SDG PAVILION UPDATE 2-13 December 2019 Madrid, Spain

Thursday, 5 December 

Localizing the Paris Agreement and climate related SDGs Organized by UNCDF

Local authorities have the potential to play a key role in realising national commitments to global climate targets such as the Paris Agreement or the Sustainable Development Goals. But all too often in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island States (SIDs) under-funding of local authorities is limiting results. LoCAL addresses this need by providing climate change adaptation funding to local authorities in LDCs and SIDs. In this session, representatives from the Local Climate Adaptation Living Facility (LoCAL) and colleagues in partners countries demonstrate how the LoCAL mechanism has empowered local authorities, boosting adaptation measures and reducing vulnerability in countries on the climate change front-line. Speakers will highlight how LoCAL can: deliver results on SDG 13 Climate Action and at the same time contribute to other goals, notably: SDG2, SDG5, SDG6, SDG8, SDG17; make donor funding more transparent and more responsive; strengthen ownership and participation of local communities; build the capacity of local stakeholders and financial structures address issues of inequality, including gender inequalities; empower local governments in contributing towards national targets.

Energy Poverty and interlinkages Organized by ECODES Spain

Clean and affordable energy (SDG7) is essential to reduce CO2 emissions and ensure access to energy for vulnerable people. The energy transition with active citizenship needs new ideas and ways of working. This workshop showed innovative experiences that public administrations, companies and social entities, in partnership, have launched to involve people in experiences of shared self-consumption, energy renovation of buildings and energy empowerment, with the double objective of tackling energy poverty and climate change. At the event, the need to take the risk to innovate was highlighted. Technological solutions by themselves do not work, rather they must be hybridizied with social solutions. Alliances will be key in this process. These innovative experiences, with the lessons learned, can be replicated on a large scale, accelerating the transition to a decarbonized and fair energy model.

Key factors for strengthening implementation synergies between the Climate and Development Agendas Organized by UCLG and the GTF

The Global Taskforce session emphasized the mutual co-benefits of both implementation of SDGs and Climate Agendas, the Development agenda particularly paving the way for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. All SDGs have an impact on implementation of the Paris Agreement, and over 60% of them rely on local governments (LG). The panelists all shared the common challenge to make NDCs a bottom-up process that allows local governments to integrate the Paris Agreement with National level to make the implementation happen. Mechanisms need to be generated that integrate LG where the financial decisions are done. Next year will be key to enhance dialogue between all stakeholders, in order to achieve the objective. This dialogue must be enhanced, because without local governments, there will be no objective reached. Strong agendas like food security, gender, climate are also there to accelerate SDGs implementation. To save the planet, the process needs to be accelerated.

Communicating Climate Change and the role of the SDGs to Skeptics Organized by Global Good

In a panel moderated by Global Good’s Megan Bettilyon, rising climate scientists and policy makers Tashiana Osborne, Kirk Sato, Maya Becker, and Holden Leslie-Bole discussed some of the more common questions and statements made by climate change skeptics and provided talking points for how to communicate answers. In the second half of the session, veteran climate  science leaders John O. Niles (The Carbon Institute) and Margaret Leinen (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) highlighted the long-term cost effectiveness of the Paris Agreement and the benefits of investing in immediate action plans to meet the SDGs.