In 2023, Rosario was one of the 26 cities across 18 countries -and the only municipality in Latin America- to host a local stocktake
As cities around the world confront the accelerating impacts of the climate emergency, local leadership is proving essential to driving meaningful change. Daring Cities proudly supports the Town Hall COP Initiative—an inclusive, action-oriented model that empowers communities to connect their climate priorities to national and international processes. By creating space for dialogue among residents, local governments, and national representatives, Town Hall COPs elevate community voices and help align local action with global climate goals. Our shared vision is rooted in multilevel collaboration, equity, and transformation—and we are honored to champion the Town Hall COP approach as a vital tool in building just, resilient, and sustainable urban futures.
A Town Hall COP is a locally organized, community-driven event that brings people together to discuss climate priorities, showcase local action, and connect with national and global climate goals. Inspired by the structure of the UN Climate Change Conferences (COPs), each Town Hall COP is designed to reflect the unique needs and voices of the hosting community—whether it’s a small town, a major city, or a regional network.
These events are built on three core principles:
Town Hall COPs can take many forms—from public forums to workshops to roundtables—and are open to co-leadership by local governments, community groups, universities, youth networks, and more. The outcomes of these events are shared with national authorities and elevated to the global stage through the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency to the UNFCCC, ensuring that local insights influence national climate commitments and international climate negotiations.
By participating in or hosting a Town Hall COP, communities help shape a more inclusive and grounded global climate response—one conversation at a time.
In 2023, Rosario was one of the 26 cities across 18 countries -and the only municipality in Latin America- to host a local stocktake
In 2023, over 20 local governments across six continents held “local stocktakes” to support the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement. Led by ICLEI as the focal point of the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency, this local stocktake pilot exercise underscored the value of multilevel collaboration, influencing COP28 in Dubai, where the UAE Consensus encouraged enhanced national commitments to multilevel climate action.
In parallel, 72 countries joined the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP), pledging to integrate local and regional governments to collectively pursue efforts for the next round of submitting revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) due in 2025 at COP30.
ICLEI is now building on this momentum by advancing the local stocktake experience into Town Hall COPs, which will enable communities to refine and advance their climate goals while connecting directly to national and global action. In these gatherings, local leaders, public officials, and community members will discuss their climate emergency declarations, explore paths to climate neutrality, and contribute their insights to inform national climate plans. The outcomes of these Town Hall COPs will feed into NDC 3.0 at COP30 and the LGMA Constituency at the UNFCCC, thereby strengthening global multilevel governance.
Deriving from the Daring Cities 2024 Bonn Dialogues, Katja Dörner, Mayor of Bonn, Germany, and chair of the Climate Action Governance Portfolio for the ICLEI Global Executive Committee called on mayors to mobilize their national city associations to urge their governments support for climate ambition through multilevel action and multilevel NDCs, aligned with the CHAMP initiative.
Last June, the Association of German Cities (Deutschen Städtetag, DST) adopted a resolution marking the first national position of local governments supporting CHAMP. Spearheaded by Mayor Dörner, Vice President of the DST, the resolution also encourages cities to convene their Town Hall COPs as an innovative approach to connect national and global processes.
Similarly, the United States Conference of Mayors issued a resolution supporting CHAMP and encouraging cities to back Town Hall COPs as the next iteration of the Paris Agreement local stocktake process and a key mechanism for receiving input to secure a robust multilevel U.S. NDC by 2025.
Charting the roadmap to Belém, Daring Cities is committed to promote the Town Hall COPs to catalyze multilevel collaboration and amplify local climate perspectives within broader climate processes toward a just, equitable, and resilient climate future.
How can cities and regions help their countries level up their climate goals? In this session, we focused on implementing COP28’s Coalition For High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) initiative for climate action. We explored ways to enhance collaboration across government levels and sectors and identify pathways for integrating local actions into national and international climate agendas ahead of the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) due in 2025 at COP30 in Belém, brazil.
Under the Town Hall COPs initiative, cities and regions can contribute with their unique and critical perspectives by hosting their own local events – effectively “mini-cops” – to take stock of their climate efforts.
How do you “power up” your work on multilevel climate action? As the final session of the Daring Cities Virtual Forum, this webinar launched our official Daring Cities 2024 Key Messages. These impactful insights distilled from our discussions are designed to support efforts by you and your colleagues to drive the message of collaborative action in tackling the climate emergency forward.
Looking ahead, we explored key engagement opportunities during Urban October and chart the path toward UNFCCC COP29 in Baku. We dove into the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities’ (LGMA) Constituency position paper, revealing how it connects to CHAMP and COP, and also dug into details of how Town Hall COPs can complement the annual cycle of climate action at the local, national and global level.
It is now more crucial than ever for local and regional governments to advance the climate emergency responses by building on the outcomes of COP28 and COP29, taking into account rapid changes in global governance. Participants will hear firsthand insights from a local government leader who attended COP29, sharing key takeaways and priority actions for 2025. To support this, the webinar will also feature a special focus on climate action and governance in Brazil, building on the country’s NDC3.0, which was submitted to the UNFCCC during COP29, which prominently referred to “climate federalism.”
Additionally, the progress on multilevel NDCs 3.0 by COP30, in particular through progress in a number of CHAMP Endorsing countries will be reviewed, with insights from the LGMA Constituency. This webinar will contextualize the critical role of local and regional governments in 2025, setting the stage for action through the Town Hall COPs initiative.
Daring Cities continues the conversation on the implementation of COP29 outcomes in relation to multilevel action and sustainable urbanization, including progress on the Town Hall COPs and UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn in preparation for COP30, and the agenda of the Daring Cities 2025 Bonn Dialogues on 16-18 June.