At COP30, the ICLEI Presidium played a visible role in two key high-level political moments. ICLEI President Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, Mayor of Malmö, Sweden, and ICLEI Vice President Mohamed Sefiani, Mayor of Chefchaouen, Morocco, joined delegations engaging directly with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In both engagements, Mayors Jammeh and Sefiani also represented the LGMA Constituency – the official voice of local, regional, and other subnational governments in the UNFCCC process, for which ICLEI serves as focal point.
On 7 November, during a bilateral meeting at the COP30 World Leaders Summit in Belém, UN Secretary-General António Guterres received the Local Leaders Forum Joint Outcome Statement. Mayor Jammeh, also in her capacity as one of the Co-chairs of the Forum, was part of the delegation tasked with handing over the Outcome Statement, on behalf of thousands of cities, towns, and regions.
Together with Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, C40 Cities’ Vice Chair and Global Ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM); Igor Normando, Mayor of Belém; and Helder Barbalho, Governor of Pará—the host city and state of COP30—these leaders conveyed a unified message in support of bold, collective climate action.
The Statement, emerging from the COP30 Local Leaders Forum co-hosted by the COP30 Presidency and Bloomberg Philanthropies in Rio de Janeiro (3–5 November), sets out three clear offers to national governments: Partnering in implementation, unlocking finance, and making COP a process of implementation and accountability.
The Statement -signed by ICLEI Presidium, including ICLEI Vice President Marjorie Kauffmann, Secretary of State for Environment and Infrastructure of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil- refers to how cities are already delivering ambitious climate action and introducing new multilevel governance models such as ICLEI’s Town Hall COPs to engage communities and build momentum from the ground up, all in support of the international climate process.
On 19 November, Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with local and regional leaders in a closed dialogue alongside Indigenous representatives, youth, and business stakeholders. Participants included Jader Barbalho Filho, Brazil’s Minister of Cities, as well as local leaders such as Mayor Sefiani and his Brazilian peers Silvio Barros, Mayor of Maringá; José Renato Ogawa Rodrigues, Mayor of Barcarena; and Luziane de Lima Solon Oliveira, Mayor of Benevides.
Speaking on behalf of the LGMA Constituency, Mayor Sefiani communicated the LGMA’s proposals to President Lula, emphasizing the need for the formal recognition of multilevel governance and urbanization in COP30’s negotiated outcomes.
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