Research

To help mayors of the world’s most influential and powerful cities to deliver on this incredible responsibility and opportunity, C40 Cities, the Global Covenant of Mayors, and 18 scientists from the IPCC SR1.5 today released the Summary for Urban Policymakers: What the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C means for cities. 

C40 is pleased to launch a new Case Study Library – making it easier than ever for city officials, researchers, and urban stakeholders to explore the growing collection of more than 500 unique, world-leading solutions taking place across C40 cities. A new map interface and topical search functionality make the innovative city solutions found across publications like the C40 Good Practice Guides, Cities100 and Urban Efficiency Report more accessible.

A post from C40 Executive Director Mark Watts

Early in the new year the Guardian newspaper asked some of the world’s most prominent scientists if it was still possible to prevent catastrophic climate change. The bleak assessment from all but one respondent was that it is not. One called it “on the fanciful edge of implausible”. This not only made for depressing reading, but also provided a marked contrast to the sense of determined optimism that pervaded C40’s mayoral summit a few weeks earlier. Gathered in Mexico City, mayors of the Steering Committee – C40’s elected leadership – voted unanimously to adopt a target of constraining global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average (the toughest goal of the Paris Climate Agreement), and to make it a condition of C40 membership that all cities have a plan to deliver their proportionate contribution towards this goal.

At the end of 2016, just a few days before Donald Trump named Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, as his choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, C40, a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change, released its new report Deadline 2020.

As U.S. mayors gather in Washington D.C. for the U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting they sent a clear message that they will continue to take bold action in their cities to tackle the climate crisis head-on, with or without federal support.  

Melbourne is famous for its trees. Our tree-lined boulevards, parks and gardens are internationally renowned. That’s why the City of Melbourne commissioned ground-breaking research into the impact of climate change on our trees.