On 2 December, in the framework of the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris, the World Summit on Climate and Territories (WSCT) came together to make a joint declaration on the role of Non-Party stakeholders (including local governments and civil society) in taking climate action. The final declaration of the WSCT Lyon Summit in July received the most signatures from networks of Non-Party stakeholders ever in the history of climate negotiations.
The follow-up declaration, presented at the event “From the WSCT to the COP21 and beyond: proposals and common dynamics of the non-party stakeholders” in Paris recalls the achievements of the World Summit on Climate and Territories:
“In Lyon, local and subnational governments have already made strong emissions reduction commitments, particularly for the period 2015-2020. During the World Summit Climate and Territories we also initiated coalitions of stakeholders on key climate change related issues (mobility, low-carbon economy, forests, adaptation, urban planning, renewable energy, etc.).”
Looking forward to the Paris Agreement, the declaration calls on national governments to “strongly recognize the relevance of a territorial approach and the role of Non-State actors”. It advocates for the climate change agenda to be integrated with the recently adopted SDGs and the New Urban Agenda to be adopted in October 2016 at the Habitat III Conference, underlining that “we cannot stabilise the climate without taking development needs into account”.
The text also calls for the Paris Agreement to
“support education, awareness raising, and capacity building for these stakeholders in order to enable and improve citizen participation for its implementation, especially for a better development of necessary tools for action, starting with territorial planning”.
With ten days of the COP21 remaining, the declaration closes by challenging national governments to meet the ambitious commitments to action that their sub-national counterparts around the world have already made in the quest for global sustainability, peace and development.
Click here to read the Declaration
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