414 cities report raft of inspiring climate actions
By November 2013, 414 cities worldwide have already registered over 4,000 climate actions – either completed or in progress until 2020 – in the carbonn Cities Climate Registry (cCCR). 11 Indian cities have contributed to this impressive number, namely, Ahmadabad, Pune, New Delhi, Nagpur, Panaji, Shimla, Cochin, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad and Kota, for whom the data was collected through the Earth Hour City Challenge (EHCC) project.
The November 2013 report which is now available provides information on these cities, which together represent a population of 438 million, covering community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of more than 2.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (G tCO2e/pa). Along with the Cities’ GHG emissions for a particular year, their climate adaptation and mitigation actions have been uploaded on the registry too, including initiatives on integrated waste management; renewable energy & energy efficiency in residential, building facilities and industrial sector; transport sector; water supply and sewage management and education and training for community awareness etc.
Breaking down the reported data, these advanced cities have reported a total of 836 climate and energy commitments (showing their targets), 770 GHG inventories (showing they are monitoring progress) and 4208 mitigation and adaptation actions (showing they are acting).
ICLEI has been operating since 2010 the cCCR, the world’s largest database of local climate action through the voluntary reporting pursuant to political commitments (i.e. signatories of Mexico City Pact), capacity building efforts at the national level (i.e. Japan Registry, PACMUN Project in Mexico and Urban-LEDS Project in Brazil, India, Indonesia, S. Africa), and by creating incentives (i.e. WWF Earth Hour City Challenge implemented in 15 countries).