2019 was a pivotal year for climate action. The youth climate movement brought the climate crisis to the forefront of the global conversation, making people everywhere more aware than ever of the need for urgent and ambitious action to prevent climate breakdown.
At C40, we know that taking action aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C while building resilience against climate impacts has become the only science-based target for humanity’s long-term future. The IPCC’s ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC’ made it clear that allowing global heating to reach any higher will massively increase food insecurity and water shortages, and take a devastating toll on human health.
C40 mayors are already taking ambitious climate action and have committed to do even more. Through the C40 network, mayors are actively sharing their experiences so that other cities can take inspiration and scale up the solutions our communities need to thrive. In this regard, 2019 has been an extraordinarily important year. Twelve C40 cities published plans which will help C40 collectively halve emissions by 2030 to deliver low-carbon resilient and inclusive development consistent with the 1.5˚C goal. Over 50 more C40 cities are set to follow suit in 2020.
It is now time to take a step back and acknowledge the great level of commitment, engagement and participation of our member cities in 2019!
C40’s Participation Standards are guidelines for C40 membership and include a number of mandatory requirements such as setting an ambitious target for reducing GHG emissions, a climate action plan with concrete initiatives to meet the target as well as to increase urban climate resilience, and actively sharing best practice examples with other cities through C40’s Networks.
We are pleased to recognise last year’s three most active cities in each region. These leading cities were extraordinarily active in the C40 network throughout 2019. Not only did they take exceptional measures and contributed additional resources to support the sharing of best practices among cities, they also provided extraordinary thought leadership and represented the C40 network globally.
Congratulations to the most active cities in each region! We look forward to working with each of our C40 member cities on new initiatives, activities and events in 2020 and encourage all cities to further increase their participation.