Adapt, Survive, Thrive: Local Initiatives With Global Impact

Event Information

Physical event start: 8:30am

Virtual event start: 9:00am

There is a need to develop a strategic response to climate change through a variety of mechanisms suited to our national circumstances. These include national adaptation strategies and local-level initiatives, such as adaptation plans. The challenge is to translate planning into successful implementation, building on examples of good practices that have emerged to build resilience to flooding, housing, utilities infrastructure, as well as building our energy and power resilience for the future.

Managing the environment better and restoring natural habitats and processes can help to protect people from the effects of climate change. Nature can contribute to climate mitigation with conservation, restoration, and/or improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Host: Lee Pitcher, General Manager, Living with Water Partnership/Chair, Absolutely Cultured
• Joe Wilkins, Head of Campaigns, UK Youth for Nature
• Pip Betts, Project Manager, Flood Innovation Centre, University of Hull
• Nick Voase, East Yorkshire Hemp
• Richard Harris, Senior Lead Fuels Developer, Drax

Lee Pitcher will host the event and present the global blueprint for water resilience, with specific reference to the ‘Living with Water’ partnership and connections to other global estuarial cities.

Joe Wilkins will discuss UK Youth for Nature campaigns and their role as the youth voice fighting for the UK’s nature and wildlife. Including their input into the forthcoming COP26, influencing Government,and which organisations and individuals they work with to provide a platform for young people to speak up and be heard.

Pip Betts will discuss how we can improve the flood resilience of our places and communities. As flood events become more frequent and severe, we will need to complement large scale engineered flood defences with smaller nature based solutions, green infrastructure and property level resilience. There is critical role for Humber based SMEs to play in creating flood resilience solutions for local, national and global markets.

Nick Voase will share his family’s fascinating diversification story from growing potatoes to industrial hemp and the thousands of uses of hemp including how hemp can be an ecological wonder-plant for UK farming. As a trial participant and at the forefront of hemp growing and product innovation in the UK, Nick will explore the potential to capture carbon in the future.

Richard Harris will outline Drax’s ambition to partner with British farmers to scale up the production of dedicated energy crops. These energy crops would be used by Drax to power its pioneering carbon capture and storage project that would remove millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Increased production of energy crops would also have a number of benefits, in terms of climate change mitigation and diversifying Drax’s fuel supply.

The Waterline Summit 2021

The Humber is at the forefront of tackling climate change, empowering people and places to net zero and creating an economic model for global decarbonisation.

The Waterline Summit is returning for 2021 as a hybrid event thanks to our Event Partners and wide range of Sponsors who help make the summit possible.

Hosted across five days from 18 – 22 October, The Waterline Summit 2021 will target all the elements of place; businesses, students, academia, government, community and more, demonstrating how we all have a part to play in the race to net-zero. This year there will be a key focus on connecting the Humber and its transformational?multi-billion-pound projects to COP26 and beyond.

Each day that week will focus on the following?themes:

• The Waterline Summit Launch Day (Monday - Sponsored by Event Partners)
• Energy Transition Day (Tuesday - Sponsored by Humber Zero)
• Clean Road Transport Day (Wednesday - Sponsored by Phillips 66)
• Adaptation & Resilience Day (Thursday - Sponsored by Living with Water)
• Cities & Built Environment Day (Friday - Sponsored by Hull City Council)

1-12 November – Connecting the Humber to COP26:

Activities and headline discussions happening at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference will be fed into the live media feed on our Waterline event hub (www.thewaterline.global). Working with reporters on the ground in Glasgow we will be streaming back various interviews, events, vlogs etc.

To book your place at this event or to find our more information please click here.