The Asia Pacific region is lagging in its efforts to accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation actions that can keep pace with the changing climate. Moreover, the continuously increasing impact of climate change has only been exacerbated and even more pronounced with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rising global temperatures will only increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, which disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable communities. Therefore, it is important that countries readjust their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to accelerate, disaster risk reduction plans, resilience building, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and education and awareness to improve both human and institutional capacity to adapt to climate change. This roundtable focuses on promising innovations in natural resource and disaster risk management strategies, adaptation and mitigation technologies that are both context specific and considers of ecosystem-based approaches for better resilience. COVID-19 has also magnified climate change related impacts, especially for vulnerable communities, small island states, least developed countries, and areas in low lying coastal zones; therefore this roundtable will also address how to best raise the capacity of such communities and governments to independently plan for and manage climate change effects.

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