Global leaders are now gathered in Paris for the UN Climate Summit and the world anxiously follows the negotiations. Will there be a deal? What will it look like? The hopes are high and the stakes possibly higher.
An ambitious and inclusive global climate agreement is within reach, yet the commitments expressed so far by countries fall short of achieving the 2°C target. According to the UNFCCC, the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by countries will manage to curb the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions to a level consistent with a 2.7°-5°C warming by the end of the century.
It’s not enough. If national leaders don’t agree on a more ambitious path to a low-carbon future, the most vulnerable citizens will be the ones to suffer the worst impacts of climate change.
As a global network of over 1,000 cities and regions, ICLEI knows this all too well.
The Second Assessment Report on “Climate Change and Cities” developed by top climate scientists in the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and presented today at the Climate Summit for Local Leaders in Paris City Hall, confirms that cities are the ones that stand to lose the most from unchecked climate change, but they’re also the ones where real climate action is taking place and needs to be scaled up.
Adapting to the changing climate might cost between $80-100 billion every year, 80% of which will need to be invested in urbanized areas: only the annual capital investment in physical infrastructure will need to be doubled to over $20 trillion by 2025, mostly in emerging economies. The costs of inaction, however, are even greater: with over half the global population living in cities in the coastal zone by mid-21st century, annual coastal flood losses could reach $71 billion by 2100.
The over 600 jurisdictions reporting to the carbonn® Climate Registry have already committed to emissions reductions of one gigaton of CO2 equivalent by 2020. To make a comparison, this is the same reduction achieved by the European Union between 1990 and 2012.
Cities and regions have long been pioneers of climate action. While COP 15 in Copenhagen failed to deliver the climate agreement that the world was waiting for, local and subnational governments pushed forward in implementing ambitious climate actions. They are now ready to scale up their efforts, explore 100% renewables scenarios by 2030 and 2050 and further increase the level of transparency and inclusion.
What we hope to see, as the first week of negotiations enters its final moments, is for national governments to show the same level of ambition and foresight.
The conditions are ripe. Renewable energy and other mitigation solutions were never so competitive; businesses from core sectors were never so committed to show by example; the voice of local and subnational governments was never so clear, the examples of good local action never so abundant and compelling.
The leaders of the world need to address three basic realities that are at the roots of global climate change: the legacy of a fossil-dependent era and ineffectiveness of piecemeal solutions; the unstoppable transformation into a development model that is based on 100% renewables and a circular economy; the need to develop innovative governance models in a multi-polar, multi-stakeholder, multi-level urban world of the 21st century.
We need a deal, and a good one. We need global leaders to agree on a set of meaningful measures, including (but not limited to): the adoption of long term mitigation goals, in particular regarding carbon neutrality, phase-out of fossil fuels and 100% renewables by 2050 at the latest; financial support for developing countries to achieve their INDCs; a 5-year revision process of the INDCs; the adoption of a financial target to reach at least $35 billion in public finance for developing countries.
Let’s be clear. Paris is not the end of the line, and it won’t certainly be the end of the collective efforts that, on a truly planetary scale, are striving towards climate action now. ICLEI will keep pushing for an ambitious agreement, one that recognizes all levels of governments and that ensures inclusivity and equity. Next week we will learn the final outcome of this Climate Summit, and then we’ll know whether national governments will have chosen to take up the challenge and joined the rest of the world’s population in steering the planet away from the dire consequences of human-made climate change. One thing is for sure, though: cities and regions will keep moving forward, doing their part in what is, with no exaggeration, the defining issue of our time.