With current international efforts falling short of reaching the Paris Agreement objective to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, 73 national governments have now committed themselves to the COP28 Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action. CHAMP aims to help nations to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, by working with local and other subnational governments for planning, financing and implementing climate strategies and actions. Finland is the first nation to join CHAMP in 2024 after its announcement at COP28 in Dubai in December 2023.

Finland's participation in the CHAMP initiative was published during an event at the New York Climate Week by Senior Ministerial Adviser Kerstin Stendahl representing the State of Finland and Mayor of Turku Minna Arve, as well as in a joint video message with Kai Mykkänen, Minister of Climate and the Environment of Finland. Kerry McCarthy, Member of Parliament of the UK, made the announcement as well during Climate Week.

The decision comes at the heels of ICLEI network and leadership efforts to strengthen multilevel governance cooperation at the New York Climate Week and the UN Summit of the Future. Under the leadership of ICLEI RexCom member Mayor Arve, Turku has been negotiating Finland's accession to the CHAMP coalition since last year's climate conference. The Mayor stressed that "joining after long negotiations is a great success. The goal of CHAMP is to secure a place for cities and regions at the tables where decisions concerning their future are made. One only needs to look at the recent floods in Central Europe to see that cities are truly on the front lines of climate change, both in terms of adapting to its impacts and solving the crisis.”

These two countries joining marks 74 signatories to the initiative, alongside the USA, Canada, Germany, and Mexico.

“Regional climate work is becoming even more effective, and it also has a bigger role than before in the achievement of climate targets. In Finland we have numerous municipalities and cities that are doing very good climate work and making serious efforts to boost climate action. By joining the CHAMP initiative we want to give our support to the work done at the regional level, both in Finland and globally,” said Minister of Climate and the Environment, Kai Mykkänen.

The Climate Week is an important milestone ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan on 11–22 November 2024.

Watch the joint video message here. Learn more about ICLEI's involvement at the New York Climate Week here.