Formalizing and expanding: Citizen Science at the UN, Pt. 2

More news on the Global Citizen Science Partnership efforts to bring citizen science at the UN, with an encouraging Insights and Recommendations Report coming out of the APAC UN Science Policy and Business Forum.

The previous posting covered the Inaugural Asia-Pacific UN Science Policy Business Forum, where the Regional Citizen Science Associations including CitizenScience.Asia worked hand in hand with the new Global Citizen Science Partnership (GCSP) to bring citizen science to the table at international UN events. With some great speakers giving a GCSP perspective in the opening session (Professor Graham Durant pushing an APAC community of practice for Citizen Science) and Ocean Plastic Pollution track (Heidi Tait presenting citizen driven efforts to collect marine litter data). This was the first time the UN Science Policy Business Forum was hosted on a more local scale by a UN Environment Programme Regional Office, and over 500 people participated in highly interactive sessions, including 50 Expert speakers. The highlights of the APAC forum has now been covered in the UN Earth Negotiations Bulletin, and if you missed the event the video stream can now be viewed here.

The discussions of the forum were distilled down into an Insights and Recommendations Report that was then presented by the Pakistan Permanent Representative to the UN at the Fourth Forum of Ministers & Environment Authorities off Asia Pacific the following day. We are happy to say Citizen Science was explicitly mentioned the agenda in multiple contexts. You can read the whole report here, but the three sections discussing citizen science were as follows:

On Big Data and Technology Deployment

• The need to improve environmental big data management and analytics, to produce ‘knowledge’ out of Big data, that is open to all, noting that we have “oceans of data but only drops of information.”

• The Forum recommends to use Big Data and exponential technologies to deliver societal solutions that: help consumers adopt sustainable lifestyles; help producers measure and disclose environmental impacts; help investors assess environmental risk; and help regulators monitor real-time progress.

• AI and technology can transform industry to a more sustainable path. But policies and financial tools are required to power the transformation.

• Citizen science, which can contribute to assessing 35% of the SDG environmental indicators, and to catalyse action towards the SDGs, need to be enabled.

• The Forum underscored the importance of earth observation technology, including to indigenous people, “the guardians of biodiversity,” among those most affected by climate change.

• The Forum also recommended bridging the gender gap in technology, by involving women early in all earth observation data projects.

• The government of Estonia announced the Data for the Environment Alliance “DEAL” to empower access to technology and Big Data, including in cooperation with regional actors

• The Forum will facilitate the rolling out of the initiative and creating close coordination and support to UNEP’s work on the Big Data Strategy and World Environment Situation Room.

On Marine Plastic Pollution

· Estimates suggest that plastic waste costs the world more than USD 2.2 trillion each year in terms of environmental and social damage. Greater transparency, through tracking and traceability — pre-requisite for informed action and greater accountability — are essential to managing and mitigating pollution.

· Lack of accurate data about the flow of materials from production to disposal, how virgin plastics production is funded, and the responsibilities, strategies, and commitments of stakeholders leads to a misallocation of resources and ineffective actions.

· Investment in Big Data integration and management — including through the use of AI and frontier technologies and empowering citizen science- can provide greater access to accurate data and analytics.

· Providing capacity for recycling and circularity down-stream, especially in developing and least developed countries is essential to managing the risk.

· More adequate investment and private financing is required to scale up efforts to change industry practices, include producing less plastic from virgin feedstock, collecting more plastic waste, and increasing recycling.

On Societal Engagement

• Strengthen meaningful civil society and youth engagement across borders in the Asia Pacific region and globally.
• Encourage investment in citizen science in the region, linking this work to global platforms and knowledge networks.
• Empower multi-sectoral cooperation in supported of the development and deployment of integrated solutions for nature.

Yana Gevorgyan, Director of Secretariat for the Group on Earth Observations was another highlight of the sessions, saying the interconnectedness of these issues requires integrated data-driven solutions. And recommending the UNEP call to develop a new big data strategy by 2025 require earth observations to be integrated with cross-disciplinary data sources including satellite, surface and citizen-based observations; and this needing to be democratised and shared with users worldwide to get trusted open knowledge into the hands of decision makers.

Everyone’s focus is on the COP-15 UN Biodiversity Conference that is now underway again in our part of the world (Kunming, China), and Citizen Science is particularly strong in involving citizens in cataloguing biodiversity (see our post on iNaturalist). So hopefully citizen science will be a topic that will remain high on the UN agenda.

As the Insights and Recommendations Report makes clear, the Asia-Pacific region includes eight of the most populous countries and six of the top 15 emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. Without concerted action by countries in the Asia-Pacific region the world cannot successfully address any of these issues. These issues are not just for governments, and as we have highlighted citizens certainly have to play a role. And the time for action is now.