The UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre today hosted 70 students from the University of Copenhagen’s Master’s course in Global Environmental Governance.
A session held in UN City, Copenhagen, brought together students and UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre staff, who offered case-specific insights into the centre’s work.
In doing so the session aimed to shed light on a few basic questions: What is the role of the UN, and specifically UNEP, in global environmental governance? What informs and steers global environmental agendas and the design of project interventions, with partner countries and organisations? Who requests and approves this work and how is it financed?
The session kicked off with an introduction, explaining the setup, history and role of the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre as a key provider of advisory to UNEP and partner countries on climate change and clean energy. Subsequent presentations offered project-specific examples of the centre’s work, opening the black box of global climate action and giving the students a rare look ‘behind the scenes’.
The project examples covered:
- The NDC Action Project: a transformative initiative to increase action and ambition on climate change
- The UNFCCC Article 6 Negotiations: what are they how can it deliver sustainable development?
- The Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency: from targets and strategies to investment and impact
Each presentation was followed by a Q and A session where the speakers provided personal experiences of real-world projects, offering insights on how to build demand and consensus among stakeholders and the challenges of doing so.
Throughout the session, the Global Environmental Governance students were very active, asking a lot of interesting and challenging questions, much appreciated by UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre staff.