Topic of the Day - International climate change forums

UPSC Exam Preparation: Topic of the Day – International climate change forums

Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA)

• It was adopted in 1994 and further complemented by The Mauritius Strategy of Implementation (MSI) of 2005 which deals with the problems of climate change financing in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
• These documents recognized that although SIDS are afflicted by economic difficulties and confronted by development imperatives similar to those of developing countries generally, have their own peculiar vulnerabilities and characteristics.
• Their major problems are their small size, remoteness, narrow resource and export base, and exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks, including to a large range of impacts from climate change and potentially more frequent and intense natural disasters.
• SIDS’ unique and particular vulnerabilities are highlighted in “The Future We Want”, adopted at Rio+20.

Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)

• CORDEX is a World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) sponsored program to produce regional climate change scenarios globally, contributing to the IPCC Assessment reports and to the climate community.
• CORDEX will produce an ensemble of multiple dynamical and statistical downscaling models (regional details).
• Global Climate Model (GCM): it can give information which is reliable for about 1000 km on differing landscapes from mountains to plains with potential for Floods, droughts or any other extreme events.
• Regional Climate Models (RCM) applied over a limited area and driven by GCMs can provide information on much smaller scales supporting more detailed impact and adaptation assessment and planning, which is vital in many vulnerable regions of the world.

Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA)

• NAZCA is an international stage which brings all stakeholders like civil society, investors to play a part to work on issues of climate change.
• It helps in tracking of actions that are assisting countries meet targets in their path to national commitments to address climate change.
• This was also initiated in COP20, on the lines of Lima Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) in 2014
• It was a central tool for the LPAA to build momentum and support the adoption of the universal climate agreement at COP21.