Massive Mobilization by Non-State Stakeholders Summarized at COP21
9 December 2015
UN Climate Press Release

Paris, 9 December 2015 - The outcome of the Action Day and the 12 “Focuses” held from 1-8 December under the Lima to Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) during COP21 demonstrate the massive and rising response by cities, regions, business and civil society to take ambitious climate action, frequently in cooperation with national governments.

The LPAA has already become a major force in reducing emissions, improving energy efficiency, building resilient  communities and economies and curbing destruction and waste in forestry, water and agriculture to shape tomorrow’s sustainable world.

  • More than 70 major cooperative initiatives involving almost 10,000 players from 180 countries
  • Almost 11,000 total commitments on the NAZCA platform, including 2,250 cities and 150 regions covering 1.25 billion inhabitants; 2,025 companies, 424 investors, and 235 civil society organizations
  • Hundreds of billions of dollars redirected to invest in the transition toward a low-carbon and resilient economy
  • One third of the 2,000 biggest global companies committed to climate action with a market value equivalent to the combined GDP of China, Germany and Japan
  • Thousands of local leaders, business leaders and civil society figures travelled to Paris to show their commitment and present their solutions and proposals.

LPAA - One of the Key Outcomes from Paris COP21

The LPAA is an initiative led by France, Peru, the UN Secretary-General and secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It's objective is to showcase the commitments and parternships of cities, regions, businesses and civil society organizations, often along with goverments, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build greater resilience against climate change. 

The LPAA seeks to amplify action now and in the long term at each level and in each sector and region of the world. It demonstrates that the world is already taking climate action and constantly increasing the response even before the Paris climate change agreement takes effect from 2020.

The way LPAA initiatives are structured, monitored and implemented can also provide significant support to countries when implementing their own national climate action plans, which now approach 190, in other words almost every country in the world. The initiatives contain concrete climate solutions based on  technological, political and financial innovation. They also strive to constantly lower the cost of low-carbon technologies.

The initiatives launched at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Climate Summit in New York', in 2014, are bearing greater fruit. Many of them are more robust and better structured than they were a year ago, such as the New York Declaration on Forests. Key areas of progress include:

  • Remarkable commitment by cities and communities. Over 7,000 communities have made ambitious, operational commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Numerous initiatives set energy efficiency as the main source of emission reductions, including electrical appliances, urban districts, industrial, transport and fuel facilities.
  • Private finance has announced unprecedented shifts of capital in the transition to a low-carbon, resilient future in three main areas: measuring the carbon footprint of portfolios; investment in climate-focused projects and an orderly divestment from fossil fuels.
  • Stakeholders in water resources have launched concerted management initiatives involving hundreds of public and private stakeholders under the Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation.

Some Examples of Major Announcements Made 

Forest Focus

  • Mondelez committed to invest US$400 million in the next decade to support the production of sustainable cocoa with zero net deforestation in Africa.
  • Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom announced a collective aim to provide over $5 billion from 2015 to 2020, if forest countries demonstrate measured, reported and verified emission reductions.
  • Colombia in turn announced a commitment of $300 million with those same countries to deliver on its Amazon Vision and scale up deforestation reduction

Agriculture

  • “4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate” – launched at COP21 by a hundred partners (developed and developing states, international organizations, private foundations, international funds, NGOs and farmers' organization) initiative aims to protect and increase carbon stocks in soils.

Resilience – Water

  • Paris Pact on Water and Climate Change Adaptation – involves 303 participants from a wide geographic coalition of organisations, governments, funding agencies, local governments, companies and civil society – representing over US$20 million in technical assistance and potentially over US$ 1 billion in financing.

Resilience – Adaptation

  • Early warning systems for over 50 least developed countries and SIDS
  • Access to insurance to 400 million vulnerable people in 5 years
  • US$ 150 million partnership looks to mobilize more funding for Africa and Asia
  • EU mobilizes €125 million for countries affected by ‘El Niño’

Transport

  • 65 countries committed to improve vehicles efficiency in developing countries, representing 3 billion inhabitants
  • MobiliseYourCity: Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans in 100 fast-growing cities and 40 countries, with already 20 cities committed and 5 million euros to fast-start the program.
  • 50 partners embark on transforming freight, the fastest growing contributor to transport emissions
  • Countries, subnationals and companies will aim to have 20% electric vehicles on the road in 2030 (light and heavy duty vehicles, bicycles, buses), which represents 100 million cars (from 1 million today).

Building

  • Over 60 organizations and 22 countries launched an unprecedented Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

Private Finance

  • Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition: 20 investors, representing US$3.2 trillion, committing to decarbonization of US$600 billion in assets.
  • 106 banks, annually investing a total of 250 Billion USD, and dozens of investors, managing 4000 Bn USD of assets, have committed to a major increase in energy efficiency lending in their portfolios.
  • International cooperative and mutual insurance federation overshoot their pledge made in 2014 with more than 109 Billion of green investments made to date and a new 5-5-5 initiative to bring micro-insurance for 25 million vulnerable people in support to G7 pledge.

Short-Lived Climate Pollutants

  • Over 50 cities to reduce emissions from municipal solid waste
  • Sector to reduce HFCs by 30 -50% from refrigerant servicing within 10 years
  • Green Freight Action Plan to fight black carbon and fine particle pollutants

Energy

  • The Global Geothermal Alliance (GGA), launched today, is set to achieve a 500% increase in global installed capacity for geothermal power generation and a 200% increase for geothermal heating by 2030. The GGA is now a strong partnership of 36 countries and 23 institutions.
  • India launched the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which aims to align countries with the abundant solar potential to push the development of solar energy technologies. The Alliance has a prospective membership of over 120 countries.
  • The Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) announces plans to build at least 10 GW of new and additional renewable energy generation capacity by 2020 and 300 GW by 2020. 10 Billion USD by 2020 were pledged by supporting countries from G7, European Commission, Sweden.
  • More than 70 countries have agreed to phase out incandescent bulbs and promote the most efficient lighting technologies such as LED.

Cities & Subnational

  • Cities and regions from five continents representing almost one-fifth of the world’s population (38 partners) came together to launch a five-year vision (Action Plan) that will raise their action to respond to climate change and ensure sustainable future living environments for their people.

Business

  • 64 CEOs representing USD 1.9 trillion in annual revenue commit to integrate carbon pricing into corporate long-term strategies
  • 450 CEOs from 65 countries across 30 sectors commit to set targets to drive climate action.
  • 115 companies from around the world commit to align their emissions reductions targets in line with below 2°C
  • ACCIONA pledges to be carbon neutral by 2016, Philipps Lightning by 2020.

Innovation

  • Launched “Mission innovation”. This initiative of 20 countries, will dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation, including doubling their current research and development (R&D) investments in the sector. The initiative is coupled with a private sector effort called the “Breakthrough Energy Coalition”, in which 28 investors from 10 countries, led by Bill Gates, to invest extraordinary levels of private capital in clean energy.

 NAZCA HIGHLIGHTS

Almost 11,000 examples of participation (cumulative) in LPAA initiatives, involving states and non-state actors from 180 countries.

  • Including 2,255 cities, 150 regions, 2,025 companies, and 424 investors.
  • Cities and regions on NAZCA, represent about 1.26 billion people or 17 % of the global population.
  • 97 cities out of the top 300 global cities by GDP are engaged on NAZCA, with a total GDP close to $20 trillion.
  • One-hundred and eleven Global 500 companies with a collective $6.7 trillion market capitalization are making reduction pledges on NAZCA.
  • More than one-third (609) of the 2000 largest companies by Forbes 2000 (2014) across the globe are engaged on NAZCA.
  • These 609 companies represent aggregate revenue of $19.2 trillion, equivalent to the combined GDPs of China, Japan and Germany in 2014.
  • 385 public companies on NAZCA have total revenue of $2.86 trillion USD (revenue data from Bloomberg).
  • Hundreds of billions of USD redirected to climate: including portfolios of de-carbonization, divestment from fossil fuels, and pro-climate investments.
  • 25% of the world's largest companies committing to address climate change.
  • About 15 % of all individual commitments include a carbon price.
  • 75 large multi-stakeholder cooperative initiatives for climate action worldwide, covering key impact areas:

-   resilience (11 initiatives),

-   less polluting transportation (11),

-   renewable development (9),

-   increasing energy efficiency (8),

-   forest protection (6),

-   subnational local action (6),

-   business and innovation (7),

-   agriculture (5),

-   financial mobilisation (5),

-   climate friendly building (3),

-   short term pollutants (4).

Examples of Major Private Finance Announcements

  • The G7 announced that it would contribute finance to the G7 InsuResilience Initiative which focuses on regional risk management and insurance pools to provide access to insurance services for 400 million people over the next five years in the most vulnerable countries. So far, Germany has commited EUR 150 million.
  • Montreal Carbon Pledge: nearly 120 investors representing US$10 trillion committed to portfolio carbon footprinting.
  • Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition: 20 investors, representing US$3.2 trillion, committing to decarbonization of US$600 billion in assets.
  • CDC CEO, Pierre Rene Lamas: committed to decarbonising 55 billion euros by 20% by 2020; by 2016 CDC will have no shares in companies with over 20% stakes in coal and joined the Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition
  • The insurance industry, ICMIF, launched a new initiative on microfinance called "555" covering 5 million households, in 5 countries over 5 years.
  • Credit Agricole SA committed 2 billion euros into green bonds by 2017 and over the next 3 years, the bank will put 60 billion euros into new financing in climate change and double financing in renewable energy.

MORE INFORMATION FOR MEDIA:

Diane Gaillard - LPAA Press Officer: +33 6 99 62 49 79 | presse@cop21.gouv.fr

Event Programme online: http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/cop-21/

NAZCA climate commitments platform Over 10.000 concrete actions, from cities, companies, investors, foundations, NGOs http://climateaction.unfccc.int/(link is external)

Twitter LPAA: @LPAA_Live | #LPAA

Flickr (copyright free photos): https://www.flickr.com/photos/136161474@N05/albums(link is external)