Environmental issues in 2023

Reflecting on last year, climate change was one of the most significant issues for our shared planet. On a positive, at COP27, important progress was made with loss and damage funding for vulnerable countries and nations agreed a landmark deal for nature at the COP15 biodiversity conference.

Good news was needed after a year of war in Europe and natural disasters including extreme heat waves, floods, hurricanes — contributing to record levels of humanitarian need. Scientists consider now to be a pivotal moment in terms of saving our planet and our own future as we know it. We need to consider carefully the following key issues in 2023:

Sustainable development

Hurt by Covid and the war – we need to get back on track. Supporting green energy and conserving natural blue carbon reserves is the right direction.

Climate crisis intensifying

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this year that limiting warming to 1.5 ℃, the Paris Agreement target, requires emissions to peak before 2025 and be reduced by more than 40% by 2030. However, the World Meteorological Organization’s Provisional State of the Global Climate indicates that emissions are set to rise again this year. We need to keep advocating and encouraging people and governments around the world.

Ramifications of Covid

An awareness of the destruction of habitats of wildlife must come from the pandemic. International cooperation is needed to ensure that we safeguard the entire human population.

In Asia specifically, we are still struggling with issues of endangered species conservation, air pollution, water security, deforestation and the destruction of coral reefs. 2023 is the year to support local and international environmental NGOs to make a difference. We need to unite to protect our planet not just for ourselves but the next generations.

Lui Walton Innovators Fellowship: Updates from the field

Alongside Conservation International, we are pleased to share some of 2022’s success stories from their outstanding cohort of Lui Walton Senior and Technical Fellows:

Colombia’s former Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Carlos Eduardo Correa, became a Lui-Walton Senior Fellow. He championed Colombia’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and strengthened the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement — resulting in the legal incorporation of new commitments to reduce greenhouse gases by 51 percent by 2030. Carlos also launched a 30 x 30 campaign — and this year Colombia announced that it has protected and conserved 31 percent of its lands and 37 percent of its waters, putting it well ahead of schedule. Carlos will provide strategic counsel to CI’s leadership to support institutional priorities in a just and inclusive way.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim continues to be recognized in the global fight for environmental justice. In 2022, she was in Venice with Hillary Clinton, where she received the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg’s DVF Award along with Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank. Hindou has been spending more time in her native Chad, where she is working with Indigenous communities to produce maps to enable them to agree on the sharing of natural resources. She led workshops with leaders from 23 villages to map 1,730 square kilometers (780 square miles). Looking ahead, Hindou is focused on the upcoming UN conferences on climate and biodiversity and advancing mechanisms to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ access to finance for conservation and climate efforts.

John Scanlon, CEO of the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation, was recently appointed vice chairman of the Asian Elephant Expert Committee by China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration. John continues to elevate CI’s priorities across Africa — and the world — by raising the profile, reach and impact of the foundation — noting that its 21 African member countries are home to most of Africa’s remaining 400,000 elephants.

Looking ahead, John will brought together 21 African ministers at the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Canada in December to address the need to tackle both the causes and consequences of human-elephant conflict. He continues to foster high-level dialogues and showcase short films, which focus on enabling local solutions and amplifying African voices.

Neil Vora, Pandemic Prevention Fellow, published a major article in Nature as first author on why global policy-makers need to invest in pandemic prevention. He also published an OpEd in The Hill calling on the World Bank to fund pandemic prevention through a new fund that it created earlier this year focused on mitigating risk from pandemics. This fund could transform the world’s collective vulnerability to pandemics going forward. Neil presented on two panels for the Aspen Ideas Festival: one on pandemic prevention (with co-panelist Victor Dzau, head of the National Academy of Medicine) and the other on how animals bolster human health. He has also been nominated for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award.

Justin Kenney, Global Ocean Fellow, began his two-year assignment in the Biden Administration this January, when he joined the State Department’s bureau of ocean, environment, and science. In this first year, the United States has resumed its leadership position on the international stage, and the results have been dramatic. Working alongside Assistant Secretary Monica Medina, Justin has been part of a team that achieved a string of victories, including: The 7th Our Ocean Conference which generated more than $16 billion in new commitments to create protected areas, promote sustainable fishing, reduce pollution, decarbonize the shipping industry, and more. They supported a historic resolution at the United Nations Environment Assembly launching a two-year negotiation process to end the scourge of plastic pollution that chokes our streets, rivers, and beaches. They joined more than 100 other countries in the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People to call for the conservation and protection of at least 30 percent of the ocean by 2030—in our own waters and globally. Last month, the Senate ratified the Kigali Amendment, which will phase down global production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), super-polluting chemicals that are hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Africa Oceans Fellow Charlotte Boyd is developing CI’s strategy for supporting oceans work in Mozambique. She is leading a series of virtual and in-person scoping meetings with a wide range of stakeholders from governments, national and international NGOs, and bilateral and multilateral funding agencies to understand the main opportunities and challenges for coastal and marine conservation in Mozambique. Based on these meetings, she developed an interim Mozambique oceans strategy for CI, which will be reviewed and revised through a people- centered strategy design process (IDEO) early 2023.

Charlotte and team also submitted a concept note to a Millennium Challenge Corporation-funded Integrated Climate Management and Coastal Development Project ($50 million-$100 million) centered on Zambezia, the second most-populous province of Mozambique. Based on this concept note, CI has been invited to play a key technical role on developing sustainable conservation finance mechanisms, including a new initiative on irrecoverable carbon, in partnership with BIOFUND (Mozambique’s biodiversity conservation investment fund). The fund will also provide technical assistance to ProAzul (Mozambique’s blue economy development fund) on investments in green-grey infrastructure and other relevant sectors. This two-to-five-year project will provide a key platform for CI to build a long-term program supporting coastal and marine conservation in Mozambique.

Climate Investment and Innovation Fellow Solina Teav works in the Conservation Finance Division to accelerate investments in global carbon projects, while also supporting the design, development and deployment of innovative blended finance strategies. Solina has been leading the Accelerate Nature Fund, CI’s partnership with The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Partnership growth discussions are ongoing while the Conservation Finance Division continues deploying the initial $20 million of capital allocated to the Fund. In August, Solina traveled to Peru to visit the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve REDD+ project — the first project supported by Accelerate Nature. While in Peru, she met with project proponents regarding the business model and participated in a field visit, which allowed her to see first-hand the drivers and agents of deforestation, and to engage with Indigenous communities involved in the project.