.
As we mark World Environment Day, it is clear that the Earth’s ecosystems are changing rapidly, and urgent course correction is required if countries are to maintain and sustain hard-won development gains in the coming decades.
Climate change, ecosystem loss, and increasing toxicity and pollution – known as the triple global crisis – have emerged as existential threats to lives and livelihoods, and unless action is taken, are likely to push millions into poverty, inequality and mass displacement in the coming years. These trends are no longer dystopian stories of the future, but are now upon us and threatening to undermine development.
So, what can be done?
First, the value of multilateralism. As highlighted in the 2023/2024 Human Development Report, in its theme of rebuilding cooperation in a polarized world, addressing the global crisis requires new levels of collective action and solidarity within the international community. Priority must be given to solutions that bring justice and relief to the communities of the Global South that have had little to do with the causes of the global crisis, but who feel its effects the most.
This is particularly important for the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) community, which has been vocal about the need for increased international support for building the resilience of ocean economies, adapting to climate change, making coral reefs and marine ecosystems more resilient, and quickly launching new systems to address loss and damage from climate change. Given the historical roots of the global crisis and their growing conditions of vulnerability, strengthening global cooperation would also lead to consideration of forms of debt relief, expanded use of blue and green debt swaps, and forms of compensation for development.
Second, there is the need to harness the opportunities that arise from the transition. Blue and green solutions, driven by a new generation of thought leadership, innovative technologies, and sustainable financing instruments, emerge as the greatest development opportunity of the coming decades. New nature-based development models can help restore and sustain “ecological safety nets,” ensuring productive land, access to water, food systems, and other services that communities rely on for their lives and livelihoods.
To seize the opportunity, three key changes are needed. The most important is a change in behaviors and values that puts nature at the center of our vision for the future. Crucial is an evolution of citizens’ sense of their right to a healthy environment, their participation in decision-making about the use of natural resources, and their access to justice to redress impacts. Another key change is seen in economic and financial systems, with a shift from negative to positive fiscal policies for nature, impact investing that creates social and environmental synergies, the expansion of blue and green bonds, and the capitalization and rapid commercialization of clean technology investments. Equally important is a shift in development practices and systems through stronger community empowerment and local activism, solutions based on the lived experiences of communities, and locally conceived solutions on how to manage risk and build resilience.
The impacts of this transition will be felt in people’s lives, especially the lives of the poor and most vulnerable in society, through more equitable access to and benefits from natural resources and the environment, more sustainable food systems, climate-resilient water systems and rural livelihoods, forward-thinking infrastructure and early warning capabilities, greater access to affordable energy and lower electricity bills, solar-powered health, education and water systems, more energy- and cost-efficient buildings and transport, and new systems of environmental justice.
UNDP is working with local partners on many of these issues and is currently supporting more than 2,000 projects in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) around the world, investing $400 million per year in achieving global and regional resilience goals. In the Caribbean, nature-based solutions are at the core of this collaboration. In the Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica, our local projects are helping to protect critical forest and coral ecosystems, scale up solar power solutions, build capacity for new climate-resilient food and water systems and repair damaged ecosystems. In addition to local adaptation and community resilience, we are also focusing on upstream systems and policies that ensure impact at scale. This includes supporting the establishment of national biodiversity and climate change institutions, new climate and biodiversity finance plans, investment frameworks and tools for the use of blue and green bonds, debt-for-nature exchanges and other instruments.
At the recent Fourth International SIDS Conference, UNDP also launched a new Blue Islands and Green Islands Integration Programme, a $153 million grant-based initiative supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented in partnership with FAO, IUCN, UNEP, the World Bank and WWF. Working together, UNDP and partners will help participating countries around the world integrate the value of nature into decision-making, promote innovative nature-based solutions in tourism, agriculture and other sectors, crowd-in private finance, and empower civil society, women and youth as agents of change.
The world’s collective response to the global crisis and existential threats facing fragile states will be one of the greatest tests of solidarity and multilateralism in the coming years. It is time to move from dialogue to action.
Kishan Khoday is the Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Please send comments to the Jamaica Observer or Kishan.khoday@undp.org
