Why take this course?
The LoCAL Mechanism increases local level climate change awareness and capacities, including by integrating climate change adaptation into local government planning and budgeting in a participatory and gender-sensitive manner, and increases the financing available to local governments for climate change adaptation. LoCAL combines performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) – which ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level while offering strong incentives for performance improvements in enhanced resilience – with technical and capacity-building support.
In this regard, this course has been designed to build a solid understanding of the negotiating environment under adaptation for LoCAL Member Countries. It does so by first looking at the negotiation environment provided by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including its governing bodies, subsidiary bodies, negotiating groups and the financial mechanisms available, while identifying LoCAL’s coordinates within this environment. It continues by zooming into the climate change adaptation pillar, while discussing the most prominent adaptation milestones under the UNFCCC. Here, the course returns to LoCAL identifying its contribution under various articles of the convention itself, but also under the Paris Agreement, especially Article 6.8 which refers to the non-market adaptation mechanisms. Finally, the course offers an entire module on fundamentals of negotiation, strategies and tactics applied in international conferences.
The course at a glance
The course is self-paced and adapted to the schedule of full-time working professionals. The course is presented in three modules and we highly recommend to be taken in the order in which they are presented:
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): Five interactive lessons discussing the UNFCC framework for international cooperation to address climate change, covering governing and subsidiary bodies, negotiating groups and financial mechanisms and a case study (Financing Local Climate Adaptation in LDCs).
- Adaptation under the UNFCCC: Three interactive lessons describing adaptation milestones and highlights under the UNFCCC and the LoCAL mechanism
- International Conferences: fundamentals of negotiation, strategies and tactics: Two interactive lessons investigating the fundamentals of negotiation, strategies and tactics at international climate conferences.
Get your Certificate
The successful completion of the course rewards the learner with a certificate. To complete the course, the learner must complete all three modules and pass each associated quiz with a minimum grade of 70% from no more than three attempts.