Success in Nantes

The world’s largest climate stakeholders summit has just taken place in Nantes, France. Key non-state players from around the world, including PLATFORMA and several of its members gathered to find concrete solutions to one of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change.

Taking place just one month before the next great climate meeting, COP22, Climate Chance was both the opportunity to discuss how far we had come since COP21, and start laying out a common roadmap for COP22.

The Nantes Declaration of climate actors has now been adopted: “Strengthening concrete action to bridge the gap between current commitments and the objectives of the Paris Agreement.” This declaration calls for access to targeted funding for towns and cities to fight climate change. The declaration states: “We call upon the implementation of mechanisms allowing local and regional governments […] to access new financing tools, such as the Green fund.” Signatories also “reaffirm that the Climate Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are inseparable”.

PLATFORMA co-organised two sessions along with CEMR, AFCCRE, CUF, the NGO ENDA ENDA Energy-Climate-Environment and with the contribution of Nantes metropole and the Delegation for the external action of local governments (DAECT) of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The sessions resulted in a set of recommendations towards Habitat III and COP22.

Did you know that in France, towns and regions can use up to 1% of their water and sanitation budget to finance international cooperation in the same field? PLATFORMA believes this system should be promoted everywhere. Another key recommendation is that decentralised cooperation should be systematically included within the Covenant of mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Global Covenant of Mayors.

The CONNECT project and the Handbook for a successful project of city-to-city and region-to-region cooperation were also a great success on PLATFORMA’s stand.