This COP30 official side event will launch the ENACT Partnership NbS Accelerator Pathways Report, highlighting practical ways to scale Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for climate, biodiversity, and land restoration. Featuring case studies from global partners, the session will explore policy, finance, and implementation strategies, cross-convention collaboration, and pathways to accelerate NbS adoption as a cornerstone of systemic climate action.

Date: November 18

Time: 15:30 – 17:15 (GMT-3)

Location: Korea Pavilion, Blue Zone, UNFCCC COP30, Belém, Brazil

Background:

The ENACT Partnership, led by the Governments of Egypt and Germany and in collaboration with IUCN, is a growing network of over 25 state and non-state partners. ENACT supports the COP 28 Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People and works to accelerate collective global efforts to address climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss through NbS.

Whilst the role of NbS is increasingly recognised as paramount for addressing interrelated environmental crises and ensuring people’s wellbeing, gaps remain in achieving and communicating effective implementation. This session will be an antidote to that shortfall through championing transformational NbS for climate change. 

At UNFCCC COP30, the ENACT Partnership will launch its flagship NbS Accelerator Pathways Report, a landmark publication articulating concrete pathways to scale up the adoption of NbS for climate. The report draws on ENACT’s six interconnected workstreams, aligning with COP 30’s call for solutions-oriented action and systemic transformation. It provides both conceptual frameworks and grounded practice through case studies, illustrating how NbS can move from fragmented interventions to transformational, system-wide solutions.

The report is designed to inform a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers and negotiators within the Rio Conventions, national focal points and planners preparing NDCs, NBSAPs and NAPs, and implementers and financers from both public and private sectors. It aims to position NbS as a cornerstone of the global response to the intertwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, contributing to the COP30 Action Agenda of accelerating solutions — especially under Axis 2, Key Objective 6 (Efforts to conserve, protect, and restore nature and ecosystems with solutions for climate, biodiversity and desertification) — which embrace a whole-of-society approach.

The ENACT NbS Accelerator Pathways Report will:

• Present pathways for systemic transformation via NbS, grounded in systems thinking and aligned with the ‘mutirão’ ethos behind the COP30 Action Agenda and priority themes.
• Offer action-oriented recommendations for policymakers, negotiators, and implementers to embed NbS into national and global frameworks.
• Provide real-world case studies—such as agroforestry in Madagascar, urban green corridors in Barcelona, and peatland restoration in Germany—that show how policy, finance, and practice converge to deliver systemic impact and also contribute to a “Granary of Solutions”: a collection of proven approaches collected under the COP30 Action Agenda that others can adopt or adapt.
• Highlight opportunities for accelerating cross-convention cooperation and advancing integration across NDCs, NBSAPs, and national planning processes.
• Demonstrate how NbS can catalyse change across key sectors such as agriculture, forestry, urban development, and water management.

The side event will:

• Officially launch the NbS Accelerator Pathways Report as a resource for COP30 and the Global Climate Action Agenda over the years to come.
• Facilitate a high-level discussion on how to accelerate the adoption of NbS for climate change through policy, finance, and implementation —informed by ‘acceleration pathways’ outlined in the launched report.  
• Highlight the role of NbS in advancing cross-convention collaboration and synergies (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD).
• Showcase scalable initiatives and case studies presented by ENACT partners that demonstrate systemic change in practice and contribute to COP30’s “Granary of Solutions”.
• Inspire stakeholders to embed NbS in their own strategies to support global goals for climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development.

Speakers include:

• H.E. Mr. Batbaatar Bat, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Mongolia
• Ms Soha Taher, Undersecretary of International Cooperation at the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, the Republic of Egypt
• Ms. Mechthild Caspers, Head of Division, Climate Policy in the Land Sector and Nature Restoration, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN)
• Mr. Ali Raza Rizvi, Director, Global Climate Change and Energy Transition Team, IUCN (moderator)
• Mr. Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)
• Mr. Gregory Davies-Jones, Programme Officer, Global Climate Change and Energy Transition Team, IUCN
• Mr Michael Bonser, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and International Affairs at Environment and Climate Change Canada
• Ms. Nona Budoyan, Head of Climate Policy Department of the Ministry of Environment, the Republic of Armenia
• Mr. Oliver Wolf, Senior Forest Policy Advisor, Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, Switzerland
• Ms. Rozalina Petrova, Policy Adviser for Green Diplomacy, ENV. F1, Directorate-General for Environment, EU Commission
• Ms. Najma Mohamed, Head of Nature-Based Solutions, UNEP-WCMC 

See more events by the IUCN Global Climate Change and Energy Transition Team here.