On 12 December 2017, two years after the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement was adopted, Heads of State, governments, civil society and the private sector are gathering in Paris to drive forward climate action.
Convened at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, World Bank President Jim Kim and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the One Planet Summit is designed to launch new initiatives that assist in ramping up financial flows to developing nations as they implement their climate action plans under the Agreement.
Finance is crucial for countries to green their economies and to build resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change, which include more frequent and more severe droughts, flooding and storms.
The Paris gathering takes place less than a month after the successful conclusion of the November UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (COP23) and is the first in a series of international summits to help countries to raise ambition and bolster their national climate action plans, which is crucial to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Specifically, the December Paris summit will:
- Showcase climate action initiatives that are underway and which can be scaled-up with the right kind of support
- Announce several bold new initiatives that will provide new financial resources in key areas such as renewable energy, small-scale farming, support for women and forestry in developing countries
- Explore how the world's financial architecture can be transformed to unleash the trillions of dollars that will be needed for sustainable development globally
Next year, the US state of California, the UN and other key partners will host another major conference to fast forward action ahead of the UN Climate Conference 2018 in Poland (COP24), and a summit to raise ambition will be convened by the UN Secretary General in 2019.
The social media hashtag for the event on 12 December is #OnePlanet
The summit will be preceded by a Climate Finance Day on 11 December, designed to take stock of climate action in the financial sector since the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 in 2015.
This event will showcase recent initiatives and innovations from the financial sector to accelerate the adoption of forward-looking strategies around the world. The initiatives will be highlighted the following day on the occasion of the One Planet Summit. The hashtag for Climate Finance Day is #CFD2017.
11 December also marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the previous landmark climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol and everyone is urged to celebrate this day too under the social media hashtag #ILoveKyotoProtocol
The One Planet Summit website can be seen here.
The World Bank has begun showcasing inspiring climate action ahead of the summit in a special series which can be seen here.