(Track 1: Landscape Approaches for Resilient River Basins)
The session aims to establish the forum’s strategic foundation by reframing glacier retreat and cryosphere change as systemic risks to food security, livelihoods, and rural development while introducing participants to the G2F concept and its integrated framework linking climate science, basin‑level risk assessment, policy planning, and finance, and building a shared understanding across policy, scientific, and financial communities to set a common language and logic for all subsequent discussions.
Highlight ADB’s Glacier Agenda, ADB’s contribution to the international year of glaciers preservation and Decade for Glaciers Preservation
Speaker: Yevgeniy Zhukov, Director General, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Department (CCSD), ADB
Forum/session objectives and positioning within food systems transformation
Speaker: Jiangfeng Zhang, Director, SG-AFNR, ADB
Scientific and Climate Risk Foundations: Glacier dynamics, basin-level impacts, and implications for agriculture
Speaker: Stephan Harrison, Professor, Exeter University, UK
G2F Overview: Key Features and Component
Short video of Glaciers to Farms
Speaker: Kathleen Anne Coballes, Climate Change Specialist, CCSD, ADB
Panel Discussion: G2F: A Catalyst for Transboundary Climate Cooperation
- Yevgeniy Zhukov, Director General, CCSD, ADB
- Thomas Eriksson, Director, Department of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East Region, GCF
- Sheralizoda Bahodur, Chairman of the Committee of Environmental Protection (CEP), Tajikistan (as the lead on the Glaciers agenda in the CW region)
- Zhamilia Dailova, Chief Specialist, Environmental and Climate Policy Department, Ministry of Natural Resources and Technical Supervision, Kyrgyz Republic
- Pieter C. Van Blommestein, Treasury Specialist, Treasury Department, ADB
- Stephan Harrison, Professor, Exeter University, UK
Moderated discussion and audience Q&A
Key Takeaways and Transition
