The Compact of Mayors: The biggest collaboration to accelerate climate action

The Compact of Mayors

Copyright © UN Photo/Zach Krahmer

On September 23, 2014, the Compact of Mayors was launched at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York City by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) – endorsed by UN-Habitat, UN Secretary General´s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, UN Secretary General´s Climate Change Support Team.

The Compact of Mayors is an ambitious agreement by mayors and other city officials to publically commit to deep GHG emissions reductions -- making existing mitigation and adaptation targets and plans public and report on their progress annually -- using a newly-standardized measurement system that is compatible with international practices. Through this initiative, cities will be choosing to meet the same requirements proposed for the international climate negotiations that will lead to a global climate treaty in 2015.

Data collected through the Compact of Mayors will become the evidence base we need to quantify the greenhouse gas impact of city action with the aim of: 

  • Allowing national governments to understand the extent of existing city action so that it might be incorporated into national level strategies or further supported through more enabling policy environments and resourcing approaches
  • Encouraging increased capital flows into cities to support local action
  • Establishing a consistent and transparent accountability framework that can be used by national governments, private investors or the public to ensure that we can be held responsible or our commitments 

Data collected through the Compact will underscore the importance of considering cities’ climate efforts as nations set GHG reduction targets with the ultimate goal of reaching an ambitious, binding, international climate agreement. 

Under the Compact, the carbonn Climate Registry will serve as the designated central repository that will enable the compilation of data through existing national, regional, and global city reporting platforms, such as CDP Cities. We are also in early stages of exploring the possibility of aligning with other reporting platforms such as the European Covenant of Mayors– with the overall goal of reducing the need for cities to report more than once.  We will work collaboratively to aggregate these individual efforts across thousands of cities who make up C40, ICLEI and UCLG with the aim of capturing their global impact. 

If you or your city want to join this movement of mayors in this unprecedented effort to aggregate the significant action that cities like yours are already undertaking globally, please contact the UCLG World Secretariat [email protected]
 

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