Tag: Compact of Mayors

Note: this article was originally published on EcoWatch.

By Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
& Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability

When UN Secretary-General Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R. Bloomberg suggested creating a Compact of Mayors to mirror the UN programme for national commitments on climate change, it was not possible to guess how central the idea would become to putting mayors at the heart of global climate action. But it turned out to be a game changer.

Note: this article was originally published on Huffington Post.

By: Eduardo Paes, C40 Chair and Mayor of Rio de Janeiro

When I became Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) three years ago, I could have only imagined the work that would be taking place to fight climate change in cities around the world today. In my time as Chair, C40 has grown to a network of 85 of the world’s megacities representing over 600 million people, and has been an integral partner in the formation of the Compact of Mayors, a growing platform of over 500 cities registering their dedication to climate action and commitment to reporting greenhouse gas emissions in a transparent way.

Today, the world’s two primary city-led climate change and energy initiatives, the EU Covenant of Mayors and the Compact of Mayors, announced the formation of a new, first-of-its-kind global initiative of cities and local governments leading in the fight against climate change. This single initiative will create the largest global coalition of cities committed to climate leadership, building on the commitments of more than 7,100 cities from 119 countries and six continents, representing more than 600 million inhabitants, over 8% of the world’s population. The launch of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy comes six months after the historic Paris climate change conference, where cities were crucial voices in shaping and advocating for a strong global agreement, and is a historic and powerful response by the world’s local leaders to the urgent climate challenge.

By Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

The United States of America and China are responsible for over one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. This month mayors and other urban leaders representing more than 60 Chinese and U.S. cities, gathered in Beijing at the second U.S.-China Climate-Smart Low-Carbon Cities Summit. These critical leaders in the fight against climate change came together to share strategies and lessons on how to get their cities, and therefore the world, onto a low carbon pathway.

China has made great strides in reducing its emissions in the past three years and it has shown strong leadership on climate change. With a reported 43 gigawatts of solar capacity at the end of last year, we are now leading the globe. Coal use in the power sector last year also went down, by 4.3 per cent, and Beijing recently said it would ratify the Paris agreement by September, showing our determination to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 18 per cent in the second half of this decade, as laid out in the 13th five-year plan. Read more from author Tang Jie, former deputy mayor of Shenzhen and special representative for climate change affairs in Shenzhen.