This paper, What national governments can do to accelerate subnational action on climate, from the LEDS GP Subnational Integration Working Group highlights how national governments can accelerate and unlock climate mitigation actions.

Huge opportunities exist to mitigate climate change at the city and subnational level but a range of barriers prevent these opportunities from being fully realized. To address these barriers and fully unlock the opportunities requires acknowledgement of the distinct dynamics which operate at national and subnational levels, and how the interactions between them can help or hinder mitigation action. Rather than simply implementing stand-alone local actions or down-scaling national strategies, a range of effective solutions now exist to accelerate mitigation via integrated national and subnational action.

City and subnational governments not only play an important role in implementing national government action, they also control policy levers and exert influence less available to national governments, making them key actors in mitigation action. With a fast growing global population, increasingly living in urban areas cities are key leverage points for mitigation action. Although the focus here is on mitigation action, many of these opportunities, barriers and solutions are common for both climate change resilience and mitigation.

The paper outlines some of the key opportunities, barriers and solutions to implementing more integrated approaches to national and international climate commitments.

Download the paper here: What national governments can do to accelerate subnational action on climate

Photo: Yang Aijun / World Bank