UN Climate Change Treaty & the Final Push for World Government

Cities Sign Global Accord to Cut Emissions, Adapt to Climate Change, Report Steps Taken

November 24, 2010

The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. - Mayors and local leaders from around the world concluded a trio of meetings Nov. 21 with a pledge to work to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

The Global Cities Covenant on Climate laid out 10 actions cities can take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to a warming climate, including a commitment to develop ways for cities to access international funding for local actions.

The voluntary agreement, known as the Mexico City Pact, also highlighted the important role in addressing climate change played by the world's cities, which accounted for more than 70 percent of the Earth's greenhouse gas emissions in 2006, according to the International Energy Agency.

Cities that signed onto the agreement agreed to report any actions they take in a new carbonn Cities Climate Registry (cCCR). The registry will be operated by the Bonn Center for Local Climate Action and Reporting--hence the use of “carbonn” in the name. The registry was launched the same day the pact was signed, during the first World Mayors Summit on Climate, hosted by Mexico City.

The Mexico City Pact also envisioned the establishment of a Global Cities Covenant on Climate Secretariat that would be encourage more cities to join the agreement and would follow up on actions laid out in the pact.

The one-day summit was sponsored by Mexico City, the World Mayors Council on Climate Change, the ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).

The meeting also marked the final day of a pair of related meetings of mayors and local leaders. The Third Congress of United Cities and Local Governments and the Local and Regional Leaders World Summit both concluded six-day meetings in Mexico City with the Nov. 21 signing of the pact at the World Mayors Summit.

The trio of meetings attracted some 3,000 city officials from 114 countries.

Importance of International Funding

Earlier in the week, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard discussed the importance of an international fund to help cities fight global warming.

“Today, almost all global credits are for nations, not cities,” Ebrard said Nov. 17. “For that reason, cities have great difficulty in accessing resources from the international communities. So this is a very interesting, new initiative that is also being adopted in this meeting.”

The objective is to promote investments in city climate change programs as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for an international accord that appears to be foundering, Ebrard told Radio Formula, a local radio station, Nov. 18.

“We can change energy, reduce auto emissions, and take other steps in our cities … and not wait for an international pact that we see is not coming and is being delayed,” Ebrard said.

Ebrard said the financing architecture used today is too slow and that the new fund for cities would speed up the allocation of resources to municipalities, where greenhouse gas emissions are highest and climate change is affecting more people. He did not specify how it would do so.

Pact to Be Presented in Cancun

The Mexico City Pact will be presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 16th Conference of the Parties, to be held in Cancun, Mexico, Nov. 29-Dec. 10.

“The voice of cities must be heard at the climate summit,” Ebrard said.

UCLG president and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë said at a Nov. 18 press conference that cities will pressure leaders in Cancun “to do what they have not done, what they haven’t been able to do.”

Handshakes after the pact has been signed at WMSC in Mexico City.

World Mayors Sign Climate Change Pact Ahead of UN Climate Talks in Cancun

November 21, 2010

AFP - Mayors from around the world signed a voluntary pact 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 -- including Buenos Aires, Bogota, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Paris and Vancouver -- 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.

Residents will be able to track their cities' performance online, officials said.

The pact will be presented at UN talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun from November 29 to December 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.

"We have to tell the international community that it's in the cities that the battle to slow global warming will be won," Ebrard said in the lead-up to the meeting.

And he has brought the battle to his doorstep; the leftist Ebrard pledged last week that Mexico City, with its teeming population of more than 20 million, would reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by around 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 new study released on Sunday found that fossil-fuel gases edged back less than hoped in 2009, as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India.

Annual global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tonnes, a retreat of only 1.3 percent in 2009 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, the biggest source of fossil-fuel carbon, while their economies struggled with a higher "carbon intensity," a measure of fuel-efficiency.

Emissions of fossil-fuel gases in 2009 fell by 11.8 percent in Japan, by 6.9 percent in the United States, by 8.6 percent in Britain, by 7.0 percent in Germany and by 8.4 percent in Russia, the paper said. In contrast, they rose by eight percent in China, the world's number one emitter of fossil-fuel CO2, which accounts for a whopping 24 percent of the total.

Click for Map of Mayors Who Signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2008
Press Releases for the U.S. Conference of Mayors (No Press Release for Mexico City Pact is Listed)

Mayors to Take Lead at Climate Summit

November 8, 2010

CNN - City mayors from all over the world will be attending the World Mayors Summit on Climate in Mexico City later this month to pledge their commitment to combating global warming.

The centerpiece of the one-day summit will be the signing of "The Mexico City Pact" -- formally known as the Global Cities Covenant on Climate -- which will recognize the strategic importance cities need to play in reducing carbon emissions.

Convened by the World Mayors Council on Climate Change (WMCCC), ICLEI -- Local Governments for Sustainability and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) the summit will take place eight days before the United Nations climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico.

Anke Stoffregen, ICLEI communications manager told CNN:

"The summit is very much about the mayors taking the leadership role and pulling their strength together to show that they are willing to make commitments and that they are able to deliver actions as well."

A crucial ingredient of the pact is the launch the "carbon Cities Climate Registry" which commits mayors and local governments to regular and transparent reporting of CO2 emissions.

Over half of the world's population now live in cities. According to the International Energy Agency cities accounted for two thirds of the world's primary energy demand in 2006 contributing around 70 percent of global CO2 emissions.

Stoffregen says city leaders already understand the need to act. What this summit is trying to do is speed up the process of global coordination on climate change and press national governments to act faster.

"With more and more people living in urban areas it becomes more important that we realize that we have to provide for a more varied lifestyle," Stoffregen said.

"People who live in cities have an enormous power to demand of their local governments an improvement in their climate policy."

Backdooring Climate Change Action: Mayors of World's Cities Sell Out to Global Warming Scam

October 21, 2010

Nature.com - Scientists should do the research to help mayors prepare for a warming world, say Cynthia Rosenzweig, William Solecki, Stephen A. Hammer and Shagun Mehrotra.

For years, the focus on the world's response to climate change has been on nation states, which have been mostly unsuccessful in brokering comprehensive agreements or taking action. Cities, by contrast, are preparing risk assessments, setting greenhouse-gas emission reduction targets, and pledging to act ...

The World Mayors Council on Climate Change (WMCCC) was founded by Kyoto’s mayor in December 2005, following the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. The WMCCC and its chair Marcelo Ebrard, mayor of Mexico City, will host the World Mayors’ Summit there the week before the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Cancun, Mexico, this November.

Mayors will be invited to sign the Mexico City Pact, which seeks to strengthen cities’ commitment to mitigation measures,monitoring and adaptation (see ‘Urban action’). The summit also gives city leaders the opportunity to demand a seat at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, helping them to get funding to implement their policies. There are currently more than 50 members (mayors and former mayors) of the WMCCC ...

Rahm Emanuel Quits Job at White House to Run for Chicago Mayor

November 13, 2010

AP - Rahm Emanuel officially announced Saturday what everyone has known since he quit his job as White House chief of staff, hugged President Barack Obama and returned to Chicago: He's running for mayor.

To the surprise of no one, Emanuel, who has long talked about his desire to be mayor, told a packed auditorium at a school on Chicago's North Side that he is a candidate to succeed retiring Mayor Richard Daley.

The election is Feb. 22.

Emanuel represented the city's North Side in Congress before he went to the White House.

He has been actively campaigning in the city since his return about two months ago. He also has been courting donors who can add to the $1.2 million left from his congressional campaign fund.

Emanuel is one of about a half dozen candidates who have either formally announced or are about to.

State Sen. James Meeks and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis have similar events scheduled Sunday, and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun is expected to announce in the next week or so. Former city schools President Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle have already declared they're running.

But Emanuel has emerged as the front-runner, in part because of his money and national profile and because other high-profile candidates, such as Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, have dropped out.

Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who assisted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1991 Iraq war and whose father was in Irgun, is a strong supporter of AIPAC; he personally introduced fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama to the organization's directors during the 2008 presidential campaign. "Rahm is the Democrats' Newt Gingrich," says Bruce Reed, who served with Emanuel in the Clinton White House. "He understands how much ideas matter, he always knows his message, he takes no prisoners, and he only plays to win." Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel's success is his legendary intensity... the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the President's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting "Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!" and plunging the knife into the table after every name. "When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape," one campaign veteran recalls. "It was like something out of The Godfather. But that's Rahm for you." - Obama Picks Israeli Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, HAARETZ, November 6, 2008