February 2019: For the second year in a row, the Nairobi Framework Partnership (NFP) will convene three Regional Climate Weeks over the course of 2019: Africa Climate Week; Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week; and Asia-Pacific Climate Week. The events will “serve as critical stepping stones” to UN Secretary-General’s 2019 Climate Summit in September.

Regional Climate Weeks represent a collaborative platform for governments and various stakeholders to address climate change-relevant issues “under one umbrella,” including the SDGs, implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change, and global climate action. The Regional Climate Week series will “kick-start conversations” for the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Asia-Pacific.

Two days of the Regional Climate Weeks will be dedicated to technical dialogues on NDC implementation, which have been held by the UNFCCC and UN Development Programme (UNDP) since 2014 to help countries with planning and implementation of their climate commitments. The technical dialogues will seek to support countries in preparing a more ambitious second round of NDCs and enhancing capacities to track NDC implementation progress, taking into account lessons learned, NDC implementation progress to date and the outcomes of the Talanoa Dialogue and the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the UNFCCC. [UNFCCC News Article on Technical Dialogues] [UNDP NDC Support Programme Webpage on Regional NDC Dialogues]

The first in the series is Africa Climate Week, which will convene in Accra, Ghana, from 18-22 March 2019, under the theme, ‘Climate Action in Africa: A Race We Can Win.’ In addition to technical dialogues on NDC implementation, issues under discussion will include energy transition, nature-based solutions, and cities and local action under three parallel tracks on finance, policy and technology. The event will also: showcase the role of carbon pricing and markets in enhancing climate action; discuss capacity building for transparency, for innovation and investment, and for youth-led climate action; and formulate recommendations for the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit. [Africa Climate Week Programme]

Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week will be held in Salvador, Brazil, from 19-23 August 2019, and Asia-Pacific Climate Week will take place in Shenzhen, China, from 2-6 September 2019.

The Regional Climate Weeks’ global partners are the UNFCCC, Word Bank, UNDP, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UNEP Partnership with the Technical University of Denmark (UNEP-DTU Partnership), Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) and International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). Regional partners include the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Africa, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in LAC and Asian Development Bank (ADB) and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Asia-Pacific.

Preparations for the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, including the establishment of nine coalitions on the various aspects of climate action and a timeline of climate events to be held in the run up to the Summit, are described in an SDG Knowledge Hub story here. [Regional Climate Weeks Website]