The first week of negotiations was marked with national leaders and actors cheering, a draft text, the launch of a Solar Alliance and a $500million fund for developing countries.
Modi Announces Solar Alliance (Bijli= Electricity) Credits- www.thelotpot.com
Amidst all the negotiations onsite, cities, local governments and famous actors met at Paris’ City Hall to discuss climate initiatives during the Climate Summit for Local Leaders on 4-6 December.
Celebrity, meet Mayor- Celebrities endorse city-based climate action (credits- Getty Images)
Mayors discussed heating cooling, reliance on fossil fuels and released a report on finance at the meeting.
This report on the State of the City Climate Finance, which urges cities to invest in resilient and low-emission infrastructure, put a price on carbon, leverage existing financial institutions and innovate new funding models.
If cities outsource climate action to private actors, they reduce their financial and administrative burdens, but action is often mismatched.
One of the main problems with local action so far was the disconnect between local governments and funding for implementation (largely from non-state actors, particularly businesses). Now that Michael Bloomberg is envoy for cities, and also in the head of the Global Climate Taskforce, which will show companies what they risk to lose with climate change, it will become seemingly easier to match proposed action with funding.
Bloomberg doubles up as special envoy for cities and head of Global Climate Taskforce (Credits- Forbes.com)
The Text
Mentions of subnational action in the text is still in the same context- in the preamble, in recognition of capacity building, adaptation and mitigation, and to promote cooperation. The text uses “local” and “subnational” synonymously and each word appears 11 times in the 5 December text, in the same context. The word “cities” appears only twice, in the section on non-party actors and cooperation; local and subnational governments are also referred to in these clauses. Though the word cities appears only twice in the text, subnational actions in cities are more prominently publicized, and may be the focus of subnational action in collaboration with the UNFCCC.
What remains
The three main challenges to climate action are institutional, financial and capacity building. By piggybacking on local financial institutions as recommended by the State of the City Climate Finance, institutional and financial problems will be greatly reduced. Capacity building is recognized and called for in the Paris text, and cooperation amongst cities laterally, and vertically with nations, regions and international organization will increase capacity building. Now what remains is ironing out how to execute this, and then executing it.
And finally…
It seems that the UN and national governments are becoming more and more receptive to the stance that…

(Credits- WWF)
On 8 December, cities and regions will discuss the role of cities and subnationals at a side event. For a schedule of events on local/ city/ subnational action, follow this link