Linking Science – Policy – Society
June, 2024
Engagement activities: preparing for COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan June 3 - 12
In preparation of COP29, to be hosted by Azerbaijan in Baku on November 11-24, 2024, a series of preparatory events were arranged in Baku early June by institutions close to the COP29 Presidency. Selected experts and organisations were invited to contribute with ideas and proposed deliverables, framing workshops, moderating expert panels, and holding bilateral meetings. The event featured strong multi stakeholder participation, including from academia, industry, and the business sector. The International Organisation of Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development (IKED) represented GoNaturePositive! on the occasion. Other key organisations engaged included the ADA Academy, Baku Port and IDEA on the host country side. Multilateral organisations, Caspisnet, the Global Forum, the University of Geneva, University of Strasbourg, the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, and Caspisnet were among those taking part.
Below is a brief summary and reflection on some of the specific activities and associated considerations advanced through these days.
Science - Policy - Society Workshops Back-to-back with the “Transition of the Caspian Sea Conference 2024
Back-to-back with the "Transition of the Caspian Sea Conference 2024", a scientific conference addressing the complex and highly challenging issues confronting the wider Caspian Sea Basin, special break-out sessions were arranged with representatives of the COP29 presidency, ministries, universities, and also various domestic as well as international experts invited for the occasion.
The set-up was devised for candid, constructive brainstorming delving into the way that wider inter-actor relations impact our response to the sustainability challenge and hold the key to working out solutions to the complex issues at hand while generating value-creation, for cities, rural areas, and society/the economy at large. This set-up featured strong connections to the GoNaturePositive! agenda in several respects. The purpose was practical, aiming at framing constructive proposals along with a suitable process conducive to their advancement and further maturing for possible adoption at COP29.
The Caspian Sea Context
The regional context of COP29 includes the delicate state of the Caspian Sea as well as the complex relations between the nation states making up Central Asia. Situated along what arguably represents the most important trade route through the history of human civilisation, the Silk Road, the countries of the region are torn between various influences and aspirations. While infrastructure development and modernisation have picked up pace, the weight of geopolitical struggles pulls the economy and development efforts in various directions.
The impetus of environmental challenges, although strongly present through the dramatic history of these countries, is making themselves felt in new ways, including in regard to water management along with climate mitigation and adaptation.
The Caspian Sea, by far the largest lake of the world, is surrounded by a natural up-take/basin area five times the size of the lake itself. The weight of this extended, interrelated set of ecosystems is making itself felt in a myriad of ways. Yet, as was much reflected on in Baku during the events early June, the issues at stake are inadequately researched and generally under-appreciated. The need of realising better measurement, cross-border collaboration, sound governance and management capable of tackling the systemic issues confronting this vast region, was given due attention. Among other contributions, remarkable presentations by professors from the University of Strasbourg, contributed to a valuable overview and shared insights what is at stake.
Finance and Inclusion
Thus far, however, the actual amount of resources devoted to tackling the challenges of sustainability are far less than the situation requires. This applies worldwide, and in the Caspian Sea context in particular.
In Baku, the Presidency of COP29 signalled high ambitions in working out new vehicles for raising green investment on terms contributing to development on the ground coupled with greater public awareness and engagement. Impact investment needs to be devised so as to result in measurable favourable outputs. Nature conservation and regeneration has to go together with better terms for local communities, cities as well as villages and the country-side. Measurable benefits need to include jobs and a boost to well-being.
Public opinion is influenced by several factors. Mainstream media centres on alarm, the prospects of disaster. Feelings of fear and guilt are transmitted. Greenwashing blends with misinformation by vested interests, sowing confusion and labelling climate change a hoax. Many respond by denial and there is outright resistance to policy action on sustainability. Despite the loud concern of a many, the lack of active engagement by the world’s citizens as consumers, voters, or professionals, breeds inaction by policymakers and the private sector alike, leaving science to cry wolf in the dark.
Against this backdrop, new instruments are needed to combine, on the one hand, increased mobilisation of private sector investment in support of sustainability with, on the other hand, measures for awareness creation, featuring new means for channeling reliable information, underpin trust, and support buy-in among the public.
COP29 comes at a critical juncture and meets with distinct opportunities to launch a viable agenda in this regard. This is partly as digitalization and AI are just about to provide the basis for launching innovative user-friendly platforms offering the means for the general public to access secure investment vehicles directly linked to verified impact investment opportunities, coupled with an interactive awareness creating media platform.
Linking Science – Policy – Society
Considering the importance of better bridging not just between science and policy, IKED prepared and arranged an informal workshop and three breakout sessions which placed emphasis on linkages between finance, media, and inclusion. The theme was specified as “Bridging the Gap between Science, Policy, and Citizen Action for Sustainability”
In addressing these issues, KED structured the approach around three interrelated sub-themes (Box 1). Following an introduction, each was reflected on and advanced through deliberations held in parallel breakout sessions. In short, these sessions aimed to nail down the following:
i) Ways forward to improve conditions for impact investment to work out on terms conducive to trust and inclusion, conducive to support and engagement by the public;
ii) Making more of the power of the media - rethink and reorganise public communication channels for the purpose of strengthening broad-based inclusion and public acceptance of sustainability, and;
iii) How to unleash technology and innovation in response to outstanding critical sustainability issues, as in the field of water and energy, or for measurement, verification and validation of support for nature.
The group discussions were challenged to arrive at actionable proposals for further processing. The outcomes and results were presented and discussed in a joint panel session. Next, they have been fed into follow-up collaborative working groups tasked to prepare recommendations for the COP-29 presidency.
The 1st Caspian Blue Horizons Workshop on the eve of COP29
This conference was organised by the Port of Baku, the only certified green port in the Caspian Sea Region. It was opened by a panel featuring the Secretary General of the Port, the President and Vice President of COP29 the also a UN representative.
Means and ways of achieving favourable synergy between the global climate negotiations at COP29 and realising progress in the delicate regional Caspian Sea context, were deliberated, stressing the importance of new initiatives making use new technologies, tools and business models spanning the collection, processing and diffusing of data, interdisciplinary research collaboration, and improved intersectoral communication and collaboration. Baku Port committed to an active role and the COP29 Presidency underlined its readiness to pick up on advance such proposals.
Mr Mukhtar Babayev, Minister of Environment, COP29 President; Dr Taleh Ziyadov, DG Port of Baku; Dr Elnur Soltanov, Deputy Minister of Energy and CEO of COP29; Ms Nigar Arpadarai, UN Climate Change High-level Champion
A panel in the first day’s afternoon, moderated by IKED, considered ways forward for industry and the private sector to contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as addressing other outstanding challenges to sustainability. This featured a review of the status of the financial sector, challenges to food systems, opportunities in regard to Nature-based Solutions, and citizen engagement and the role of NGOs.
The ensuing brainstorming session drew as well as on the outcome of other preceding panels and tested the ground for key actors to contribute and collaborate to maturing concrete proposals suited to presentation and gaining support at COP29.
Summarising Conclusions and Way Forward
The outcomes of the deliberations and maturing of concrete proposals for actionable agendas playing into COP29 will be subjected to further processing, through linkages between the domestic actors, participants from other countries in the Caspian Sea region, and international consultations.
Among the tangible outputs worked on in the aftermath of the event, inputs are being collected for how to frame an inspiring space suited to cross-sector interfaces for capacity building through enhanced linkages between education, entrepreneurship, and job creation, drawing on local culture and nature regeneration.
The emphasis of the hosting country to identify new vehicles and partnership arrangements in support sustainability, while at the same time realising favourable impacts for local communities, citizens and society at large, link importantly to the ongoing efforts of GoNaturePositive! The continued preparations and the undertaking of COP29 should thus provide further opportunities to advance the objectives of the project.