Global Gathering for Enhancing International Cooperation on Climate Change and Energy
Global level participants of IUC City-to-City event, 10 October 2018 in Brussels.
INVIGORATING cooperation among cities is one effective way to stimulate a city’s development. Included in the definition of development are positive responses of cities on the issue of climate change. This idea is fully embraced by the European Union (EU) and so it provides it a platform, namely, the International Urban Cooperation (IUC) programme that stimulates city-to-city cooperation/pairing, putting cities facing similar challenges in touch with one another so they can learn from their partner’s approach. Building on this, the EU held its second annual City-to-City event on 10 October 2018 in Brussels. Secretary General of UCLG ASPAC, Dr. Bernadia I. Tjandradewi, together with over 250 representatives of local and regional governments participated in the discussion of ongoing sustainable urban development pilot projects with global partners as well as best practices on sustainable urban development and climate
action. Also present were representatives of key financial instruments, such as the European Investment Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. The conference focused discussion on two components of the IUC Asia programme (City-to-City Cooperation and Sub-National Action under the Global Covenant of Mayors (GcoM) initiative) with acknowledgement on the importance of support from key financial instruments in the stages of city development. The newly launched city-to-city cooperation pairings took center stage of the discussion. Attendees were inspired by the presentations of the cities of Parma (Italy), Rotterdam (Netherlands), and Barcelona (Spain) with their pairing cities under the Sustainable Urban Development through Integrated Action Planning sub-theme, the lessons they had learned and the benefits they had found. Discussion of the more specific theme of climate action was also conducted during a session entitled Accelerating Climate Action through Local and Regional Commitment. This session gave room for the cities of Toyota (Japan), Gwangju (Korea), Iskandar (Malaysia), Guadalajara (Mexico), Vitoria (Brazil), and Nice Cote d’Azur (France) to share city’s success story responding to climate change. In addition, the conference also brought together representatives of key financial development institutions, into the discussion to align vision with all related stakeholders for city development, most particularly in relation to climate action. Attendees also took part in one group discussion that shared key challenges, solutions, success stories, and next steps of either theme: water or circular economy, waste, and sustainable production and consumption. The IUC is an important instrument for the EU in implementing its contributions to major international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the SDGs. UCLG ASPAC was one of EU’s global partners under the framework of IUC Asia, particularly Component 2 (GCoM). The collaboration got stronger with the appointment of UCLG ASPAC as the GCoM Regional Secretariat for Southeast Asia. The acknowledgement enables bolder contributions by UCLG ASPAC in building the capacity of and advocating local governments in its area on key factors that drive sustainable city
development, in which climate action takes a central role, particularly for futurecentered city development.
National Level Contribution UCLG ASPAC and the European Union also extended this spirit to the national level by supporting the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) of Indonesia in the Climate Action Days 2018, from 24 to 25 October 2018. Mr. Michael Bucki, from the EU, contributed to the discussion of “Implementation of Paris Agreement in Indonesia and Potency of International Support� on 24 October 2018. He highlighted the important role of local government in relation to climate action. Therefore, he promoted the platform that the EU provided for local governments under Component 2 of the IUC Asia programme, that is GCoM. GCoM has been implemented in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, in cooperation with UCLG ASPAC. The Secretary General of UCLG ASPAC, also contributed to the discussion on Strengthening Local Climate Resilience on 25 October 2018. She encouraged positive responses towards Climate Action to be pushed to implementation and that strategies were needed to tackle challenges in funding. She further mentioned partnership with the private sector as a way to get access to funding. In realising the action, however, she acknowledged the challenges and therefore encouraged starting with small scale efforts and maintaining the commitment. Climate Action Days 2018 was a platform by MoEF Indonesia to cultivate and emphasize the roles of every related stakeholder to reduce GHG emissions and increase adaptive capacity in the face of climate-related disasters that are increasingly common in Indonesia. This platform acknowledged the essential role of local governments in tackling this challenge. Indonesia is currently striving to realise its GHG emission reduction commitments as stated in the First National Determined
Contribution (NDC) document, which is 29 percent GHG emission reduction on its own, or 41 percent with global support. This event brought together local governments, academics, CSOs, NGOs, international partners, and local people. It was expected that the knowledge of each stakeholder attending the forum would expand and thus would enhance their capabilities, allowing them to take a more active role in contributing to the achievement of the national commitment and the global climate goal.