The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy cities and supporting partners gathered at COP23 in Bonn, Germany this week to join participating parties in support of strengthening global climate action and the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
While Paris’ COP21 will be remembered for uniting the world’s national governments against climate change and Marrakech’s COP22 for entering the Agreement into force, Bonn will surely be remembered for uniting the world’s local governments in furthering the necessary action by cities and subnational actors to deliver on the promises made by national governments in Paris.
On November 12th, the Global Covenant of Mayors was the featured initiative at the third Climate Summit of Local and Regional Leaders. The morning kicked off with Christiana Figueres, Vice-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors, giving the opening plenary address and moderating a panel of local leaders from Morocco, Fiji and Germany.
During the summit, The Global Covenant of Mayors released its first report since merging the Compact of Mayors and EU Covenant of Mayors outlining the aggregated impact of the commitments that cities have made to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Overall, the GHG reduction potential of the 7,494 commitments made by Global Covenant of Mayors cities is equivalent to reducing nearly 1.3 billion tons of CO2e emissions per year in 2030.
Together, cities committed to the Global Covenant of Mayors have the potential to achieve a cumulative reduction of 46 Gt CO2e by 2050, reaching a global average for 2.19 tons per capita.
This means that Global Covenant of Mayors cities could avoid emissions roughly equivalent to Brazil or Japan’s emissions in 2030. This is an amount equal to taking 319 coal-fired power plants offline or over 275 million cars off the road in 2030.
This analysis demonstrates the power of cities to contribute to national and global climate targets and further highlight the collective strength of cities around the globe working to achieve a carbon neutral world.
Data Announcements
To further support city contributions to climate action, the Global Covenant of Mayors also announced a new global standard for reporting city and local governments’ greenhouse gas emissions inventories. The GCoM will now kick off a consultation process with city and other technology experts. Interested cities should contact the GCoM Secretariat at info@globalcovenantofmayors.org.
This reporting framework is a harmonized approach for local-scale GHG reporting and allows for tracking and comparing the contributions and impacts of cities and local governments in a transparent, quantifiable and meaningful way.
Because the Global Covenant recognizes principles of transparency, consistency, and flexibility, this framework is designed to be consistent with national government reporting requirements and the UNFCCC, and adjustable to local circumstances.
Making key data available to the public is an important step forward for assessing collective progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and increases the potential for financing opportunities at the local, regional and global levels.
In addition, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and ICLEI also announced a partnership to streamline city climate reporting.
GCOM Day
On Monday, November 13th, the European Commission hosted “Global Covenant of Mayors Day” at the EU Pavilion to highlight the collective power and action of cities and regional covenants around the globe. The day-long event featured mayors and city officials sharing best practices of how we all can collaborate to promote and support action to combat climate change and move to a low emission, resilient society.
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Want to highlight your city’s climate actions? Contribute an article to the Global Covenant of Mayors newsletter? Got an event to add to the calendar? Please email us at info@globalcovenantofmayors.org.
This reporting framework is a harmonized approach for local-scale GHG reporting and allows for tracking and comparing the contributions and impacts of cities and local governments in a transparent, quantifiable and meaningful way.
