A webinar on ‘India-EU Experience Sharing on Adaptation Planning and Implementation’ was organised on 30th June 2020, as part of the ‘Strategic Partnerships for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement’ (SPIPA) project in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The SPIPA project is funded by the European Union (EU) and the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU) is being implemented with MoEFCC as the nodal Ministry. The webinar was also part of the pre-conference webinar series of ‘Adaptation Futures Conference’.
The webinar consisted of a plenary session including a keynote address by Ms. Richa Sharma, Joint Secretary and Head of Climate Change Division, MoEFCC, along with presentations by Mr. Liviu Stirbat, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA), European Commission and Dr. Luc Feyen, Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission. The session was moderated by Dr. Ashish Chaturvedi, Director-Climate Change, GIZ-India.
The public plenary session of the webinar was followed by a virtual meeting between representatives of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, climate change nodal officers from the Indian States and Union Territories (UTs) and officials from the EU and EU Member States on three key issues related to climate change adaptation planning and implementation including:
- Use of climate model outputs for regional / local vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning;
- Mainstreaming climate adaptation;
- Ensuring local ownership of adaptation solutions.
The webinar was an initial step in a series of dialogues being planned under the EU-Strategic Partnership for Implementation of the Paris Agreement (SPIPA) project. It was structured as thematic discussions with a focus on exchanging best practices, lesson learnt as well as exchanges on opportunities and challenges in climate change adaptation planning at the state level.