ECOLISE will be present at ICCA 2019 (the International Conference on Climate Action) this month, to help bring the views, actions and potential of community-led initiatives more strongly into high level debate on international collaboration on climate change.

Jointly organised by the German Environment Ministry, the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg and the City of Heidelberg, ICCA 2019 takes place in Heidelberg, Germany on May 22^nd and 23^rd. It brings together senior representatives of national, regional and local government along with national and international organisations and networks for discussions that will feed directly into preparation for the UN Climate Summit, CoP25 and other major international fora on climate change and sustainability. The conference marks new levels of realisation at all levels of government of the need for holistic action on climate change, requiring not simply numerical emissions reductions but transformative social, economic and cultural change, and greater depth of commitment to the collaborative processes and civil society involvement necessary to bring this about.

Following release of our first Status Report on Community-led Action on Sustainability and Climate Change, ECOLISE Research Coordinator Tom Henfrey has been invited to attend ICCA 2019 as observer, commentator and reporter. He will provide summaries and insights to plenary sessions, observe and feed back on writing processes for key conference outputs, and prepare written reports on his experiences, in order to ensure strong representation of grassroots initiatives in all these processes. You can follow events via the conference website and app.