The first Yearbook of Climate Action shows that effective climate action by businesses, cities and regions, and other actors could make significant contributions to narrowing the global emissions gap, adapting to climate change, and demonstrating to governments that higher ambition is desirable and doable. Moreover, climate action is growing in the global South, and many climate action initiatives are producing outputs toward their goals. Key challenges of inclusion and scope remain, however, creating an urgent need to invest in scaling up climate action – and the framework supporting it – in 2018.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of actions by businesses, investors, civil society, cities and regions in today’s climate crisis. Pledges by governments under the Paris Agreement would still translate into 3°C warming or more, resulting in adverse impacts for a majority of people, and high risk of irreversible economic and ecological disruptions. Non-state and subnational actions could significantly narrow the global mitigation gap, as well as promote adaptation, especially in developing countries. The first Yearbook on Global Climate Action by the High-level Climate Action Champions, launched at the closing of the high-level Global Climate Action sequence at COP23, shows that non-state actors are starting to deliver
