Newsletter – n°28 – November 2014

Initiative worth following

Bernard Soulage, Vice president of the Rhone-Alpes Region delegated to European and  International Relations, and Ronan Dantec, Senator and spokesperson of UCLG on climate, have launched the Steering committee of the World Summit of Territorial Climate Action — the dialogues and proposals of local and regional governments (LRGs) and civil society towards the COP 21. 

The initiative, which is expected to bring together between 500 to 700 participants (local and regional delegates and representatives from civil society organisations from around the world) due to take place in Lyon in July 2015, is expected to launch a process of dialogue and bring together civil society and LRGs around a common roadmap to highlight the contributions of non-state actors in the fight against climate change. Organised six months prior to the COP 21, the summit aims to urge national leaders to make a commitment and contain global warming within to a two-degree threshold in the December 2015 Paris conference.

The project is ambitious but the organisers have the means to succeed; they have gathered around them almost all of the major French, European and international networks of communities engaged on this topic and have ensured the support of large civil society organisations. The Summit is also welcomed and supported by the French government who will chair the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The first meeting of the Steering Committee was held at the headquarters of the Association of French Regions, on November 12, and was attended by a multitude of associations, including many PLATFORMA partners: CUF, AFCCRE, CEMR and UCLG, as well as the city ‹of Paris.