State of the World 2014: Governing for Sustainability by The Worldwatch Institute

Author:The Worldwatch Institute [The Worldwatch Institute]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2014-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

When delegates to the UN climate conference in Indonesia in 2007 agreed to the so-called Bali Roadmap, ICLEI gathered local government organizations to form the Local Government Climate Roadmap 2007–2009—the largest-ever coalition of local government networks—to call for a comprehensive post-2012 global climate agreement in which local governments are recognized, engaged, and empowered. The hope was that the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 would result in a breakthrough for climate change. With more than 1,000 registered participants, ICLEI’s local government delegation to Copenhagen was the second largest after the Danish NGOs. Local leaders from around the world came to encourage national governments in a series of organized dialogues within the Local Government Climate Lounge.9

When the Copenhagen conference ended in failure, disappointment with the lack of national government leadership reached the local level as well. Since then, local governments have changed (but not reduced) their advocacy strategies. In November 2010, just prior to the UN climate conference in Cancún, Mexico, many cities decided to show their leadership by adopting the Global Cities Covenant on Climate, also known as the Mexico City Pact. The agreement built upon the Copenhagen World Catalogue of Local Climate Commitments, a clearinghouse for more than 3,500 voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments by local governments. Closely related was the launch of the carbonn Cities Climate Registry (cCCR) as a tool to document these commitments and related actions. Both initiatives should have a lasting impact as crystallization points for committed cities and towns.10

Although no climate consensus was reached at the Cancún conference, the role of subnational governments was officially mentioned for the first time in a COP outcome document, and subnational governments were recognized as governmental stakeholders within the global climate regime. This has freed them from the paradoxical category of “nongovernmental.” Labels are not really the issue, however. Local governments are fighting for the expectation that national governments will accept local governments as appropriate and efficient implementation partners and endow them with powers and access to resources—a role that is in their own interest of advancing the fulfillment of their global commitments.11

At the 2011 climate conference in Durban, South Africa, the Durban Adaptation Charter completed the mechanism of local government commitments. The Charter’s content points to the close relationship between climate mitigation and adaptation needs, pulling countries in the same direction. Hundreds of local governments and their national associations have signed this local commitment to respond to climate change, linked to a call to reduce the sources of climate-altering greenhouse gases. The strong presence of local governments in Durban demonstrated again the cooperation of municipalities from both industrialized and developing countries, and encouraged local government networks to prepare a new advocacy phase.12

Most recently, at the 2013 climate conference in Warsaw, Poland, local government organizations joined forces to present the second, “renewed” phase of the Local Government Climate Roadmap, looking toward the Paris climate conference in 2015. The agreement highlighted synergies with processes focused on urbanization outside of the UNFCCC framework, and it made a stronger case for financial resources and direct access to global funds and market-based finance instruments.

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