Nature-based Solutions in Humanitarian Contexts | Policy Dialogue

In the coming decades growing disaster risk, driven in part by climate change and environmental degradation, threatens to exceed the humanitarian sector’s capacity to respond to crises. The increasing severity and frequency of climate-related disasters exacerbate underlying risks, stoke conflict, and undermine humanitarian and development gains.

Within these complex humanitarian response dynamics, the environment is often overlooked, not prioritized, or is treated as an afterthought. Yet the environment is fundamental to effective humanitarian action for two primary reasons: a degraded environment can trigger or worsen a humanitarian crisis; and, humanitarian operations can damage the environment, exacerbating underlying vulnerability and risk.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are a powerful tool for enhancing resilience, supporting sustainable development, and improving the quality of life of affected communities while safeguarding the livelihoods and ecosystems they depend upon. Nature-based solutions can provide multiple benefits simultaneously relevant to humanitarian contexts and are one key approach not only for adapting to climate change but also for preventing loss and damage and sustainably managing natural resources.

Guidance on how to integrate NbS in humanitarian contexts can be found in the Sphere Unpacked Guide on Nature-based Solutions for Climate Resilience in Humanitarian Contexts.

The 28th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) in December, will hold for the first time ever a thematic day on “Relief, Recovery and Peace” (3 December) thus recognising the interlinkages between nature-climate-humanitarian crises. A key day to foster discussions on accelerating adaptation actions, preventing and addressing loss and damage, in both fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Co-organised by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Geneva Environment Network, this event will be an opportunity to amplify common messaging on the interlinked nature-climate-humanitarian crises and the need of common narrative for tackling both climate emergency and humanitarian action.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out in September 2020, “the climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win.”

More information: https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork....