News & Views: From Yeosu to Nairobi: inside April's climate action push
Thursday, 30 April 2026 | By Climate High-Level Champions
From Yeosu to Nairobi: inside April's climate action push
In this month’s edition, a push for clean energy at UNFCCC Climate Week 3 in Yeosu, Champions old and new convene in Antalya, and initiatives from cold storage hubs to food recovery networks show what implementation looks like in Africa.
Climate Week in Yeosu Tackles Barriers to Climate Action
UNFCCC Climate Week 3 in Yeosu, Republic of Korea put working climate solutions in front of the partners who can scale them through a two-day Implementation Forum.
Built around the six axes of the Global Climate Action Agenda, the Forum’s implementation labs tackled the conditions needed to accelerate climate solutions: for example, policy reform, shifts in market supply or demand, increased finance or technical capacity.
Image: Ceremony in Yeosu. Photo by Speaence / Sungmoon Kim.
The labs covered halting and reversing deforestation, urban mobility, climate-resilient water systems, health impacts of extreme weather and waste, and countering climate mis- and disinformation.
Additionally, an implementation lab on energy and industrial transformation – under Axis 1 of the Action Agenda – convened as a fossil fuel cost crisis is tightening its grip on global markets. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the clean energy transition the antidote to the crisis.
Stiell said: “Wars don’t disrupt the supply of sunlight for solar power, and wind power does not depend on vulnerable shipping straits. Renewables allow governments to regain control of their economies and their national security.”
In a Korea Times op-ed, COP30 Champion Dan Ioschpe and COP31 Champion Samed Ağırbaş highlighted what the Action Agenda is doing to scale the energy transition:
Through the Action Agenda plan to accelerate electrification, the world's largest power companies are investing USD 88 billion a year in renewable power, which is projected to triple their renewable generation capacity by 2030.
Hitting global targets through the Action Agenda’s plan to double energy efficiency will cut CO₂ emissions by 50% and lower household energy bills by a third in advanced economies.
The Asian Development Bank and World Bank committed USD 12.5 billion at COP30 toward a fully interconnected regional power grid by 2045. A linked Southeast Asian grid system could cut the cost of the region's decarbonization by an estimated USD 800 billion.
Beyond energy, COP31 Climate High-Level Champion Samed Ağırbaş used the week to show how zero waste and circularity strengthen climate action across every sector, convening Marrakech Partnership members in Yeosu to take stock of progress.
Africa Advances Climate Solutions at Urban Forum in Nairobi
Image: Samed Ağırbaş speaks to the plenary at the African Urban Forum 2026. Photo by African Union.
The second Africa Urban Forum drew policymakers and community leaders to Nairobi from 8–10 April to confront the question: what does it take to build African cities that can withstand climate shocks?
Making his first visit to the continent in his role as COP31 Climate High-Level Champion, Samed Ağırbaş highlighted the fifty-eight Action Agenda initiatives which contribute to stronger resilience in Africa. For example, the Global EverGreening Alliance is supporting 20 million smallholder households to restore degraded land across 20 countries, while the Kenya Cold Chain Accelerator is cutting post-harvest losses through clean energy storage. Additionally, the Young Emerging Farmers Initiative, founded by a COP Impact Maker from Zambia, is educating over 500,000 youth about climate-smart agriculture.
Ağırbaş also spoke to allAfrica and The Standard on food loss, zero waste, and what the Action Agenda means for Africa.
Climate Finance in Focus at the World Bank Spring Meetings
Image: Samed Ağırbaş debriefs with his team ahead of meeting the World Bank Group in Washington D.C.
Climate finance exceeded USD 2 trillion for the first time in 2024. But a stubborn gap remains: adaptation, where every dollar invested can generate more than USD 10.50 in economic returns, continues to attract only a fraction of global flows. At the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, COP31 Climate High-Level Champion Samed Ağırbaş engaged with several initiatives working to close the gap. For example, the FINI initiative is turning national adaptation plans into bankable project pipelines, with a target of mobilising up to USD 1 trillion by 2028.
Meanwhile, COP30 Climate High Level Champion Dan Ioschpe highlighted other initiatives from across the Action Agenda’s climate finance architecture. For example, the Earth Investment Engine, which is bringing nature projects (regenerative farming, forest restoration, mangrove protection) into one place for investors, aiming to grow finance for nature from USD 5 billion a year today to USD 30 billion by 2030.
COP Presidencies map the next five years of the Action Agenda
Senior leaders from the COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, respectively, joined a UNFCCC-hosted webinar in April to map the Global Climate Action Agenda's trajectory through 2030 – and to make the case that Antalya must be an implementation COP.
"The main challenge that we face in global climate action today is not setting new targets, but rather implementing the promises that have already been made," said Fatma Varank, Turkey's Deputy Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change. "The Action Agenda is the most powerful roadmap we have to close the action gap."
COP31 Action Agenda Director Tuğba Dinçbaş was direct on what that means structurally. "Today, implementation is the core of climate action and we see the Action Agenda as the core of the UNFCCC process," she said. COP30 Action Agenda Director Bruna Cerqueira underlined that the agenda's work is designed to outlast any single presidency. "It belongs to the community that is putting these solutions on the table," she said. This continuity allows initiatives to build across COPs rather than restart with each new host.
A Decade of Climate Diplomacy Convenes in Antalya
Image: From left to right: Gonzalo Muñoz, Hakima El Haite, Nigel Topping, Samed Ağırbaş, Nigar Arpadarai, Tomasz Chruszczow in Istanbul, Türkiye.
Current and former Climate High-Level Champions – spanning a decade of climate diplomacy, from COP22 to COP31 – came together in Antalya this month for a rare joint meeting to shape the next phase of the Global Climate Action Agenda.
Participants included the current Champions Samed Ağırbaş (COP31) and Dan Ioschpe (COP30), alongside six predecessors and their teams: Nigar Arpadarai (COP29), Dr Mahmoud Mohieldin (COP27), Nigel Topping (COP26), Gonzalo Muñoz (COP25), Tomasz Chruszczow (COP24), and Hakima El Haite (COP22), joined by senior UN representatives and the Climate Champions Team.
The agenda covered ten years of progress mobilising businesses, cities, and civil society – and what a renewed Action Agenda must deliver over the next five years.
Dan Ioschpe reflects on his one-year anniversary as COP30 Climate High-Level Champion
One year into his role as COP30 Climate High-Level Champion, we asked Dan Ioschpe about his defining moment in 2025. Ioschpe highlighted his attendance at the June Climate Meetings in Bonn where he met with the Action Agenda ecosystem for the first time. The legacy of that year, he says, lies in the architecture it produced: the Plans to Accelerate Solutions, which allow the Action Agenda to move faster, more efficiently, and more inclusively. "In 2026 we can further strengthen this entire process," he said.
Climate Champions Team Appoints New Executive Director
Lisa Larsen, formerly Chief Operating Officer, has stepped into the role of Executive Director of the Climate Champions Team. Larsen has two decades of experience leading mission-driven teams, and overseeing operations and strategy. “I'm honoured to lead this exceptional team into a new phase of delivery,” Larsen said.
The Climate High-Level Champions also extend their deep gratitude to departing Executive Director Frances Way, whose tenure spanned six COP presidencies – from COP26 in Glasgow through to Türkiye's preparations for COP31. Her vision, dedication and humanity have left a lasting imprint on the organisation and the wider climate movement.
“I’m incredibly proud of how the Climate Champions Team has evolved and what it has achieved,” Way said. “There is still much to do, but I have full confidence in this team of unassuming superstars to make it happen.”
In case you missed it
The incoming COP31 Presidency's first official letter welcomed Samed Ağırbaş as Climate High-Level Champion and expressed continued support for the Action Agenda. It also announced Sally Higgins as Youth Climate Champion. Available here.
In an opinion piece, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell makes the case that fossil fuel dependency is hitting household budgets and national economies. Renewables, he argues, are the cheapest power available and the only path to lasting energy security. Read it here.
The UN SDG Action Campaign has launched the call for applications for the 2026 edition of the Heroes of Tomorrow: UN SDG Action Awards, to spotlight the visionaries, the doers, the changemakers who are building a more just, sustainable, and inclusive world. Applications in the categories of Changemaker, Creativity, and Resilience until 17 May 2026.
The COP31 Presidency and the IEA held the first in a series of High-Level Energy Transition Dialogues in the lead-up to COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye. Watch here.
Mark your calendar
COP31-IEA High-Level Energy Transition Dialogue, Paris, France, 30 April
UN Forum on Forests, New York City, USA, 11 - 15 May.
20th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA20), 11 - 14 May, Manila, Philippines, 11 - 14 May.
Africa CEO Forum, Kigali, Rwanda, 14 - 15 May.
Thirteenth Session of the World Urban Forum, Baku, Azerbaijan, 17 - 22 May
Rio Nature & Climate Week, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1 - 6 June.
Zero Waste Forum, Istanbul, Türkiye, 5 - 7 June
Bonn Climate Conference (SB 64), Bonn, Germany, 8 - 18 June.
G7 Summit, Évian, France, 14 - 16 June.
London Climate Action Week, London, UK, 20 - 28 June.
IEA Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, Montreal, Canada, 29 - 30 June.
