The importance of making progress on action more transparent has been reiterated this year in submissions to the Talanoa Dialogue and in UN Environment’s Emissions Gap Report, in the chapter on Non-Party Climate Action.17 Transparent reporting
17. UN Environment (2018).
18. Source: speech given by Paul Simpson at the Global Climate Action Summit Sept 13, 2018. Available at: https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/
the-global-climate-action-summit-and-the-rise-of-disclosure
19. New York Declaration on Forests Progress Assessment 2018 forestdeclaration.org/summary https://www.globalfueleconomy.org/data-and-research/publications/gfei-delivering-climate-action, http://www.uitp.org/sites/default/files/UITP%20DECLARATION%20ON%20CLIMATE%20LEADERSHIP%202018%20REPORT%20OF%20IMPLEMENTATION%20FINAL.pdf 20. https://globalabc.org/uploads/media/default/0001/01/35860b0b1bb31a8bcf2f6b0acd18841d8d00e1f6.pdf
21. http://www.iclei.org/details/article/global-covenant-of-mayors-announces-collective-impact-ofcommitted-cities-and-new-data-reporting-sta.html 22. https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Data-TWG_ReportingFramework_website.docx
on progress helps build confidence in the ability of non-Party stakeholders to deliver results. This in turn can help provide a platform for increasing ambition. As reported in the 2017 Yearbook, well-established actors, such as the Climate Initiatives Platform, ICLEI carbonn® Climate Registry, Global Covenant of Mayors, CDP and C40 Cities, have all contributed to increasing transparency. In 2018, over 1,300 new companies, cities, states and regions, spanning 60 countries, have started to take part in the annual climate change disclosure cycle to CDP.18 Initiatives, such as the New York Declaration on Forests, the Global Fuel Economy Initiative and the International Association of Public Transports’ Declaration on Climate Leadership,19 have published reports on progress in 2018. Other initiatives also publish annual reports, including the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.20
Standardized reporting frameworks are established for Party and non-Party stakeholders. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides standards and tools for use in measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions. It is used by companies, subnational actors and by some national governments. The Global Covenant of Mayors aims to define a common global reporting framework for cities and local governments. This is linked to the new data reporting standard21 that was released at COP23 in 2017.
Building upon this, a new global framework for reporting city greenhouse gas emissions inventories was released in September 2018 at the Global Climate Action Summit.22 The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency provides guidance for national and subnational policymakers to measure and assess the impact of climate actions. In May 2018, new guidance was published covering a range of sectors and issues, such as stakeholder participation and technical review. There is specific guidance on tools for integration of impacts of action by non-Party stakeholders, for reporting but also to assess the extent to which these actions might help achieve or exceed national targets.
Global Climate Action portal (NAZCA)
As a product of a unique collaboration between the UNFCCC secretariat and core data partners (CDP, ICLEI carbonn® Climate Registry, Climate Bonds Initiative, the UN Environment’s Climate Initiatives Platform, Global Covenant of Mayors, Investors on Climate Change, The Climate Group, and UN Global Compact), NAZCA consolidates and reports on the climate actions of cities, regions, companies and civil society organizations, providing transparency and visibility to the climate actions made by non-Party stakeholders.
Photo: Nigel Tadyanehondo
2. Global climate action now
19
23. The announcements and reports published at the Global Climate Action Summit can be accessed on the NAZCA events page http://climateaction.unfccc.int/views/events.html
Figure 7
Number of climate actions and actors registered in NAZCA in 2016 and October 2018 by stakeholder type, together with the projection of the total numbers expected when all data sets are fully processed.
Civil society organizations
Companies and investors
Cities and regions
TotalNAZCA was launched by the Peruvian Presidency of COP20, alongside the Lima Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) in 2014. It was a central tool for the LPAA and the French Presidency to build momentum and support the adoption of the universal climate agreement at COP21. This culminated with its inclusion in the Paris outcome where countries welcome the efforts of these actors to scale up their climate actions and encourage the registration of these actions on NAZCA.
In September 2018, at the GCAS, the portal began a phased upgrade with the launch of a new version:
» Showing evidence of transformation in Global Climate Action, with a significant increase in the number of non-Party stakeholders taking climate action over time;
» Identifying the geographical coverage around the globe of Non-Party stakeholders taking climate actions;
» Broadening the climate action classifications, to include elements such as the Marrakech Partnership thematic areas and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
» Increasing focus on the non-Party stakeholders by creating individual profile pages with contextual, climate and action information allowing better tracking and understanding of their commitments.
The work on NAZCA continues beyond 2018 to further populate new elements such as climate action status and progress and additional contextual and greenhouse gas inventory data for non-Party stakeholders. As such, NAZCA is evolving into a tool that can effectively facilitate Parties efforts to implement the Paris Agreement.
The relaunch of the portal also included a major data update, with new data continuing to be added. The scale of climate action already observed in NAZCA corroborates with the assessments of global climate actions published at and around the California summit:23 that a large and diverse range of cities, states and regions, and private sector organizations are taking climate action.
By 2016, NAZCA reported around 12,000 individual and co-operative climate actions. Following the update in October 2018, this number increased to around 20,000 actions. Data is still being added and once all data sets are processed, it is foreseen that this number will increase to over 30,000 actions.
Regarding the number of stakeholders, by 2016, NAZCA reported approximately 5,000 Non-Party stakeholders who have either undertaken an individual or co-operative climate action.
By October 2018 this increased to around 12,000 stakeholders – with the potential to increase to over 15,000 when the latest data is fully processed.
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
Projected 2018
2016 Projected 2018
2016
Actions Actors
20
Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2018 Marrakech PartnershipPhoto: Bui Bao
3. The future of global climate action