Good morning, this is Paula. While aid groups have become more visible at climate conferences, stressing the need for countries to take action to ultimately avoid future humanitarian crises, the sector has failed to reduce its own carbon footprint.
Conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza haven't made that goal any easier as relief efforts have increased, and with them, their carbon emissions. At a recent gathering, the Climate Action Accelerator, a Geneva NGO, presented a roadmap for aid groups on how they could bend their own carbon curve. |
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United Nations officials visiting a newly-built sewage treatment plant in Murin in Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province, 14 May 2024. (Keystone/AFP/Omar Haj Kadour)
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In recent years, as humanitarians have become more visible at climate summits to remind negotiators of the devastating effects of climate-driven disasters on vulnerable populations, the sector has come under pressure to tackle its own carbon footprint.
“In the communities we work with, we need to leave where we’re going to in a better place, to do more good and to do no harm,” Nishanie Jayamaha, co-lead at the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organisations, told a recent meeting in Berlin convening government officials and aid groups.
Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a “semi-dystopian” future involving famine, conflicts and displacement triggered by human-induced climate change generating intensified droughts, flooding and heatwaves. The IPCC has warned of a 2.9°C global warming trajectory if carbon mitigation is not accelerated.
“In some places where we work, we are being more effective. We’re contributing to resilience building, to a swifter, more effective response while reducing costs,” Jayamaha added.
But Béatrice Godefroy, public policy engagement director at the Climate Action Accelerator, a Geneva-based NGO that aims to mobilise climate action, said much more needed to be done among organisations. “We need to shape, utilise and promote a much more strategic narrative on climate action in the humanitarian sector. It’s not just about ticking the box.”
Read the full story on Geneva Solutions
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Here's what else is happening
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⛔Nato is not welcome in Geneva.
The announcement late last year of NATO opening a liaison office in Geneva has outraged antimilitarist circles, with around twenty activists protesting in front of the Maison de La Paix on Thursday.
Le Courrier (paywall) (FR)
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💰Gavi launches $9bn replenishment target.
The financing will be crucial for the organisation’s future plans. In the lead-up to the replenishment campaign launch, the Gavi board approved the group’s next five-year strategy, under which a few things are changing.
Devex (EN)
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🧎🏻♂️What’s Unsaid: faith as a way forward.
Working in the aid industry as a person of faith is a “dynamic struggle”, says Mohamed Saleem, a peacebuilding entrepreneur and manager at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He describes the often overlooked values that faith leaders can bring.
The New Humanitarian (EN)
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🗳️Five male candidates contest for WHO Africa regional director.
One of them will replace Botswana’s Dr Matshidiso Moeti, who has served two terms and is not eligible for re-election. Two candidates are currently employed at WHO headquarters, while a third is also based in Geneva and working for Gavi, the vaccine alliance.
Health Policy Watch (EN)
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👣Conflict in Lebanon displaces vulnerable Syrian refugee communities.
In southern Lebanon, the fighting has displaced more than 95,000 people, according to the International Organization for Migration, and damaged homes and the farmland where many Syrians worked as day labourers.
Washington Post (EN)
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An Iberian lynx cub (Programa de Conservación Ex-situ del Lince Ibérico via Wikimedia Commons)
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🐱European lynx rebounds from brink of extinction.
A species of lynx found in Spain and Portugal has rebounded from near extinction – a recovery that wildlife scientists are calling unparalleled among felines. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has moved the Iberian lynx from "endangered" to "vulnerable" on its Red List of threatened species, which is set to be released next week.
Reuters (EN)
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