Climate-change Adaptation for Seaports in Support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
With over 80% of the volume of world trade carried by sea, international shipping and ports provide crucial linkages in global supply chains and are essential for all countries, including landlocked countries, to be able to access global markets.
Ports are likely to be affected directly and indirectly by climate change-related effects with broader implications for international trade and for the development prospects of the most vulnerable nations, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States.
Given the strategic role of ports as part of the global trading system, and the potential for climate-related damage, disruption and delay across global supply chains – with significant associated costs and economic and trade-related losses – enhancing their climate resilience is a matter of strategic economic importance.
There are considerable challenges ahead, yet there is also significant momentum, with growing international recognition of the need for the acceleration of ambition on adaptation and resilience-building.
The eighth session of the Multi-year Expert Meeting on Transport, Trade Logistics and Trade Facilitation provides a timely opportunity to build on current momentum by considering how best to translate ambitious targets into action and to develop concrete policy recommendations that both help to advance the important issue of climate change adaptation for seaports in support of the 2030 Agenda and can serve as inputs for other intergovernmental meetings and processes that will take place in 2020.