MEDIA ADVISORY: UN Roundtable to Update How Climate Change is Being Added to Development Strategies

WHAT: UNDP Washington Roundtable: “Baking Adaptation to Climate Change into the Cake of Human Development”

WHO: Manish Bapna, executive vice president, World Resources Institute
Ad Melkert, associate administrator, UNDP
Katherine Sierra, vice president for sustainable development, World Bank

WHEN: Wednesday, April 30, Noon – 2:00 p.m.
Lunch will be served

WHERE: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

WHY: Climate change threatens to reverse many of the gains in human development. As temperatures rise, millions of the world’s poor could go hungry, see their homes flooded, or have higher chances of contracting diseases like malaria, meningitis and dengue fever. At the Bali conference last December, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, “Climate change policies cannot be the frosting on the cake of development; they must be baked into the recipe of growth and social development.” In fact, the Bali Action Plan called for the urgent implementation of adaptation actions.

UNDP’s Roundtable will provide an update on how exactly adaptation is being baked into the cake of human development. Is climate change being made a part of national development strategies? How is it being financed? And what are the roles of the private sector?

RSVP: Cara Santos Pianesi (202) 331-9130