Growing Climate Solutions’ Regional Director had the opportunity to catch up with Ms. Solemi Hernandez, the South Florida Coordinator for Citizen’s Climate Lobby, one of our allied climate partners, about her work and experience at the recent COP26 Summit in Glasgow. Following are excerpts of their conversation.
Ana: Solemi, I hear you are just back from COP26 in Glasgow. Tell us a bit about what you did there?
Solemi: As the Citizens’ Climate Lobby Southeast Regional Coordinator, I was honored to be selected to attend the United Nation’s COP26 summit as part of Citizens’ Climate International, and also as a guest of the Global Council for Science and Environment. Citizen’s Climate Lobby’s work at the summit was to implement Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE). ACE is about enhancing public participation and engagement in mitigative and adaptive actions and policies. It is grounded in Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement. The six components of ACE are Education, Training, Public Awareness, Public Participation, Public Access to Information, and International Cooperation.
The Climate Lobby group at COP 26, with the financial support of the Florida-based VoLo Foundation, the Southwest Florida Reset Center, ECOS, Floor, the US ACE Coalition, and the CCI team, created a Climate Empowerment Virtual Lab. This internet platform, which we called The Peoples' Pavilion, sought to elevate ACE efforts by creating a virtual space where citizens from around the world who cannot attend COP26 could interact and share their vision for a climate-smart future directly with those in the climate talks space. Our goal was to provide a blueprint on how to make open public participation in climate negotiations a norm, and to make this process accessible to all, thereby opening the civic space of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to citizens around the globe. The People’s Pavilion ran for 15 days, streamed 51 sessions, included 20 exhibitors, and welcomed 1,000 virtual participants. Read More ( 5.5 min read)
