The 2016 TAI Global Gathering was held in Paris, France just prior to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit in December. This 5th Global Gathering included 118 participants from 48 countries under the theme “Building a Movement on Open Government for Climate Action.” The overall goal of the 2016 Global Gathering was to catalyze greater collaboration between the open government community, familiar with rights based approaches to governance, and those with technical expertise on climate policy, in order to strengthen national and regional networks for more fair, accountable, and ambitious climate action.
Specific areas of focus included opportunities for engagement around open data, climateaccountability and monitoring the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). Another key area of focus was the need for increased transparency of climate finance and shifting investments to the needs of the most affected, and addressing differentiated impact based on gender, poverty and vulnerability. Sessions were also held to discuss new advocacy strategies for climate protection including in cities, through climate litigation, and parliamentary advocacy.
The report summarizes the key takeaways from Global Gathering Sessions.
AEJI director, carmit Lubanov participated in a session of Climate Change Finance, Policies and Open Data in Asia. This session discussed priorities on climate finance and priority national policies including the need for development of regional standards on climate change. Participants noted a number of challenges in Asia including: 1) lack of policies to increase access to renewable energy; 2) lack of focus on inequity; 3) lack of political will in some countries to take climate change seriously even after natural disasters; 4) lack of policy and legislation in specific countries to drive change (e.g. legislation and policy in India relevant to climate change despite large emission targets).
Participants expressed concerns about the changing geo-political nature of the region; the closing of civic space for civil society; funder priorities to only focus on China and India and the lack of cross country learning opportunities. There has been a move to open up data and there are success stories in China, India and Japan. Difficulties exist across the region including Kyrgyzstan, Laos and in Cambodia which have not agreed to open government principles. It was noted that Indonesia and Korea are members of the OGP.
Conclusion: Platforms for learning and collaboration are needed in the region. Only some countries are part of OGP which may restrict the utility of this forum. There is great potential in action with the private sector in the region and a need to focus the narrative on open data rather than rights (which is often politically contentious). Independent climate finance monitoring and accountability networks in Asia need support and development.
