Conference // Nexus: Water, Food, Energy and Climate

This will be the second Nexus Conference that The Water Institute has organized. The first in 2014 made a significant input to the negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through the Chapel Hill Declaration.

Confirmed Speakers

• Elliott Harris: UN Assistant Secretary-General UNEP
• Liz Thompson: former Energy and Environment Minister Barbados
• Pauliina Murphy: Head of International Government Engagement at Aviva
• Maruxa Cardama: Special Advisor Cities Alliance
• Jeb Brugmann: Director of Solutions Development and Innovation 100 Resilient Cities
• Dr Claudia Ringler: Chair of the FE2W Network
• Louise Karlberg: Director of Stockholm Environment Institute USA
• Naiara Costa: Head of the Secretariat for Together 2030
• Louise Baker: Coordinator External Relations, Policy and Advocacy UN Convention to Combat Desertification
• Jamie Bartram: Director of The Water Institute at UNC.
• Franziska Schreiber: Project Manager Adelphi
• Marianne Haslegrave: Director Commonwealth Medical Trust
• Dr. Catalina Spataru: UCL Energy Systems and Networks
• Felix Dodds: Chair of the UN 2011 Conference Sustainable Societies – responsive Citizens
• Dr. Minu Hemmati: Multi-Stakeholder Institute Founder
• Mathew Kurian: Academic Officer at UNU-FLORES where he leads the Capacity Development and Governance unit

Background

The 2030 Agenda adopted in 2015 at its heart has 17 SDGs, 169 targets and 232 indicators. It is the blueprint to a more sustainable, fair and equitable world. It is the first global agreement that recognizes the interlinkages between sectors and suggests ways to address them.

Topics

The 2018 Nexus Conference will focus on the:

• Science-policy interface;
• partnerships;
• solutions;
• review of Sustainable Development Goal commitments (2018 and for the Heads of State review in 2019);
• sharing of tools, indicators and methodologies; and
• the identification of gaps.

The conference will facilitate space for the development of collaborative work. It will build on recognizing and respecting the work that sector experts are engaged with while also addressing some key challenges that will require a Nexus approach these include:

• Agriculture will have to produce 30-50% more food by 2030
• Primary energy needs will increase by 40% by 2030
• Demand for water will exceed global availability by 40 % in 2030
• Surge of 200 million climate change refugees will reverse global healthcare progress by 2050

Since the 2014 conference a number of areas that interface with the Nexus discourse have developed and the conference will address three cross cutting areas. These will be the urban challenge – where the Nexus tradeoffs really become vital to communities and people’s lives. The conference will look at the health-related Nexus issues recognizing that with climate change these will increase. Finally, it will look at the migration and mobility as governments and stakeholders start to develop the Global Compact on Migration over the next two years. Nexus issues play a critical role in the increase of migration as food and water become scarce and climate change impacts are increasingly have an effect. The Nexus recognizes that there is no place in an interlinked world for isolated solutions aimed at just one sector. If the world is going to reduce hunger and eradicate poverty, achieving security for water, energy and food is critical. This challenge is becoming even more critical with the impacts of climate change, and water will be the medium by which we will address much of the Nexus. The Nexus approach will maximize the benefits of sectoral expertise while working across the boundaries. It will seek practical and effective plans to better understand the interactions. The Conference brings together scientists and academics, practitioners working in government, civil society and business, and other stakeholders to focus on how and why the nexus approach can be used on local and international levels.

Abstracts

Abstract submissions and conference registration will open June 15, 2017. These should focus on the interface between some of the these Nexus areas:

• Water;
• Energy;
• Food;
• Climate Change;
• Health;
• Urban development;
• Migration and mobility.

We are looking for examples of different mythological approaches, indicators being used, comparative studies, solutions, toolkits, successful partnerships, gaps to be addressed, and reviews of the implementation of the relevant SDGs that address Nexus issues.

Where and when

Chapel Hill
North Carolina
USA 16-18 April 2018 Source: UNC website