Climate Action 2012-2013

Seoul City Mayor and World Mayors Council Chair Park
Won Soon demonstrates ambition through his 'One less
nuclear power plant' plan
Mexico City Mayor and former World Mayors Council Chair
Marcelo Ebrard announces the impressive Mexico City's
2008-2012 Climate Action Programme.
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
US State Department, expressed serious interest
in the suggestions laid by ICLEI to engage local
governments as governmental stakeholders to
scale up climate actions.
The week before Rio+20, at the ICLEI World
Congress 2012 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil,
numerous local governments demonstrated what
raising levels of ambition meant in practice. The
inspiring examples set by prominent local leaders
tell a positive story:
Showing political leadership. Park Won
Soon, the newly elected Mayor of Seoul and
Chair of World Mayors Council on Climate
Change, swiftly demonstrated his ambition
through Seoul’s new ‘One less nuclear power
plant’ plan. The plan aims, through energy
efficiency and renewable energy generation
– and with a strong emphasis on stakeholder
engagement – to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 7.33 million tonnes of CO 2
equivalent, save US$2 billion and generate
40,000 jobs by 2014.
Re-invigorating and redoubling efforts.
Not content with existing commitments,
Environment Mayor Ayfer Baykal shared
a renewed plan for Copenhagen to
become the world’s first carbon neutral
capital by 2025, by acting on energy
consumption, production, mobility and the
city administration. Copenhagen’s efforts
have been rewarded: it has just become the
European Green Capital of the Year for 2014.
Implementing emissions reductions.
Minister of Environment Martha Delgado
shared the impressive vision and strategy of
Mexico City’s 2008-2012 Climate Action
Programme. Two months later, she joined
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard to proudly announce
that Mexico City managed to reached a total
emissions reduction of 7.7 million tonnes
CO 2
equivalent, exceeding its initial goal
by 10.2 per cent. It has also succeeded in
implementing a new programme to adapt to
climate change.
Being innovative. Kenji Suzuki, Director
of International Cooperation, presented the
first year’s results of Tokyo Metropolitan
Government in successfully implementing
the world’s first urban cap and trade
programme. Targeting 1,300 buildings
that contribute 40 per cent of the city’s
commercial and industrial emissions, the
Tokyo Cap and Trade Programme has not
only become a key driver of emissions
reductions, but also increased the city’s
resilience to energy shortages during the
Fukushima disaster.
These are just snapshots of the massive amount
of information reported by hundreds of local
governments worldwide at the carbonn Cities
Climate Registry (www.citiesclimateregistry.org)
where “national governments can be encouraged
to take ever bigger and more ambitious steps to
fight climate change”, in the words of Christiana
Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate
Change Secretariat.
A VEHICLE FOR PROGRESS
The development path of emerging economies’
growing urban areas in the next 30-50 years is
vital in attaining global emissions targets designed
to limit the global temperature increase to
2ºC; and so is the ability of cities to provide a
sustainable and quality environment for the wellbeing
of their citizens. Success will depend on a
fundamental transformation in our development
model. We need to demonstrate that shifting
urban development to a low emission path can
offer both a better urban livelihood to billions of
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