9 December 2015: The High Level Assembly (HLA) of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) committed to ambitious action over the next five years to reduce emissions of the short-term climate pollutants (SLCPs) – black carbon, methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

The HLA met on 8 December 2015, on the margins of the Paris Climate Conference.

The HLA adopted a Communique and a five-year Strategic Plan. Among other things, the Paris Communique commits CCAC members to work collectively and individually to achieve the priority objective of the Plan, which includes widespread adoption of policies, regulations and practices to reduce SLCPs. The Communique also pledges to explore opportunities for high-level cooperation to address key sources of methane emissions, and work with financial institutions and experts to improve accounting of black carbon and methane abatement in order to facilitate finance for such abatement efforts.

The five-year Strategic Plan outlines four principal strategies to achieve its priority objective: catalyze ambitious action, such as adoption in 2016 of an HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol; mobilize robust support, including by engaging directly with high-level policymakers and legislators at the national and sub-national levels, and increasing public awareness; leverage finance at scale, including by generating enabling conditions for financing national and sub-national SLCP actions, trying to get bilateral development agencies and multilateral development banks to mainstream SLCP mitigation into their lending, and targeting and leveraging scaled-up private financial flows for SLCP mitigation; and enhance science and knowledge, including by identifying and addressing key scientific and technical issues posing barriers to scaling up action, developing and improving SLCP inventories and assessments, and contributing to the development of metrics that can help quantify the multiple benefits of SLCP mitigation.

During the HLA, members announced new pledges to the Coalition Trust Fund of about US$12 million, including CAD10 million from Canada, US$1.8 million from Norway, and €100,000 from Finland.

In an event held just before the HLA, the CCAC Oil and Gas Methane Partnership announced a collaboration between three oil and gas producers (BG Group, ENI and Total) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to conduct a series of scientific studies improve understanding of the global sources and magnitude of methane emissions from oil and gas supply chains. [CCAC press release on HLA] [CCAC Paris Communique] [CCAC Five-Year Strategic Plan] [CCAC press release on methane initiative] [IISD RS Summary of the HLA]