On Monday, 17 June, representatives of cities from all over Brazil and various other civil society actors met in São Paulo to discuss concrete strategies to combat climate change. The meeting, organized by Frente Nacional de Prefeitas e Prefeitos (FNP), took place in parallel with the ICLEI World Congress, under the theme “Multilevel Climate Governance – Strengthening CHAMP in Brazil”.
CHAMP – the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships for Climate Action – which has been signed by 72 countries, is an effort intended to enhance cooperation with subnational governments in financing, implementation, and the monitoring of climate strategies.
At the meeting, the FNP released a letter of commitment (PT) in which mayors pledged their support for CHAMP and called for agility in structuring Multilevel Climate Governance in Brazil. The letter also reaffirmed their commitment to acting jointly with state and federal governments in the execution and implementation of the climate agreements assumed by Brazil at international level.
The effort was spearheaded by Axel Grael, Mayor of Niterói, Brazil, Chair of the ICLEI Climate Action Support Portfolio, who serves as Vice President of FNP. He said, “CHAMP is a promising initiative to ensure the protagonism of cities in climate decisions and planning. This support, which began with German cities, and now has had the addition of the FNP, will greatly strengthen these efforts to raise the role of municipalities in this process. In Brazil, the FNP has a very strong representation with 450 cities, 74% of the Brazilian economy and 61% of the population.”
This announcement came just two weeks after Mayor Katja Dörner, Bonn, Germany, who is Vice President of the Association of German Cities (DST) pushed through a resolution that expressed DST’s readiness to collaborate with German government agencies to implement CHAMP in the country. This move marked the first-ever national position of local governments for implementing CHAMP.
Based on these advances, Mayor Grael added, “ICLEI has the fundamental role of promoting this movement in other countries.”
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