Critical to achieving the credible, just, and ambitious commitments required to avoid a climate catastrophe is effective multilevel governance and coordination: collaboration, communication, and engagement among all levels of government in a process led by Parties.

The Multilevel Climate Action Playbook for Local and Regional Governments recommends key elements of an enabling environment that can weave climate ambition and action of local and regional governments into Party policy developments to accelerate vertically integrated NDC implementation and investment plans. This enabling environment can help produce Regional and Local Contributions (RLCs), which are complementary to – and designed for integration with – Nationally Determined Contributions.

Grounded in research and multilevel government practitioner experience, the Playbook seeks to:

• Understand the barriers to multilevel climate collaboration on Paris Agreement implementation;
• Identify the mechanism for integrating RLCs into Party policy developments for the NDC Cycle;
• Recommend enabling activities which advance multilevel climate governance and coordination, as well as enable the development of RLCs;
• Highlight ‘assists’ from GCoM alliance partners*, Parties, and the private sector that can further unlock opportunities to strengthen NDC policy and implementation via integration of RLCs; and
• Share resources (research, tools, and case studies) for use with select enabling activities of local/regional and national governments, and city/country network partners.

The Playbook is intended to serve as an all-in-one resource for local and regional governments, with guidance for national governments, GCoM alliance partners and practitioners who aim to support multilevel collaboration.

Check out the Playbook, its accompanying Annex, and repository of case studies below to learn more.