UN Climate Change News, 14 August 2019— Over 3,000 participants are expected at the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week that will take place in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, from 19 to 23 August 2019, including government ministers and senior representatives of multilateral agencies and non-governmental organizations.

Co-hosted by the Federal Government of Brazil and the City of Salvador da Bahia, the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week (LACCW) is organized by a partnership of international and regional organizations with the main objective of boosting the region’s response to climate change.

Ricardo Salles, Minister of Environment of Brazil and Antônio Carlos Magalhães Neto, Mayor of Salvador da Bahia, will participate in various events during the week, including the high-level segment. The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina, Rabino Sergio Bergman, and the Environment Minister of the Environment of Chile and President-designate of the UN Climate Change Conference COP25 in Chile this year, Carolina Schmidt, will attend the high-level segment that will take place on Thursday 22 August.     

Other high-level officials who have confirmed their participation are UN Climate Change Senior Director for Policy and Programme Coordination, Martin Frick; International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) President and CEO, Dirk Forrister; World Bank’s Country Operations Manager in Brazil, Renato Nardello; UN Secretary-General Special Envoy for the Climate Action Summit, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba; WWF Climate and Energy Practice Leader and President of the 2014 UN Climate Change Conference (COP20) in Peru, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal; Chile High-Level Champion for Climate Action, Gonzalo Muñoz.

LACCW can help increase regional and global climate ambition

Current national climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are not sufficient to keep the world on track to achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In this regard, LACCW takes place at a critical moment when governments prepare to submit the next round of NDCs, by 2020.

Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week will showcase a dynamic schedule of activities that will demonstrate increasing climate ambition across the region, from technical discussions to high-level thematic dialogues.

The results of the LACCW will feed into the outcomes of the Climate Action Summit organized by the UN Secretary-General on 23 September in New York with the ultimate objective of boosting climate ambition and accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

LACCW 2019 will also contribute to building momentum towards the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) that will take place in Santiago, Chile, on 2-13 December 2019.

Wide regional and sectorial representation

While the majority of participants expected come from all 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, there will be attendees from all the other regions of the world with over 90 different nationalities registered up to now.

Among the participants, there will be national and local authorities, regional leaders from public and private sectors and representatives of the civil society, including indigenous leaders and youth representatives as well as UN officials.

The event will take place in the eastern district of Patamares, in Salvador Hall, an event centre that will be turned into a “Climate City” to host a Climate Week with high sustainability standards. The venue will be fully accessible by public transport and special attention will be given to provide vegetarian, locally-sourced food as well as avoiding paper waste and single-use, non-recyclable plastics.

Registration for the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week 2019 is open until Friday 16 August 2019 at 4 pm (Salvador time, GMT-6) here.

MORE INFORMATION

• For media enquiries, contact the UN Climate Change secretariat at press@unfccc.int
• For media enquires during the LACCW,  contact Mariana Castano Cano, mcastanocano@unfccc.int
• Watch the webinar journalists organized on 13 August: in English and in Spanish.
• For more information, visit www.regionalclimateweeks.org (available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French).
• Logistical information is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese here.
• Join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #LACClimateWeek
• All the information for distribution and visual assets are available in a Trello Board.
• Photos of the LACCW 2019 will be available on Flickr here.
• Get the press kit here.

Registration for the Asia-Pacific Climate Week (Bangkok, 2-6 September) is also open here.

ABOUT THE REGIONAL CLIMATE WEEKS

Organized every year in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific, the Regional Climate Weeks are unique collaborative platforms for government and non-Party stakeholders to address the width of climate issues under one umbrella and unity of purpose. Bringing together diverse stakeholders in the public and private sectors around a common goal of addressing climate change is the main goal of the Regional Climate Weeks.

LACCW ORGANIZERS

Hosted by the Federal Government of Brazil with the support of the City of Salvador, Bahia, the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week 2019 and is co-organized by UN Climate Change, Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNEP DTU Partnership, World Bank Group (WB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Regional Platform for Low Emission Resilient Development Strategies (LEDS LAC), the Latin American Energy Organization (Olade), CAF-Development Bank of Latin America and International Emissions Trading Association (IETA).
Read this press release in Portuguese.