Nordic Opportunities To Provide Leadership In The Global Climate Action Agenda

The Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) covers a wealth of cooperative action between governments, cities, businesses, non-governmental organisations and citizens. Non-state climate initiatives under the GCAA represent a key means to rapidly bridge the gaps in current climate action. This report identifies some 300 international cooperative initiatives worldwide, noting Nordic stakeholders among the most active participants within these initiatives. The analysis recommends continued Nordic support for initiatives with strong commitments to effective and transparent action. It also filters out 7 mitigation, adaptation and/or finance related initiatives of particular interest for Nordics. They are well aligned with the 2019 Declaration on Nordic Carbon Neutrality by the Nordic prime ministers and represent major opportunities for accelerated climate action - also within Nordic countries.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2022-563/ An increasing number of non-state actors are taking steps towards and beyond carbon neutrality and making claims about their contribution to global climate action. The voluntary use of carbon credits is one way to support more, earlier and faster climate action than what would be possible with own emission reductions alone, if high environmental and social integrity is ensured. The Nordic Dialogue on Voluntary Compensation brought together Nordic stakeholders to co-create guidance for the robust voluntary use of carbon credits in line with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Agenda. This report summarises Nordic perspectives on best practice for the voluntary use of carbon credits and related claims, and recommendations for further Nordic cooperation in this field.

In recent years, global cooperative action and climate initiatives by non-state actors have proliferated greatly, and diverse actors from Nordic countries are active participants in this development. This report provides an overview of the Global Climate Action Agenda initiatives and maps out the various global and regional initiatives where Nordic actors, such as cities, regions, businesses, academia and governments are participating. The mapping includes also individual commitments from Nordic actors such as cities and regions. In addition to providing an overview of current Nordic participation, the project highlights important cooperative climate initiatives, which Nordic countries could consider joining in the future. The overview and mapping provide valuable information for the Nordic countries, and helps to enhance the visibility of Nordic involvement in global climate action.

This book takes an innovative approach to studying international climate governance by providing a critical analysis of climate leadership, pioneership and followership across the globe. The volume assesses the interactions between climate leaders, pioneers and followers, across multilevel and/or polycentric climate governance contexts. Examining the state and sub-state levels in both the Global South and Global North, as well as regional, supranational EU and international climate governance levels, the authors explore 16 countries across Asia, Australasia, Europe, and Central and North America, plus the European Union. Each chapter employs a comprehensive and consistent framework for analyzing leadership and pioneership, as well as followership. The findings provide new insights into the strategies and actions of sub-state, state-level, and supranational leaders and pioneers. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in environmental politics and climate change governance, as well as those interested in political elites, EU studies and, more broadly, comparative politics and international relations.

The 2030 Agenda, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, outlines an ambitious and universal plan of action for people, planet and prosperity as it seeks to strengthen universal peace and freedom. This report presents national and Nordic action on Agenda 2030 with the aim to inform and support the Nordic Council of Ministers in formulating a new Nordic Sustainable Development Programme. All Nordic countries are engaged and strongly committed to implementing Agenda 2030 and there is a broad societal interest in joint Nordic action. The existing Nordic Strategy for Sustainable Development and several other key initiatives within Nordic cooperation already contribute to the goals of Agenda 2030. A new Nordic Sustainable Development Programme can build upon a strong foundation and add further value to the national and international work done by the Nordic countries.

This booklet presents actions taken by the Nordic countries to speed the transition to a sustainable low-carbon society. It shows how sustainable development is possible, with strong climate policies contributing to economic growth and job creation as well as environmental improvements. The Nordic countries successfully demonstrate how ambitious climate change mitigation targets and policies can be combined with high levels of human development.

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2021-042/ How are the Nordic countries, and the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland working on the 2030 Agenda and the 17 SDGs? This review provides the answers, with an emphasis on the national political structures for implementing the 2030 Agenda, i.e. action plans with national and international prioritisations, along with follow-up work and areas for improvement. The aim of the review is to create a factually based overview of the Nordic countries’ work on the 2030 Agenda, where the relevant basic information can be found easily, with links to websites and other material, for each of the Nordic countries.

If the Paris Agreement is to be implemented successfully, it is crucial that all actors step up their actions, including non-state actors such as businesses, cities, regions and investors. Transparency is crucial but still largely missing from the drive to report on current actions and scale them up. The Climate Initiatives Platform (CIP) is a vital transparency tool for international cooperative climate initiatives, so called ICIs, driven by non-state actors. The CIP provides open-source data on many aspects. It is also the data provider to the UNFCCC Global Climate Action portal NAZCA on ICIs. The aim of this project is to improve the CIP further. This document presents a strategy for tracking progress, including an impact-monitoring framework. In addition, analyses of progress with ICIs and of their coverage versus the potential emission reductions in certain sectors are provided.