Learn | Connect4Climate

Governments meet in Bonn to step up Climate Action critical to the implementation of Paris Agreement

Governments are meeting for the next round of UN climate change negotiations from 30 April to 10 May to further develop the guidelines for implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

This will allow the agreement to become operational. The guidelines, or operating manual, are needed to unlock practical actions to realize the full potential of the agreement.

The final decisions are to be taken at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Poland at the end of this year.

Finalizing the Paris Agreement guidelines is also necessary to assess whether the world is on track to achieve the agreement’s goals: to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

“To reach success at COP24, it is essential that nations begin working towards draft negotiating texts at the May meeting. This will provide a solid foundation for work in the second half of 2018 and help them to deliver a strong result.”

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change

At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) held last November under the leadership of Fiji, nations agreed to accelerate and complete their work to put in place the guidelines – officially termed the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) – at COP24 in Katowice, Poland in December.

The Talanoa Dialogue

Another important objective of the May session is holding the ‘Talanoa Dialogue’. This dialogue will facilitate the engagement of countries and a range of stakeholders in a vital international conversation around ambition now and in the future.

The Fiji-led Talanoa Dialogue is facilitated by the UN Climate Change secretariat and will benefit from the presence of high-level officials from Fiji, including the Prime Minister, who is the President of COP23.

Inspiring Climate Ambition through the Art of Storytelling

The consultative dialogue will check progress, reaffirm the goals of the Paris Agreement and aim to find solutions to how countries can increase their ambition now and in the next round of their national climate action plans, officially termed ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs).

As per tradition in the Pacific region, the goal of a ‘talanoa’ is to share stories and to find solutions for the common good. Similarly, in the context of the international climate change process, the Talanoa Dialogue will invite participants to share stories to find solutions for the global common good.

“2017 witnessed many extreme weather events and disasters that caused suffering for millions of people around the world. The consequences of climate change impacts are already being felt, particularly by the most vulnerable communities,” said UN Climate Chief Ms. Espinosa.

“The Talanoa Dialogue is a key opportunity for all stakeholders to come together and share stories on how we can significantly step up climate action to prevent even greater human suffering in the future. I encourage widespread participation in the Dialogue,” she stated.

This first phase of the Fiji-led Dialogue will write history when countries and non-Party stakeholders including cities, businesses, investors and regions engage in interactive story-telling around current and future ambition for the first time on 6 May.

The output from these story-telling conversations will feed into the Talanoa Dialogue’s political phase at COP24. The political phase will bring together Ministers and high-level government officials for conversations with a view to generating political momentum.

Ambition before 2020

Throughout 2018, countries will also focus on how they can scale up their climate ambition and implementation in the pre-2020 period. All countries share the view that climate action prior to 2020 is essential. COP24 will hold an event to take stock of the pre-2020 efforts.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, President of COP23, and Ms Espinosa urged countries that are yet to do so to ratify the amendment containing the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The Doha amendment sets out emission reduction commitments for the period 2012-2020 for many developed countries. The amendment has been ratified by 111 countries and will enter into force after it is ratified by just over 30 more.

Concerned about the need to accelerate action, Ms Espinosa said, “I strongly urge developed countries to make progress towards mobilizing the USD 100 billion that they have pledged to provide per year by 2020. Many developing countries desperately need this support in order to make their contribution to climate action.”

Further highlights

On 29 April, a Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) Youth Forum with people from around the world will take place. Initiated by Fiji at COP23 last year, the output from the forum will be presented to the negotiations of the operating manual for the Paris Agreement in an effort to strengthen education, awareness and public outreach under the agreement.

On 1 May, the newly-established local communities and indigenous peoples’ platform will hold a workshop on how the tool can best boost local and indigenous contributions to climate action.

On 4 May, a number of developing countries will showcase their climate actions in a new round of the so-called ‘facilitative sharing of views’ (FSV). Both achievements and unique challenges in mitigation action to date will be presented.

On 7 and 8 May, a workshop will take place to help identify how to scale up climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in the longer-term

Throughout the two-week meeting, a series of gender-related events, including a gender dialogue on 5 May, have been scheduled to boost gender-responsive climate policy and to take forward the landmark 2017 Gender Action Plan.

Banner and thumbnail photo credit to UNFCCC

An economic case for protecting the planet

Economist Naoko Ishii, CEO, Global Environment Facility (GEF), is on a mission to protect the planet's shared resources, known as the global commons, that are vital for our survival.

"Our economies are no longer local. When we moved away from being local, we started to lose our connection to the commons. We carried economic objectives, goals, and systems beyond the local, but we did not carry the notion of taking care of the commons," Naoko Ishhi.

"Our mistake was to assume that the capacity of the earth for self-repair had no limits. It does have limits. The message from the science is very clear: we humans have become an overwhelming force to determine the future living conditions on earth, and what’s more, we are running out of time. If we don’t act on them, we will be losing the global commons. It’s only our generation who are able to preserve it - preserve the commons as we know them. Now is the time we start managing the global commons as our parents or our grandparents managed their local commons," Ishii stated.

Naoko Ishii added: "We all share one planet in common. We breathe the same air, we drink the same water, we depend on the same oceans, forests, and biodiversity. There is no space left on earth for egoism. The global commons must be kept within their safe operating space, and we can only do it together."

In an eye-opening talk about the wellness of the planet, Ishii outlines four economic systems we need to change to safeguard the global commons, making the case for a new kind of social contract with the earth.

2018 Sustainable Energy for All Forum - Day 2 Wrap-up

The second day of the Sustainable Energy for All Forum in Lisbon was about speed and scale of solutions. The urgency for bigger, bolder momentum on the SDG7 goals as well as backing words with movement and concrete action to leave no one behind.

“You say you’re doing okay with the richest of the poor. What are you doing with the poorest of the poor?” asked Greta Bull, CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), in a question that captured an important tone for the day.

The Forum’s closing day, with over 800 attendees present, did not disappoint. On a wide range of issues – energy access finance, bringing clean energy to refugee camps, clean cooking – government leaders, companies, NGOs, and financiers stepped up with new collaborations and commitments to achieve faster results.

And, with the Forum spurring a whole host of follow-up working meetings taking place in locations across Lisbon, more progress can be expected.

“We’ve got a theme here. Just do it."

Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer

and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

“I got the passion. I’m going back to Ghana with that passion,” added the Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama, Ghana’s Minister for Local Government and Rural Development.

At the close of the Forum, Kyte and Mahama were joined on the stage by dozens of leaders from government, business, academia, civil society and other groups who over the two days had made new action pledges.

The closing ceremony. Photo credits: Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

Among the day’s highlights

Sustainable Energy in Humanitarian Settings

With displaced populations increasing worldwide, the urgency for providing clean energy and clean cooking solutions at refugee camps and other humanitarian settings is growing. “They come, and they are welcome, but we need to provide for them,” said the Hon. Simon D’Ujanga, Uganda’s Minister of the State of Energy, which has 1.5 million refugees, most of whom rely on local firewood for cooking.

In a packed session, government leaders, UN officials, foundations and civil society pledged to work together to accelerate gains to bring clean, affordable energy to humanitarian settings. Everyone agreed that replicating success stories, such as solar plants that are now powering two refugee camps in Jordan, is imperative. “We’re still not being serious on this. What difference will you make between now and the end of the year and how can we hold ourselves accountable?” said Andrew Harper, director of the Division of Programme Support and Management at UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Spurring Energy Access Finance in Africa

More financing and different kinds of financing are critical for supporting and scaling projects and enterprises that are providing energy access in regions with the biggest gaps, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union agree to boost spending on off-grid energy and last-mile electrification and off-grid. Provider Mobisol highlighted the significance of $30 million of local currency asset-backed financing.

Government Leadership

On day 1 left no doubt that governments, many of them in Africa, are stepping up on leadership in advancing strategies and policies that will accelerate SDG7 gains. “We now have a truly global leadership cohort of countries that have really ambitious plans and have set aggressive targets. We now have that with countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda,” Rachel Kyte said. Among the examples that emerged on day 1 there's Rwanda committed to reduce – from 83 percent to 42 percent – the percentage of its population cooking with traditional biomass fuels by 2024. Uganda and the Smart Communities Coalition agreed to work together to bring clean cooking and other sustainable energy solutions to the country’s growing refugee population. Somalia hosted a multi-stakeholder meeting in Lisbon to advance its efforts to run its economy on clean energy. Togo committed to 60 percent of new power connections by 2030, largely provided by the private sector.

Sustainable Energy for All Forum Lisbon - Leaving No One Behind

This year's Sustainable Energy for All Forum focused on leaving no one behind. Photo credits: Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

More announcements

During the Forum, the Shine campaign was officially launched with three-dozen groups from the faith and philanthropic sectors making commitments to mobilize financing for energy access efforts. Among others, those commitments included the Wallace Global Fund targeting one percent of its total investment portfolio to energy access efforts in Sub-Sahara Africa and the IKEA Foundation rolling out six new grants totaling over $40 million to support energy access work in Asia and Africa. SEforALL also signed a new Deliver Partnership with leading energy efficiency business, Danfoss. The partnership will focus on the Cooling for All initiative, the District Energy Systems Accelerator and work to continue action on energy efficiency that supports SDG7 goals. A new Middle East Hub was also announced by SEforALL and the Islamic Development Bank which will be hosted at ISDB Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Hub will raise awareness at the national and regional level of the challenges, constraints, and opportunities available while achieving the three core objectives of SDG7.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits to Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

2018 Sustainable Energy for All Forum - Day 1 Wrap-up

More than 800 attendees gathered today at the fourth Sustainable for Energy for All Forum in Lisbon to chart the bold steps that are needed to accelerate progress on achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) by 2030.

The opening day was a mix of data-driven reality about the challenge ahead and optimism that bigger, bolder gains are more imminent than ever. And, no doubt, attendees at the Forum – a mix of financiers, governments, business CEOs, civil society and community leaders – were the secret ingredient for making the transformative gains happen.

“You are the vanguard, the tipping point of the revolution.”

Rachel Kyte, Chief Executive Officer

and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All

Among the day’s key highlights

Taking Stock on SDG7 Progress: If Rwanda and Bangladesh can achieve exponential growth in off-grid renewables in just a few years, why can’t other countries in Africa and Asia? If Portugal can achieve 100 percent renewable energy, why can’t other advanced economies? This was the reaction to the Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report released at the Forum’s opening session. While the data shows significant challenges in meeting 2030 goals, it also contained some bright spots on energy efficiency, energy access, and renewable energy.

Download the report

Among the positive trends: the primary energy intensity of the global economy improved at a faster 2.8% pace in 2015; for the first time in all regions of the world, electricity access grew faster than population growth; in Bangladesh and Mongolia, energy access gains were nearly 10 percent. Far more sobering was the report’s clean cooking access figures as well as slow progress in many Sub-Saharan African countries on all of the SDG7 objectives.

“Far more needs to be done to advance renewable and efficient energy in all sector. Let us invest in the future, not the past.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in a video message to Forum attendees

So what will it take to get more countries on the right track? Supportive government policies and regulatory frameworks are critical – a point echoed by a half-dozen government ministers speaking about their gains on energy access, energy efficiency and clean cooking.

Rwanda’s government has an integrated electrification strategy emphasizing grid- and off-grid solutions. Remote, rural populations far removed from electric grids are a central focus of their strategy. “We want to make sure we connect the entire population,” said the Hon. Germaine Kamayirese, Rwanda’s Minister of State for Energy, Water, and Sanitation.

An inside look at the #SEforALLforum with Rachel Kyte

Getting Real on Clean Cooking

Static progress on access to clean cooking fuels and technologies was the most sobering trend by far in the SDG7 progress report. The clean cooking access deficit is still stuck at about 3 billion, with gains from 2014 to 2016 negligible gains and only 59 percent of the global population with access to clean cooking. “If we keep up this pace, we’ll only reach 73 percent by 2030. That’s unacceptable,” said Dr. Maria Neira, Director of Public Health and the Environment, at the World Health Organization.

No doubt, new, more collaborative strategies are needed, country by country. And all cooking fuels – whether biomass pellets, ethanol or LPG – need to be on the table as a scalable solution. “We need lots of solutions. There is no silver bullet,” Kyte said.

A case in point is Cameroon, which is pursuing an ambitious national strategy based primarily on LPG cookstoves. It has doubled its clean cooking numbers since 2006 and about 20 percent of the population is now using LPG stoves; by 2030, it hopes to be at 50 percent. Ghana is also pushing a national strategy based on sustainable biomass and LPG.

The international funding community also needs to step up in supporting countries with the biggest clean cooking access gaps. “There’s a massive opportunity to create big markets for clean cooking fuels,” Kyte said.

“Funding needs to be incredibly patient,” added Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. “This market is not off-grid solar. It needs to have a sense of humility.”

Simply put, Rachel Kyte noted, investing in clean cooking is investing in “smarter energy.”

“What I’m hearing again and again today is that we’re not just talking about energy as electrons,” Kyte said he her wrap-up remarks. “We’re looking at the health care benefits that will be achieved when we deliver reliable affordable energy. Energy that will help save children’s lives because they’re breathing cleaner air.”

Leveraging Women’s Role: Gender diversity and women’s empowerment in the SDG7 movement came up time and time again.

A new report produced by SEforALL and ENERGIA, Levers of Change, provides powerful evidence of how women are often not given an equal chance to take advantage of sustainable energy opportunities, such as traditional and mobile money financing that would enable them to acquire home solar systems or clean cooking solutions.

At an interactive lunch on gender inclusive investing, Calvert Impact Capital highlighted two key opportunities for enhancing women’s role: first, because women are more apt to live in energy poverty then men, targeting them in investment strategies will have a bigger impact; second, Calvert found its investments perform better when it uses a gender lens.

Banner photo credit to Kaia Rose / Connect4Climate

Thumbnail photo credit to Daniel Pinto Lopes / Connect4Climate

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2018

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report shows that while the world is not on track to meet the energy targets set for 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, real progress is being made in certain areas – particularly access to electricity in least developed countries, and energy efficiency.

Progress on Global Energy Goals Slow, but strong gains in countries show promise

The world is not on track to meet the global energy targets for 2030 set as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, but real progress is being made in certain areas – particularly expansion of access to electricity in least developed countries, and industrial energy efficiency, according to a new report from five international agencies.

Renewable energy is making impressive gains in the electricity sector, although these are not being matched in transportation and heating – which together account for 80% of global energy consumption.

While global trends are disappointing, recent national experiences around the world offer encouraging signs. There is mounting evidence that with the right approaches and policies, countries can make substantial progress in clean energy and energy access, and improve the lives of millions of people.

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report, launched at the Sustainable Energy for All Forum in Lisbon, is the most comprehensive look available at the world’s progress towards the global energy targets on access to electricity, clean cooking, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Download the report

The following are some of the main findings of the report. Findings are based on official national-level data and measure global progress up to 2015 for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and 2016 for access to electricity and clean cooking.

Access to Electricity

One billion people – or 13% of the world’s population – still live without electricity. Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and South Asia continue to be the areas of the world with the largest access deficits. Almost 87% of the world’s people without electricity live in rural areas.

The number of people gaining access to power has been accelerating since 2010, but needs to ramp up further to achieve universal access to electricity by 2030. If current trends continue, an estimated 674 million people will still live without electricity in 2030.

Some of the strongest gains were made in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, which all increased their electricity access rate by 3% or more annually between 2010 and 2016. Over the same period, India provided electricity to 30 million people annually, more than any other country. Sub-Saharan Africa’s electrification deficit has begun to fall in absolute terms for the first time.

Tens of millions of people now have access to electricity through solar home systems or connected to mini-grids. However, these remain concentrated in about a dozen pioneering countries where penetration of solar electricity can reach as much as 5-15% of the population.

Clean Cooking

Three billion people – or more than 40% of the world’s population – do not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. Household air pollution from burning biomass for cooking and heating is responsible for some 4 million deaths a year, with women and children at the greatest risk.

Parts of Asia have seen access to clean cooking outpace growth in population. These positive outcomes were driven largely by widespread dissemination of LPG or piped natural gas. In India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam, the population with access to clean cooking technologies grew by more than 1% of their population annually.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, population growth in recent years has outstripped the number of people gaining access to clean cooking technologies by a ratio of four to one.

Clean cooking continues to lag the furthest behind of all the four energy targets, due to low consumer awareness, financing gaps, slow technological progress, and lack of infrastructure for fuel production and distribution. If the current trajectory continues, 2.3 billion people will continue to use traditional cooking methods in 2030.

Energy Efficiency

There is mounting evidence of the uncoupling of growth and energy use. Global gross domestic product (GDP) grew nearly twice as fast as primary energy supply in 2010-15. Economic growth outpaced growth in energy use in all regions, except for Western Asia, where GDP is heavily tied to energy-intensive industries, and in all income groups. However, progress continues to be slow in low income countries, where energy intensity is higher than the global average.

Globally, energy intensity – the ratio of energy used per unit of GDP – fell at an accelerating pace of 2.8% in 2015, the fastest decline since 2010. This improved the average annual decline in energy intensity to 2.2 % for the period 2010-2015. However, performance still falls short of the 2.6% yearly decline needed to meet the SDG7 target of doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.

Improvement in industrial energy intensity, at 2.7% per annum since 2010, was particularly encouraging, as this is the largest energy consuming sector overall. Progress in the transport sector was more modest, especially for freight transportation, and is a particular challenge for high-income countries. In low and middle-income countries, the energy intensity of the residential sector has been increasing since 2010.

Six of the 20 countries that represent 80 percent of the world’s total primary energy supply, including Japan and the US, reduced their annual primary energy supply in 2010-15 while continuing to grow GDP – indicating a peak in energy use. Among the large energy-intensive developing economies, China and Indonesia stood out with annual improvement exceeding 3 percent.

Renewable Energy

As of 2015, the world obtained 17.5% of its total final energy consumption from renewable sources, of which 9.6% represents modern forms of renewable energy such as geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind. The remainder is traditional uses of biomass (such as fuelwood and charcoal).

Based on current policies, the renewable share is expected to reach just 21% by 2030, with modern renewables growing to 15%, falling short of the substantial increase demanded by the SDG7 target.

Rapidly falling costs have allowed solar and wind to compete with conventional power generation sources in multiple regions, driving the growth in the share of renewables in electricity to 22.8% in 2015. But electricity accounted for only 20% of total final energy consumption that year, highlighting the need to accelerate progress in transport and heating.

The share of renewable energy in transport is rising quite rapidly, but from a very low base, amounting to only 2.8% in 2015. The use of renewable energy for heating purposes has barely increased in recent years and stood at 24.8% in 2015, of which one third was from modern uses.

Since 2010, China’s progress in renewable energy alone accounted for nearly 30% of absolute growth in renewable energy consumption globally in 2015. Brazil was the only country among the top 20 largest energy consumers to substantially exceed the global average renewable share in all end uses: electricity, transport and heating. The UK’s share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption grew by 1% annually on average since 2010 – more than five times the global average.

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report is a joint effort of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“It is clear that the energy sector must be at the heart of any effort to lead the world on a more sustainable pathway. There is an urgent need for action on all technologies, especially on renewables and energy efficiency, which are key for delivering on three critical goals – energy access, climate mitigation and lower air pollution. The IEA is committed to leading this agenda and working with countries around the world to support clean energy transitions.”

Dr Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA)

“Falling costs, technological improvements and enabling frameworks are fueling an unprecedented growth of renewable energy, which is expanding energy access, improving health outcomes, and helping to tackle climate change, while also creating jobs and powering sustainable economic growth. At the same time, this tracking report is an important signal that we must be more ambitious in harnessing the power of renewable energy to meet sustainable development and climate goals, and take more deliberate action to achieve a sustainable energy future.”

Adnan Z. Amin, IRENA Director-General

“This detailed report describing the progress so far on SDG7 is a testament to the collaboration of the five international agencies on providing quality and comprehensive data and delivering a common message regarding the progress towards ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Still, there is a need for improving statistical systems that collect energy information in those countries where the most pressing energy issues remain to be addressed. Better data are needed to inform policy accurately, particularly in developing countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing States. For this, investments in energy statistical systems are essential.”

Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the Statistics Division of UN DESA

“The experience of countries that have substantially increased the number of people with electricity in a short space of time holds out real hope that we can reach the billion people who still live without power. We know that with the right policies, a commitment to both on-grid and off-grid solutions, well-tailored financing structures, and mobilization of the private sector, huge gains can be made in only a few years. This in turn is having real, positive impacts on the development prospects and quality of life for millions of people.”

Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director for Energy and Extractives at the World Bank

“It is unacceptable that, in 2018, 3 billion people still breathe deadly smoke every day from cooking with polluting fuels and stoves. Every year, household air pollution kills around 4 million people from diseases including pneumonia, heart disease, stroke, lung disease and cancer. By expanding access to clean affordable household energy, the global community has the power to lift a terrible health burden from millions of marginalized people – in particular women and young children who face the greatest health risks from household air pollution.”

Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, at the World Health Organization (WHO)

“As we take stock of progress towards the global goal on sustainable energy, this latest data clearly shows more action and political leadership is needed if we are to live up to our promise to leave no one behind. To meet 2030 targets, we must make every unit of energy work harder. We need to increase investment in the technologies and business models that make electricity access affordable for everyone, place even bigger bets on the remarkable capacity of renewable energy and build big markets for clean fuels and cooking access. World leaders put the promise of leaving no one behind at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, and now is the time for that promise to become reality.”

Rachel Kyte, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All.

It is the fourth edition of this report, formerly known as the Global Tracking Framework (GTF). Funding for the report was provided by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).

Business Demonstrates Bold Action at Paris Agreement Progress Talks in Bonn

Organizers of the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) taking place this September in San Francisco have provided new evidence of how cities, states, regions, businesses, and investors are taking climate ambition to the next level. In this way, they are helping to build momentum for a successful outcome for the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland (COP24) at the end of the year.

Specifically, 11 new commitments from Mahindra, among India’s largest business houses, push the number of major global companies with science-based targets to over 400.

The summit in San Francisco will be hosted by the Governor of California, Jerry Brown; the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, Michael Bloomberg; the Chairman of the Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra; and the Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa.

Speaking to delegates and journalists on the margins of the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer of the Mahindra Group announced that business had taken an important step forwards today. In total, 13 of its companies have now committed to cut their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals by signing-up to a science-based target.

“At COP24 in Katowice, the world has much to accomplish to ensure that the Paris Agreement delivers the desired result, which is to keep climate change within manageable limits. Thankfully, the revolutionary progress underway in the ‘real world’ economy, which will descend on California in September, will be instrumental to helping make Poland a success.”

Patricia Espinosa, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary

To date, over 700 leading businesses around the world have made strategic climate commitments through the We Mean Business coalition’s Take Action campaign. Collectively, these companies represent 2.62 gigatons of emissions, which is equivalent to the total annual emissions of India.

The announcement by the Mahindra Group responds to one of the five “Summit Challenges” being presented to sub-national governments, business and civil society worldwide in advance of the Global Climate Action Summit.

Its commitment falls under the second of the five challenges – Inclusive Economic Growth – and means that so far 400 companies have positively reacted to this particular “call to action,” which aims to sign on 500 companies by the conclusion of GCAS in September.

“There is remarkable congruity between the goals of the Paris Agreement, the Indian Government, and businesses like the Mahindra Group. India, like the Agreement, is driven by a strong belief at the highest political level that pursuing environmental stability is the only way forward. As a result, India has set extremely ambitious targets in the area of renewable resources and is actually ahead of schedule in meeting some of these. In my business, we are driven by the belief that sustainability is a business opportunity as well as a way to make work meaningful for our young millennials. So, from all angles, I am delighted to accelerate the momentum created by the Paris Agreement.”

Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group Chairman

In addition to adding critical momentum to the COP24 negotiations in Poland this December – when governments of the world will meet to signal their readiness to enhance ambition – the GCAS will build momentum for a strong outcome at the Climate Summit convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2019 and to elevate climate action plans – Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs – by 2020.

“2018 is the year when the world must step up climate action to bend down emissions by 2020 -- and set the stage for the fast and full implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and its crucial temperature goal. The Summit will bring businesses, states, cities, regions, territories and people from around the world together and in common cause to take climate ambition to the next level".

Nick Nuttall, Global Climate Action Summit Communications Director

About the Global Climate Action Summit

The 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, hosted in San Francisco September 12 to 14, will bring together state and local governments, business, and citizens from around the world to showcase climate action taking place, thereby demonstrating how the tide has turned in the race against climate change and inspiring deeper national commitments in support of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

To keep warming well below 2 degrees C, and ideally 1.5 degrees C—temperatures that could lead to catastrophic consequences—worldwide emissions must start trending down by 2020.

The Summit will showcase climate action around the world, along with bold new commitments, to give world leaders the confidence they can go even further by 2020.

The Summit’s five headline challenge areas are Healthy Energy Systems; Inclusive Economic Growth; Sustainable Communities; Land Stewardship and Transformative Climate Investments

A series of reports are set to be launched over the coming months and at the Summit underlining the contribution of states and regions, cities, businesses, investors and civil society, also known as “non-party stakeholders” to national and international efforts to address climate change.

Many partners are supporting the Summit and the mobilization in advance including Climate Group; the Global Covenant of Mayors; the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group; BSR; We Mean Business; CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project; the World Wide Fund for Nature; Mission 2020

For more information on the Summit, please visit globalclimateactionsummit.org.

Banner and thumbnail photo credits to UNFCCC

Kenya's President led a tree-planting event to spark the increase of forest cover

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta led the country in a national tree planting exercise this Saturday, May 12. The national event was themed "Panda Miti, Penda Kenya" and took place at the Moi Forces Academy in Kamukunji sub-county (Nairobi).

Kenya's panting day with President Uhuru Kenyatta

The initiative is in line with the Kenyan government plans to grow 1.8 billion trees in the next five years in an effort to achieve the 10 percent globally accepted tree cover.

"The signs are clear: water is scarce and getting scarcer; recent droughts have been unusually severe; and, as we have had cause to remember today, the floods we endure are ever more serious," President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a speech to celebrate the National Tree Planting Day. "We cannot protect our forests, and mitigate climate change unless we teach our sons and daughters how to manage our natural resources."

Missed this year’s Sustainable Energy for All Forum in Lisbon?

Just under 900 people gathered in Lisbon at the Sustainable Energy for All Forum to commit to ‘Leave no one Behind’ on Sustainable Development Goal 7.

Design4Climate in the streets of Milan - Day Four

Vox Pop Design4Climate - Day Four

Is Design important for a sustainable world? We took the question to the Italian streets of Milan to listen its citizens. Here are the answers!