Vincent Chauvet (Renew Europe, French), the mayor of Autun, is a member of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) delegation to COP27. In his view, cities and regions are sometimes more ambitious than States regarding the climate, and therefore they must be formally involved in the fight against climate change (interview by Hélène Seynaeve).
Agence Europe - One of the CoR’s demands at COP27 is the establishment of locally and regionally determined contributions (LDCs) that would complement nationally determined contributions (NDCs). How would this work?
Vincent Chauvet - Today, we have a ‘top-down’ system: the States’ commitments are implemented to a greater or lesser extent at local level. We would like to do the opposite. This is what Japan does, for example, where it is the territories that draw up their plans, ‘local green deals’, which feed into the national plan. There are others, but it depends on how centralised the structure of the State is. We are proposing that this is the methodology that is applied Europe-wide.
We have also spoken about local COPs. In a joint meeting with the delegation from the European Economic and Social Committee, we worked on a practical methodology for these COPs, which would involve elected representatives, as well as local associations, economic players, etc. The idea is to have a bottom-up approach, with multi-level governance. Locally defined targets would be part of the national contribution.
In our view, this can be a way of raising the level of ambition, because in some cases climate ambition is stronger at local than at national level. A second argument is the widespread distrust of international institutions, where there is still a lot of trust in local institutions. We create more acceptability and co-construction by proposing changes that start from the ground up.
COP27 is a COP of implementation, and the implementation is done by local elected representatives. However, European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans announced that, without legislative changes, we would be at 57% of Fit for 55 in terms of implementation sector by sector (see EUROPE 13063/20). So we can see that national commitments are good, but what counts is implementation. Furthermore, we don’t just want to be subcontractors of national policies, we want to be involved in creating climate policies and objectives.
The COP26 conclusions recognise the importance of local entities, without giving them a formal role. The preliminary conclusions of COP27 suggest that we are heading for a similar outcome.
It is not clear whether a more convincing final declaration than in Glasgow has been achieved. However, there was a first at this COP: the Sustainable Urban Resilience for the next Generation (SURGe) initiative, a meeting of urbanisation ministers and local governments under the aegis of UN Habitat. We would like this event to be systematic at each COP in order to involve local authorities more formally.
But above all, we would like to see the territories, at international and European level, formally involved in climate negotiations in a written and explicit manner. Today, we are seen as “non-party stakeholders”, “non-state actors” with a “non-market approach”. We are defined by what we are not, and we would like to be defined by what we are, i.e. democratically elected local officials who will be responsible for implementation and who would also like to be involved in the design.
Local entities are somewhat more recognised in the Biodiversity Convention and negotiations related to biodiversity. But still very little in the eyes of the climate negotiations.
On the European Commission side, Mr Timmermans said he was ready to explore new ways of working with the CoR...
We still need to convince the European Commission. Mr Timmermans said that he would not necessarily defend the role of cities and regions at COP27. He has a very legalistic approach: for him it is the parties, i.e. the Member States. Local governments are not parties. He said he remained open, however, to greater inclusion.
We don’t think this is going far enough. If it cannot be imposed directly in international climate negotiations, this formal inclusion of cities and regions could at least be imposed at European level, by saying that local and regional authorities must be involved in defining European climate negotiation strategies.
I cannot speak for the CoR here, but for our political family there is a kind of divergent view of subsidiarity between us and the European Commission. For the Commssion, subsidiarity is either Europe or the States when it is more efficient. For us, subsidiarity must be the most relevant level, and sometimes it will be the regions or the cities. For example, the loss of biodiversity is at the level of cities and possibly regions. The Member State cannot be an absolute filter for European climate policies.
At COP29 in Eastern Europe, there may be a window of opportunity for formal recognition - this will also be the time to review the NDCs under the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council.
The Committee of the Regions has also called for direct funding.
If we want to be effective, fast and ambitious, we need direct funding for local and regional authorities. This is also a way to support ambitious cities directly, despite the reluctance of some States that may not have the same speed of transformation. But today, direct funding of communities is a taboo for the European Commission.
Furthermore, the funds currently being discussed, such as the one for loss and damage, should be able to finance cities and regions directly.