Mayors from around the world signed a voluntary pact on Sunday in Mexico City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting meant as a precursor to UN-sponsored climate talks in Cancun opening next week.
The gathering in one of the world’s most polluted cities assembled thousands of local and regional leaders to discuss a wide range of economic and social issues, including climate change.
Participants from some 135 cities and urban areas signed the pact which states their intention to adopt a slate of measures to stem climate change.
Each city “will have to register its climate data [commitments as well as performance] in the city climate record” during the next eight months, said Gabriel Sanchez, president of Think Foundation, a Mexican non-profit.
The pact will be presented at UN talks in Cancun from Monday to Dec. 10. That’s when top climate scientists from around the world hope to break the deadlock on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and channeling aid to poor, vulnerable countries after the widely regarded failure of the last climate summit in Copenhagen.
Sunday’s signing came a day after the close of the third conference of the United Cities and Local Governments, attended by mayors, legislators and officials from more than 1,000 cities and towns in 114 countries.
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said his counterparts should seize the opportunity ahead of Cancun to highlight their key roles in the fight to put the brakes on climate change.
Ebrard has brought the battle to his doorstep; he pledged last week that Mexico City, with its teeming population of more than 20 million, would reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by about 14 percent.
The mayors emphasized the vital role that cities, where more than half the world’s population now live, can play in the fight against climate change.
Urban areas consume up to 80 percent of global energy production and emit 60 percent of greenhouse gases, according to Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The pact sent a “clear signal” to countries that will sit at the negotiating table in Cancun that it is possible to reach agreement, Figueres said.
Meanwhile, a study released on Sunday found that fossil-fuel gases edged back less than hoped last year, as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India.
Annual global emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tonnes, a retreat of only 1.3 percent last year compared with 2008, a record year, they said in a letter to the journal Nature Geoscience.
The decrease was less than half what had been expected, because emerging giant economies were unaffected by the downturn that hit many large industrialized nations.
In addition, they burned more coal, while their economies struggled with a higher “carbon intensity,” a measure of fuel-efficiency.
Emissions of fossil-fuel gases last year fell by 11.8 percent in Japan, by 6.9 percent in the US, by 8.6 percent in the UK, by 7 percent in Germany and by 8.4 percent in Russia, the paper said.
In contrast, they rose by 8 percent in China.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese