A new online course on ‘Nature-based Solutions for Disaster and Climate Resilience’ was officially launched on January 22, 2021 during Climate Adaptation Week Groningen. The course content was developed by experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR); thanks to support from the European Union.

This course is timely: 2021 is likely to be named the year for Nature-based Solutions (NbS). The topic featured heavily at the Climate Adaptation Summit 2021 (CAS), and is expected to do likewise later this year at the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and within the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

While there is growing momentum to support NbS, there is still confusion around the term as well as questions on how to undertake NbS for disaster and climate resilience. The course offers participants an opportunity to formulate open discussions with world leaders and environmental experts on the matter. It is comprised of 7 units with 3-6 hours of self-paced content depending on your level of interest. The course is offered in 7 languages: English, French, Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and Indonesian.

Nature offers many solutions to reduce the impacts of disasters and climate change, such as forests on steep slopes to prevent landslides, sand dunes along coastlines to protect against storm surges, and wetlands to buffer excess rainwater. This course will help you understand how to apply NbS by showing how people around the world are building resilience to disasters and climate-change impacts through Nature-based Solutions. Nature-based Solutions that increase disaster and climate resilience are relevant to everybody and each of us can take action, small or large, to promote them.

Spread the word and join the course: pedrr.org/MOOC

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