The Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF) held its annual meeting in Guadalajara Mexico Aug 28-Sept 1, 2016. The meeting was led by Governor Aristóteles Sandoval of Jalisco and co-convened with the second Climate Change Summit of the Americas. More than 600 people attended the meeting including governors, mayors, and other high-level officials from around the world. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, participated in the meeting as a special guest and stressed the importance of subnational action and leadership as a key component of any successful effort to achieve the ambitious targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. Under the leadership of Governor Sandoval, many of the states and provinces at the meeting launched the Jalisco Declaration, providing further evidence of their commitment to subnational climate action under the Rio Branco Declaration, the Under 2 MOU, and related instruments. The Guadalajara meeting also provided the venue for launching important new partnerships, including: (1) a new climate finance MOU between GCF members from Brazil, Peru, and Mexico and the Latin American Development Bank (CAF); (2) a new climate cooperation framework for the Amazon regions in Peru; and (3) a $2 million purchase by the Marriott Corporation of emissions reductions from the Sustainable Amazonas Foundation (FAS). The GCF Fund also moved ahead in its discussions with the GCF members and Norway to finalize its program for distributing the $25 million commitment that Norway made to GCF states and provinces at the GCF annual meeting in 2015. The GCF also added six new members at the meeting: Yucatan, Mexico; North Kalimantan, Indonesia; Caquetá, Colombia; Huánuco, Peru; Piura, Peru; and Maranhão, Brazil, bringing our total membership to 35 states and provinces from nine countries. Additionally, GCF members selected East Kalimantan as the Chair of GCF for 2017 and as the host of the GCF’s next annual meeting.
