Climate change adaptation programme: progress report 2022

10. Progress towards "our international networks being adaptable to climate change"

SCCAP2 Outcome 7: Our international networks are adaptable to climate change.

This outcome has three sub-outcomes. The first focuses on climate change adaptation and imported food quality and safety, the second on Scotland's role in international adaptation governance and the third focuses on the adaptive capacity of Scotland's international trade.

Updates in this year's annual report focus on the Scottish Government's climate justice work in the year of COP26 in Glasgow.

Examples of progress towards achieving the sub-outcome that "Scotland is active in international governance, helping to manage the potential international instability caused by climate change"

Climate Justice Fund - At COP26 we announced the trebling of our financial support for the world's poorest and more vulnerable communities in their efforts to tackle the impacts of climate change. The Climate Justice Fund (CJF) will increase from 2022, providing £36 million across this Parliament. The CJF will continue to focus on communities most affected by climate change. In particular ensuring the views and needs of those typically marginalised in such communities are at the centre of future climate justice interventions in Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia.

Loss and Damage - Some climate impacts are unavoidable and go beyond what can be adapted to - leading to both financial damage and incalculable non-economic costs which are already being suffered by communities around the world. During COP26, Scotland was one of the first Global North nations to pledge international Loss and Damage financing with a £2 million commitment from the Climate Justice Fund. Of the £2 million, £1 million has been awarded to the Climate Justice Resilience Fund to help some of the world's most vulnerable communities prepare for and adapt to climate change, tackle structural inequalities and recover from climate induced loss and damage. As one of the first movers on loss and damage, we will endeavour to share our learning so that it is accessible to all who are, or hope to, address loss and damage –and equally to those experiencing it. In February 2022, The First Minister co-hosted a roundtable on Loss and Damage which brought together a range of interested parties with the aim of identifying commitment and specific areas for progress, opportunities ahead and the alliances required in order to further move Loss and Damage to delivery and action over the next 12-24 months.

COP26: Adaptation Lab - On Adaptation, Loss and Damage Day at COP26, the Scottish Government and California State Government, supported by Climate-KIC and Adaptation Scotland, hosted an Adaptation Lab on resilient regions and good governance for a broad set of stakeholders. The programme included key statements from Cabinet Secretary Net Zero, Energy and Transport, California Secretary for Natural Environment Wade Crowfoot and Eduardo Trani from the regional government of Sao Paolo. This Adaptation Lab was an opportunity to share learning and best practice on how national and state governments can support regions in their climate resilient goals, to learn more about regional approaches to adaptation and to connect with regions across the world. Follow on digital adaptation labs are being developed for 2022, building towards engagement at COP27.

COP26: British-Irish Council event: In collaboration with partners in the British-Irish Council (BIC) and heritage partners, including Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the Scottish Government organised an event in the COP26 Resilience Hub on cultural heritage and coastal resilience. The event used reflections from school children, spoken word, video, a specially commissioned poems and presentations to highlight the importance of the coast across the BIC sphere and raise the profile of initiatives to adapt and protect our coastal assets. Dynamic Coast 2 (see chapter 9) was featured during this event and a roundup of other historic environment COP26 events is available via the HES website.

COP26: RegionsAdapt – Through Regions4, the SG remains an active member of the RegionsAdapt network of state and regional governments committed to increasing global ambition for climate resilience. In September 2021, the governments of Lombardy and Scotland organised a key preparatory COP26 event with states, regions and devolved governments, calling for increased ambition and action at COP26. The event resulted in a statement from states and regions calling for action at COP26, which was signed by 17 governments and networks and presented at the Regions4 High Level side event at COP26.

Independent evaluation of the Climate Justice Fund (2021) - Climate justice is a people-centred, human rights-based approach that aims to share the benefits of equitable global development and ensure that the impacts of climate change do not disproportionately impact those who have done the least to contribute to it.In March 2021, we announced an independent evaluation of the Climate Justice Fund's work to date in delivering climate justice objectives to inform how we best support initiatives beyond 2021. The evaluation drew on experiences of communities in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda who have implemented or are supported by the Fund.

Updated approach to climate justice -Following our independent evaluation and stakeholder feedback on the Climate Justice Fund, the Scottish Government has set a future approach for action on climate justice. We will prioritise targeting our funding to the people most vulnerable to climate change in the communities in which we work – particularly women and youth – and ensuring their participation is at the centre of our work. In response to direct asks from our partner countries we will also share learning from the Climate Justice Fund to help build capacity on both the technical aspects and participatory approaches to achieve climate justice. This will be achieved through delivering against three distinct pillars of climate justice identified through the evaluation:

• Distributive Justice relates to equal access to, and sharing of resources and benefits. In Climate Justice definitions this includes both access to resources and benefits and equitable sharing of the costs of responding to climate change
• Procedural Justice relates to transparent, fair and equitable decision-making processes
• Transformative Justice relates to structural inequities and focuses on mainstreaming understanding of climate justice issues, as well as building capacity

This marks a departure from the previous approach, which largely focussed on distributive justice and will ensure that the Scottish Government takes a strategic, scalable and replicable approach. Initial projects under the revised programmatic approach will launch from 2022.

International Development Fund and Principles - The Climate Justice Fund programme is closely aligned with our International Development Fund work. There is a similar focus on our international development partner countries and it is similarly subject to our International Development Principles (March 2021), co-developed with partner countries and civil society in Scotland during our review of our approach to international development and solidarity in light of COVID-19. These principles apply to the International Development Fund programme in the first instance, but in line with the Scottish Government's commitment to policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD), the principles were agreed by relevant Cabinet Secretaries with responsibility for areas such as Climate Change due to its key contribution to international development outcomes. Explicit reference to support for climate adaptation and increasing resilience to climate change in the principles reinforces our commitment to climate justice.

2050 Young Malawian Climate Leaders - Around the world young people have been instrumental in bringing the issue of climate change and ecological decline to the fore of public consciousness. In recognition of this The First Minister announced at the Austrian World Summit in 2021 a further £190,000 funding for the Malawi Climate Leaders Programme to amplify youth voices in Malawi in the run up to and during COP26. The programme supports young leaders' abilities to interpret and use climate information in decision-making and ensure that youth voices are heard in global discussions, including through the establishment of a COP Hub in Lilongwe, Malawi, allowing Malawian youth and community leaders to participate in events at COP26. During COP26 the hub made the summit accessible to 320 Malawian youth who attended 12 accessibility sessions and several events including virtual events with the Minister for Environment and Land Reform joining a session to discuss the importance of supporting collaborations between Scotland and Malawi young leaders.

The Climate Challenge Programme Malawi - the Climate Challenge Programme Malawi (CCPM) successfully concluded in September 2021. At COP26, the Minister for Environment and Land Reform announced Scottish Government would partner again with SCIAF and Trócaire to match fund a five-month consolidation programme to build on existing momentum and strong relationships between communities, implementing partners and local government. Totalling £250,000 the programme has since then scaled up and consolidated the successes from the CCPM to leave a sustainable legacy for communities with fairness and justice at its heart. Using the same successful community-led approach that puts the community at the heart of the programme, the consolidation work has advanced successful elements of the CCPM through the lens of distributive, procedural and transformative justice, with women and girls a key focus.

Women's Environment & Development Organisation - For the last four years the Scottish Government has supported WEDO to address gender equality in climate action in the Global South by directly supporting women delegates attend COPs and represent their own respective interests. Funding also assists grassroots and indigenous women leaders invest in and scale up climate solutions in Global South countries. These locally-led solutions centre human rights and gender equality while achieving sustainable adaptation and mitigation outcomes. Scaling and replicating these activities within local contexts is at the heart of catalysing large-scale transformation

Traction Learning Exchange Project - Traction provides a framework for advancing adaptation action based on a systematic and shared understanding of enablers of change. Through application of the framework in institutional settings at the local and national level in Malawi, Mozambique and the Outer Hebrides in Scotland over 2021-22, the Framework has been revised and improved with a final report planned for publication in Spring 2022.

How the Adaptation Scotland Programme is supporting this outcome:

As well as supporting the Adaptation Lab event at COP26, Adaptation Scotland is connected to several international research and innovation initiatives including the International Platform for Adaptation Metrics and the Adaptation Research Alliance. These connections enable Scotland to benefit from and contribute to international good practice and learning on adaptation.