Today, on May 31st 2023, Berlin has become the centre stage for the international climate action community. Practitioners and policymakers from 40+ countries have come together to the Global NDC Conference 2023 to share innovative ideas on how to push forward their NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) processes to make them more ambitious to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.
This first day of the conference focused on governance and policy alignment for NDC implementation and started with opening keynote speeches from Jennifer Lee Morgan, State Secretary and Special Envoy for International Climate Action at the Federal Foreign Office and Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. While we face multiple and complex crisis at once, the Paris Agreement has opened the doors to tackle these mutually and in a collaborative way. Morgan and Flasbarth highlighted the three guiding themes of innovation, acceleration and inclusion, pointing out that NDCs have been at the core of the transition.
Making NDCs just, feasible, and financeable: a panel discussion on pressing questions
The initial panel conversation gave a powerful prelude of what was to come during the three days of this conference. It focused on the pressing questions of how to enable just, feasible, and financeable NDCs through governance and policy processes.
Our diverse set of panellists, shared valuable lessons regarding NDC update and implementation, giving an outlook on ambitious planning for the next update round. The panellists underlined that NDCs need to acknowledge climate change as a general condition to development. To accelerate the implementation of the NDCs, mobilising (private) climate finance must be at the core of climate actions in the future. The process, therefore, needs to be collaborative. Private finance and intersectoral cooperation were discussed as the key future challenges to keep the 1.5 degrees target within reach.
Delving into solutions: best practices on governance and policy alignment
After lunch, breakout sessions opened the floor for discussing and exploring specific topics of governance and policy alignment. Seven afternoon sessions covered, among other topics, NDC and long-term strategy (LT-LEDS) alignment and integration, lessons from the last NDC-cycle, alignment for ambitious adaptation action, the water-energy-food nexus, Just Energy Transition, transparency and the role of indigenous and women’s voices.
All breakout sessions ended with discussions around identifying challenges and brainstorming on finding solutions, together. Relevant expertise, finance mechanisms and country experiences for NDC and LT-LEDS alignment were discussed, but participants recognized that these are often not effectively reaching the stakeholders that need them. Therefore, investing in robust multi-stakeholder engagement is important to ensure that the process is inclusive.
Several experts underscored the challenge of increasing ambition in adaptation, integrating both mitigation and adaptation instead of favouring siloed action. One of the most promising solutions is to engage financial actors to facilitate better flow of funds.
Networking for implementing ambitious climate action
What turned out to be an intense and yet exciting day for learning and sharing, came to an end with a reception at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). State Secretary Anja Hajduk cordially welcomed the participants. “We stand ready to support partner countries to implement ambitious climate action. Use this conference to share your needs, perspectives, support mechanisms and ideas for improvement” —said State Secretary Hajduk.
Check out the Global NDC Conference agenda for more information about the themes of Day 1.
