Recognizing the Role of Local Government in the Paris Agreement

Understanding the Paris Agreement in the Pacific, Part 1

The Paris Agreement, resulting from the COP21 in Paris in December 2015, was a landmark agreement that, while far from perfect, goes a long way towards recognizing the needs and priorities of vulnerable countries such as small island states and least developed countries in relation to climate change. While recognizing that limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels won't be enough to protect SIDS and LDCs, and aiming to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees was the highlight of the document and a win for Pacific island countries, among others, there was also another key aspect of the Agreement which will make response to climate change all the more effective in the long term. Specifically, the Agreement recognizes the role of subnational and local governments in mitigation, and in particular, adaptation actions. This is the first climate change agreement to do so, and it means a lot.

Why? To date, response to climate change has centred on the national and international levels - global agreements with national policies and action plans to implement commitments made by Parties to those agreements. However, the actual process - the day to day actions of mitigation and specifically adaptation - take place at the subnational and local levels. And so the recognition not only of the role of subnational and local government, but also their needs in terms of finance and capacity building, is crucial.

What this means in practice is that the Paris Agreement aims for more inclusiveness, responsiveness and participation to combat the effects of climate change. It aims to pressure national governments to undertake mitigation and adaptation planning so that the actions that are prioritized and financed are decided upon based on the needs of local communities rather than technocrats at the national level. It means that rather than country-wide responses to an issue, for example flood prevention, actions can be tailored to the needs of the diverse regions and communities that make up a country. It also means that finance for mitigation and adaptation actions needs to be channelled to the local level to speed up the process of implementation. The Paris Agreement provides for mechanisms and opportunities to ensure that this can happen, backed up with capacity building support based on needs identified by subnational and local governments themselves.

Of course, there will always be bureaucracy, and the resistance of national government to relinquish control of funds and decision making. That is why it is important to raise awareness about the provisions in the Paris Agreement that highlight the need to focus on the role of subnational and local governments, and to support efforts to ensure that planning and financing at the local level actually happens. It is a huge step in moving beyond the 'talking shop' of global climate change response to seeing credible and effective action taking place on the ground, in the most vulnerable communities in the most vulnerable countries.