Considered Asia-Pacific’s largest and longest-standing gathering of adaptation practitioners to share information, knowledge and best practices in adaptation and resilience-building, the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum (APAN Forum) is the biennial flagship event of the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN) Secretariat, hosted within the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

The APAN Forum serves as a primary regional platform for adaptation practitioners to meet, exchange knowledge and experiences, and collaborate towards the pertinent outcomes and practical solutions that are needed to address the challenges of climate change.

The 8th APAN Forum will take place in-person from 30 August (Wednesday) to 1 September (Friday) during the Korea Global Adaptation Week (KGAW) 2023. It will be hosted by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea, the Korea Environment Institute – Korea Adaptation Center for Climate Change and Incheon Metropolitan City, and co-organised by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UNEP through the APAN Secretariat.

Objectives

The APAN Forum aims to:

1. Enhance understanding of climate change adaptation issues, approaches, and policies for effective planning;
2. Provide a comprehensive report on actions taken and progress made to address knowledge, policy, and funding gaps since the last APAN Forum;
3. Serve as a platform for accelerating action and implementing adaptation knowledge and programmes, offering actionable guidelines for communities, practitioners, and policymakers;
4. Formulate recommendations to expand adaptation efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, guiding contributions to COPs and other global/regional initiatives; and,
5. Promote climate change adaptation and resilience through knowledge sharing, collaboration, and amplification of messages from local to global levels.

Forum Theme

Resilience for All: Enabling transformative implementation

Over the past two decades, Resilience has served as a unifying theme for the APAN Forums. The past years have seen significant efforts towards generating knowledge and information on climate change adaptation at the global and regional levels. However, we are still significantly off-schedule to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and the world is in a state of climate emergency. The current climate change impacts are evident and disruptive in sectors like agriculture, ecosystems, human health, urban settlements and infrastructure.

Therefore, this year’s theme underscores the urgency of adaptation action that is required to build resilience and equip communities with the capacity to withstand and moderate worst-case climate scenarios. It is also in line with the key outcomes of COP 27, further emphasising the importance of transformative approach to accelerating and enhancing adaptation efforts.

Target Participants

Representatives from governments, financing institutions, academia and research, international organisations, UN agencies, civil society organisations, youth organisations and the private sector, among others, will participate in the 8th APAN Forum to work together to build and strengthen partnerships across sectors for adaptation action. The Forum will also provide a space to reflect on the outcomes of COP 27, and to highlight regional lessons learned. These will serve as inputs for the discussions at COP 28, which is to be held at the Expo City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates in November 2023.