Today the UN Climate Chance Conference (COP16) kicks off in Cancún, Mexico, to continue the negotiations on long-term cooperation (AWG-LCA) and a subsequent, post-2012 commitment period to the Kyoto-Protocol (AWG-KP). Expectations are low for a comprehensive legally binding agreement. However, practical progress on specific packages concerning mitigation, mechanisms of the Kyoto-Protocol, deforestation (REDD), adaptation, capacity-building and finance is likely. Moreover, it is the precise time to build on an open ?push and pull’ strategy – going ahead with ambitious goals recommended by scientific findings and inviting others to follow.
Local governments will once again step up to offer their support to national governments. A small, but strong and diverse LG delegation will be present at COP16 to meet with national delegations and influence the negotiations towards the recognition and significance of the local level in order to achieve a comprehensive, effective and quick-start post-2012 climate agreement. Their proposed amendments are now available.
LG Action continues to give European local governments a voice and will be present on your behalf. To connect you to the activities as close as possible, the LG Action consortium has set up a COP16 Special RSS feed. It will provide you with daily news, developments and on-site interviews with European local government delegates. Get inspired and feed arguments into your local-national debate.
European local-national dialogue benchmarked and released
During the bilateral meeting with national delegations at COP16, the LG delegation will also discuss the status and possible improvements of the local-national dialogue which refers to formal or exploratory exchanges addressing the topics of climate and/or energy. For this reason LG Action benchmarked relevant European local-national dialogues or some of its elements, e.g. coordination of activities and the share of budget between the national and local levels of government.
The following European dialogues were benchmarked and seek to facilitate the local-national exchange at COP16:
Bulgaria – Close regular local-national exchange drives effectiveness of governmental programmes
Denmark – Annual agreement on tasks and budget sharing
Norway – Empowering local climate action through joint efforts
Mayor of Mexico City demands recognition at COP16
Marcelo Ebrard, Mayor of Mexico City, and Chair of the World Mayors Council on Climate Change, will demand recognition for the role local governments play in the fight against climate change when he speaks at a high level panel at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP16).
Mayor Ebrard will present the Mexico City Pact to world leaders at COP16 in Cancún (Mexico). The Pact is the result of the World Mayors Summit, and contains commitments from 138 cities to set goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Pact is voluntary, but both the targets and the progress that city governments make in meeting them will be reported to the carbonn Cities Climate Registry. Cities like Barcelona Spain, Bordeaux and Nantes France, Copenhagen Denmark, Geneva Switzerland and Malmo Sweden, have already signed up to take part in the initiative.
Last week, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn responsible for regional policy, welcomed the Pact. “I see the Mexico City Pact as a support for our policy goals and look forward to an intensive cooperation with all European cities and metropolitan areas, to tackle the issue of climate change via a joint approach, using EU Cohesion Funding as a tool to reduce CO2 emissions in these places where they occur most.” Local Governments have been arguing for the right to recognition for the past 20 years, as talks continue on how to develop a post 2012 agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
