1. Introduction

COM/ENV/EPOC/IEA/SLT(2022)2  15

Greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation actions will need to be accelerated and scaled up in order to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement (Masson-Delmotte et al., 2021[1]), as current GHG targets leave a significant “emissions gap” (UNEP, 2021[2]). Such effort is needed by a variety of actors, and at national, supra-national and sub-national levels. Indeed, the preamble of the Paris Agreement explicitly recognises the importance of climate action at the sub-national level (UNFCCC, 2016[3]), and the Glasgow Climate Pact reiterates the “urgent need for multilevel and cooperative action” (UNFCCC, 2021[4]). Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, an increasing number of non-Party stakeholders (NPS), e.g. subnational governments and companies, are developing and implementing climate actions. The mitigation potential of these actions is significant, as is recognised by several countries’ NDCs – although it can be difficult to disentangle the impact of mitigation actions driven by NPS from those driven or enabled by national governments. Parties and NPS have different abilities to identify, plan, influence, finance and implement mitigation actions. Moreover, these abilities vary from country to country, as well as by sector and individual NPS –reflecting the different authorities, mandates and capacities that NPS have in different countries. National governments often set the enabling legal, regulatory and policy framework, including national or sectoral GHG emission targets and national-level strategies. National governments also establish policies and measures, and can raise funds for GHG mitigation actions. Some NPS (e.g. sub-national governments) also have the authority to set policies in specific areas, and may have some ability to raise and/or manage funds. Other NPS such as local stakeholders may be well placed to identify specific programmes and actions that could be implemented under national and sub-national policies and targets – given their proximity to the local level where these actions are implemented. The NPS that implement specific actions (which can include local governments, as well as companies, households), may also be well-positioned to identify context-specific barriers to increased levels of mitigation action. This paper explores how national governments can facilitate increased mitigation action by NPS in two sub-sectors with large mitigation potential where NPS are key actors in the successful implementation of actions: renewable energy and avoiding deforestation1 . These two sub-sectors have been identified by the Marrakech Partnership as areas of concern, with deforestation rates going in the “wrong direction” and the share of renewables growing at an “insufficient pace” (UNFCCC, 2021[5]). This paper also identifies successful examples of increasing deployment of mitigation actions in these sub-sectors, and draws technical, institutional, regulatory and finance-related lessons from these experiences for national policy-makers. This paper first lays out some relevant background and context in section 2. then does a “deep dive” on renewable energy (section 3. ) and avoiding deforestation (section 4. ). Conclusions are laid out in section 5.

1 More specifically, the focus of the analysis is on renewable electricity production and consumption in cities, and on sub-national efforts to avoid deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.