Strengthening Governance

Governance at all levels — international, national and local — must take an integrated and coherent approach that recognises the full scale of how climate change challenges sustainable development and act to address it.  

Climate actions, for both mitigation and adaptation, happen at country level, by local governments, communities, businesses, non-government organisations and individuals. A ‘whole-of-society’ approach, in which people within and outside of government embrace the paradigm shift necessary to achieve the SDGs and the Paris Agreement ambition, is key to achieving governance able to tackle development and climate priorities simultaneously.

Climate risk assessment and management is needed to inform policy and programme decisions on climate action, and should be gender responsive, capturing disproportionate impacts on women or men so as to inform adaptation responses. Despite the theoretical linkages between development frameworks and across sectors, policy coherence and practice is so far inadequate. Institutional architecture and capabilities for adaptation and mitigation also show gaps at national, regional, and local levels. In particular, the most vulnerable groups’ voices are missing in climate policy-making processes.

Climate finance mechanisms’ efficacy in promoting low-carbon development and building resilience will depend on national institutions’ capabilities to prioritise, coordinate and monitor where the costs and benefits of climate action fall, so as to avoid exclusion and marginalisation of vulnerable groups.

See also: Social protection