President Vasco Alves Cordeiro calls for higher ambition and a new global climate framework for subnational governments at Climate Week NYC

Two months ahead of COP27, New York is hosting the Climate Week NYC , an event gathering major stakeholders in the field of climate action. In his video message to the General Assembly of the Under2Coaltion, President Vasco Alves Cordeiro , said:

"We know that the climate emergency leaves us no time for hesitation: we urgently need to move from commitments to achievements, by speeding up implementation of the green transition and mainstreaming best practices to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. This need is not new, yet it is still not happening. We need a paradigm shift. We need one enabling framework for local action geared towards a sustainable planet, which must be based on a sound territorial approach and aimed at protecting the climate and environment as well as people."

The CoR president stressed the importance of moving from commitments to achievements in climate action, leveraging on the powerful actions taken at local and regional level. A key proposal of the European Committee of the Regions in global climate governance is the creation of a system of regionally and locally determined contributions (RLDCs) as a complement to national pledges, to formally acknowledge, monitor and encourage, within the Paris agreement, the reduction of carbon emissions by cities, local governments and regions across the globe. The CoR also promotes a bottom-up approach for the creation of the new UN Global Goal on Adaptation and stronger links between climate action, biodiversity and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals frameworks. President Vasco Alves Cordeiro shared a letter with the members of the Under2Coalition, underlining the importance of this partnership to ensure cities and regions are involved in shaping our response to the climate emergency.

Recently, the European Committee of the Regions and the Under2 Coalition have signed a cooperation agreement to ensure that cities and regions are involved in shaping our response to the climate emergency.

"I consider the Under2Coalition a key partner in our efforts. You can count on the European Committee of the Regions and myself as strong partners in this cooperation," said President Vasco Alves Cordeiro.

The European Committee of the Regions will adopt its official position on COP27 during the October plenary session, expressed through opinions drafted by Allison Gilliland (IE/PES) and by Olgierd Geblewicz (PL/EPP) .

Click here to discover the CoR delegation to COP27 .

The European Committee of the Regions has published a Green Deal Handbook with a focus on climate adaptation . The Handbook is an interactive toolkit that provides information on financial aid and technical instruments to deploy climate adaptation measures based on different geographical areas and regional specificities.

Green Deal Going Local is the CoR initiative to place EU cities and regions at the heart of the transition towards climate-neutrality.