The Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week 2019 (LACCW) is set to boost and showcase the region’s response to the current climate emergency. The event provides an opportunity to discuss climate action, key vulnerabilities, and challenges from a distinctly Latin American and Caribbean perspective. The LACCW will offer a venue for key actors in the region, including national governments, local authorities, UN officials, and leaders from public and private sectors, civil society, and academia to learn and exchange knowledge and best practices. Beyond mutual learning, the LACCW also serves as a platform for these actors to jointly plan and create new climate action initiatives.
The LACCW will include two technical days, two thematic dialogue days, and a high-level dialogue day. This year, the Regional Climate Weeks serve as critical stepping stones to the UN Climate Summit, aimed at increasing climate ambition. As such, the LACCW results will feed into the Climate Action Summit. The LACCW will be structured around four of the nine tracks of the Climate Action Summit convened by the UN Secretary-General on 23 September, 2019 in New York, namely:
- energy transition;
- industry transition;
- infrastructure, cities and local governments; and
- nature-based solutions.
The LACCW is part of the Regional Climate Weeks initiative, held every year in the Africa, Latin-America and Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific regions. The Regional Climate Weeks were launched in 2017 by the Nairobi Framework Partnership (NFP) as an overarching platform for stakeholders to meet, share experiences and best practices, as well as to identify mutually beneficial climate action and policy making related to implementing and achieving the Paris Agreement. Regional Climate Weeks were built on the success of the Regional Carbon Forums with the aim of continuing their legacy.
Regional Climate Weeks inspire individuals and organizations to become part of the momentum created by the global climate agreement in Paris. It is a unique collaborative platform where both government and non-party stakeholders gather to address a wide range of relevant climate issues under one umbrella. The main goal of the Regional Climate Weeks is bringing together diverse stakeholders in the public, private and civil society sectors around the common goal of addressing climate change. The Weeks comprise a series of events that provide space for a grassroots exchange of knowledge and best practices across the region on: Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) implementation, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Global Climate Action.
LACCW will take place from 19-23 August in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
IISD Reporting Services, through its Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) meeting coverage, has provided a summary report from the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week 2019, which is available in HTML and PDF.