UN Climate Change News, 12 August 2020 - UN Climate Change is launching a new series of climate legislation webinars that aim to build the capacity of policy-makers and parliamentarians across the globe in legislation and governance-related topics that may arise in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Consisting of three parts, the series is a pathway for countries to benefit from expert legal opinions to support domestic policymaking efforts around the full implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The webinars are co-organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) the Center for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) under the lead of UN Climate Change. The initiative follows on from a clear mandate to UN Climate Change to co-organize trainings, workshops, webinars and other activities to exchange best practices and to build and strengthen existing skills and the capacity of stakeholders.

A webinar on “Compliance and implementation under the Paris Agreement” will kick off the series on 27 August 2020 from 13:00 to 14:00 GMT.

With an expert panel of representatives from all organizing organizations, the webinar will involve the sharing of best practices and current legislation to illustrate how Parties are creating law and governance structures to best implement the provisions of the Paris Agreement.

This discussion offers the important possibility of examining how domestic legislative and executive organs can coordinate to operationalize international legal obligations, while benefitting from mutual experiences. Key questions it will address include:

• How can parliamentarians and legislators support international efforts to promote compliance and facilitate implementation of the Paris Agreement?
• What are the interlinkages between the Enhanced Transparency Framework and domestic policy interventions to ensure compliance of the Paris Agreement?

A second Webinar on “Law and governance approaches within the ocean-climate nexus” will take place on 17 September 2020, from 13:00 to 14:00 GMT.

The UNFCCC secretariat has been supporting countries and international organizations to develop synergies on law and governance approaches to address challenges within the ocean-climate nexus, particularly as part of the UN Oceans coordination mechanism.  

Continuing this support, this second webinar will aim to engage with domestic policymaking processes to examine how cross-sectoral legislation affecting climate change and the ocean can be strengthened. With an expert panel of representatives from the organizers, it will offer an opportunity to share best practices in lawmaking and creation of institutional arrangements towards addressing climate change in the context of ocean governance. Key questions it will address include:

• How can legislators and parliaments coordinate and build capacity for the recognition of issues within the ocean-climate nexus from a lawmaking perspective?
• How are Parties responding to the governance challenges within the ocean-climate nexus through legislation?

A webinar on “Legislative approaches in ensuring social stability in communities facing climate-induced risks” will close the series and is scheduled to take place on 8 October 2020 from 13:00 to 14:00 GMT.

In continuation of UN Climate Change’s engagement on the question of climate-induced risks to social stability in order to support countries to effectively address these challenges, this webinar aims to bring together legal and policy experts from international organizations to discuss how Parties can use legal instruments and governance structures, including financial mechanisms, to decrease the threat-multiplier effect of climate change.

The impacts of climate change on the social stability of communities and consequently of countries are indirect, contextual, transnational and multi-dimensional, making the capacity of communities to cope extremely critical.

The key questions that the expert panelists will address during this last webinar include:

• What are instances wherein Parties have used legislative instruments to address risks to social stability, and security of communities arising from climate change?
• What is the role of parliaments in ensuring that climate-induced risks to social stability are recognized in legislative and policy interventions?

Each webinar will run for a total of 60 minutes. Zoom video streaming will be used to conduct the webinars, and login details will be communicated closer to the date.

The webinars are open, but prior registration is required.

To register, please see here. 

Contact: mshinde@unfccc.int