EU Covenant of Mayors and Compact of Mayors launch largest global coalition of cities committed to fighting climate change


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Floriane Cappelletti

Publication date

June 24, 2016

Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy will combine efforts and leadership to accelerate climate action at the local level worldwide.

The world’s two primary city-led climate change and energy initiatives, the EU Covenant of Mayors and the Compact of Mayors, announced the formation of a new, first-of-its-kind global initiative of cities and local governments leading in the fight against climate change. This single initiative will create the largest global coalition of cities committed to climate leadership, building on the commitments of more than 7,100 cities from 119 countries and six continents, representing more than 600 million inhabitants, over 8% of the world’s population.

The launch of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy comes six months after the historic Paris climate change conference, where cities were crucial voices in shaping and advocating for a strong global agreement, and is a historic and powerful response by the world’s local leaders to the urgent climate challenge.

The new initiative will provide a common platform that brings together relevant data on cities’ energy and climate actions reported to the current EU Covenant platform and the platforms supporting the Compact of Mayors (CDP Cities and the carbonn Climate Registry), allowing for comparison of cities’ achievements to other cities and towns all around the world, and make them publicly available through a new Global Covenant of Mayors website, to be launched by January 2017.

Eckart Wurzner, Mayor of Heidelberg and President of Energy Cities, at the launch press conference on 22 June 2016.

“The global Covenant of Mayors not only takes the initiative to a worldwide scale, it reinforces its crucial political dimension. Its new Board of Directors will provide cities with an institutional voice on the global stage, better reflecting our shared determination to steer the world towards a more affordable, reliable and sustainable energy future.”

– Eckart Wurzner, Mayor of Heidelberg, President of Energy Cities.

“In Europe, the Covenant has managed to mobilise thousands of ambitious cities in outperforming their national governments’ targets. Its evolution into a global coalition with international accountability further paves the way towards a new age marked by locally-rooted and inclusive climate policies.”

– Bo Frank, Mayor of Växjö, Vice-President of Energy Cities.

Energy Cities is one of the networks that founded the initiative with the support of the European Commission, back in 2008, and has been leading the Covenant of Mayors Office since then.

www.eumayors.eu