Today, C40 announced the 35 finalists competing in ten urban climate action categories for the fourth-annual C40 Cities Awards, sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and BYD. The winners will be announced on December 1, 2016, at a ceremony in Mexico City, held alongside the sixth biennial C40 Mayors Summit.

C40 mayors around the United States were eager to support President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which was finalized Monday and is seen as a key component of the country’s climate commitment for the COP21 climate negotiations at the end of the year.

A new report shows that city action is revving the engine of the early electric vehicle market. The report – born from a collaboration between C40, the International Council on Clean Transportation, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and the 11th Hour Project –catalogues actions cities, states and regions are taking to promote electric vehicle in an effort to better understand which practices are linked to electric vehicle sales.

At the City Climate Leadership Awards ceremony in New York in September, the C40 News team interviewed representatives from several of the winning cities. The interviews, which were also syndicated on Denmark’s largest TV network, gave the winners an opportunity to share the successes of their projects, the impact cities can have in a global context, and what it means to be part of C40.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker announced last week that the city of Houston will convert 165,000 streetlights to low emissions LED lights – making it the largest project of its kind in the US. Replacing the lights will reduce the city’s streetlight energy usage by 50 percent, cut municipal greenhouse gas emissions by five percent and save the city an impressive $28 million.

Sustainability is a critical element of the City of Houston's planning. Over the next 15 years, this fourth-largest city in the U.S. is forecasted to see population growth of 15 percent or more. 

Houston Mayor Annise Parker is no stranger to accolades for the laudable work she has done to advance sustainability in the heart of U.S. oil country.

Seoul, Houston & Rio de Janeiro were featured last week on CNN International’s mini-series The City, as part of the network’s ongoing collaboration with the C40. The series profiles the sustainable future of five C40 cities on five different continents and features C40 Chair, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg discussing how cities are leading the way in addressing the risks that climate change poses.

Houston has been elected to serve on the C40 Steering Committee. In this post, Houston Mayor Annise Parker describes why she is looking forward to helping to fulfill C40’s mission.

Global Houston’s newsletter, The Bridge, sat down with C40’s Houston City Director Brian Yeoman for an in-depth interview on his longstanding work supporting the city’s sustainability accomplishments over two Mayoral administrations.

C40 city Houston recently announced the purchase of over 140 megawatts (MW) of renewable power over the next two years. The deal will make the City the largest municipal purchaser of renewable power in the nation, and in the top 10 overall, according to estimates by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Ten cities from the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) gathered in Houston to discuss the challenges and opportunities of reducing emissions from each of their city’s private sector building stock during the first meeting of C40’s “Private Sector Building Energy Efficiency Network.” The workshop, held on March 5-7, took place in conjunction with an Urban Land Institute (“ULI”) Forum on real estate, technology and sustainability.

This week, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners of the Mayors Challenge, a contest launched last June to award $9 million to five US cities that come up with innovative ideas for solving major problems and improving quality of life. Out of a pool of more than 300 competitors, three C40 cities — Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia — took home $1 million each to put their ideas into action.

C40 Cities' partner organization ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability has released a fact sheet compiling U.S. local government actions for 2012, specifically relating to climate change and extreme weather adaptation.

This week the Financial Times (FT) released its annual Urban Ingenuity Magazine, marking the end of a year-long process with the announcement of the 2012 FT/Citi Ingenuity Award winners. These were selected from a group of finalists including C40 cities Houston, Paris and Tokyo. The awards—honoring a winner and runner-up in the categories of education, energy, healthcare and infrastructure—accepted entries from municipalities, community groups, charities and businesses proposing original solutions to urban problems.

Houston Mayor Annise D. Parker recently announced a public-private partnership to launch “Houston Fleet Share,” a new municipal electric vehicle (EV) green-fleet program designed to help the City of Houston improve efficiency, promote sustainability and save money - all without sacrificing employee mobility.

Last week, Mayor Annise Parker announced the Challenge award-winners, including special recognition for Brian Yeoman, C40-CCI City Director in Houston. According to Mayor Parker, the Challenge was a success with more than 375 buildings and their tenants participating, representing 75 million square feet. Additionally, Houston placed fourth (up from seventh last year) in a national ranking of cities with the most LEED certified buildings.

Houston boasts 14 LEED-certified buildings, including Texas’s first LEED-Platinum skyscraper, 717 Texas. LEED-Platinum is the highest-ranking a U.S. building can receive under the commonly-used US Green Building Council system. ura Spanjian, Sustainability Director for the City of Houston, spoke on today’s session on Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings. Here’s some more information on some of the interesting work Houston is doing right now to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has been honored for her city’s innovative work to improve the energy efficiency of the city’s public and private building stock. The C40 City mayor received a first place award in the large city category of the 2011 Mayors’ Climate Protection Awards, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Walmart.

Chicago and Houston, participating C40 Cities, are dramatically reducing the energy consumption of their buildings – saving both energy and money.

Continuing its groundbreaking sustainability efforts, Texas’s largest city has launched a major city-wide electric vehicle program called “Houston Drives Electric.” Houston Mayor Annise Parker, the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) Cities Program, which is now a fully integrated partner with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), power producer NRG Energy’s eVgo program and charging station manufacturer ECOtality are moving this car-dependent city toward a more sustainable transportation network.