"European regions and cities are ready to play a greater role and to deliver on the international climate goals during UN Climate Change Conferences (COP). The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) can help to coordinate our positions with sub-national partners worldwide and to set targets which are more ambitious than those of national governments." Olgierd Geblewicz, President of the EPP-CoR Group made these remarks when presenting his opinion on ''The CoR's role in boosting subnational climate diplomacy ahead of COP27 and COP28'.
Geblewicz, who serves as President of the West Pomeranian Region (Poland) said "We are faced with a great urgency of dealing with our planet's warming climate and the needs of our cities and regions to continue developing in a sustainable way." He added that villages, cities and regions are in the frontline of mitigating climate change, leading by example and playing a key role to stimulate our relations with partners worldwide to deliver on the international climate goals.
Speaking on the role of the local and regional level, Geblewicz said that national governments repeatedly failed to make ground-breaking international commitments and to deliver on climate action. "I believe it is our common duty to fill this gap, to be the new diplomatic players and to propose commitments which are more ambitions, more realistic to implement, and easier to monitor by us and by our citizens."
He said that the opinion aims to increase the recognition of the role of subnational governments in the fight against climate change. His opinion calls for measures to address the missing legal framework on the rules of cooperation between cities, regions and national governments, the lack of funding, the missing or incomplete information on existing initiatives as well as the lack of involvement of local and regional governments in the preparation of Nationally Determined Contributions(NDCs). With respect to NDCs on emission reduction and climate adaptation, Geblewicz stressed that cities and regions often set more ambitious targets than national governments. He thus reiterated the call to establish a system of Regionally and Locally Determined Contributions as complementary to the National ones.
In his opinion, the CoR Rapporteur also proposes that the CoR starts playing a coordinating role representing the position of LRAs from the EU during COP meetings and to work closer together with young people engaged on climate.
Geblewicz's opinion also calls for the reconstruction of Ukrainian towns, cities, industrial and energy sites to be done with the support of cities and regions keeping in mind the objectives of the Green Deal - the achievement of net zero emission by 2050. He said "The reconstruction of Ukraine will make the country stronger and more resilient only if we focus on promoting carbon-free economy, sustainable agriculture and restoration of ecosystems."