“The Action Agenda: Shared Science Shared Future” was Launched at COP27

TEXT: Sibel BÜLAY

Today the Multilevel Action Pavilion was home to a very important initiative.  The launch of  ”The Action Agenda:  Shared Science Shared Future” is an example of the lengths that local and regional governments are going to in their fight against climate crisis.   They are turning to  science to inform their climate policy development as they target net zero.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings out periodic reports based on the latest and most comprehensive scientific assessment of climate change.  AR6 was published earlier  this year.

IPCC reports are high level, scientific reports.  The SUP engagement process was the result of a desire to bring climate science down to the local level, where it could help inform policy and action at the city scale.

The same climate scientists who  produced the IPCC reports  worked with city, local and regional governments; cities and city networks; and businesses in every global region.  The IPCC reports were read and analyzed by these groups and discussed in detail.

The result of the SUP Initiative is a distillation of the latest climate change science targeted for cities in  3 volumes, authored by the same climate scientists who wrote the IPCC reports.  These were launched by SUP earlier this month.

• SUP Volume I: What the Latest Physical Science of Climate Change Means for Cities and Urban Areas
• SUP Volume II: What the Latest Science on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability means for Cities and Urban Areas
• SUP Volume III: What the Latest Science on Climate Change Mitigation Means For Cities and Urban Areas,

The next step was to further distill the key findings from these three volumes and, through a series of regional and global convenings of scientists, city and business leaders, integrate them with the perspective of city and business leaders. The result is “The Action Agenda:  Shared Science Shared Future.”   The goal of this report is to inform local action, focusing on both policy and action.

The priority solutions and action steps identified in the report:

• Translate recommendations from the SUP into co-created policy action plans… to realize transformational change;
• Shape future research by global institutions and establish bridging mechanisms between the scientific and practitioner communities;
• Secure commitments to research and development and/or scaling-up of investments from the business and investor community;
• Advance enabling policy environments across levels of government to foster urban innovation and support the systems transitions necessary;
• Utilize the learnings from this process to inform and advance continued co- creation around the IPCC’s upcoming Special Report on Cities in the AR7 cycle;
• Support accelerated delivery of initiatives such as the Cities Race to Zero, SURGe, and the Urban7 and Urban20 platforms connected to the G7 and G20; and
• Continue to partner with the IPCC to further the dissemination of the critical science it will produce in future cycles, making science readily available for local leaders and decision makers.

The action agenda is integrating science into the urban ecosystem. As Vera Rodenhoff of the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said at the Multilevel Action Pavilion Session: “We need science:  science-based decision-making: science-based policies and science-based action.”  This initiative is an important step in that direction.

The report can be accessed here