PACD-LAC: a toolbox for promoting integrated climate action in Latin America and the Caribbean

The climate challenge facing the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is growing. According to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022), the two large oceans surrounding the region are warming and acidifying as sea levels rise, altering climate-ecosystem interactions. This, over time, will increase the frequency and potency of extreme weather events, ecosystem degradation, increased vector-borne diseases and loss of biodiversity. Against this backdrop, climate action requires new models and perspectives to promote integral, equitable, inclusive, resilient and sustainable development in LAC.

In this line, the Climate ActionClimate Action Program for Development in LAC: a comprehensive proposal based on good practices in the region (PACD-LAC) emerged as an initiative implemented by the Water Program of the Department of Sustainable Development of the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development (SEDI-DDS) of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (GS/OAS) and the Climate Change and Sustainability Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), supported by the climate change focal points of the Governments of Costa Rica, Jamaica and Uruguay

The PACD-LAC recognizes that climate action is a central axis of convergence to promote integral development in LAC. Therefore, its main objective is to contribute to LAC countries' compliance with their NDCs and climate action plans, through a comprehensive approach derived from the macro-regime of development under a human rights framework, a gender approach and an intercultural perspective. The macro-regime approach is shaped by six climate instruments: the Paris Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Sendai Framework for Action, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda.

To achieve its objectives, PACD-LAC generated a toolbox for climate action that has three elements that facilitate the identification, characterization and analysis of projects for climate action:

First element: Operational concept of good practices

Good practices for climate action are conceptualized as a set of actions aimed at the design, implementation and evaluation of each country's NDCs. Through these, positive results are generated based on the commitments established in the agreements and instruments that form part of the macro-regime.

From the macro-regime approach, good practices for climate action should have an integrated approach, that is, they should promote processes for establishing links between mitigation and adaptation to climate change. In addition, they should incorporate the synergistic action of different institutions, national strategies and international commitments to promote the social and economic development of the population.

Second element: Principles of good practice

Good practices for climate action are established through twelve principles that govern them within the framework of the macro-regime. These principles seek to generate a guide to drive climate action from a comprehensive, inclusive, equitable and sustainable perspective.

Third element: The Climate Traffic Light

The concept of good practices and its twelve principles require a methodological tool that promotes their use and operability, and that, in turn, is useful for analyzing good practices for climate action; thus, the Climate Traffic Light was created. In general terms, the Climate Traffic Light represents a digital tool that allows applying the concept of good practices and its principles; analyzing the linkage between the different instruments that make up the macro-regime; and defining areas of opportunity to promote integral development through climate action.

The PACD-LAC toolbox is not limited to defining the meaning, scope and main characteristics that a project should contain to guide the formulation, action and monitoring of climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. On the contrary, it seeks to expand the vision of climate action to:

1. Define strategies, roadmaps and schemes of work for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate policy at subnational, national and regional levels.
2. Facilitate the process of updating and guiding the scaling up of NDC ambitions to be realized periodically and meet the climate commitments adopted by countries.
3. Generate public policy documents to promote comprehensive climate action, boost climate governance processes and strengthen climate decision making.
4. Formulate climate projects with the capacity to be financed by multilateral financial organizations and multisectoral funds..

Finally, this toolbox does not represent an instrument for regulating, controlling or evaluating the efforts made by countries in terms of climate action, because it is based on climate governance. Instead, it represents a reference for the search for areas of opportunity and improvement in subnational, national and regional climate projects. Climate action is a process that articulates perfectly with the comprehensive, equitable, inclusive, resilient and sustainable development sought by the region, but it must be built. This toolkit aims to contribute to the construction of rights-based climate action.