UNFCCC Global Climate Action Newsletter
12 September 2018
UPDATE ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE MARRAKESH PARTNERSHIP
Message to Stakeholders
Dear stakeholders,

Here is an update on the progress the Marrakech Partnership and the UNFCCC secretariat is making for the activities for the year.

This email contains information on the following:

1. Start of the Global Climate Action Summit
2. Closure of the Climate Conference in Bangkok
3. Message from the UN Secretary General
4. Regional Climate Weeks Media Round Up

We hope you enjoy reading our news and look forward to many further engagements on the road to COP24.

-- Your Marrakech Partnership Team
The Global Climate Action Summit starts in San Francisco
As of tomorrow, business leaders, non-profits, citizens, and local government representatives will gather in San Francisco to demonstrate how they are taking climate ambition to the next level at the  Global Climate Action Summit (12-14 September).

Ahead of COP 24 and the UN Secretary-General’s Summit next year, GCAS will play an instrumental role in taking stock of progress, highlighting transformational solutions, mobilizing new commitments from non-Party stakeholders and facilitating the raising of ambition towards achieving the collective aims of the Paris Agreement and the 1.5 degree temperature goal.

The Summit is focused on ‘taking ambition to the next level’ through five key issue areas: healthy energy systems, inclusive economic growth, sustainable communities, land and ocean stewardship and transformative climate investments. For each challenge, there are numerous solutions. Click here to read about these climate action challenges and examples of practical solutions that one can take. All these pathways have critical challenges to overcome involving all levels of government and actors across all sectors, as a means of sufficiently accelerating global climate ambition and action before 2020.

GCAS will also provide the stage for the next installment of the Talanoa Dialogue, where the Fijian COP 23 President, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, will be joining forces with the Governor of the State of California, Jerry Brown, to host a Talanoa on 12 September 2018 with leaders on the rapid transition to net-zero emission societies. This sets the tone of a Summit intending to apply the Talanoa principles of being inclusive, participatory, transparent and creating an environment to share stories and build empathy and trust to make wise decisions for the collective good.

Aside from the main programme, there will be about 300 affiliate events taking place across San Francisco.

More information is of course available on the website of the Summit, but also on a couple of trello boards, where one will find useful key messages about the Summit and its deliverables, multimedia material, quotes from the Co-Chairs of the meeting, etc.

o    General material: https://trello.com/b/CzEE0NdW/un-gcas
o  Material in Chron ological order: https://trello.com/b/7mQ1aPX5/gcas-chronological
The UN Bangkok Climate Talks came to a close
Amid growing calls for urgent and strong climate change action, the supplementary Bangkok Climate Change Talks closed last weekend with uneven progress on the guidelines that will tell the world how to implement the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The implementation guidelines are needed to unlock transparent and practical climate action across the globe.

The implementation guidelines have been under negotiation since 2016 and are set to be adopted at the annual climate change conference, COP24, to be held in Katowice, Poland in December.

The Paris Agreement’s provisions that countries are working towards operationalizing include increased action to deal with the impacts of climate change and increased and transparent support for developing country action in the form of finance, technology cooperation and capacity-building.

Crucially, the provisions to be operationalized also include the goal of limiting global temperature increase this century to well below 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5C through transparent and ambitious emission reductions. 


Please also see the closing press conference , where Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, provides a summary of the Bangkok sessions.
Secretary General of the United Nations urges for leadership in speech

In a statement delivered yesterday from the UN Headquarters in New York, Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, rang the alarm on the speed of climate change and the disastrous consequences it will have for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.

This Secretary General's statement comes at the margins of the Global Climate Action Summit , opening tomorrow in San Francisco, California and outlines expectations for the next three years, including his vision for the 2019 Climate Change Summit that will be convened in September, in New York, at the UN headquarters. This 2019 Summit aims to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda and will focus on areas that go to the heart of the problem, i.e. the sectors that create the most emissions and the areas where building resilience will make the biggest difference. The Summit will provide an opportunity for leaders and partners to demonstrate real climate action and showcase their ambition, one year before countries are set to enhance their national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement.

In his words, the speed of climate change has provoked "a global sonic boom SOS across the world", and what is missing still, even after Paris, is leadership, a sense of urgency and a true commitment to a decisive multilateral response, for which he called on politicians , business and scientists, and the general public alike.

His powerful and pressing plea reaches a climax when he asserts:

"We know what is happening to our planet.
We know what we need to do.
And we even know how to do it."


Regional Climate Weeks Media Round-up
The Regional Climate Weeks in 2018 have been showcasing groundbreaking action underway across the globe to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

To support these events in Nairobi, Singapore and Montevideo, The Nairobi Framework partnership engaged with local and international media, generating a number of outputs, including editorials, press interviews, as well as television and radio broadcasts.

The key highlights are captured in this ‘media roundup’ and it is hoped that they will help pave the way for many more engagements at next year’s Regional Climate Weeks. 

UN Climate Change | Global Climate Action | Marrakech Partnership| GlobalClimateAction@unfccc.int | unfccc.int