UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Announces Climate Action: Catalyzing a Sustainable Future

Geschreven op 5-12-2015 - Erik van Erne. Geplaatst in Klimaat

On Action Day at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that a broad group of organizations would partner in 2016 to maintain momentum for multi-stakeholder climate implementation.

The Secretary-General said: “I am heartened by the significant and growing coalitions that are emerging to tackle the challenges of climate change and realize new opportunities. I am pleased to be joined by so many key partners to scale climate action efforts and make them sustainable.”

The Secretary-General, joined by the World Bank; the Global Environment Facility; the Compact of Mayors and Michael Bloomberg, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change; the World Business Council for Sustainable Development; We Mean Business; and the University of Maryland, will co-sponsor a “Climate Action 2016” summit of leaders from government, business, cities and localities, civil society and academia on May 5–6 in Washington, D.C.

This high-level gathering will complement ongoing implementation efforts and catalyze actionable, concrete deliverables in specific high-value areas, including: cities; land use; resilience; energy; transport; tools for decision makers; and finance.

Climate change is the defining issue of our age; a robust, multi-sector response will be required to pivot societies toward a more sustainable future for all. Our understanding of climate change is rapidly evolving—from the world’s biggest problem, to the world’s biggest opportunity. Technological change, citizen mobilization, economic and political competition, and the formation of massive public-private coalitions have all helped turn the climate action risk-reward equation on its head.

But that’s not the end of the story; it’s the beginning. The new climate regime will create climate solutions markets that are “bottom up” as well as “top down.” It will involve business and finance, mayors and governors, academia and civil society, as well as national governments. It will create a floor for progress, not a ceiling, and look to coalitions of all these actors to determine how we can accelerate ambition and achieve the kind of progress necessary to secure our future. Accelerate ambition and achieve the kind of progress necessary to secure our future.
The Climate Action 2016 summit, will take place eight months after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals by all the governments of the world, and five months after the UNFCCC conference of parties COP21 in Paris sets a new international framework for climate action. In this context, the summit will deepen and expand the action coalitions of government, business, finance, philanthropy, civil society and academic leaders launched at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit 2014 in New York, and seek to make this broad-scale organization of climate action both more effective and sustainable.

Day One, held at the University of Maryland inside the Washington, DC, beltway, will focus on convening working groups for breakout sessions on near-term implementation actions and long-term implementation needs. Day Two, held in downtown Washington, DC, will drive high-level engagement with global luminaries addressing plenary sessions on how to deliver on climate commitments and embed the transformation agenda across the globe in government, key sectors and among the general population. Deliver on climate commitments and embed the transformation agenda across the globe

Effective climate implementation will require collaboration from a variety of actors. The Climate Action 2016 summit will engage 700 participants, by invitation, representing leaders from government, business, finance, academia, philanthropy and civil society. Seven founding partners will jointly sponsor the summit, providing this diverse group with the information, connections and tools they need to lead effective implementation of a new climate regime. These founding partners have a strong track record of implementing a pragmatic, multi-actor, coalition-based approach, and together they represent a growing foundation for a sustainable model of climate action moving forward.

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Anders Bekeken