16 Mar 2015 | Atmosphere Initiative

CCAC Working Group Meeting successfully hosted in Kathmandu, Nepal

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC)’s Working Group Meeting was hosted by ICIMOD in Kathmandu on 24-25 February 2015. The two-day meeting brought together people from almost 100 state and non-state partners of the CCAC to develop a five-year strategic plan of action, as requested by Ministers and Heads of CCAC partner organizations at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in September 2014.

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The meeting was co-chaired by Dr David Molden, Director General of ICIMOD, and Hanne Bjurstroem, Norway’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and former minister. In her opening remarks, Mr Bjurstroem said that the Coalition’s work would contribute to the pathway of limiting global warming to 2°C, harness health, food and energy benefits, and spur sustainable development.

Celebrating the Coalition’s third anniversary on the same occasion, the meeting introduced new partners, reviewed new funding requests and discussed the ongoing CCAC activities such as development of monitoring and evaluation tools for the Coalition’s work and implementation of communication strategies to raise awareness about activities CCAC is undertaking globally. The CCAC also discussed some of the pressing issues in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. It looked at ways of building on its past successes by raising the ambitions of the Coalition’s members and catalyzing different sectors to participate in its initiatives in order to drive real reductions in SLCPs over the next five years and beyond.

A major outcome of the meeting was the agreement on how to disburse more than $5 million of new funding for initiatives, including soot-free urban bus fleets, investigation on enteric methane in agriculture, and a new regional assessment on air pollution and SLCPs in Asia. More than 120 participants from over 35 countries attended the meeting. The participants comprised of representatives from governments, as well as non-state partners including inter governmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). On 22-23 February and 26 February, small group meetings were held at ICIMOD to discuss the progress of individual initiatives. A press briefing for the meeting was also organized on 24 February. Around 20 representatives of the Nepali and international media attended the press meet. On 27 February, the participants and media representatives visited a brick kiln in Bhaktapur and ICIMOD Knowledge Park in Godavari.

The CCAC is a voluntary partnership uniting governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, representatives of civil society and the private sector in the first global effort to address short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) as an urgent and collective challenge, in ways that protect the environment and public health, promote food and energy security, and address near-term climate change. To learn more about the CCAC, please visit its website www.ccacoalition.org