Global Center on Adaptation (GCA)

Nobel Laureates, Global Scientists call on World Leaders to Accelerate Climate Adaptation as part of Post-Covid Economic Stimulus

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, Jan. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, five Nobel Laureates and more than 3,000 scientists from over 100 countries signed up to the "Groningen Science Declaration" calling on world leaders, decision-makers and investors, to change the way we understand, plan and invest for a changing climate to ensure we limit future damage. The signing took place ahead of the virtual Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS 2021) on 25^th-26^th January.

The statement, initiated by Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), is released as figures from the first "GCA State and Trends in Adaptation 2020" report show that climate adaptation is likely to have suffered a single-digit percentage fall in 2020 and that global climate adaptation funding needs to increase ten-fold, to US$300 billion a year, to meet estimates of what is needed to respond to escalating climate risks.

In the Groningen Science Declaration the scientists state that "our failure to adapt and mitigate Covid-19 parallels the disruption to come if we do not act immediately to mitigate and adapt our world in response to our changing climate [….] unless we step up and adapt now the results will be increasing poverty, water shortages, agricultural losses and soaring levels of migration with an enormous toll on human life."

Ban Ki-moon, 8^th Secretary General of the United Nations and Chair of the Global Center on Adaptation, speaking during the launch said: "Even if mitigation targets outlined in the Paris Agreement are reached, it still won't be enough. Climate change is already happening and so we must adapt to its impacts. The Groningen Scientific Declaration makes it clear that we, as humans, have caused climate change and so we must accelerate adaptation to ensure we can all live in a sustainable and resilient world that leaves no-one behind."

Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation said:
"As a result of the pandemic we are facing interlinked health, economic and climate crises. We must implement interventions to support a resilient recovery and we must act now before climate change accelerates beyond the capabilities of nature and humans to adapt. The science community, in signing this declaration, know the stakes could not be higher."