Cities deliver climate pledge to UN Secretary-General

Cities came together yesterday at the Climate Summit for Local Leaders in Paris Town Hall to declare that they will deliver annual reductions of 3.7 gigatons in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and Michael Bloomberg, Special Envoy to the UN Secretary-General for Cities and Climate Change, co-hosted one of the largest ever gatherings of mayors, with international city associations ICLEI, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the International Association of Francophone Mayors and C40 Cities bringing together their members under one roof.

Paris is a member of all four associations and Hidalgo worked tirelessly, moving between the different chambers housing the associations’ concurrent meetings, to emphasise how cities are united in their action on climate change.

“The participation of mayors from all over the world is impressive with all the major city networks and that participation is a success in itself,” Hidalgo told Cities Today. “All of us are aware of our responsibility and we are already engaged in finding solutions for construction, transport and buildings. There has been a dialogue for some time between the mayors of the global north and those of the global south and this meeting will be a success because all the mayors speak with one voice.”

Hidalgo said cities have 50 percent of the solutions in their hands to limit the rise of temperatures on the planet and that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had recognised the importance of cities in tackling climate change, even if cities still have no formal role in the negotiations, by inviting mayors to mobilise and engage politically at the UN conference in September 2015.

“We are the expression of democratic power and the Secretary-General has understood that,” added Hidalgo.

Six hundred and forty mayors gathered at Paris City Hall and during the afternoon session, the Mayor of Paris led the presentation of a pledge to the UN Secretary-General.

“For the first time it is the world’s cities that are making the running at the UN Climate Summit and this coalition of cities represents a major achievement in the fight against climate change in every region across the globe,” said George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, who represented EUROCITIES on stage at Paris City Hall in presenting the pledge. “We have set a clear expectation, making a very public, high-profile promise to go over and above any targets implemented as a result of any international agreement at COP21.”

The Paris City Hall Declaration binds city leaders to produce resilience strategies and action plans by 2020 to adapt to climate-related hazards; to deliver 3.7 gigatons of urban greenhouse gas emissions reductions annually by 2030, which is 30 percent of the difference between current national commitments and what is needed in terms of reductions to avoid a rise of 2 degrees in global temperatures; and to support climate goals including a 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Earlier in the day at the EU pavilion at the COP21 venue in Le Bourget, a formal cooperation was launched between the Compact of Mayors and the European Covenant of Mayors. The Compact of Mayors is a global collective launched by Ban Ki-moon at the UN Climate Summit in September 2015 to tackle climate change under the leadership of city networks ICLEI, C40 and UCLG. Three hundred and ninety-two cities have joined the Compact representing 340 million people.

The Covenant of Mayors is a voluntary commitment to decarbonised and resilient cities providing sustainable and affordable energy to all involving 6,600 cities and regions in 57 countries.

“Cities, as signatories to the Covenant of Mayors or the Compact of Mayors, are acting in very significant ways to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change,” said Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner. “We want to tell those cities that we are more than ever at their side in this effort.”