As the world gears up for a year of climate action on the Road to Paris, cities in key countries are garnering major international attention. To that end, this month’s issue of Cities Today, a monthly magazine for urban planners and other city experts, features a special focus area on Chinese cities, including an interview with C40 Executive Director Mark Watts and Special Adviser to the C40 Chair Rodrigo Rosa on the network’s strategy for China.
Rosa pointed out that expanding membership in China is part of Chair Mayor Paes’ vision to add a greater number of cities in developing countries to the C40 network. Chinese cities Wuhan and Shenzhen joined C40 last year, and have already made important strides in their sustainability efforts, including emissions reporting and collaboration with other cities.
As Mark Watts explained:
“Even if there is not a systematic measuring and managing protocol in place in China at the moment, all the leaders I was talking to think there will be and they are preparing for it. Their reaction to something like C40 is therefore: ‘Here’s an opportunity to get ahead of the game by learning from the best practice from elsewhere in the world.’”
Other stories in this month’s issue also focus on C40 efforts and partnerships, including the December launch of the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) in Lima and the Medellin Collaboration on Urban Resilience.
To read this month’s issue, click here.