The French government set up regional local governance platforms to enable local governments to take ownership of their environmental plans.
The Conférences des Parties (COPs) were launched in 2023 in the 15 regions and 5 territories overseas. The aim of these COPs is to enable territories to develop their environmental plans and be part of the national strategies to carry out concrete projects which have a positive impact at local level.
Co-hosted by the regional prefects and the regional presidents, the regional COPs aim to define regional action levers aligned with the country’s greenhouse gas reduction and biodiversity preservation objectives. The method is based on 4 stages: (1) diagnosis, (2) debate, (3) discussion at sub-regional level and (4) development of a regional roadmap to 2030, covering six themes: better housing, better food, better transport, better consumption, better production and better preservation and use of our ecosystems.
The regional COP process represents a new stage in the process of making environmental planning more local in France. This could encourage greater cross-functionality between the sectors involved in the green transition, encourage constructive, action-oriented dialogue in each region, and improve knowledge of and support for regional projects.
This paper sets out a forward-looking approach and suggests ways of improving the organisation and operation of regional COPs in France, with the aim of accelerating green transition projects at local level.
Regional COPs are a new mechanism for facilitating multi-level dialogue at national level, with a number of innovative features that deserve to be studied and applied in other countries. The European framework offered by the NECPlatform project allowed to organise 30 dialogues in the 6 Member States.
The project is coming to an end and it will be finalised in Brussels with an event at the Committee of the Regions, on the 18th of March 2025. Intitled ‘Multi-Level Governance: A Key to EU Climate and Energy Goals’, it will bring national experts and EU officials to discuss the findings from the 30 dialogues organised in the countries in the project.
Find out more here.