The role of local authorities in the UN Convention on Climate Change is widely acknowledged. This is the reason for the organisation of the Local Government Climate Change Leadership Summit.
Local authorities do not participate directly in the international climate negotiations at COP15. Neverless, local authorities posses great knowledge and practical experience on climate action which will be an important contribution to a global climate deal. The Local Government Climate Change Summit will lead this information to decision makers.
The current international climate agreement on reduction of CO2 emissions is scheduled to be renewed in 2012. To make it possible for an international agreement to replace the old one in 2012, a new climate deal must be reached in Copenhagen 2009.
Scientists give still stronger evidence that the current and imminent climate change is due to anthropogenic – man-made – emission of greenhouse gasses. To keep on track and prevent irreversible damages, governments and major groups are in ongoing discussions on what a new multilateral deal addressing climate change should look like. Local Governments will give their contribution through the Local government Climate Change Leadership Conference in June 2009.
The international community adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the historical Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro as the main vehicle through which climate change should be addressed at the multilateral level. In December 1997, an agreement was reached to add the Kyoto Protocol to the Convention. The Kyoto Protocol includes binding emission reduction targets for developed countries for the period 2008-2012. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), the leading body to review climate change science, published its Fourth Assessment Report, which indicated that climate change is both happening and accelerating.
A series of UN Climate Change Conferences are held annually to address these issues. These conferences are each known as the Conference of Parties (to the Convention) or COP. The supreme body of the Kyoto Protocol also meets at the Climate Change Conference every year. This body is referred to as the CMP (Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) and it is the association of these Parties to the Convention that have also signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
To prepare for the major decisions made at the UN Climate Change Conferences, smaller UNFCCC meetings called "UN Climate Change Talks" are held in between the annual COPs.
Read more in the document "Background – Climate Conference" to the right.
Copenhagen, the Danish Capital City, is hosting the Summit.
Photo: VisitDenmark