding the platform with adaptation solutions that the team gives top priority through the Race to Resilience and Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda launched during COP27 by the Egyptian presidency of the conference and HLCs. Adding that the team will also mobilize NSAs, including Race to Resilience partners, with the aim of sharing data on climate risks and solutions in order to build resilience to climate change.
“The world’s forest fires, floods, droughts and desertification threaten that climate change is happening at a faster pace than scientists predict, which requires working through two main tracks, the first is to reduce carbon emissions to reduce global warming to the level of 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the second is to enable communities and their economies to adapt to climate change and address its impacts when or before its emergence,” Mohieldin said, adding that the platform being developed is interested in the second track with a greater focus on the Global South that is most affected by the impacts of climate change.
Mohieldin demonstrated that the platform will mainly target local community groups, such as city and village officials, local businessmen, and the most affected social groups, especially women, explaining that the plan for implementing the platform is to be announced during COP28.