Covenant of Mayors and the US Conference of Mayors

By Miriam Eisermann on 14 October 2009

The Covenant of Mayors played a prominent role in the Open Days 2009. In addition to two informative Covenant workshops, this year’s event was also an opportunity for the Covenant of Mayors to come together with the US Conference of Mayors to discuss the possibility of cooperation.

A room with a capacity of 300 people was not enough to host participants during both Covenant of Mayors workshops. This first workshop showcased two interesting examples of Dublin and Hamburg, and developed into a lively debate with the audience. The second workshop explained the role of Supporting Structures, highlighting the examples of existing Supporting Structures Province of Huelva, Polish Network Energie-Cités and the European Energy Network (EnR). At this occasion, the Italian Province of La Spezia became a new Supporting Structure.

A press conference on Tuesday 6 October marked a discussion involving Energy Commisioner Pieblags, CoR President van den Brande, the Deputy Mayor of Copenhagen, Ms Mona Heiberg and Ms Kautz, Vice-President of the US Conference of Mayors, on cooperation possibilities between the US Conference of Mayors and the Covenant of Mayors.

Although the US federal government has not signed the Kyoto Protocol, almost 1000 mayors of the US Conference of Mayors signed the ‘US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement’ pledging to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets. The structure of the cooperation is not yet clear. But it is certain that as part of the cooperation American and European mayors will join forces to ensure the recognition of local authorities’ key role and contribution to fighting climate change at the COP15 in December.

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