Small-scale, yet confident, baby steps at home can lead to larger-scale sustainable climate action.
Sub-national authorities’—regions, states, provinces and municipalities—actions to address the impacts of climate change and implement their own INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) in many countries can be models of change from which national governments could learn.
Local actors and local-level planning decisions play a crucial role in implementing INDCs.
In a report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 50-80% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are influenced by local behavior and investment choices.
“Adaptation to climate change is very site-dependent and local planning decisions will be critical to tailoring adaptation action to the conditions in which it will take place,” the report said.
Ripples of change
As community problems are not universal, policies and actions need to be location-specific.
While some sub-national authorities will wait for their national government’s instructions to take action to achieve their INDCs, there are some that have started taking steps, making their own initiatives that eventually stimulate innovations.
California, for example, is now developing a full inventory of land-based emissions from its territory in order to establish a baseline for future reference.
The state has been experiencing drought for four years. A news report by Reuters in 2015 showed that the U.S Forest Service estimates that the four-year drought led to the deaths of 12.5 million trees in California.
“We are now taking efforts to turn the paramount of dead trees into biochar and thinking about what the strategy would be to benefit soils,” said Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to California’s Governor during a session at the Global Landscapes Forum, 5 December.
Though some countries may be able to make the biggest gains on their INDCs through addressing land-based emissions, in California transportation gets the larger portion of the emissions pie. In the 2014 California Environmental Protection Agency Report, , the transportation sector was the largest source of emissions in 2012, accounting for approximately 37% of the total emissions. On-road vehicles accounted for more than 90 percent of emissions.
“We travel more in cars than anyone in the world. We have 332 Billion vehicle miles traveled a year in California. We need to change that so we have policies to look at transitioning development towards having higher densities in urban areas in an effort to use less land to help preserve agriculture and forests,” Alex said.
Meanwhile, in Latin America, subnational players are already taking action.
Citizens of Jalisco, Mexico are exploring how agriculture can help the area fight climate change, while increasing economic prosperity and food security.
Working on the basis of territorial governance, Jalisco brought together municipalities and key players to coordinate processes and organize activities on implementing INDCs.
“We are being helped by international agencies because we implement policies in a multi-sector way,” said María Magdalena Ruiz Mejía, Secretary of Environment and Regional Development of Jalisco, Mexico.
In Acre, Brazil, forest conservation and social inclusion of local communities have been implemented through a wide-ranging program called SISA or State System of Incentives for Environmental Services.
According to Ecosystem Marketplace, SISA aims to develop programs valuing forests, biodiversity, water, soil, climate and traditional cultural knowledge.
The organization noted that SISA’s Environmental Service Incentives for Carbon (ISA Carbon) has also gained high accolades from the Governors Climate Task Force, WWF and others as one of the most advanced subnational forest carbon programs in the world.
Strength in unity: The Under2 MOU
California, Acre, and Jalisco are just some of the signatories of the Under2 MOU, “a commitment to limit emissions to below eighty to ninety-five percent below 1990 levels, or below two metric tons per capita, by 2050 – which is a level of emission reductions believed to be necessary to limit global warming to less than 2°C by the end of this century.”
Other signatories include Oregon, Vermont and Washington, USA; Baden-Württemberg, Germany; Baja California, Mexico; Catalonia, Spain; Ontario and British Columbia, Canada and Wales, UK.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) hailed the memorandum as promoting “greater ambition on climate change than is currently being contemplated in the international process leading to the Paris climate change conference.”
