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Excellencies, colleagues.
Welcome to the 2024 edition of the Climate and Clean Air Conference. It is a pleasure to open this conference alongside H.E. Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya and Governor Sakaja. This annual meeting is something of a homecoming. Thirteen years ago, here in Nairobi, the environmental capital of the world, we launched the first integrated assessment of black carbon and tropospheric ozone. This report sparked six countries to join UNEP in founding the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) – with a clear vision of creating clean, breathable air for everyone.
This meeting is also part of a trend of growing African leadership on the international environmental stage. In this regard, my thanks go to Peter Dery of Ghana, co-chair of the CCAC. And this meeting is taking place a few days ahead of the sixth UN Environment Assembly, during which we will seek strong multilateral solutions to the triple planetary crisis: the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and biodiversity loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste.
The UNEP-hosted CCAC is living proof of how multilateralism backed by strong science can address environmental challenges. For example, the Global Methane Assessment showed human-caused methane emissions could be reduced 45 per cent by 2030. This sparked action under the Global Methane Pledge, which the CCAC houses as part of the UNEP family. Alongside the CCAC’s work, the UNEP-hosted International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) is driving accountability in the oil and gas sector.
But methane is, of course, not the only dog in the show. We have black carbon. N20. Sand and dust storms – a big focus for our dear colleagues at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons, on which the UNEP-led Cool Coalition is helping to push action through the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which is also housed with UNEP.
Delivering action on short-lived climate pollutants – or super pollutants as they are increasingly known – will give climate action a fast-acting shot in the arm. And we need this shot. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2023 tells us we are heading for a global temperature rise of 2.5 to 2.9°C this century. Keeping 1.5°C within reach requires ambitious action on super pollutants.
We must also remember that this is not just a climate issue. Addressing super pollutants will save millions of lives by reducing the air pollution that blights much of our world. It will bring down health costs by reducing issues such as childhood asthma. It will boost food security by protecting crops from pollutants such as tropospheric ozone. As a solution across the triple planetary crisis, action on super pollutants is the ultimate three-for-one offer.
So, we need to push harder. I encourage you to build on the momentum from COP28. Include super pollutants in Nationally Determined Contributions as they are being renewed. Finalize Methane Roadmaps and implement them quickly. And, crucially, find new ways to finance action.
While there have been initiatives from multilateral development banks, donors and philanthropies on methane, abatement finance must increase at least 3.5 times by 2030. Action on other less high-profile pollutants, such as N20 and black carbon, remains underfunded.
The new CCAC assessment, Making the Business Case for Action, which you will work on this year, will help building understanding and action. As will the operationalisation of the Clean Air Flagship. But, over the next three days, I ask you to consider what else you can do, particularly in the run-up to COP29. How can you formulate ambition to rally communities? How can data and monitoring support further action? How can you spur more private sector action across value chains?
Just as we need a superhero to defeat a supervillain, we need super solutions to battle super pollutants. And we need you to mastermind these solutions.
