COP31 also called Climate COP starts today, Monday 9 November in Antalya, Türkiye for a bit more than ten days intense events and debates. There is also part of negotiation – negotiation of new agreements and sometimes continued dialogue on old ones but those are strictly reserved to States and their central governments.
1. The most powerful lobbies of cities and regions
Since they do not have the right to vote, the LRGs group together in massive transnational networks to force states to listen to them. United in a multitude of events, more or less formal, permanent or temporary groupings, here is the essence:
- The LGMA (Local Governments and Municipal Authorities) Group: led by organizations such as ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) which coordinates it throughout the year and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the LGMA has published its official roadmap for COP31. It represents the “union” of LRGs and is open to all subnational governments interested in joining. The Global Cities Hub also participates in this huge coalition.
- CHAMP initiative: This network brings together nearly 78 states that declare that they want to include their subnational governments in climate work, but this is still a political declaration of the goodwill of the states
The great fight at all COPs: Push for the institutionalization of a space for systematic multilevel dialogue directly integrated into the UNFCCC processes, to avoid depending on the goodwill of the host state at each edition. We are not there yet!
2. The financial mechanism: how the regions capture money from international banks
Cities carry out between 70% and 80% of the concrete actions of the Paris Accord, but they face a major obstacle: the global financial architecture was designed for states.
To obtain funds at COP31 without depending on their central government, LRGs use several mechanisms such as loans for which their State are guarantors, direct loans (rare and under certain conditions, subsidies received by their States, the European Union (not all eligible) or even part of the projects managed for example by the United Nations). Overall, however, the financing of LRGs remains their Achilles’ heel and therefore, by force of circumstances, puts them back in the second rank of participants in the COPs, often confused with civil society.
Finally, establishing public-private partnerships with companies and investors present in the green or blue zone of the conference is undoubtedly an attraction, insofar as everyone knows what they want in advance.
2. Corridor lobbying and indirect influence
Not voting does not mean influencing. Local representatives are using COP31 as an advocacy arena:
- Some regions or large cities succeed in placing advisors directly within their country’s official delegation, allowing them to slip territorial priorities into the ear of their national negotiators.
- Multilateral pressure & exposure: Through large global networks such as LMGA, they issue joint statements to push states to be more ambitious.
📸 Guy Bowden / Unsplash
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