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Climate change is one of
the pressing global challenges that urge countries to
effectively to reduce its causes. Although the Arab
region is the least contributing to the global GHG
emissions (less than 5%), the recent scientific studies
and research proved that the region well be the most
vulnerable to climate change impacts which are expected
to be extensive and costly. The climate change impacts
on the Arab region have already been felt in many
sectors especially in the past years in region. There
has been an increase in weather variability and a rise
of temperature that caused heat waves and hotter
summers. Extreme meteorological events, cycles of
droughts and floods, severe flash floods shifts in
seasons and variability of river flows and recharge
rates of groundwater aquifers have been also witnessed.
In addition, the Arab region which is already water
scarce, is expected to have less precipitation rates
that will exacerbate the water shortage problems and
will have severe implications on socio-economic and
environmental sectors, including agriculture, industry,
coastal areas, low lands and deltas, tourism,
biodiversity, public health, etc.
In order
to support the member states to face these challenges,
ESCWA is mandated to cooperate with its partners in the
region mainly through the Council of Arab Ministers
Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE), in partnership
with League of Arab States and the United National
Environment Programme/Regional Office for West Asia (UNEP/ROWA)
and other regional organizations. Under this
partnership, the draft Arab Framework Action Plan on
Climate Change (AFAPCC) which was solidly founded in the
Arab Ministerial Declaration of December 2007 has been
prepared and being discussed with all stakeholders. The
AFAPCC highlights key issues and challenges facing the
Arab region with regard to coping with climate change,
and elaborates priority programmes and joint actions at
the regional level for both adaptation and mitigation in
various sectors as well as cross-cutting themes.
In
order to strengthen cooperation on climate change
issues, the UN Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM)
established the Thematic Working Group on Climate Change
(TWG-CC) in 2008. The RCM is led by ESCWA and is guided
by the United Nations Chief Executives Board (CEB),
while the TWG-CC is chaired by UNEP/ROWA. The main
objective of the Thematic Working Group is to enhance
collaboration among United Nations agencies on programme
planning and implementation related to climate change as
well as assist Arab countries in addressing their
technical and capacity-building needs with more focus on
regional activities. In its second meeting held in
November 2010, the TWG-CC reflected the commitments of
concerned UN organizations working in the Arab region on
climate change issues. One focus area of this joint
implementation programme is adaptation to climate change
and conducting regional training programmes on
methodologies for vulnerability assessment. The working
group is currently conducting a mapping exercise of the
Agencies activities on climate change in the region to
explore potential partnerships in implementation of
priority areas, in particular, adaptation to climate
change. In addition, a platform for information exchange
is being established by the working group to share
knowledge and information related to climate change
activities in the region. Also, joint activities are
planned for 2011 in relation to holding a Regional
Coordination Meeting of the Regional Climate Centers to
coordinate development of climate databases and regional
climate models (RCM) among climate experts in the region
as well as conducting training on climate change
mitigation potential. |
