UN Climate Change News, 12 February 2018 – This year, conversations at city and regional level on how to the increase ambition to reach the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement will take place in 40 countries around the world.

So-called "Cities and Regions Talanoa Dialogues’’ will be facilitated by ICLEI -Local Governments for Sustainability with Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy and UN-Habitat as special partners. The dialogues will be part of the global exercise called the ‘Talanoa Dialogue’.

Patricia Espinosa, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, said: “Local and regional governments have become a powerful catalyst towards ever higher climate action. Their participation in the Talanoa Dialogue will be a key driver towards the New Urban Agenda and the accelerating global efforts to deliver the Paris Agreement at speed and at scale."

Talanoa is the traditional word used in Fiji to describe an inclusive and transparent dialogue and decision-making process.

All countries and other stakeholders, including business, investors, cities, regions and civil society, are invited to make submissions into the Talanoa Dialogue around three central questions: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there? Countries and non-Party stakeholders will be contributing ideas, recommendations and information that can assist the world in taking climate action to the next level in order to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The central target of the Paris Climate Change Agreement is to keep the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Achieving this goal is essential to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

The Talanoa Dialogue was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference COP23 in Bonn in November 2017 and will run throughout 2018.

The new initiative promises to build upon promises to accelerate engagement of the urban community in climate action, building on the synergy of sustainable urbanization and low-emission and resilient development.

Read the full press release here.

Visit the Talanoa Dialogue portal.

Read more about the cities and regions Talanoa Dialogues here