CDKN staff will be hosting a display stand and organising multiple side events at COP20 in Lima, Peru from 1 - 12 December 2014. Meet us at our Alliance partner display stands:

Week 1: LEAD International
Week 2: SouthSouthNorth

Visit our Events Programme page for a detailed list of our side events with venues, dates and times, and information on how to register.

Follow our live updates, below, to catch the latest headlines from CDKN staff in Lima. For our blogs from Week 1, please see here.

Friday 12 December

10:30: Water scarcity is a danger sign – time to innovate, and fast

Freshwater is under acute pressure from climate change in North Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, COP20 delegates heard on Wednesday. Experts from countries as diverse as Tunisia and Belize urged visionary leadership from politicians to protect natural resources, reports CDKN's Mairi Dupar from Lima, Peru. Read Mairi's full blog to find out what has been proposed.

10:00: Amazon alert: climate change threatens human security

The Amazon region’s environmental problems may seem intractable. However, the Amazon Security coalition presents a new framing of the problems that could capture political attention, and a suite of policies that would shift society onto a more sustainable path. Mairi Dupar of CDKN reports from the negotations at COP20 in Lima, Peru - read her full blog here.

09:00: the Climate Finance Advisory Service presents new report on the UNFCCC's Biennial Assessment of climate finance flows

The Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) has published a new report, Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows 2014, to provide climate change negotiators with a synopsis of the key elements in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Biennial Assessment of climate finance flows. This is of relevance not only to the overall landscape of climate finance, but also to the emerging new global agreement on climate change, to be agreed at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Paris in 2015.

Read the CFAS report in full here.

Thursday 11 December

15:00:  Adaptation Fund and CDKN launch new website 'Climate Finance Ready'

The Adaptation Fund and CDKN are pleased to announce their strategic partnership and creation of “Climate Finance Ready,” a new website that will provide an online platform for climate finance readiness.

The site will provide practitioners and others with best practices, news articles, links to resources, opportunities for sharing experiences, and more. With the Climate Finance Ready website, the Fund and CDKN aim foster ongoing dialogue and collaboration in climate finance readiness.

The partnership website is a key part of the Adaptation Fund’s Readiness Programme for Climate Finance, which helps strengthen the capacity of national and regional entities to receive and manage direct access climate financing as they adapt and build resilience to changing climate conditions in sectors ranging from agriculture and food security to coastal zones and urban areas. The Fund’s direct access modality enables national and regional entities to directly access financing and manage all aspects of climate adaptation and resilience projects, from design through implementation and monitoring.

"The Adaptation Fund’s work in pioneering a direct access modality has been a success, and has also pointed to the need for further capacity building among entities,” remarked Mamadou Honadia, Chair, Adaptation Fund Board. “We believe this website and the partnership with CDKN will create a very useful way for all to share and build upon various experiences with climate finance."

"Web-based instruments play an important role in supporting developing country policy makers to plan for a climate compatible future,” said Ari Huhtala, Deputy CEO Policy and Programmes, CDKN. “To avoid further proliferation of portals and provide easy access to experience in climate finance readiness, CDKN has joined forces with the Adaptation Fund in building this service. We hope that such joint action will inspire other web developers to seek innovative ways of cooperation.”

Set your bookmark to climatefinanceready.org and check the site often to read the latest and make your contribution in the 'comments.'

Wednesday 10 December

13:00 Mapping a low carbon future

Leaders of the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) processes in Peru, Chile, Colombia and Brazil shared experience yesterday in Lima. They talked about what really happens when stakeholders get around the table to propose mitigation options. CDKN's Mairi Dupar reports.

If anyone thought embracing climate compatible development at national level was an easy process, Ms Lupe Guinand on Tuesday 9 December described the “shock, anguish, anger and frustration” her team has gone through to compile a set of options for Peru to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Ms Guinand is leader of Peru’s PlanCC (Planificación ante el Cambio Climático) which aims to kick-start the country’s low-carbon development.

Peru’s quandary cuts to the very heart of the United Nations climate change talks, which are taking place in Lima this week.

Governments are considering how to strengthen their national economies while facing the harsh realities of climate change: melting glaciers, rising sea levels, high temperatures and erratic rainfall. Climate change can only be stopped from reaching dangerous levels if society radically cuts its greenhouse gas emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that emissions are growing faster than ever before and the global economy must transition to zero net emissions by the end of the century at latest.

Meanwhile, governments “need to know the macroeconomic and social implications of the transition to a low carbon economy,” said Emilio La Rovere, a Brazilian expert. “They need to know the impact on GDP growth, on their public deficit, on income distribution, social inequalities, and access of low income people to improved consumption.” Each government representative at the negotiating table of the UN climate talks has a similar calculation in mind.

Few countries have yet been through such an intensive process of national-level debate on climate compatible development options before they reach the global climate talks, as Peru has;  but Peru’s experience in mapping a green economic future offers something from which other countries can learn.

Ms Guinard shared the PlanCC teams’ rollercoaster experiences and “can-do” approach at a gathering of Latin American countries in Lima yesterday, chaired by Pablo Badenier, the Minister of Environment for Chile. Ms Guinard joined counterparts from Colombia, Chile and Brazil who have all been trialling the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) process.  Read Mairi Dupar's full blog about the Latin American countries experiences.

Tuesday 9 December

20:00: Climate compatible development and the role of the private sector

Zero-emissions and Zero poverty in a generation: this can’t be done without the private sector, but how can we get them engaged? CDKNs business 2 business partnerships, showcased today at the COP in Lima, could be a possible solution. CDKN’s Chris Webb (in Lima) and Susannah Fitzherbert-Brockenhurst (in London) report.

Business is the engine of growth and forms the foundation of sustainable development by creating jobs, providing goods and services, stimulating innovation and generating tax revenue. Business has the ability to deliver the combined outcomes of economic growth, benefits for the environment and resilience against a changing climate. When businesses invest in climate compatible development, it reduces risk as well as opening up new markets and opportunities.

But why isn’t business investing at scale in climate compatible development, and how can we overcome the barriers?

Particularly relevant to low-carbon development is overcoming the barriers around knowledge, skills and networks. Business-to-business (B2B) partnerships are one way of facilitating this transfer of skills, and in doing so open up new markets, bring competitive advantage and deliver benefits to society and the environment.

CDKN is using an innovative B2B programme to build evidence on how such partnerships can be an effective way to engage business to deliver climate and development benefits and to show how public funds can be used to lower the barriers that currently prevent progress.

The event showcased our B2B partnership in Peru; where we are supporting a partnership between the Carbon Trust, Peru 2021, SENATI and Südesco Energy, which addresses the critical issue of leadership on energy efficiency in Peru. Through identifying corporate leaders who can leverage a greater focus on sustainable energy use, and through expanding the capability and resources of local energy efficiency suppliers, this project is demonstrating the power of networks and knowledge sharing to accelerate action on energy efficiency and the delivery of climate compatible development outcomes.

Hopefully, B2B partnerships such as ours can harness the innovative and wealth-creating power of the private sector to spearhead this low-carbon transition and demonstrate to other businesses that investing in climate compatible development reduces risk, opens up new markets and improves competitive advantage.

Monday 8 December

15:00: Will leaders ride a wave of public support to Sendai, New York and Paris?

Yesterday in Lima, Peru, international leaders called for a surge in public support for tackling climate change and poverty, in order to galvanise governmental ambition for three landmark agreements in 2015. Mairi Dupar of CDKN reports from the ‘Zero Poverty, Zero Emissions’ event on how the global public has to get a lot noisier to achieve coherence among the 2015 development, climate and disaster risk reduction frameworks. Read Mairi's full blog here.

13:00: Lima event inspires cross-generational action for zero poverty, zero emissions

This weekend in Lima, hundreds of development leaders and citizens gathered to call for ‘Zero poverty, zero emissions, within a generation.’  Spanning in age from school pupils to political elders, their goal was to transform thinking on how we can tackle successfully the connected, global challenges of climate change and poverty. CDKN's Mairi Dupar highlights the importance of a clear call to action, low-carbon innovation and how new partnerships and institutions must rise to the challenge of ‘zero-zero’. Mairi suggests there is optimism in the passion of young people to do things differently. Read the full blog here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS_74GruGfQ