COP27 & US global leadership on climate change

Unlock Aid was at COP27 in Egypt. We're heartened to see big new announcements to fight the climate crisis, but there's much more to do.

Dear Unlock Aid community,

This summer, we cheered when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act – an historic victory for climate that will catalyze resources, talent, and innovation towards America’s domestic climate adaptation efforts.

But climate change is a global issue – and it’s going to take a whole-of-government approach to confront the scale of this crisis. That’s why Unlock Aid coalition members were at COP27 this week and last.

Unlock Aid coalition member One Acre Fund co-sponsored the first-ever COP27 Food Pavilion. Combating the climate crisis will require an all-of-government, all-of-sector, and all-of-industry approach.

It’s also why we were so excited to see President Biden’s speech in Sharm-el-Sheikh last Friday. President Biden said, “Countries that are in a position to help should be supporting developing countries so they can make decisive decisions, facilitating their energy transitions, [and] building a path to prosperity compatible with our climate imperative.” 

We agree. We were happy to see new, bold commitments made at COP27 to fight climate change, but it’s going to take more than money alone. Given the scale of this crisis, we need to see a more radical departure from business as usual, including more innovation, more work with a more diverse set of partners, and an increased focus on results and action. 

Here are three additional things we’d like to see the United States and USAID – as the nation’s premier $25+ billion foreign assistance agency – do now to demonstrate even more global leadership on climate:

First, set a more ambitious sustainability policy

Just as USAID has committed to make its own operations carbon neutral, it needs to apply this same standard to the programs it funds, too – a recommendation that Unlock Aid coalition member and USAID’s former Chief Scientist and CEO of Conservation X Labs Alex Dehgan argued in Devex back in April.

Devex @devex

On #EarthDay2022 Alex Dehgan and @chadsg from @conservationx and Ilya Fischhoff write that @USAID needs to commit to carbon neutrality in its programming, thus leading the way for other bilateral and multilateral development agencies to follow. devex.com/news/opinion-i…

Taking this step would also more rapidly accelerate progress towards exceeding Administrator Samantha Power’s pledge to devolve at least 25 percent of USAID funding to organizations operating in low- and middle-income countries. There’s no need to drive up costs and emissions by flying thousands of contractors around the world when high-quality, market-tested, and locally-endorsed solutions already exist.

Adopting a more ambitious sustainability policy would also enable USAID to:

• Give preference to more innovative approaches that favor science and technology to leapfrog development goals;

• Focus more on building economies of the future, based on regeneration, rather than economies of the past, based on extraction;

• Prioritize funding for organizations that have more sustainable and market-tested business models to stop fly-in, fly-out development;

• Actively seek out and support more women-led Indigenously-led organizations (we were thrilled to see the Climate Gender Equity Fund announcement); and

• Make transparent and success-based financing the norm to promote competition and build local markets rather than displace them.

Second, commit to funding evidence-based, shovel-ready climate solutions

There’s a growing body of evidence that tells us which kinds of investments will help us best fight climate change – and which will not. Groups like Project Drawdown have done the hard work of identifying the interventions that will have the most impact. With Tuesday’s announcement of a new agency Chief Economist, USAID is also now in a better position to prioritize investments in evidence-based climate solutions that will have the biggest impact per every dollar spent.

Take this evidence-based, shovel-ready proposal from Jonathan Lehe, Gautam Bastian, and Nick Milne from Precision Development (PxD), for example, which they developed as a part of the SDGs Moonshot Accelerator we organized in Mexico City in August in partnership with the Federation of American Scientists’ Day One Project and 75+ of the world’s leading development innovators.

Day One Project @Day1Project

Improving local food security is critical to ending poverty and eliminating hunger — and the US gov has an opportunity to lead. Here's how USAID and partners can launch a Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge to improve crop yields worldwide >>

dayoneproject.orgInvesting in Digital Agriculture Innovation to Secure Food, Yields, and Livelihoods | Day One ProjectImproving local food security is critical to ending poverty and eliminating hunger, and United States Government can be a global leader.

The PxD team explains how we can improve yields and incomes for 100+ million farmers, as well as develop more resilient food systems, by creating a global innovation pipeline for digital-enabled agricultural solutions. PxD’s model is a leader in the field and is already delivering results in nine countries with potential to replicate success in others. Through PxD’s proposed Digital Agriculture for Food Security Challenge, USAID can embrace new approaches, provide direct investment, and generate new global coalitions to expand the impact of the budding field of digital agriculture.

Third, make some big bets

To show global leadership on climate, the US also needs to experiment more, innovate, and make more big bets that, if they pay off, could be game changing. The U.S. Government has made similar big bets in the past, for example, to create financial incentives for private industry to develop three Covid-19 vaccines in less than a year. Now it’s time for USAID and others to do the same to catalyze big breakthroughs on climate adaptation, public health threats, and food security.

For example, Mary Fernandes – another SDGs Moonshot Accelerator innovator and President of Solis Agrosciences – proposes the U.S. Government create the Plant Genome Project, a Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a comprehensive dataset of genetic information on all plant species.

Day One Project @Day1Project

Plants are key to enabling a diversified and climate-resilient food system. @maryfbio proposes a Plant Genome Project (PGP), a robust Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a dataset of genetic information on plant species.

dayoneproject.orgUnlocking the U.S. Bioeconomy with the Plant Genome Project | Day One ProjectPlants are key to enable a diversified and climate-resilient food system. Mary Fernandes proposes a Plant Genome Project (PGP), a robust Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a dataset of genetic information on plant species.

Humans currently depend on just 15 plants to provide almost all of the world’s food, which has made our food supply extremely vulnerable to climate change, new diseases, and geopolitical upheaval. Just as the Human Genome Project has accelerated progress in the War on Cancer and other diseases, a Plant Genome Project could also unlock plant innovation and spur the growth of the bioeconomy, Mary explains. By sequencing 7,000+ plant species’ genomes and creating open-access genetic information, the Plant Genome Project can rapidly accelerate identification of climate-resilient plant varieties to increase global food security.

A growing chorus of Members of Congress and others – led by leaders like Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Joaquin Castro – are calling for the United States to do more to innovate and drive sustainable development around the world. Just as the IRA gave U.S. federal agencies the green light to tackle climate and innovate at home, we’re ready for the United States to become the partner of first resort for countries and entrepreneurs that want to leapfrog their climate and development goals abroad.

Let’s get to work.

To Progress,

Unlock Aid COO Amanda Arch and the Unlock Aid Coalition