​On 12 April, the ENVE commission adopted the opinion of Cllr Andrew Cooper on climate governance post 2020, which will represent the CoR's contribution to the UNFCCC COP 24 in Katowice, Poland, next December.

The opinion highlights the need for systematic involvement of sub-national levels of governance and calls for a participatory method during the process of defining and revising the Nationally Determined contributions (NDCs). ENVE voted for NDCs to include an aggregation of regionally and locally determined contributions in order to recognise the role of subnational authorities in the achievement of Paris Agreement goals.

"Those carbon savings identified by national governments fall well short of what we need to achieve the Paris Climate Goals and we have to see what role we, as local governments, can play", said Cllr. Cooper in his speech, adding that "we are not seeking new system of bureaucracy but to build and strengthen reporting methodologies that already exist."

The opinion also calls for a continuation of the Talanoa Dialogue, the newly established bottom-up process that encourages input from different range of non-state actors. The final vote of Cllr Cooper's opinion is scheduled for CoR's 4-5 July Plenary Session.

During the same meeting, ENVE adopted the opinions on the revision of the Directive on the quality of water for human consumption and on rules for internal market in natural gas.