During this round of the international climate negotiations, the Club de Madrid interacted with key and relevant actors as the culmination of the activities of the Club de Madrid in the Climate Change and Energy Program in 2010. This opportunity was used to further disseminate the Club de Madrid message with the Global Leadership for Climate Action recommendations for a post-2012 climate regime.
In addition, the Club de Madrid played a relevant role in different official COP16 side events. On 8 December 2010, Mary Robinson had a high level intervention in the event hosted by United Nations Foundation, the SNV Netherlands Development Organization and the Asian Development Bank, “Universal Access to Energy”. President Robinson highlighted the need to give to the poorest people the importance they deserve in the fight against climate change and to give them the access to energy as a key solution to alleviate poverty.
In that day, President Robinson also participated in the side event of the Spanish Government and ECLAC with the Spanish Minister dor Environment and Marine and Rural Affairs, Ms Rosa Aguilar. During the event, Mary Robinson addressed the key role that cities play in an early and adequate adaptation to climate change. President Robinson highlighted that the most vulnerable communities to climate change are the ones that have the lowest capacity to manage risks and disasters. In addition, many of these communities have a weak governance capacity. Given that, the adaptation to the climate change challenge is fundamentally a challenge to reinforce the governance structures to manage risk so that the needed risk management strategies are taken into consideration while urban developing and public investment take place.
