25 May 2016
“No Scientific Voice Left Behind,” Concludes UNEA Science-Policy Forum
Photo by Lucas Vasques
story highlights

The inaugural Science-Policy Forum held prior to the second session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) discussed how to bring together diverse scientific and policy communities and citizens' voices to ensure that emerging environmental issues are highlighted and effectively addressed in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UNEA-220 May 2016: The inaugural Science-Policy Forum held prior to the second session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-2) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) discussed how to bring together diverse scientific and policy communities and citizens’ voices to ensure that emerging environmental issues are highlighted and effectively addressed in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Forum gathered more than 250 high-level scientists and policy makers at the UN Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, from 19-20 May 2016.

Jacqueline McGlade, head of UNEP’s Division of Early Warning and Assessment and acting Chief Scientist observed that the meeting reflected “the first swell of a sea change in how the world will work together.” She noted that while UNEP has invested a lot of effort into ensuring that policy-makers have the cutting-edge environmental and social science they need, “we also know that this science has not always translated into the action we have to see.”

The discussions drew on the first edition of the UNEP 2016 Frontiers Report series, which focuses on six emerging issues, including the crucial role of the financial sector in advancing environmental sustainability; the close linkages between zoonotic disease emergence and ecosystem health; microplastics in the food chain; unavoidable loss and damage to ecosystems due to climate change; toxin accumulation in crops as influenced by climate variability; and illegal trade in live animals.

The Forum also launched UNEP’s Global Gender and Environment Outlook (GGEO) assessment and six regional Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6) assessments for the Pan-European region, North America, Asia and the Pacific, West Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa.

Discussing the Global Gender and Environment Outlook (GGEO), presenters noted that a key message of the assessment is that all aspects of environment are gender-differentiated, including drivers, impacts, perceptions, actions, responses and knowledge. They stressed that environmental projects and policies that do not take gender into account will not yield sustainable solutions.

A session presenting the key findings and policy messages from the GEO-6 regional assessments discussed some common themes across the reports, noting how increased urbanization, economic growth, energy consumption, land-use changes and other factors are exacerbating a range of environmental pressures, including climate change, land degradation and air pollution. In the ensuing discussions, it was noted that while a data revolution is taking place in the GEO process, much more effort is needed to collect high quality environmental data in some regions to help policy makers manage these complex and interrelated environmental challenges.

In their recommendations, participants proposed, inter alia: incorporating existing environmental accounting systems and indicators in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) reporting process; developing a range of boundary organizations to support cross-linking and communications between the scientific research and the policy communities; ensuring geographical and expert balance and an inclusive co-design process; reducing the time lapse between knowledge and action by joining forces across national boundaries; fostering science literacy and capacity building, especially for women, as well as national scientific institutions; using evidence from new data and intelligence gathering tools being used in the private sector to persuade CEOs to change their business models; and eliminating inefficiencies by establishing structures meant to bring statistics and other data communities together.

The Science-Policy Forum also developed specific recommendations linked to UNEA-2 themes, including on: emerging marine issues, including ocean acidification and the cumulative impacts of climate change and blue carbon; the food-energy-water nexus; natural capital; the contribution of REDD+ and forest data to understand secondary impacts in the extractives sector; and links between climate change and air quality, including sand and dust storms.

In their conclusions, participants called for exploring ways to evolve the Science-Policy Forum into a more inclusive multi-stakeholder event, noting the need for: drawing on a more demand-driven process to select themes; using the scientific knowledge presented as additional inputs to UNEA draft resolutions; aligning the Forum with the UNEA cycle, as well as other relevant intergovernmental policy processes and “windows of opportunity”; and focusing on follow-up and new initiatives. [UNEP Press Release] [Science-Policy Forum Website] [Science-Policy Forum Outcome] [IISD RS story on GEO-6 Regional Assessments] [IISD RS story on UNEP Frontiers Report] [Global gender and environment outlook: The critical issues] [Global assessment of sand and dust storms] [ISD RS Coverage of UNEA-2]


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