France and Morocco's global climate champions have set out their detailed agenda to boost cooperative action between governments, cities, business, investors and citizens to cut emissions rapidly and help vulnerable nations adapt to climate impacts and build their own clean energy, sustainable futures. The action agenda is an important support and catalyst to the early and effective implementation of the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Ms. Laurence Tubiana, French Ambassador for climate change and Ms. Hakima El Haite, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and Environment of Morocco, in charge of the Environment have published their roadmap for the agenda. They have also launched a consultative process in order to seek the views of governments and non-state stakeholders on this vision.

A key part of their programme involves a series of events on the way to the next annual UN climate change conference, in Marrakech, Morocco, where they will actively engage stakeholders.

The full package, including the roadmap, key events, a call for submissions and the personal biographies of the two champions follows.

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Global Climate Action Agenda
The Roadmap

At the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, it was agreed that mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate action by all Parties and non-Party stakeholders is urgently required if the goals of the Paris Agreement are to be achieved.

In decision 1/CP.21,[1] the commitments from all actors are recognized, including those launched through the Lima–Paris Action Agenda, as well as the urgent need to scale up the global response to climate change and support greater ambition from governments.

To ensure a durable connection between the Convention and the many voluntary and collaborative actions, Parties decided that two high-level champions shall be appointed. The above-mentioned decision details the tasks to be performed by these high-level champions.

As the appointed champions of global climate action:

• We believe that we need to, inter alia, be an interface between action on the ground and the UNFCCC negotiation process, and between non-Party stakeholders and Parties;
• We intend to track implementation of existing initiatives to demonstrate credibility, promote best practices and enhance delivery;
• We will also support new initiatives, focusing on adaptation, with a view to broadening the country coverage and including more initiatives from developing country Parties and non-Party stakeholders;
• We are committed to working with all Parties and non-Party stakeholders, to respecting the principles of inclusiveness and transparency, and to promoting innovation.

We will present, at COP 22, a joint report on climate action and on the implementation of this road map.

Our Tasks

A. Engaging with interested Parties and non-Party stakeholders, including furthering the voluntary initiatives of the Lima–Paris Action Agenda

1. Building on existing initiatives, and supporting new and more geographically diverse initiatives

We believe it is important that we build upon the achievements of the Lima–Paris Action Agenda, which mobilized more than 70 transformational initiatives involving almost 10,000 players from 180 countries, including over 7,000 local authorities and 2,000 businesses. An unprecedented number of commitments were made across a diverse range of thematic areas such as agriculture, buildings, energy, forests, innovation, resilience, short-lived climate pollutants and transport. Hundreds of billions of US dollars were redirected to invest in the transition towards a low-carbon and resilient economy. Over 7,000 local authorities made ambitious, operational commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Thousands of local leaders, business leaders and civil society figures travelled to Paris to show their commitment and present their solutions and proposals.

However, we believe that more can be done, in particular, to actively include in this process more representatives from national and local governments, businesses and civil society from developing countries. We intend to ensure that they are fully engaged and represented in the global climate action agenda.

We also wish to ensure that, in line with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement, we bring in more initiatives and proposals focusing on adaptation and climate resilience, as well as on the reorientation of financial flows.

We also wish to recall that innovation is of critical importance, and we plan to fully support initiatives that foster innovation.

2. Connecting initiatives and coalitions with national action plans such as nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

We are actively engaging all climate action coalitions and leading initiatives. We strongly believe that now is the time to consolidate and streamline support for climate action and empower civil society at large to get on with the job of delivery and scaling up results.

Our focus will be on supporting those initiatives that have the greatest impact on the ground, consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

In particular, we will be encouraging a stronger connection between voluntary coalitions and initiatives, national action plans and, in particular, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of Parties, and the implementation of the sustainable development goals.

In some Parties, NDCs are already a vehicle for pre-2020, as well as post-2020, action; other Parties, mostly developing countries, need support to implement their NDCs; finally, some Parties may wish to review their NDCs in light of the long-term goals now embedded in the Paris Agreement.

As NDCs become the framework for policy planning, and are turned into investment plans, it is essential that sectoral initiatives (in transport, building, energy and other sectors), as well as business and subnational commitments and actions, support NDCs and allow for additional actions. Initiatives will prove most useful when they enable the implementation of NDCs and their progressive increase in ambition.

We will be calling for contributions from actors in all sectors to generate solutions that can help governments to implement what they have committed to and to extend them further.

Finally, in line with the Paris Agreement (article 4, paragraph19) and decision 1/CP.21, we will launch a new voluntary initiative on low-emission development strategies for all interested Parties and non-Party stakeholders. We strongly believe that going through the process of developing a mid-century strategy will help countries, cities, regions, businesses, investors and all actors to understand what it takes to achieve the long-term goals embedded in the Paris Agreement while implementing the sustainable development goals:

• At the national level, it will help to design and implement short-term actions aligned with the long-term objective, avoid lock-in and embark on a truly cost-effective emission reduction pathway (as opposed to only minimizing the short-term costs of action);
• At the international level, it will help to identify the benefits of international cooperation (on finance, technology and policy) and how to tap into these benefits.

3. Bringing more transparency, tracking results and demonstrating credibility

Initiatives will continue to be self-organized; it is important that they maintain some degree of independence from the UNFCCC process and governments in general. Governments will also continue to have bilateral interactions with their respective civil society representatives, as well as with global networks.

However, initiatives are seeking a form of official recognition, as a way to enable them to better pursue their goals; they are also looking for ways to feed into the UNFCCC negotiation process, and to interact better with governments.

We need to help Parties and non-Party stakeholders achieve the recognition they seek. At the same time, we need to ensure that these initiatives and coalitions achieve the targets they set themselves, that these targets are really consistent with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement and that actors are actually doing what it takes to achieve the commitments they made.

Therefore, we intend to work with Parties and non-Party stakeholders to consolidate transparency of action and tracking of implementation to demonstrate the credibility of voluntary initiatives and coalitions.

We will undertake wide consultation with Parties and non-Party stakeholders to receive their proposals on how to move forward with appropriate arrangements for institutional support of the global climate action agenda, as well as arrangements for monitoring the transparency of voluntary initiatives and coalitions and the actions of non-Party stakeholders that are both ‘light-touch’ and efficient.

B. Providing guidance to the secretariat on the organization of technical expert meetings, and working with the Executive Secretary and the current and incoming Presidents of the Conference of the Parties to coordinate annual high-level events

This year’s main milestone and focal moment of climate action will be the High Level Event on Climate Action in Marrakech at COP 22. We intend to use the event to its full potential and invite leaders and stakeholders to actively prepare for and engage in it.

Technical expert meetings (TEMs) and the summary for policymakers should also play new roles in this dynamic, finding their specific added values and formats. There is a need to build an aligned and integrated process with TEMs, the high-level event and the actions of champions.

TEMs are not stand-alone meetings, and constitute great opportunities for technical exchanges in the spirit of cooperation. They could feed high-level events, either directly – by identifying specific recommendations of commitments – or indirectly – by incubating solutions for the action agenda or helping multi-stakeholder initiatives to gather more partners. To do so, TEMs should be concrete, focused and planned, with inputs from initiatives of the action agenda.

We have, and we will be making, more proposals to ensure that TEMs are more solution oriented. We also believe that participation should be broader so that, in particular, policymakers from all countries can have, if they so desire, a more direct participation and more diverse interaction tools (such as live webcasts, question and answer sessions, webinars, etc.).

In the lead-up to COP 22, we will convene informal dialogues with Parties, key experts and thought leaders from around the world. We have requested that the secretariat make information on these events available on the UNFCCC website (http://newsroom.unfccc.int/climate-action/global-climate-action-agenda/#Events). We look forward to active engagement in these events in order to develop the tools and partnerships necessary to truly have, in Marrakech, a COP session of action and solutions that drive the global climate action agenda forward.

The summary for policymakers that the UNFCCC secretariat is to prepare, in consultation with the champions, is to be published at least two months in advance of each session of the COP, and will serve as an input for the high-level event and the champions’ joint report at COP 22. The summary will include “information on specific policies, practices and actions representing best practices and with the potential to be scalable and replicable, and on options to support their implementation, as well as on relevant collaborative initiatives”.

[1] Part IV, Enhanced Action Prior to 2020, paragraphs 105–132, and Part V, Non-Party stakeholders, paragraphs 133–136.

Click here to download or read the roadmap as a PDF

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Call for Submissions to Parties and Non-Party Stakeholders

INVITATION FOR SUBMISSIONS ON THE ROAD MAP FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION

MESSAGE TO PARTIES AND NON-PARTY STAKEHOLDERS FROM THE HIGH-LEVEL CHAMPIONS

HER EXCELLENCY MS. LAURENCE TUBIANA, FRENCH AMBASSADOR FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND HER EXCELLENCY MS. HAKIMA EL HAITE, MINISTER DELEGATE TO THE MINISTER OF ENERGY, MINES, WATER AND ENVIRONMENT OF MOROCCO, IN CHARGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

This is the first opportunity that we have, as high-level champions, to address Parties and non-Party stakeholders and engage them in the tasks that have been entrusted to us by the COP 21 Presidency and the COP 22 incoming Presidency.  On Friday 20 May 2016, during the sessions of the UNFCCC subsidiary bodies in Bonn, we held a special event with the UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Ms. Christiana Figueres, to present our road map for global climate action and announce our intention to consult widely with all Parties and non-Party stakeholders on how we can work together to accelerate the global climate action agenda.

We would now like to seek the views of Parties and non-Party stakeholders on our road map for the global climate action agenda (http://newsroom.unfccc.int/climate-action/global-climate-action-agenda).

In particular, we would welcome the views of Parties and non-Party stakeholders on the following questions:

1. The current situation

The sense of urgency that led to the Paris Agreement and sustained the work on workstream 2 (pre-2020 ambition) throughout the whole of 2015 must be sustained. The high-level champions need to make sure that we do “more, faster and now” on enhanced pre-2020 action. Pre-2020 action is a key element for the implementation and success of the Paris Agreement, equally for adaptation, mitigation and means of implementation. Notably, there is a need to quick-start implementation with a sense of urgency and ambition; create an interface with the real world and solutions, particularly the involvement of non-Party stakeholders; and maintain the political momentum.

Is this general presentation an accurate description of the current state of play?
If not, what can we do more?

2. The role of the high-level champions

As champions of global climate action, we believe that we need to be an interface between action on the ground and the UNFCCC negotiation process, between non-Party stakeholders and Parties. We intend to track implementation of existing initiatives to demonstrate credibility, promote best practices and enhance delivery. We will also support new initiatives focusing on adaptation, with a view to broadening the country coverage and including more initiatives coming from developing country Parties and non-Party stakeholders.

Is this an accurate description of the role the high-level climate champions should play with regard to the mobilization of non-state actors?
Is there anything else they should do, or are there things mentioned here that they should not do?

3. Transparency and tracking

We need to help non-Party stakeholders achieve the recognition they seek. At the same time, we owe it to the integrity of the UNFCCC process to make sure that these initiatives and coalitions achieve the targets they set for themselves; that these targets are truly consistent with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement; and that the participants in initiatives and coalitions are actually doing what it takes to achieve the commitments they made. Therefore we intend to work on improving transparency of action and tracking of implementation to demonstrate the credibility of their work.

How do we assess the initiatives? What would be the ideal set of criteria?
Who would assess them? What should be the role of the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA)?

4. High-level event

The high-level climate champions will facilitate, through strengthened high-level engagement in the period 2016–2020, the successful execution of existing efforts and the scaling-up and introduction of new or strengthened voluntary efforts, initiatives and coalitions. The high-level event at the Conference of the Parties (COP) is now the main annual showcase of climate action.

What do Parties and non-Party stakeholders expect from the high-level event at COP 22? To have a real impact at COP 24 in 2018, the Climate Action Summit showcasing the results of non-state actor initiatives would need to take place sufficiently in advance. Should it be organized in the summer of 2018?

5. The role of the TEMS

We intend to use the tools created by Parties for the enhancement of climate action prior to 2020, such as the technical expert meetings (TEMs). These meetings have a whole new role to play in the dynamic and should be more concrete, focused, and connected to initiatives of the action agenda.

Do you share the belief that the format of the TEMs should evolve in the light of the Global Climate Action Agenda?
How could we ensure that the TEMs are more solution-oriented?

We would welcome all inputs and request that they be submitted to the secretariat by 1 August 2016.

Parties may wish to send their views through the UNFCCC submissions portal at the following web address:

http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/SitePages/sessions.aspx?search=Roadmap&showRefinementPanel=0

Non-Party stakeholders may wish to use the following e-mail address when submitting their views: secretariat@unfccc.int

We invite the secretariat to post the submissions on the dedicated page of the UNFCCC website (http://unfccc.int/documentation/items/9636.php) as they are received.

We would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to involve all interested Parties and non-Party stakeholders in our work and to thank you for your consideration of this request.

Click here to download or read the letter as a PDF

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Calendar of Key Events on Climate Action

This calendar will be continuously updated as new information becomes available.

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The Champions

Minister Hakima El Haite

Hakima El Haite has been the Moroccan Delegate Minister to the Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and Environment, in charge of the Environment for three years. She is also Vice President of the Bureau of COP 21, and Special Envoy of the Kingdom of Morocco for COP 22, among other titles. A passionate proponent of Climate Change Action, the Environment and Human Dignity, Ms El Haite holds two PhDs in the environmental field as well as a degree in political communication. She has more than 15 years of experience as a successful entrepreneur in the environmental sector, and decades worth of genuine engagement with Civil Society. In 2016, Ms El Haite was appointed by the President of the French Republic, Mr. François Hollande, Knight of the National Order of the Légion d’Honneur. Mr. Laurent Fabius, then President of COP 21, also honoured her with the hammer of the COP 21 Presidency. In May 2016, she was named High Level Champion for Climate Action. Her long-term commitment to civil society, the depth of her entrepreneurial experience and the scope of her mandate as a policy-maker are the axes on which she intends to rely.

Ambassador Laurence Tubiana

Laurence Tubiana is the French Ambassador for climate change negotiations and the special representative for COP21; in January 2016, she was named High Level Champion for Climate Action. A globally recognized specialist of climate change and development issues, Ms Tubiana founded in 2001 the Institute for sustainable development and international relations (IDDRI) and has authored over a hundred papers, reports and books on these topics. She has also advised Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on sustainable development issues from 1998 to 2002, and held the position of Director of global public goods at the Ministry of Foreign affairs from 2009 to 2010. In addition, Ms Tubiana currently chairs the Board of the French Development Agency (AFD), co-chairs the Executive Committee of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and is a member of the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board.