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UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, joined world leaders at the One Planet Summit organized by the United Nations and the World Bank, at the initiative of the French Government in Paris today.
The event was an opportunity for UNESCO to share key messages of UNESCO’s updated Strategy for Action on Climate Change (2018-2021), adopted by the 195 Member States in November at the General Conference under the motto “#ChangingMindsNotTheClimate”. The objective of the Strategy is to enable Member States to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact through education, sciences, culture and information and communication, in line with their respective National Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the COP21 Paris Agreement, and in the overall context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDG 13. As such UNESCO helps to mobilize and guide investments towards sustainable development and climate action, a key objective of the One Planet Summit.
Key actions focus on several UNESCO programmes, which promote interdisciplinary climate knowledge and scientific cooperation for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including those related to hydrology, geosciences, and biospheres, as well as the work of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. With the Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change and the Policy on Engaging with Indigenous People, UNESCO is well equipped to help Member States address these challenges. UNESCO is also one of the founders of the Megacities Alliance for Water and Climate, which aims to provide an international cooperation forum for dialogue on water to help megacities adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
The One Planet Summit marks the 2nd anniversary of the historic Paris Climate Change Accord. It is an alliance of hundreds of global leaders from all sectors, determined to demonstrate the power of collective action in addressing such a global issue as the fight against climate change. The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, took part in the Summit.