Governmental experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have taken important steps towards developing strategic guidance for a regional approach to climate change adaptation in the South-Caucasian mountains.

The mountains are the region’s water towers and provide a range of other services, including creating one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. However, they also face severe risks from climate change, spurring the need for a wide range of adaptation measures.

The meeting - organized by UN Environment and the Sustainable Caucasus project - took place on 4-5 August and made progress in preparing a Strategic Guidance Document, targeting mountain specific issues. South Caucasian countries share many of the same adaptation-related challenges in the mountains, creating an opportunity to benefit from exchange of experiences at regional level. Dialogue on common priorities initiated at the meeting aims to bring about concrete national and regional adaptation action in the future.

UN Environment is following up with concrete steps to achieve priorities identified through the project, using financial and technical support mechanisms such as the Global Climate Facility and the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

Efforts to support the South Caucasus countries in enhancing adaptation action are part of a global UN Environment project to support the development of mountain areas, which are disproportionally affected by climate change.

During last December’s COP21 climate talks, UN Environment launched a series of Mountain Outlook reports focusing on a regional approach to climate adaptation, which will cover five world mountain regions in total.

For more information please contact matthias.jurek@unvienna.org