Coastal Futures Initiative
Coastal areas are home to a large and growing proportion of the world’s population. Today, approximately 3 billion people — about half of the world’s population — live within 200 kilometers of a coastline and about 900 million people live on low-elevation coasts directly exposed to climate coastal hazards. The combined effects of booming population and economic development as well as impacts of Climate Change leads to degradation of the resilience of coastal habitats and ecosystems that provide the economic and social benefits for current and future generations.
Collaborating with local authorities as well as technical and scientific organizations, the aim of the initiative is to proactively engage with stakeholders in generating constructive knowledge and effective action in favor of coastal and marine solutions with a view to enhance resilience of coastal and marine ecosystems to benefit the well being of communities and societies.
The initiative will lead efforts along 4 axes of work, namely:
- Promoting coastal and marine solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss, with a prime focus on coastal and marine nature-based actions and engaging local authorities;
- Leading campaigns and advocacy to bring about policy changes;
- Advancing technical/scientific knowledge to feed international processes and territorial decision making; and
- Redirecting financial systems towards coastal resilience including through insurance and impact investment
Key partners include: Ocean & Climate Platform, Stimson Center, IDDRI, the Global Covenant of Mayors.
The Mediterranean region has been prioritized as a prime geographical area of focus for the initiative, but other global sites could be looked into, when bringing about innovation, holistic approaches and opportunities.