Policy – Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre - Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
Policy - Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
Policy initiatives
In close collaboration with the IFRC and the ICRC, the Climate Centre brings an important humanitarian perspective to global policy processes, especially the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) negotiations, the yearly COP meetings.
In partnership with others, we jointly facilitate the Development and Climate Days for the COPs, bringing together grassroots representatives, researchers, development practitioners and policy-makers from all over the world to discuss how to build a climate-resilient future for all (see above).
Our engagement with the UN climate takes various forms: contributing to the 2022 IFRC submission to the UNFCCC on the operationalization of the Santiago Network, for example, and side-events at COP venues, while our experts are taken part in the Warsaw International Mechanism on loss and damage.
The Climate Centre also provides support to the IFRC in the latter’s capacity an official observer to the UNFCCC.
Photo: an intergenerational workshop at COP27 that included the Climate Centre and produced a five-point call to the international community to “get past the hand-shaking to life-saving action” on early warning early action. (Photo: Climate Centre)
Climate finance for National Societies
Global climate funds are difficult for National Societies to access, necessitating a costly and demanding accreditation process, so developing partnerships with accredited international organizations is vital.
National Societies can explore options for accessing climate finance through smaller funds, such as the Global Environment Facility or the French Facility for Global Environment, up to about 50,000 US dollars and intended to support community-level initiatives.
Some countries have national climate funds which may be accessible to National Societies: in their role as auxiliaries to government, they can make a strong case for accessing such finance to implement local adaptation projects.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”