Good morning, my name is Paul Stark from C40 Cities and I’m intervening on behalf of the LGMA Local Governments and Municipal Authorities constituency.
We are here because communities and workers urgently need to be brought along on the green transition. This is critical not only for fairness, but also from an effectiveness standpoint and has proven to be critical to building public trust.
In Melbourne for instance, we are prioritising lowering energy bills for renters, Accra in Ghana and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil are enhancing informal waste workers’ working conditions and resilience to extreme weather events. London is training marginalised groups to become skilled in retrofitting social housing. Johannesburg in South Africa is prioritising green job creation for youth. Huairou District in Beijing, China, is restoring the environment around its mining and cement factories and investing in green industries in the area.
As highlighted in the JTWP Dialogues, cities and subnationals are key partners for national governments in translating high-level national just transition commitments into place-based, people-centered solutions. The 2026 Annual Summary report from the Just Transition Work Programme makes it clear, and so do the multilevel approaches to just transitions that many governments already champion at home. Building on that, we encourage Parties to formally recognise subnational governments as just transition delivery partners and the need for a stronger collaboration between different levels of government in the COP31 decision.
The LGMA will engage constructively over the next two weeks and remains available to support Parties and fellow constituencies with providing local examples and identifying areas of mutual alignment. The LGMA, however, urges Parties to ensure that our collective North Star is the creation of opportunities from climate action, mitigation of any potential negative consequences and protection from extreme weather conditions, especially those most vulnerable. This should guide further discussions about the review of the JTWP and the establishment of the Mechanism.
