Alongside the Bonn Climate Talks (SB62), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability convened the first-ever Annual Review of Local and Subnational Action on the Rio Conventions. Held as part of the Daring Cities 2025 Bonn Dialogues, the session marked a new space for local and subnational voices to reflect on and help shape the future of climate, biodiversity, and land governance. 

Three conventions, one shared foundation

The “Rio Conventions” refer to three landmark multilateral environmental agreements born from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). These agreements have shaped how the international community approaches global environmental challenges.

While each convention followed its own trajectory – climate action expanding beyond mitigation to include adaptation and resilience; biodiversity evolving from species protection to a broader harmony with nature; and desertification growing into a global conversation on land degradation and drought – all three share a foundational goal: To protect the planet while supporting sustainable development.

In recent years, as climate impacts intensify and planetary boundaries are breached, calls have grown for more integrated, cross-convention approaches. Joint initiatives such as the Bern Process under the CBD, the Riyadh Action Agenda under the UNCCD, and new collaboration frameworks emerging from the UN Habitat Assembly are beginning to show how convergence can replace fragmentation.

Local governments and the power of multilevel action

Over the same three decades, the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency has grown into a central actor in global climate governance. Coordinated by ICLEI since its official recognition in 1995, the LGMA has pushed for the recognition, engagement and empowerment of local and subnational governments within the UNFCCC and across related processes. 

“The Kyoto Protocol left little room for local leadership, but the 2015 Paris Agreement marked a turning point by formally acknowledging their role in achieving national and global climate goals,” said Yunus Arikan, ICLEI”s Director of Global Advocacy and LGMA focal point. “Since then, multilevel action has gained momentum, from the Talanoa Dialogues to the recent CHAMP initiative, laying the groundwork for deeper integration across the climate, biodiversity and desertification agendas.”

The Annual Review meeting builds on this history, offering a new opportunity to elevate local and subnational experiences across all three Rio Conventions.

“Local and subnational governments are ideally placed to bridge gaps between climate, biodiversity and land agendas,” said Rachel Lévesque, Senior Advisor for Climate and Environment from the Government of Quebec, Canada. “We are already living the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation. More synergy across the conventions would help align efforts and attract the political attention and funding these issues deserve.”

Local and regional governments often provide a degree of continuity and cross-sectoral integration that national-level politics cannot. They are also the level of government where the challenges and opportunities of climate, land and nature most clearly intersect.

Multilevel governance also aligns with the Brazilian Presidency’s vision for COP30, which draws on the indigenous concept of mutirão, a collective task for the common good. In that spirit, multilevel action, inclusivity and equity are expected to be cornerstones of COP30.

From Quebec to Muğla: Integration in practice

While calls for synergy often remain at the policy level, local and subnational governments are already putting it into practice. In Quebec, local governments are facing growing pressure from biodiversity loss, extreme weather, and complex geopolitics. “We’ve taken ambitious steps, but the challenges are escalating,” said Lévesque. “A more integrated approach among the three Rio Conventions would help us streamline messages, build coherence, and respond more effectively.”

From a different context, the Turkish city of Muğla illustrated how locally driven climate, biodiversity and land actions can be formalized through public participation. Located in the Mediterranean basin, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions according to the IPCC, Muğla is balancing urgent environmental threats with competing interests from agriculture, tourism and energy.

At its recent Town Hall COP, Muğla brought together residents, local institutions and civil society to develop the Muğla Climate Declaration. The declaration set a 40 percent emissions reduction target by 2030 and outlined a roadmap that includes protecting carbon sinks, expanding renewable energy, and enhancing climate-resilient infrastructure. It also called for an annual Local Stakeholders Conference to ensure that action remains participatory and adaptive.

“Through a Town Hall approach, we were able to gather collective commitment to a vision that includes climate mitigation, nature protection, and land resilience,” explained Cihan Dündar, Head of Climate and Zero Waste at the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality.

A shifting global landscape for synergy

Discussions at the Annual Review event also reflected growing momentum at the multilateral level. Jacopo Pasquero of the CBD Secretariat outlined progress through the Bern Process, a party-led effort to align biodiversity-related conventions and strengthen cooperation under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Recent outcomes include joint work planning, harmonized reporting systems, and shared knowledge platforms, all of which could benefit local implementation.

From the UNCCD Secretariat, Sasha Alexander pointed to the Riyadh Action Agenda’s focus on land restoration and drought resilience as a sign that local and subnational governments are becoming more visible in the desertification agenda. “We’re not there yet, but there’s a growing understanding that meaningful land action can’t happen without cities and regions.”

Danielle Violetti, Senior Director at UN Climate Change, noted that while the UNFCCC has traditionally lagged behind its sister conventions in promoting synergy, the moment is right for change. Paragraph 161 of the COP28 Global Stocktake decision, which encourages inclusive, multilevel and cooperative action, offers a foundation for bridging across conventions, particularly through NDC3.0 and the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators.

From dialogues to deliverables

Aligning the goals and mechanisms of the three Rio Conventions can unlock new opportunities for integrated reporting, shared funding mechanisms, and more streamlined implementation pathways.

“Big changes don’t come easily in a fractured world like ours is now,” said Felix Dodds, Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina and longtime advisor on global governance. “But small, well-planned changes, especially when rooted in local action, can build the foundation for something transformative.”

As cities prepare for COP30 and the upcoming NDC3.0 submission deadline, all participants agreed that all levels of government should consider how integrating climate, land and nature strategies can multiply impact. After all, these issues do not exist in isolation, and neither should the solutions.