The European Committee of the Regions was represented at the 23rd UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (COP23) by two ECR Group members from Lithuania, Vytautas Kanevičius (Mayor of Kazlų Rūda) and Daiva Matonienė (Member of Šiauliai City Municipal Council). They underlined at the conference the need for more international cooperation and greater involvement of local and regional authorities in the implementation of the "Paris agreement", which is widely seen as a milestone in the global endeavour to respond to climate change.

The Bonn conference was a follow-up to the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) held in 2015 in Paris. Implementation of the Paris agreement has faced numerous challenges, including the possible withdrawal from the accord of the United States and the modest ambitions of the global partners.

Commenting on these difficulties, ECR Group representative Daiva Matonienė said: "We can no longer accept the unequal distribution of costs and lack of shared responsibility for the future of our planet. While we celebrate in the EU the fact that we have the most ambitious climate change framework in the world, we often forget that we are responsible for less than 10% of global CO2 emissions. What truly matters is not how ambitious one party to the agreement is, but how ambitious we are collectively. One of my objectives during COP23 is to convince our partners from outside the EU about the benefits of increasing their level of ambition by investing in clean energy sources and clean technologies. The Transatlantic Dialogue on Climate Change held by the CoR during COP23 provided a good platform to raise this issue with mayors from the United States."

Another key challenge discussed at COP23 was the role of local and regional authorities in implementing the Paris agreement. ECR Member Vytautas Kanevičius commented: "Currently, local and regional authorities are put into one basket with other 'non-party stakeholders' such as businesses and non-governmental organisations. However, we represent our local communities and therefore believe our status in future negotiations should be upgraded so that we can more effectively voice their concerns."

The COP23 conference was convened under the presidency of Fiji, a Pacific island that was hit in February 2016 by the strongest cyclone on record. The Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, said the Paris agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction were all "landmark agreements that must be implemented together".

In this spirit, ECR Group Member Adam Banaszak (Vice-President of Kujawsko-Pomorskie Regional Parliament in Poland) held a conference on 23 November in Toruń devoted to addressing environmental issues from a local and regional perspective in the aftermath of COP23. He will also organise a Citizens' Dialogue in Toruń on 6 December devoted to disaster risk management.