How Criteria Can Strengthen the Global Climate Action Agenda

To succeed in its goal of delivering urgent climate action and inspiring further ambition, the Action Agenda must be credible. A clear and robust set of principles and criteria are critical to understanding the commitments and progress of cooperative initiatives, building confidence among actors and ensuring that the Action Agenda effectively contributes to closing the mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation gaps. Read more here.

Involvement of EU actors in international climate initiatives: a closer look at national governments, cities and transport

An assessment of a selection of initiatives based on the NAZCA portal and UNEP Climate Initiatives Platform shows that EU national governments are well represented in these initiatives, but the level of participation varies between countries and is generally limited to Northwestern Member States and Italy. On the other hand, EU Cities participation is more widespread, but transparency and availability of emissions and energy data can be improved. Most transport initiatives in which EU Member States participate do not include quantifiable targets, which would be key to increase effectiveness. Read more here.

13 Experts Call for a Comprehensive Framework for Nonstate Climate Action

As countries negotiate a new climate agreement for the United Nations climate conference in December 2015, a groundswell of climate actions is emerging as cities, regions, businesses and civil society groups act on mitigation and adaptation, independently, with each other and with national governments and international organizations. The Paris conference provides a historic opportunity to establish a framework to catalyse, support, and steer these initiatives. Without such a framework, ‘bottom-up’ climate governance runs the risk of failing to deliver meaningful results. Social science research highlights the need for a comprehensive approach that promotes ambition, experimentation and accountability, and avoids unnecessary overlaps. Read more

Strengthening Non-state Climate Action

This report provides the first progress assessment of climate actions launched at the 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York. It considers the distribution and performance of climate actions along multiple dimensions that are relevant to both mitigation and adaptation. While it is too early for a conclusive assessment of the effectiveness of climate actions, this study makes a first and indispensable step toward such an assessment. Initial findings are encouraging. One year after their launch, most climate actions have performed well in terms of producing outputs, putting them on track to implementing their commitments in the coming years. Read more

Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) Independent Assessment Report

Executive Summary

December 7, 2015

This independent report has assessed 68 initiatives under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA). The initiatives cover all twelve LPAA themes, with about two-thirds of initiatives launched in 2014-2015. Analysts from seven research organizations and civil society groups in the Europe, India, and the United States compiled information from the LPAA organizers, public sources, and questionnaires sent to initiatives in order to perform this assessment. 

UNFCCC parties and observers’ views on the groundswell of climate actions

What have parties and observers said about sub/non-state action, multi-stakeholder alliances and action coalitions, and other international cooperative initiatives (ICIs) in the UNFCCC process? This memo summarizes the statements and submissions of UNFCCC parties and observer organizations regarding these topics over the last two years. Read more.

Galvanizing the groundswell of climate actions in developing world

Sander Chan and Thomas Hale

As the UN climate negotiations move to a critical inflection point, a growing number of cities, companies, civil society organizations, research organizations and other groups are shifting toward a low-carbon and climate resilient pathway. This groundswell of climate action is often perceived as a Northern-based, mitigation-focused phenomenon. In truth, there is a huge amount of climate action in the global South... Read more.

Accelerating the action agenda through robust and credible climate commitments from non-state actors

GGCA

How can UNFCCC member states encourage robust initiatives from non-state actors to ensure the credibility of commitments under the Lima-Paris Actions Agenda? This memo summarizes findings and recommendations from Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions, a collaboration of organizations supporting climate leadership at all levels. Read more.

Cooperative actions as a catalyst for the UNFCCC process

GGCA

As Parties negotiate the next climate agreement due in December 2015, there is growing attention to the actions and initiatives that countries, cities, regions, companies, and civil society groups are taking now to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. This groundswell of climate action offers an extraordinary opportunity to both complement and catalyze the intergovernmental negotiations and nationally-determined contributions... Read more.

Assessing the missed benefits of countries' national contributions

NewClimate Institute

This report elaborated by NewClimate Institute with support from Climate Action Network (CAN), investigates the co-benefits associated with countries' Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.  This report provides an overview of the general co-benefits that climate action may have and how they could be used to incentivize further ambitious greenhouse gase reductions. Read more.

Galvanizing a groundswell of solutions to support COP21 by galvanizing the groundswell of climate actions

GGCA

How can governments engage with non-state and cooperative actions to support the Agenda of Solutions and a strong outcome at COP21? This memo summarizes findings and recommendations from a series of multi-stakeholder dialogues on supporting the "groundswell" of climate actions. It makes three points... Read more.