Vertically integrated climate policies (VICLIM)

Project description

Title: Vertically integrated climate policies (VICLIM)
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) as part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI)
Country: Mexico, Costa Rica, South Africa, Indonesia and Georgia

Lead executing agency: Mexico: Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources); Costa Rica: Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (MINAE, Ministry of Environment and Energy); South Africa: Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA); Indonesia: Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional (BAPPENAS, Ministry of National Development Planning); Georgia: Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture (MoEPA)
Overall term: 2016 bis 2020

Context

Cities account for around 70 percent of global CO2 emissions – a figure that is set to increase in the coming years due to rising levels of urbanisation. Meeting the two-degree target will only be possible if cities and other local and regional actors become involved in national mitigation actions. In certain areas, such as transport, spatial or urban development planning, they have legislative and regulatory competences beyond the purview of the national level. Nevertheless, this mitigation potential has not yet been sufficiently and systematically enough exploited.

Objective

National climate targets are achieved by integrating subnational stakeholders in climate action more effectively.

Approach

Vertically integrated climate policies, or “multi-level climate governance” (i.e. climate policies coordinated across the different administrative levels) refer to endeavours made by all levels of government – national, regional and local – to jointly develop, implement and monitor strategies, programmes and measures to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

VICLIM operates in Mexico, Costa Rica, South Africa, Indonesia and Georgia. These partner countries are well placed, either due to their experience with vertically integrated and nationally appropriate mitigation actions (V-NAMAs), or because their local governments already assume a key role in the nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Nevertheless, efforts to maximise mitigation potential at subnational level have thus far been hampered for example through a lack of coordination across the administrative levels, ambiguous mandates or insufficient access to financing.

The project seeks to make a significant contribution to achieving the NDCs by promoting the concept of multi-level climate governance. This entails strengthening the capacity and performance of climate policy decision-makers. Activities carried out within the partner countries include:

• improving the framework conditions for implementing coordinated mitigation actions
• promoting and upscaling existing subnational mitigation actions
• developing measures based on Germany’s National Climate Initiative (NKI)
• initiating international learning processes and cooperating with networks and platforms.

Results

Mexico: Almost 200 representatives from 30 of the country’s 32 federal states, from municipalities, the national level, universities and civil society took part in a series of regional workshops. They identified pathways to integrate the successes of local climate actions into the Mexican NDC, to share experiences and to forge synergies.. An “NDC Toolbox” provides support along with helpful, up-to-date information for the subnational level. A newly developed informative video to raise awareness on the Paris Agreement, the NDC and the role of local actors is also available to states and municipalities. Together with the federal state of Jalisco, the project is producing guidelines for local climate action plans.

Costa Rica: More than 20 technical officers from 14 municipalities are trained in conducting local GHG inventories. This is a first and important step towards implementing the newly developed Carbon Neutrality Country Programme for Municipalities (Programa País de Carbono Neutralidad categoría cantonal). In the course of the project, selected municipalities will now be accompanied in preparing these inventories. Municipal action plans will then be drawn up for the country programme.

Indonesia: A national workshop brought together 174 representatives from 30 of the country’s 34 provinces with the goal to review their GHG Mitigation Action Plans (Bahasa Indonesia: “RAD-GRK”) and adapt them to Indonesia's new long-term development strategy towards economic growth, poverty alleviation and environmentally sound actions. As part of the national MRV approach, the project also supports the use and further development of the recently launched new Online System for Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (“PEP-online”) for subnational mitigation actions.