The recipients of a special 10th anniversary edition of the United Nations Global Climate Action Awards (GCA) were announced last month, which generated momentum for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) Glasgow. From RCC Panama we are proud to highlight the winner of the initiatives located in Latin America.  

The annual award programme, run by United Nations Climate Change since 2011, recognizes the world’s most innovative, scalable and replicable examples of action to tackle climate change. The projects are recognized as solutions that not only address climate change, but also help drive forward progress on many other sustainable development goals, for example, innovation, gender equality and economic opportunity. 

A special new award category called ‘Climate Leaders’ was added for 2021. It recognizes transformational and replicable government action at any level (national, regional, city, community, etc.). Among the winners in the category of Climate Leaders, one is found in Latin America, which is the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara (AMG for its acronym in Spanish), with its Climate Action Plan.  

The Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara Climate Action Plan (PACmetro), launched at the end of 2020, is the first instrument of its kind, built on a metropolitan scale in Mexico and within the C40 Network. AMG is an international pioneer in promoting a plan with a metropolitan perspective, recognizing the strength of the metropolis. The PACmetro is a strategic planning instrument aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which integrates in a socially inclusive and equitable manner the adaptation and mitigation components.  

The three main objectives defined in the plan are: (1) A carbon neutral metropolis based on integrated waste management, mass and non-motorized mobility, efficient energy use and renewable energy supply, (2) An inclusive metropolis that is sustainable and resilient to climate impacts, and (3) A coordinated, participatory and inclusive metropolis with climate leadership. 

RCC Panama got the opportunity to have a conversation with Mario Ramón Silva Rodríguez, General Director at the Institute for Planning and Development Management of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Guadalajara (IMEPLAN) to learn more about their engagement for climate action and the potential for replication in the region (the interview is translated and edited for clarity). 

RCC Panama: As a winner of the 2021 UN Awards for Global Climate Action, the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area has been referred to as a climate leader. What has been the incentive for AMG to take that leadership and develop the Climate Action plan?  

The incentive arose from the governance framework of our Metropolitan Area of ​​Guadalajara, as it allowed to put a different emphasis to the climate action plans that have been created from a city level perspective. It is a strategy that arises as response to opportunities provided to cities by the Paris Agreement to act against the climate crisis. Beyond this, the metropolises and regions’ local governments are the ones who have the possibility of implementing solutions to the climate crisis more rapidly. Cities face problems on a day-to-day basis; therefore, we have to look at our own scale of what is the power and possibility of accelerating efforts.  

In this regard, what inspired the Plan and what was innovative and truly relevant was that for the first time a mechanism was created on a regional level. In that way, the initiative is precisely focused on this aspect, to be able to raise the climate ambition and further defining the instruments that helped us from emission inventory, analysis, and modeling of scenarios, recognizing that there is room for improvement. What is especially relevant is having aligned ten subnational governments with the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, which includes 9 municipalities and the Jalisco state government, which motivates us to continue joining efforts in the approach to the climate crisis.  

RCC Panama: Considering that it is the first instrument of its kind in the region for metropolitan areas, what opportunities do you see for other metropolitan areas to do similar work?  

There are two areas of opportunity: The first one is, to have more metropolises that organize and adopt coordination models and secondly, that those that already have a model can replicate the development of a Climate Action Plan on that scale. 

Further explained, 1. The installation and strengthening of governance and coordination mechanisms - the fact that the AMG has been recognized with the Global Climate Action Award is, above all, a validation and a stimulus of the coordination mechanism that we have, and allows other metropolises that do not have formal and institutional coordination and governance frameworks to encourage them to move forward on this path.  

Also, 2. To replicate the development of a Climate Action Plan - that the metropolises that already have some type of institutional framework can use this case as a reference which, methodologically, helps them to integrate their plans and strengthen their metropolitan technical mechanisms.  

RCC Panama: Your award was celebrated during the COP26 that was held last month, where you also participated. From the perspective of local subnational government, what do you see that the results of COP26 bring and how does these support the implementation of the "PACmetro plan?  

For us in particular, one of the tangible results has been the collaboration and cooperation agreements that we were able to close with partners, such as the European Union, the United Kingdom and other metropolitan areas with which we are collaborating, for example Barcelona. Also, in particular, that this recognition gives us a visibility of being one of the metropolises that is prepared precisely to be able to implement projects in the three priority mitigation sectors, but also taking advantage of other areas of opportunity that we have for adaptation, such as our work on risk and resilience which also involves international cooperation. As well for inclusion and governance projects, as it is also clear to us that one of the greatest vulnerabilities in any city or metropolitan environment is in social terms when you do not have the involvement of other allies and actors.  

COP26 has brought us the possibility of financing and technical assistance, specifically in the sector or in the scope of mitigation, the visibility of the instruments and the progress that the metropolis has for adaptation issues and to boost alliances that we have been building for a long time, as the concrete case of the Alliance for Climate Action with WWF.  

We thank the Director General and team for taking their time to share with our readers, and wish them congratulations again on the award!