Local Action, Global Goals: Cities Delivering on the Global Stocktake and Global Goal on Adaptation
Parties to the Paris Agreement must do more than simply acknowledge local action, they must actively support and unlock it. The following recommendations outline how they can do it.
- Organization
-
C40 Cities
Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy
Ten years on from the signature of the Paris Agreement, Parties are setting out new national climate targets in their NDC 3.0, and plans to achieve them, that differ in pace and scale. According to the synthesis report, Parties are bending their combined emission curve further downward, but still not quickly enough to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. They must respond to the evidence of the first Global Stocktake (GST): the world is not on track to limit warming in line with the Paris agreement.
The NDC Synthesis Report clearly reveals that major acceleration is still needed to deliver faster, deeper emission reductions and ensure that climate benefits reach all countries and communities. Closing this gap necessitates accelerated implementation across all sectors and levels of government. A promising sign, however, is the increasing adoption of 'wholeof-society' approaches. The newly released NDC 3.0 Urban Content Snapshot confirms this surge in subnational involvement: the number of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with strong urban content has almost doubled, and 64% of the analyzed NDCs now reference multilevel governance, making it the most visible means of implementation in the analysis.
These data proves that cities, states, and regions are increasingly recognized as essential partners in planning, implementing, and monitoring climate action, helping to embed national goals into local contexts. Based on an analysis conducted in partnership with Arup utilizing data from CDP-ICLEI Track as well as MyCovenant, across all GCoM cities. This brief argues that strengthening multilevel governance is an effective strategy to bridge the ambition and implementation gap. Initiatives like the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP), offer a clear path forward. By systematically integrating cities and regions, which are already delivering results into national climate processes, Parties can unlock the ambition needed to respond to the GST, close the ambition and implementation gap.