COTONOU DECLARATION

Forum of Municipal Elected Officials and Presidents of Local Governments Associations
Associations of Local Governments, Cities and Territories, key players in the implementation
of the International Climate Agenda
Cotonou, Benin, February 27-28, 2020

We, Presidents of National Associations of Local and Subnational Governments of Africa gathered on February 27 and 28, 2020 in Cotonou with a view to structuring cooperation between communities within the framework of the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Conscious of the urgency of climate action at the local , national and global levels given the disastrous effects of extreme weather events on our cities and territories,

Convinced of the need to make Climate Action everyone’s business, requiring in particular the awareness, involvement and contribution of all local actors mobilized around local and subnational elected officials ;

Alerted by the conclusions of the recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC), who consider that the effective implementation of all the Contributions Determined at the National level by the States parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will nevertheless lead to an increase in the temperature of the planet of the order of 3 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era if the current trend is maintained;

Taking into account that 2020 is the year of the start of the process of revision the Nationally Determined Contributions proposed by the States Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in preparation for COP 26 in Glasgow ;

See declaration here
See the video of the declaration here

Download the synthesis report : here