The UN acknowledges the role of regions in the fight against climate change

On August 31 and September 1, the II Climate Summit of the Americas took place in Jalisco, Mexico

During the II Climate Change Summit of the Americas (CCSA), held in the Mexican State of Jalisco on the 31st of August and 1st of September, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa, made a clear acknowledgment about the role of regional governments in the fight against climate change. She affirmed that the “Paris Agreements require the implication of the regional governments for their implementation” and stressed out that these are the first ones confronting the effects of climate change. “The actions taken to achieve the objectives of greenhouse emissions reduction are, especially, at the local and regional level. They can’t only rely on the national governments, the participation of other actors is required”, she said.

This forum of intermediate governments included the participation of 350 assistants from 23 countries and organised 12 thematic sessions devoted to climate, forests and low-emission development. It gathered an important participation of governors from Latin America, and also from the United States and Canada. Jalisco’s Governor and host of the event, Aristóteles Sandoval, claimed for a special compromise in Latin America, pointing out that 70% of forest degradation occurs there. “There lays the importance of bringing efforts together; from the regional sphere in order to transform the global sphere”, he said, and concluded that “in the fight against climate change there’s no plan B, because we don’t have a planet B”.

ORU Fogar’s Secretary General, Carles Llorens, participated as well. He endorsed to Patricia Espinosa’s call to transform the meeting into an established forum for regional governments in favour of climate compromise. Llorens asked the Executive Secretary of the UN to help territories to have enough financial resources to participate in this battle, “because without resources, the fight can only end up in just words”

The Summit concluded with the signature of the manifesto ‘Call to Action Jalisco’, an agreement in which the governments commit themselves to different objectives, such as achieving up to 100% of renewable energy for governmental services by 2050.  

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‘Call to Action Jalisco’, manifesto signed in the II Climate Change Summit of the Americas