About the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities Constituency

The voice of cities and regions in the climate negotiation process.

About the LGMA

Since the Earth Summit in 1992, when nine stakeholder groups—including local authorities—were designated as essential partners in implementing the global sustainability agenda, the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency has represented networks of local and regional governments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We have served as the voice of cities and regions since the first Conference of Parties (COP) in 1995 and continue to achieve advocacy success for multilevel action in the climate, nature, and desertification processes.

Influencing UNFCCC Negotiations

Since the first climate COP in 1995, the LGMA has been the official channel of cities and regions to the UNFCCC, growing to more than 45 accredited networks of local and regional governments. We coordinate inputs to the global climate negotiations all year, influencing and informing outcomes toward meeting the Paris Agreement via regular communications and monthly webinars with our thematic and regional working groups. On the ground at each COP, our Pavilions serve as the home for the LGMA inside the Blue Zone (the official negotiations space) and are developed in close collaboration with the COP host city, region, and country, as well as other partners.

Setting the Action Agenda

We push for multi-stakeholder and sectoral representation across a busy advocacy calendar. Since 2015, we have worked closely through the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, a networking space for subnational collaboration, and with the High-Level Climate Action Champions nominated annually by the COP host country. We help organizations commit and engage through mechanisms such as the Online Climate Action Portal, the Thematic Climate Action Pathways, the Sectoral Breakthroughs, and other initiatives for ambitious action.

Collaborating with COP Presidencies

The annual Conference of the Parties (COP) is the highest decision-making forum for UNFCCC implementation. Each year, UN Regional Groups appoint a national government as the COP Presidency, nominate the High-Level Climate Action Champion, and set themes for action and negotiation based on their national and regional priorities. The LGMA seeks to engage with and support the COP Presidencies in order to inform and drive progress on special networks and initiatives the Presidencies may designate independent from the UNFCCC.

Advancing the UNFCCC Friends of Multilevel Action

We shape the decisions made in official negotiations by national governments. We do this through informal dialogue with negotiators—representatives of climate or environment ministries of Parties that have ratified the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, or the Paris Agreement—to ensure the voice of cities and regions is represented in final outcomes. For example, we initiated the “Friends of Cities” in 2013 and elevated the initiative to the “UNFCCC Friends of Multilevel Action” in 2019.

LGMA Partners and Members

The LGMA works on on behalf of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, a joint global policy advocacy initiative of the major international networks of local governments, in the area of climate.

UNFCCC Accredited Organizations include:

Other participating networks include:

Advocacy Outcomes

Cities and regions have become important global players in the climate negotiations process.

COP21: Paris Agreement recognizes the role cities in 2015

The Paris Agreement, in its preamble, recognized the importance of the engagement of all levels of government. The fact that 185 Parties out of the 197 Parties to the UNFCCC ratified the Paris Agreement established a strong indication of the momentum towards strengthening multilevel governance on climate action.

COP23: Talanoa Dialogues of 2017

Cities and Regions Talanoa Dialogues were developed as a bottom-up, pro-active and immediate response to the COP23 decision in 2017 to convene year-long, inclusive Talanoa Dialogues.

COP24: 2018 Katowice enshrines Talanoa Dialogues

COP24 in Katowice invited Parties to consider the outcome, inputs and outputs of the Talanoa Dialogue in preparing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and in their efforts to enhance pre-2020 implementation and ambition.

COP25: Outcomes of Madrid 2019

During the Chilean COP held in Madrid, the focus was on building up the ambition for revised NDCs in 2020. Local governments showed their aligned actions and commitments to advance towards this important deadline.

COP26: Outcomes from Glasgow 2021

During the Glasgow conference, all parties were focused on keeping the 1.5°C target alive through raising NDCs’ ambition. These are the specific references to the role of subnationals, including cities, towns and regions, in the outcomes of COP26.

COP27: Outcomes from Sharm El Sheikh 2022

COP27 puts loss-and-damage on the agenda, and in two firsts, the COP27 Presidency creates a Sustainable Urban Resilience for the Next Generation (SURGe) Initiative while a Climate & Urbanization Ministerial brings national urban ministers to a climate COP.

LGMA Focal Point

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability acts as the LGMA Focal Point. ICLEI is a global network of cities, regions and towns committed to sustainability.