COP27 Global Innovation Hub Session 4: Showcasing an Expanded Climate Innovation Platform
Mission Innovation’s NCI and the UNFCCC co-hosted the session focusing on how the implementation of future solutions is driven by opportunity and a focus on providing core human needs, rather than mitigating the effect that existing innovations will have long term.
Panelists:
Massamba Thioye, Project Executive, UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub; Robert Andrén, Director General, Swedish Energy Agency;
Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability; Pourya Salehi, Head of Urban Research Team, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability; Dennis Pamlin, Executive Director, Mission Innovation's Net-Zero Compatibility Initiative and Senior Advisor, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden; Andreas Johansson, Head of Research and Business Development, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden; Smita Rakesh, Vice President and Partner, Social Alpha / Clean Energy International Incubation Centre
During the event a partnership was launched between Mission Innovation’s NCI and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, for an expanded innovation agenda in cities and regions as important contributors to provide citizens with flourishing lives globally.
Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI, said:
– Cities and regions are at the front line of these various crises that we are having today. For cities it is really important to tackle those challenges in a cross-cutting way, and not just from the perspective of ‘I’m reducing my emissions here, trying to solve a problem there’.
There was overwhelming support to focus on human needs and an expanded solution agenda on a global level. Representatives covering multiple aspects of the innovation ecosystem, including city and region-focused implementors of innovations, incubators and innovation-supporting organizations.
Smita Rakesh, Vice President and Partner, Social Alpha’s CEIIC, said:
– Let’s acknowledge that a disproportionate burden was carried by those least responsible for where we are at, with respect to climate change right now, and therefore we cannot afford to make the same mistake again. Human needs and net-zero goals need to operate in sync from now on.
Pourya Salehi, Head of Urban Research Team, ICLEI, underlined:
– Now I believe this is the moment to move away from negotiations because, gratefully, less has remained to discuss and negotiate internationally, but we need to move forward heavily into an implementation agenda and do millions of small things that could end up delivering an outcome of a decarbonised world.