The recently published article “Aspiration enhancing cooperation” reflects upon the importance of collaborative climate action and the benefits thereof.

Monika Zimmermann, lead author of the Collaborative Climate Action Report, introduces the concept, defined as a close cooperation across different governmental levels to define and implement climate policies jointly. Collaborative climate action has the potential to increase the ambition and effectiveness of climate action, whilst saving costs and increasing coherence across all levels of government.

In order to tap into the significant potential of subnational climate action (Read the Coalition for Urban Transitions’ report on subnational mitigation potentials here), national governments can employ a variety of actions, strategies and governance mechanisms, as shown in the illustration below.

The article moreover highlights potential pathways for applying the ideas of collaborative climate action within the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and Long-Term Strategies of the Paris Agreement. Collaborative climate action is increasingly recognised as an avenue for a fast and far-reaching transformation to carbon neutrality. The author argues that the upcoming 26^th Conference of Parties has the potential to showcase the important role of subnational actors and the cooperation across governmental levels, termed by some as “multi-level action COP”.

Finally, the article introduces existing practices of collaborative climate action, such as the ambitious climate action of the German Länder and the German federal support programme ‘National Climate Initiative’. Further, national urban development policies such as from Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, are connected to their NDCs and thus show a pathway for low-emission development in line with the objective of the Paris Agreement. Find out more about the theory and practices of collaborative climate action in the report “Collaborative Climate Action – a Prerequisite for more Ambitious Climate Action”.