ProductionofthisFrameworkwasgenerouslysupportedbyClimate Outreach,UNFCCCACEUnit,andIKEAFoundation
The ACE Observatory is a unique platform aimed to support capacity-building and accelerate a whole-of-society approach to climate action by providing much needed tools to track and assess progress on climate governance and peoplecentered climate action. We aim to bridge the gap between civil society and practitioner expectations and government actions by tracking and evaluating progress on Action for Climate Empowerment. This platform will aggregate national action on co-created benchmarks through high-quality data.
Cintron-Rodriguez, I and Flores Hernandez, M. (2022) ACE Assessment Framework: Articulating People Centered Climate Action, ACE Observatory, NY, US
www.aceobservatory.org
Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is a term adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to denote work under Article 6 of the Convention (1992) and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement (2015). ACE provides a framework for coherence and coordination as we join forces and build capacity for peoplecentered climate action.
We have a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to enable climate-resilient development.1 It will take deep transformation across all social systems including energy, economics, transport, and justice to ensure we are building resiliency for our infrastructures, and communities.2 The outcomes of these transformations cannot be just, if the process is unjust. The only way to do this is together, the task requires a whole-of-society approach.
The implementation of a just transition will require nations and other relevant actors, acting individually or collectively, to adopt policies and legislation and to mobilize resources that advance people-centered, equitable, and sustainable development. In this regard, a new governance that embodies the core values of human rights, equality, and sustainability is essential for achieving people-centered climate action. This new social contract needs to:
strengthen governance and accountability frameworks by providing direct multi-stakeholder participation in decisionmaking, financing, technology transfer and innovation; reinforce equitable capacity building for people and institutions through transformative education, training and public awareness to enable society readiness to own, participate in, or lead climate solutions; promote access rights to information, public participation, and justice related to climate change matters; address the environmental and socio-economic inequities in an integrated manner; build on existing efforts of workforce for the future development to ensure future opportunities, capacity, and benefits are equitably distributed; and facilitate coherence, collaboration and inclusion in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 agenda through the leveraging of ethical partnerships and equitable resource allocation across diverse funding mechanisms with special attention to capacity and equity in developing countries.
Climate justice is an approach to addressing the social and environmental imbalances and injustices that are exacerbated by anthropocentric climate change. Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) provides the foundational toolkit to articulate and operationalize people-centered climate action. A cornerstone of ACE is to promote whole-of-society climate action through coherent structures of participation, access, and collaboration. ACE enables the capacities, from individuals to policy-makers, for good climate governance by, establishing the necessary participatory instruments, networks, infrastructures, coherence and resources.
Governance and capacity building are essential to achieve climate change mitigation targets and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to ensure just climate change adaptation activity. In particular, there are intersections among the SDG 4 on Education, SDG 7 on Decent Work, SDG 5 on Gender Equality, SDG 10 on Reduced Inequalities, within climate action and the SDG 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Additionally, synergies exist between ACE and the Sendai Framework, which asks for access to information and availability of disaggregated data, to address multifaceted climate change threats. The Sendai Framework also recognizes the need for a whole-of-society collaboration, empowerment and inclusive participation for effective disaster risk management.
Similarly, the Escazu Agreement and Aarhus Convention provide guidance on how to effectively include access to information, participation, and justice in environmental agreements while operationalizing the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992.
Climate governance and capacity building are inherently difficult to assess, as they often do not have immediately quantifiable outputs. Hence, detangling clear lines of cause and effect from investment to effective climate action is often not possible. However, there are research supported models of system change which provide insight into the connections between climate action and the various aspects of governance and capacity building embedded in ACE.6 The challenges in measuring ACE often impede efforts to strengthen it, thus, a framework approach would allow for actions to be reported and measured more efficiently in order to manage, mobilize support and connect parallel efforts occurring globally.
The ACE Observatory Assessment Framework provides a simple way to understand the capacities needed to achieve the multilaterally co-designed ACE benchmarks, providing a clear model for identifying what to assess. It proposes a mechanism to identify strengths and gaps between countries that can spark knowledge-exchange and collaboration. The ACE Observatory sees ACE through a procedural lens that improves the process of how climate decision-making is made. This document serves as a first draft to be further discussed through technical and community review.
Presently, the ACE Observatory has convened more than 100 climate governance and capacity-building experts across the world, constituting a diverse group of stakeholders with a wide range of experiences and perspectives. These policymakers, experts-by-experience, thought leaders, academics, businesses, union representatives, and civil society advocates came together to answer the question “What does effective ACE implementation means?”
During an event series in Spring, we kicked off our Global Panel on People-Centered Climate Action to co-design the performance criteria for the determinants of people-centered climate action dimensions:
Climate Competencies. This roundtable discussed the conditions for success needed to develop a nation's climate competencies for a just future that leaves no one behind and redistributes climate action benefits/co-benefits. It encompassed the areas of workforce development, technical skills training, climate action-oriented education, participatory research, public awareness, and technology transfer.
Public Participation. This roundtable discussed the enabling environment for participatory decision-making design and implementation for a climate just development. It focused on the autonomies and transformations do we need to ensure ongoing, direct engagement of civil society and stakeholders for a relational and participatory governance.
Transparency and Accountability. This roundtable focused on the right-to-know and how countries can build social trust through their climate action, including the systems for disclosure (i.e risks), accountability, and access to justice that should be in place for a participatory governance to work.
Feasibility. This discussion centered around ensuring technical, financial, and networking means are scaling, connecting, and targeting the communities/initiatives leading the work on the ground.
Through four days of animated discussion, these experts determined 146 key benchmarks and capacities for climate empowerment performance and a series of capacities needed to reach the level of performance desired. These benchmarks and capacities make up the ACE Observatory ACE Performance Benchmarking Framework.
There is complexity in defining effective ACE implementation and its enabling environment as it is affected both by legal/regulatory frameworks and socioeconomic factors. In an attempt to strike a balance between comprehensiveness and relevance for policy action, this framework defines this enabling environment as “a set of conditions that impact the capacity of civil society to participate and engage in climate-planning in a sustained and voluntary manner for advancing national people-centered climate action.”
The capability approach conceived in 1980 as an alternative approach to welfare economics, has been used to evaluate and assess individual wellbeing and social arrangements, the design of policies, and proposals for societal change. Currently, it has guided the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gender Inequality Index (GDI). Overall, it emphasizes the underlying conditions that make individuals ‘capable’ of fulfilling context-specific goals. Here we use this approach to outline the conditions that make individual, collective, and government capable of delivering people-centered climate action. Focusing on the underlying conditions, rather than outputs, presents a non-prescriptive recipe for comparative assessment in a country-driven agenda, such as ACE, as it can take many different forms. However, where appropriate we offer specific suggestions provided as best practices by the experts.
Benchmarking is a strategic process often used by entities to standardize performance in relation to the best practices of their sector.12 ACE Observatory and its partners have developed a tool with a list of benchmarks and corresponding elements of quality that can be applied to increase the performance of countries in people-centered climate readiness. The ACE Observatory framework is broad in nature to improve national capacities and integrate multisectoral perspectives at all levels of governance. This means that if all benchmarks are reached and sustained, the achievement level of the country would be optimum for a just transition and to avert, minimize, and address climate risks.
For any given benchmark, the object of assessment encompassess the different institutional arrangements (legal, operational, and Procedural Actions), including a cross-cutting inclusive engagement component.
Institutional arrangements are the formal and informal policies, systems, structures and processes that organizations use to legislate, plan and manage their activities efficiently and to effectively coordinate with others in order to enable the implementation of ACE in support of the Paris Agreement, adapted from the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP. Institutional arrangements include:
Legal framework - rules in a social structure made up of laws, regulations and their enforcement, agreements and procedures.
Operational Actions - responsibilities, roles and coordination in and across institutions, ministries, agencies, teams, stakeholders, data providers, committees, etc.
Procedural Actions - description of data/technical needs, expertise, collection, analysis, and provision, reporting
Inclusive engagement - the intentional mechanisms for collaboration and inclusion of the most disadvantaged sectors of society including women, youth, local and indigenous communities
As a guidance tool to pursue climate actions and decision-making that promote people-centered climate action.
As an assessment and benchmarking tool to identify climate governance and capacity areas that strengthen linkages to other governance practices.
A list of benchmarks and elements of quality that are required to increase and sustain climate justice capacities.
Being informed by ACE community at all levels. A starting point for the development of a technically sound plan for climate empowerment implementation and reporting.
A list of mandatory activities. Complete applicability for every context.
An exhaustive list of actions/recommendations.
Sets the point of reference for the capacity for each dimension or lever of change
Sets the point of reference for the capacity for each dimension or lever of change
Exceeds
Meets
Climate Governance refers to a country’s readiness to ratchet up and purposely implement transformational climate policies in order to prevent, mitigate, or adapt to the risk posed by climate change. It describes the purposeful capabilities and institutional arrangements with minimum preconditions for enabling and steering a social system towards preventing, mitigating, or adapting to the risks posed by climate change in a way that centers people.
Participatory Climate Governance is characterized by responsiveness, participation, reliability, equity, inclusiveness, efficiency, accountability, and transparency. [Responsive, participatory, reliable, equitable, inclusive, efficient, accountable and transparent governance is believed to be a key enabling factor for a just transition and peoplecentered climate action].
The enabling environment covers overall coherence (regulatory effectiveness and quality), awareness and transparency, accountability, rule of law, rights, and political liberties. It also includes a series of personal rights and guarantees (freedom of speech, social media freedom, NGO regulatory framework). A key aspect of the enabling
The participatory climate governance benchmarks are divided into three subthemes:
Coherence refers to the efforts made to integrate the [ACE pillars/ elements ] [determinants of] [economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions] for people-centered climate action at all stages of domestic and international policy-making. Its main objectives are to
a. increase governments capacities to foster synergies and coordination across economic, social, and policy areas
b. reconcile domestic policy objectives with international agreed objectives
Transparency refers to the efforts made by governments to ensure citizens are informed about how and why public decisions are made.. [Some essential aspects for transparency include comprehensiveness, timeliness, availability, and comprehensibility of information, as well as the proactiveness of efforts to inform affected groups.] <maybe elements of quality
Accountability refers to the “rules, regulations and mechanisms in place that call upon government actors to justify their actions, criticisms or requirements made of them, and accept responsibility for failure to perform with respect to laws or commitments” (Open Government Partnership, 2016). Specifically, it indicates the juridical, oversight and access to information requirements of laws or policies in a legal context. This includes the provision of information and justification for decisions to stakeholders and corrective measures when an actor fails to meet its obligation, including anti-corruption tactics.
Participatory and inclusive refers to the open, ongoing, meaningful, and transparent dialogue to deliver equitable social outcomes, particularly by giving space to and empowering people, especially the most disadvantaged, to exercise their right to actively engage, review and challenge climaterelated decision-making.
FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE BENCHMARKS HERE WE HAVE COMBINED PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & ACCOUNTABILITY BECAUSE OF THE SYNERGIES BETWEEN THE PROPOSED ACTIONS
Government shares data openly and provides clear, meaningful, accurate, contextualized, and complete information for stakeholders to assess results and decisions. A government committed to transparency communicates methods, data source, calculations, assumptions, decision criteria, uncertainty, as well as processes, procedure, and assessments limitations in a clear factual, neutral, and understandable way.
Accessibility. Easy and contextualized environmental information is disclosed at no cost.
Usefulness. Data is provided in complete and meaningful formats.
Timeliness. Competent authorities respond and fulfill requests as quickly as possible within a period no longer than 30 days.
Climate strategies. Include provisions in climate strategies for access to information held by public authorities, with limited exceptions. Pervasiveness. Access to information applies to all public authorities and civil society.
Organizational Actions
Dissemination. Publish climate-related information by request.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Procedural Actions
Mapping. Identify key Ministries, Departments and Agencies that have relevant climate-related information.
Data openness. Publish available environmental quality, climate risks, greenhouse gas and pollutants inventory data, by request.
Rights-based. Recognize the access to information right.
Disclosure. Describe specific disclosures to be contained in climate decision-making reports (i.e meeting notes, conflicts of interest, decision criteria, participation opportunities, financial information)
Pervasiveness. Promote access to environmental information generated by private entities, including their operations, risks and effects on human health and the environment.
Organizational Actions
Climate-planning. Ensure that planning agencies have access to comprehensive, accurate, and up-todate information necessary for climate-planning.
Data openness. Each agency provides openly the climate data and decisions it holds Resourcing. Allocate resources to map, develop capacities, and implement access to information measures.
Procedural Actions
Mapping. Identify key stakeholder, including non-state actors, that manage climaterelated information
Data capability. Strengthen capabilities to collect, retain, visualize and evaluate climate-risk exposure and vulnerability disaggregated information.
Data openness. Provide comprehensive and high-quality information in records on climate risks, decision-making, and opportunities presented by a just transition. Training. Develop and initiate training programmes for data collection and reporting of ACE at national and subnational levels.
Accessibility. Provide data and information license-free and in different formats and languages appropriate for vulnerable and underrepresented groups. Non-discriminatory. Mandate that data opennes is non-discriminatory and available to everyone with no requirement of registration. Digitalization. Ensure climate-related information is available digitally for free.
Legal Framework
Disclosure. Mandate disclosure of existing and proposed public or private projects, including material information on objectives, environmental impacts, beneficial ownership transparency, governance, and financial data.
Climate-planning. Require investors, operators, and decision-makers to disclose and consider climate risks for investments.
Disclosure. Relevant authorities have mechanisms in place to disclose and disseminate all information in their possession about imminent threats and disaster losses to public health or the environment through the most effective means.
Access refusal. Give reasoning for the refusal of information disclosure in writing as well as options for appeal.
Procedural Actions
Centralized information system. Develop a public system or portal with up-to-date and organized records including, but not limited to: all climate treaties, laws, regulations, administrative acts, state of the environment, scientific and technical reports, public entities, pollutants, polluted areas, concessions, contracts agreements, authorizations granted, resource conservation and use, environmental sanctions, and participation opportunities.
Data openness. Provide climate-related information in their original form that can be used for further analyses.
Budgeting. Ensure that climate finance documents and data (i.e. investment, procurement, budgets) are open, transparent, and accessible.
Inclusive engagement
Co-production. Co-create risk and climate-related data and assessments using traditional, indigenous, local, and scientific knowledge. Accessibility. Use diverse tools, platforms and languages for disseminating information about participation opportunities.
Data Openness. Climate information is available in non-proprietary formats .
The country has integrated direct, ongoing, safe, meaningful and inclusive participation and accountability in climate decision-making at all levels. Government creates structures and mechanisms for participatory decision-making for all members of society, giving special attention to the most disadvantaged. This participation is supported by the explicit integration of accountability and oversight mechanisms in climate laws and regulations. This benchmark is associated with elements such as consultation methods, openness, accountability, transparency and feedback mechanisms.
Access to information: Participative processes depend on access to a broad range of accurate, useful and relevant evidence, and expertise.
Representativeness & Inclusion: participation sample is representative of all members of society affected and includes disadvantaged and diverse, local, youth and indigenous people and knowledge.
Ease of participation: The public announcement of the participative process and dissemination of relevant materials are timely.
Accountability
Citizen Satisfaction: People believe the process is fair, effective, inclusive and meaningful.
Trust: People trust each other and the government officials carrying out the process.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Legal Framework
Climate strategies. Climate decision-making (NDC, NAPs, climate law, etc) is developed through participatory mechanisms.
Rights-based. Recognize access rights to public participation and justice by law.
Organizational Actions
Participation modes. Government agencies/ministries/parliaments hold public consultations for climate policies feedback with key stakeholders and expert groups.
Procedural Actions
Capacity-building. Develop training packages on the value of integrating public participation in climate decision-making.
Rights-based. Compile judicial decisions that promote prosecution of crimes against journalism and environmental defenders.
Inclusive Engagement
Safety. Reduce impunity over cases of killed and attacked journalists, trade unions and environmental defenders, taking into consideration gender-based attacks.
Participation modes. Create channels to increase participation in public environmental affairs.
Participation modes. Develop widespread participatory mechanisms to underpin all climate decision-making.
National Strategy. Develop a participatory ACE National Strategy that at the same time includes provisions for public participation.
Rights-based. Establish adequate and effective measures to protect and promote the human rights of environmental defenders and whistleblowers aligned with relevant international obligations and national legal frameworks.
Corruption control. Anti-corruption strategies and accountability laws cover climateplanning.
Legal standing. All citizens and communities have legal standing to bring climate-related complaints before a dispute resolution body.
Capacity-building. Train authorities, elected officials and civil servants on environmental law and access rights. Agency. Promote public participation as a civic duty.
Corruption control. Establish incentives that recognize good behavior in environmental matters of governments, businesses, and public officials.
Participatory budgeting. Systems are in place to provide early data and information on procurement processes to everyone.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Procedural Actions
Resourcing. Appoint dedicated staff to ensure the quality of the participatory process. Capacity-building. Develop and strengthen programmes to raise awareness of environmental rights and how to use them for students at all levels and other members of the population.
Inclusive engagement
Co-creation. Establish regular accessible participatory processes with experiences of co-design, codecision, and shared responsibilities and power on climate strategies.
Timeliness. Ensure participation opportunities are disseminated in a timely manner.
Participation ease. Provide dispute resolution services in locations that are accessible to a broad participation representative of the population.
Language. Provide dispute resolution services in relevant local languages.
Affordability. Provide dispute resolution services that are affordable for the majority of citizens. Accessibility. Provide adequate resources for a process that removes barriers to engagement and responds to local needs (language, location, time, support)
International treaties. Signing and ratifying Rio Declaration, Escazu, Aarhus, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Rights-based. Establish mechanisms to protect rights, including the right to dissent, and seek redress when rights are not respected in environmental matters, in order to challenge and change unjust power dynamics.
National Strategy. Establish mechanism to monitor and evaluate participation rates by gender, age, race/ethnicity to identify gaps and opportunities.
Continuity. Provide space for ongoing dialogue for the design, implementation and oversight of climate measures.
Disputes. Clearly specify procedures and institutional mandates for dispute resolution bodies at different administrative levels and for different types of disputes.
Safety
Strengthen laws regarding environmental crimes and crimes against environmental activists and others, including but not limited to harassment, life threats, kidnapping and killing.
Guarantee judiciary independence to ensure all abuses against civil society and environmental defenders are properly prosecuted.
Corruption control. Establish measures, such as reputational incentives or corrective measures (revindication, reimbursement, or reparations) to avoid the privilege of informal and personal ties at the expense of collective action.
Organizational Actions
Partnerships. Support of civil society-led participation innovations for a strong community life and multistakeholder alliances.. Oversight. Impartial and autonomous entities are established to promote transparency and accountability in ACE-relevant procedures, to oversee compliance with relevant rules, and monitor, report on, and guarantee access rights. This entity should have enforcement capacity within the scope of responsibilities. Dispute resolution. Rulings are made in a timely manner, which allows all parties to present their arguments and evidence, resulting in a fair and effective remedy to the dispute.
Budgeting. Provide space for inclusive, participative, and realistic debate on the budget allocated for climate measures.
Resourcing. Fund civil society’s initiatives as implementation partners of climate and ACE strategies.
Capacity-building. Regular training for relevant sectors at all levels of government on engagement skills (i.e socio-emotional, interpersonal, facilitation to lead meetings, clear and coherent communication).
Expertise. Dispute resolution bodies have expertise in relevant climate laws, systems, and practices, human-rights responsibilities related to climate change, and alternative dispute resolution (i.e mediation).
Resourcing. Allocate adequate funding and resources for expert support, support public participation in climate public policy, and support/facilitate attendance (child care, compensation, work exemptions, translator, etc). Parliaments. Legislate budgeting and oversight provisions for the implementation of national climate strategies.
Inclusive engagement
Affordability. Provide free legal services for individuals who cannot afford them. Oversight. Functioning auditing and scrutinizing multi-stakeholder group that involves the government, and the full, independent, active and effective participation different of civil society.
The country has frameworks, structures, and mechanisms in place to enhance regulatory effectiveness and quality of people-centered climate action, including a climate empowerment strategy as a key driver of systematic change. Climate-planning mobilizes whole-of-government action, addresses historical harm within and beyond borders, uses monitoring and reporting systems to inform coherence, provides high-level coordination of ACE, and enables multistakeholder partnerships.
Ambitious, equitable, and evidence-informed policy-making, to ensure the sustainability of climate-planning decisions.
Balanced. Commitment to implementing the ACE agenda in a balanced and integrated manner at the highest level (i.e NDC, NAP, General Climate Law, etc) to mobilize the whole government.
Whole-of-government coordination to ensure a coherent, integrated approach to the climate crisis
Time-bound. Country publishes time-bound plan for enhancing policy coherence on ACE.
Reduced Bureaucracy. Build a support network of partners for administrative simplification that will help reduce unnecessary regulatory barriers and advance the effective and efficient use of capacities and resources available across the society.
Transparency. Monitoring and reporting to inform coherence and enhance capability.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Appoint an ACE National Focal Point.
Implement individual climate empowerment policies and plans, including education, training, equitable public participation at every level of decision-making, public awareness, access to information, and international cooperation on climate matters.
Host ACE inside a agency/ministry with linkages to at least one of the elements of ACE.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Appoint an ACE National Focal Point with at least [30%] of their time allocated to their ACE functions.
Select a representative and inclusive ACE Team to facilitate consultation with relevant civil society groups and sectors, specially from vulnerable and underrepresented group considerations. Develop effective mechanisms to address institutional synergies and conflicts that arise during ACE participatory planning.
Design a balanced ACE National Strategy to provide a mechanism for sustained efforts, considering interlinkages with economic, social, and environmental policies relevant to climate change.
Coordinate ACE at the ministerial, department, or agency level with some linkages to other ministerial departments or agencies.
Establish ACE plans that are consistent across administrative levels. Train responsible staff for specific aspects of climate empowerment. Train parliamentarians to exert oversight on the implementation of the ACE Strategy.
Provide written terms of reference for ACE National Focal Points allocating more than 50% of their time to ACE functions, and sustained funding to perform sensibilization of agencies, civil society engagement and international networking
Appoint an ACE Youth National Focal Point with clear roles and decision-making power to support ACE National efforts alongside the ACE NFP. Select an ACE Team of 5 to 10 investigators/consultants with broad knowledge across the six elements to establish a work plan and budget to support the ACE NFP and the planning process for developing the national strategy. This team includes diverse, gender-mixed, intergenerational, and relevant agencies and civil society organizations representatives with decision-making power on the national ACE agenda, strategies, and plans.
Design and implement an ACE National Strategy in a participatory, inclusive, and balanced manner, providing a mechanism for sustained efforts, considering interlinkages with economic, social, and environmental climate-relevant policies. Coordinate ACE at a high level to mobilize, resolve policy conflicts and promote synergies and consistency through effective communication mechanisms for horizontal coordination (consult and share information with sectoral planning agencies) and vertical coordination (consult and share information with subnational governments - regions, cities, municipalities, agencies-).
Establish a reporting mechanism with identified targets and indicators for tracking progress on policy coherence and effectiveness of partnerships and collaborations on ACE processes, interactions, and impacts. Conduct multiple institutional-wide assessments of needs and delivery capacity of all relevant institution staff, regional, and country-level for climate empowerment is carried out.
Provide capacity-building and training programmes for all institutional levels on climate empowerment, with tailored training to senior and heads of institutions Secure appropriate, timely, predictable, and flexible funding to enable the effective implementation of the ACE framework, including expanded funding access for nonstate actors.
Include specific provisions for ongoing reporting to Parliament.
The achievement of the Paris Agreement goals requires all countries to develop and deploy policies and strategies to avert, mitigate, adapt and address climate change impacts. The advancement and success of such implementation depend, among other things, on the capacities of countries to act.
Capacity building is an investment in the effectiveness and future sustainability of society, as such it is a key dimension to enable people-centered climate action. It refers to the process by which governments, organizations, or individuals obtain, improve or retain the skills, knowledge tools, equipment and the resources (i.e human, social and economic capital) to do their work competently. It also refers to further developing the performance for enhanced capacity.
ACE elements include different modes of capacity building:
Aligning with the call within SDG4 to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life long opportunities opportunities". Education here refers to the efforts made by governments to integrate climate change, sustainable development, and global citizenship education across subjects and through primary, technical, vocational, higher education, and non-formal education.
This education should be transformational in developing individual's understanding, skills, and motivation to build just climate solutions for a population and workforce whose deep-seated understanding and appreciation for climate science climate impacts, climate solutions, relating to others harmoniously, and civic action empowers them to act for collective well-being and sustainable development. The benchmark and capacities are not limited to content but also to learning outcomes, the learning environment, and pedagogies that take into consideration different learning systems such as local and indigenous knowledge.
Training refers to the development of specific skills needed to a just transition, taking into account equitable access by different population groups. Effective training would build the capacities and workforce to avert and address climate impacts.
The integration of climate change learning in current and new training programmes and institutions (professional bodies, apprenticeship programmes, trade bodies, etc) should target groups with a key role, such as policy and decision makers, scientific, technical and managerial personnel in the public and private sectors, journalists, women, youth and community leaders at the local, national, subregional, regional, sectoral and international levels. It also requires the promotion of social dialogue, social protection and guarantee of better and dignified green jobs.
Public awareness refers to the sensitization efforts to foster lasting behavior changes and address climate change by means of popular media, action campaigns, social media, digital platforms and local context responsive strategies.
Public awareness also pertains to matters of media literacy, for individuals to be able to understand and judge information delivered and placed into its proper context., fighting disinformation campaigns. It thrives on the partnership with journalists, civil society, local communities, and private sector to enhance the dissemination of public awareness-raising activities that cover the entire population.
Collaboration and international cooperation refers to the efforts to foster knowledge sharing and resource mobilization at the subnational, subregional, regional, sectoral, and international levels to enhance the collective ability to implement the Convention and the Paris Agreement, within the scope of ACE.
Nations have embedded transformative and cross-cutting climate and sustainable development education and lifelong learning opportunities for people of all ages and across subjects as part of their climate strategies with the objective to develop knowledge, values, skills, and behaviors that enhance a culture of environmental responsibility in society.
Culturally responsive and inclusive: Schools and community based learning centers foster culturally relevant and responsive curriculum and pedagogies that foster respect, encourage diversity of thought and action, and communicate respectfully, inquisitively, and substantively.
Action-centered learning: Learning by doing in and with community to develop climate empowered identities and engage in meaningful climate actions.
Agency: Climate and sustainable development education promotes whole-of-society coordinated participation in climate decision and solution-making by promoting solidarity, emphasizing collective action, and developing the ability to make decisions in an interconnected and ever-changing society.
Global engagement: able to make a difference and willing to act Global knowledge: learning about global issues when engaging with peers worldwide.
Linked to green careers: Provide skills and career pathways insight into the jobs of the future we need.
Climate strategies. Links national development and climate policy to climate change education, community based learning, and/or ESD. Learning strategy. Develop a National Learning Strategy (i.e UN CC Learn).
Organizational Actions
Climate-planning. Integrated age appropriate mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning concepts into primary, secondary, and tertiary curricula Advance education system resilience to natural disasters.
Accessibility. Provide safe and sanitary facilities for girls as a way to guarantee quality education for girls.
Procedural Actions
Capacity Building. Provide training for teachers and administrators about climate and sustainable development issues.
Climate strategies. NDCs, NAPs, and other climate strategies include time bound provision for climate change education or education for sustainable development.
Participatory Learning Strategy/Action Plan. Development of Action Plan for the implementation of objectives and measures to scale up climate change and ESD in all areas and at all levels of the education system. Whole-school approach. Climate action and sustainable development matters are integrated into every aspect of school life, not only curriculum, but also school leadership, management, governance, infrastructure, decision making, and extracurricular activities.
Inclusion. Encourage learner leadership bodies participation in school governance, including matters of greening the education system.
Capacity building. Encourage learner participation in the simulation of negotiation and/or diplomatic processes or procedures.
Action-based learning. Facilitate, through a partnership model, training opportunities to learners in green career pathways (clean energy, environmental engineering, public health, sustainable agriculture, emergency management, among others) to prepare them to enter high-quality green jobs.
Civic education. Include civic instruction as part climate learning (i.e discussion of current political events in the classroom, political system understanding).
Just Transition. Develop climate-focused degree programmes.
Procedural Actions
Capacity-building. Provide training in innovative teaching practices for the development of highorder thinking skills, innovative problem-solving, design and system thinking through experiential, collaborative, and learner-centered activities through project-based learning tactics (i.e. capstone).
Capacity-building. Provide age appropriate practical training to students as a way to disseminate knowledge to families and communities around sustainable behaviors, disaster management, and people centered climate action (i.e early warning systems, life cycle, mitigation, adaptation, etc.).
Inclusive engagement
Indigenous and local knowledge. Facilitate multiple avenues for the incorporation of locallyrecognized expertise when learning about the environment and the larger world. Capacity-building. Develop learner’s understanding, appreciation of, and capacity to apply diverse experience and knowledge to climate understanding.
Pervasiveness. Mandates call for implementing climate and environmental education with civic engagement components at all levels and subjects areas of education.
Resourcing. Allocate equitable investments to support repairs and renovations that increase energy-efficiency, renewable energy installment, electric buses use, access to safe drinking water in schools, and sustainable schoolyards in consultation with learners.
Coordination. Build cross-agency working groups and initiatives focused on the alignment of workforce, education, and other climate-related areas.
Pervasiveness. Establish standards that set the expectations of learner competencies and provide trans-disciplinary learning opportunities about impacts and climate solutions throughout the curriculum.
Local Knowledge. Establish standards that consider the sustained integration of local knowledge through the engagement of elders and local experts in the educational process.
Organizational Actions
Partnerships. Foster partnerships between learning institutions, local communities, cultural experts, learner organizations, and non-governmental organizations that enhance opportunities for learning from all societal perspectives.
Transformative curricula. Address and integrate environmental, economic, gender equity, science-based, intersectional, and climate justice concerns in national education policy and curricula.
Place-based learning. Actively engage and connect learners with their community through interdisciplinary learning that is relevant, engaging, grounded in, and in service of local communities and contexts.
Civic engagement. Promote civic competence and responsibility by teaching about the political system, history, design thinking for local problems.
Civic education. Provide practical experience, in both formal and non-formal learning spaces, designed to foster a sense of competence and efficacy for active participation in policy-making.
Socio-emotional capacities. Intentionally nurture and stimulate the development of socioemotional skills to relate to others and cope with climate anxiety.
Partnerships. Establish schools and community based learning centers as family-communitystudent exchange hubs to support each other as active partners of children’s climate learning and engage families in meaningful and culturally appropriate ways in these processes.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Procedural Actions
Capacity-building. Establish ongoing professional development programmes that benefit educators and administrators on place-based, interdisciplinary curricula, create partnerships, etc.
Knowledge-sharing. Develop a knowledge-exchange network of educators, practitioners and administrators to discuss effective classroom practices and observations across regions, Capacity-Building. Teachers training in global citizenship and Education for Sustainable Development.
Participatory research. Training researchers to move from extractive and transactional to relational research.
Inclusive engagement
Inclusion. Involve students and individuals in environmental matters through community service projects, immersive camps, extracurricular activities, non-governmental organization projects, intercultural and community in-person or virtual contact, study abroad programmes, and others that support place-based, project-base, service, and cooperative learning. Multiple teachers and expert knowledge. Include the use of multiple teachers as facilitators of learning and explore science questions from multiple perspectives and using different sources including cultural experts.
Culturally responsive and inclusive schools. Develop curricula that treats cultural affiliation of minorities as an asset that enriches the learning experience of all learners, covering histories, beliefs, cultures, contributions of minority groups in a way that reflects the classroom and surrounding community.
Governments develop climate communication and awareness strategies that ensure timely and effective two-way communication between authorities and the general population. This includes both proactive dissemination of information and active listening.
Hope inspiring. Motivate engagement and avoid eco-anxiety with messages that effectively promote constructive hope, and provide the tools necessary to act under constructive doubt.
Participatory. Ensure communities are stakeholders and not just recipients of projects ends.
Targeted. Train trusted messengers to raise awareness at the local and sectoral level.
Contextualized. Consider differences, understand cultural backgrounds and communicate in relevant languages for the target population.
Climate strategies. Develop national climate awareness-raising campaigns as part of the measures for addressing climate change.
Organizational Actions
Campaigns. Awareness-raising campaign national and local level. Identify. Map existing community, organizations and institutions that work on raising awareness on climate change impacts.
Procedural Actions
Capacity Building. Provide training for journalist to combat disinformation campaigns.
Climate strategies. Climate strategies and policies provide provisions for sustained awarenessraising.
Inclusion. Co-design campaign and projects together with communities and different stakeholders.
Partnerships. Establish and promotion of partnerships with communication media to attain commitments for the diffusion of environmental and climate information allowing raising awareness of the civil society to enable their active participation in processes that lead to an environmental culture transformation. Collaboration. Establish and promote collaboration with civil society and private sector for developing and disseminating public awareness-raising activities nad combat disinformation. Sustainable Development. Deploy an SDG awareness-raising campaign. Messaging. Create key simple messages that promote individual and collective action.
Procedural Actions
Rights-based. Inform decision makers about the merits of including freedom of expression, access to information, and safety of journalist issues as part of their climate strategy.
Capacity-building. Provide specialized training on the right to information to information officers
Capacity-building. Provide climate awareness workshops at different levels of both the public or private sector.
Communication toolkits. Provide media and government officials with co-created toolkits for communicating climate impacts, policies, and solutions.
Inclusive engagement
Accessibility. Use trusted and accessible platforms and channels (i.e media, social media, community leaders, etc.) that account for the languages and technology barriers experienced by indigenous people, local communities, people with disabilities, women, youth, and others.
Contextualized. Develop volunteer and participation programs to raise awareness and involvement in local climate action.
Rights-based. Reform laws to allow for more freedom of expression. Coordination. Develop a national climate awareness raising strategy as part of the ACE National Strategy.
Contextualized. Encourage media coverage (i,e through media quotas) of the State and community-driven projects related to climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience in a way that drives home the issue that national climate commitments require inclusive dialogue, broad participation, and transparency in their understanding. Communication. Manage inclusion of climate and environmental issues in mass and local diffusion spaces to share good environmental practices and encourage support climate-friendly policies, and foster lasting behavioral changes . Programatic. Cooperate in, promote, facilitate, develop and implement inclusive public awareness programmes on climate change impacts and solutions at the local, regional, and national levels.
ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE THIS LEVEL
Procedural Actions
Capacity-building. Train law enforcement to stress the importance of protecting the media, and environmental defenders against harm.
Misinformation control. Create programs to train the public to understand and judge information delivered and placed into its proper context.
Knowledge-sharing. Create knowledge-exchange opportunities Learn by other experiences and contexts
Inclusive engagement
Local leadership. Training of local leaders to develop trusted messengers for each audience (i.e women talking to women).
Youth. Recognize and engage youth as knowledge holders and support the participation of youth as agents of change and/or trainers in public awareness campaigns.
The country has frameworks and training programmes for the development of leaders, workers, pathways, and incentives for better and decent jobs that fuel a well-managed just transition to a zerocarbon economy. This includes the training of key role groups, such as policy and decision makers, technical and managerial personel, jorunalists, women, youth, and community leaders for concerted climate action. The government has provision to ensure this transition is inclusive, protects jobs and communities, and distributes the benefits for all. This can happen through skill-building related to the reduction of emissions, environmental impacts, and resource intensity usage.**
Leave no one behind: empower and prioritize underserved groups proactively, ensuring climate action provides fairer opportunities for all and reduce social injustice
Social equity: measures for workers against climate-related economic and social hardships
Guaranteed rights: to a suitable, safe, and well-equipped work environment that protects them from climate health and safety risks
Dignified employment: Creating and ensuring of sufficient career pathways across the whole economy
Safety nets. Provide social protection measures for workers against climate-related economic and social hardships
Rights-based. Guarantee rights to a suitable, safe, and well-equipped work environment that protects them from climate health and safety risks.
Operational Actions
Participatory. Facilitate social dialogue between workers, unions, employers, governments, and communities.
Procedural Actions
Green jobs. Promote the creation of decent and green pathways across the whole economy.
Inclusive engagement
Capacity-building. Develop customized vocational training for a diverse groups, giving special attention to vulnerable and underrepresented people.
Youth. Facilitate non-formal training through the engagement and participation of youth in local and national climate change events, and build the capacity of youth as future leaders.
** This section requires more consultation to establish in community the steps needed to achieve the benchmark established during the ACE Observatory Roundtable Series.
The Paris Agreement introduces a new global regime for addressing climate change. The balanced implementation of ACE, underpinned by an ACE National Strategy, is key to unlock the power of a whole-of-society approach. With the publication of this draft framework, the community review will begin, followed by identification of data sources, index co-creation, and establishing baselines.
Overall, in each dimension the ACE National Strategy was highlighted as a means to provide long-term, comprehensive planning base that enables policy coherence, expansion of the vital political space for climate action in society, coordination, mobilization of national and international funding, and monitoring, reporting and evaluation. The existing implementation gaps within the aforementioned international frameworks can inform the creation of ACE National Strategy objectives.
TheACEObservatorywillofferanewsharedinfrastructureforpolicymakers,civilsociety,and practitionersalike.Beingopenandparticipatoryisanimportantpartofthework.Theambitionof theprojectistoco-designaplatformthatreflectsandservesthewideACEcommunity'svision, needs,andexpectations.Thiscollaborativelydesignedinfrastructureaimstodramaticallyincrease people-centeredclimateactionassessment,powercollectiveintelligence,inspirestrategicleaps, andsupportinvestmentfromfunders.
TheACEObservatoryisaninclusiveplatformthataimstobridgethegapbetweenpractitioners'and civilsocietyexpectationsandgovernmentalactiononACE.Ourobjectivesareto:
Createauniqueplatformforperformanceanalysis,knowledge-sharing,andadviceonpeoplecenteredclimateactionandACEimplementation.Thisplatformwillenableup-to-dateaccessto in-depthmonitoring,assessment,andreviewofACEperformancethroughhighimpactdataand ready-madepeople-centeredactionreports.
Serveasagatewayfordataaccessprovidingpeer-to-peerandmulti-levelcollaborative engagementopportunitiesbasedonthelatestprogressinformation.
Facilitateresourceexchangeandstakeholdermapping.Thiswillenhancenationalcapacityfor achievementofParisAgreementgoalsthroughafairandjusttransitionbyshowcasingbest practicesforintegratingACEacrossclimatestrategiesandpotentialpartnerstoleveragein nationalACEimplementation.
1.Next Steps
Where do we go from here? ACE monitoring and reporting is not just about looking back, but also looking forward.
ThisACEObservatoryFrameworkisacontinuousworkinprogress-awayfor countriesandcivilsocietytotrackitsimpactandimprovementsovertime.We arecommittedtokeepmovingtheworkforward
Community review 01
Thiswillinclude revisionofthisdraft documentandfurtherdiscussionsto strengthenidentifiedsectorgaps
Data Source Aggregation & Platform co-design 02
Identification,indexandprioritizationof sourcesalignedwiththemulti-level framework.Communitydevelopmentof platformfunctionalities
Baseline development 03
Analyzedataonselectedcountriesinorderto assistthemintheirevaluation,prioritizingthe minimizationofthereportingburden.
Launch Beta Dashboard 04
Theaboveprocesseswouldculminateinthe developmentofaBetaDashboardtoprovide ready-madereports,high-impactdata,and stakeholdermapping
Isatis M. Cintron is Co-Director of the ACE Observatory, her research focused on climate governance and promotion of participatory processes for climate justice. She has worked in climate diplomacy and participation in the Latin America and the Caribbean region as part of Citizens Climate International. As a result, she has been focusing on Action for Climate Empowerment, Human-Rights, and Loss & Damage negotiations since 2015. She is a Ph.D candidate in Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University and holds an Environmental Sciences undergraduate degree from University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras.
Contact: isatis@aceobservatory.org | isatis.cintron@gmail.com
Monica Flores is a Research Assistant of the ACE Observatory team. Monica is an Environmental Science Ph.D Student at University of Puerto Rico and holds an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Her work focuses on climate education and public participation elements to support climate literacy and empowerment across the island. She oversees the design and deployment of workshops and knowledge-sharing spaces for a diverse range of stakeholders.
Contact: info@aceobservatory.org | monica.floher@gmail.com
Developing the ACE Observatory Assessment Framework has been a collaborative undertaking over time. We would especially like to appreciate the contributions of the people who worked tirelessly on making this framework happen. First and foremost, we would like to thank the ACE community at large for showing up and engaging meaningfully in this process.
Concept, coordination and partnership
UNFCCC ACE Unit Expert reviewers, advisors, supporters
Christina Kwawk
Mathilde Buoyé
Alexandra Masako Goossens-Ishi
Adrian Martinez
Chris Cameron
Deb Morrison
Deepayan Basu Ray
Donors
Wethankyouforyour continuedsupportinourefforts tocontributetoadvancingACE.
