On 1 December at COP28, more than 60 countries, including 11 EU countries, pledged to join the COP28 Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnership (CHAMP) for Climate Action in order to enhance cooperation with their local, regional and other subnational governments - including cities, towns, states and regions - to collectively pursue efforts to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The goal of the pledge is to help nations to achieve Paris Agreement goals, by working with and harvesting contributions from local and other subnational governments for planning, financing and implementation of climate strategies and actions. CHAMP shows that leaders at every level are working together to solve the climate crisis.

The Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency, which is the official voice of local, regional and other subnational governments in the UNFCCC and of which ICLEI is the official focal point, strongly supports CHAMP and applauds the forward-looking countries who have already pledged to join the Coalition.

CHAMP supports decades of climate advocacy by the LGMA Constituency for multilevel climate action, as well as championing the bridging of urban and climate communities, and particularly complements progress at COP26 and COP27. Thus, the LGMA fully supports the basis for CHAMP’s approach - that by engaging local and other subnational governments, national governments can achieve more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2025. The LGMA also stands ready to support CHAMP endorsers to deliver on their pledge after COP28.

The LGMA Constituency encourages other UNFCCC Parties to endorse CHAMP over the coming days at COP28 and beyond. The next important step is to connect all the dots on multilevel climate action and urbanization including the outcomes of Multilevel Action and Urbanization Day on 6 December and the Ministerial Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change at its second iteration at COP28. Ultimately, the LGMA calls for the vision of CHAMP to be reflected in the COP28 decisions and outcomes, particularly in relation to Global Stocktake.

The LGMA also recognises and commends the leadership of the COP28 Presidency and Bloomberg Philanthropies to include and make visible non-party constituencies, especially local and regional governments, and their contributions to climate action and ambition within the official COP agenda. This level of inclusion has set the bar for future COP proceedings.

In a press release by the LGMA constituency, Yunus Arikan, Director of Global Advocacy at ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the LGMA Focal Point to the UNFCCC said, “In the urban world of the twenty-first century, multilevel action is the new normal in how to respond to the climate emergency. By the time we reach COP30 in Belem in 2025, we should be able to count only countries who have not endorsed CHAMP and its vision in their national plans.”

Katja Dörner, Lord Mayor of Bonn (Germany) and the ICLEI Global Executive Committee Climate Action and Low Emission Development Portfolio, highlighted the importance of this moment, contributing, “Every nation joining CHAMP during and after COP28 marks a milestone for multilevel collaborative climate action in the spirit of the Paris Agreement. As Mayor of Bonn, a city on the path to Climate Neutrality 2035, as ICLEI Co Chair Climate Action and Vice President of the German Association of Cities, I am pleased to enter the next phase of ambition, of national strategies and stocktakes, including and reflecting the efforts of cities and regions. And I am offering the Daring Cities Forum back to back to the June Climate Negotiations as a permanent home to our follow-up and stocktake of the collaboration to come.”

Read the full press release here.