Cities Delivering Climate Action That Works for Everyone – 81st Session of the UN General Assembly

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the SDG Media Zone. We're live from the UN headquarters in New York. And I will pass to our moderator, Molly Taft, with WIRE, for our next session.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. So we're here to talk about cities. And about half the world's population now lives in cities, and that number is projected to go up to 70% ish by the middle of the century. So we're really talking about real opportunities and real challenges when it comes to climate action. And we're kind of in a really significant time of those concurrent challenges and opportunities. And I'm so happy to have these three leaders here today, Anne Hidalgo, former mayor of Paris, Eric Garcetti, former mayor of Los Angeles, and Camila Assis from Sao Paulo. And I'd like to start with some topics that I have been kind of facing throughout climate week, and maybe some of you all have as well, these two topics that keep coming up. And first is the super El Nino forming in the Pacific that threatens to compound on the extreme weather we've already seen so much of, and really threatens to raise global temperatures significantly by next year. And then the second is also data centers, which as a tech reporter is near and dear to my heart. And the challenges these present to the grid, the increased energy, the increased fossil energy that is being put on the grid to meet the challenges of AI. And also, some of the citizen response to these data centers going up, folks have a lot of concerns, they have a lot of questions. Eric, you and I were chatting about this backstage, these two topics, I'm wondering what kind of conversations you've been having specifically around city response, to these two challenges and some examples you've seen recently of leadership in these areas.

Well, thank you, Molly, and great to be with everybody. Great to be with my sister mayor, Anne Hidalgo. It's wonderful to be with my colleague from Sao Paulo as well. This is not abstract. This is real. And this is today. In Los Angeles, in Long Beach, we have the second wave of a super wave from El Nino literally coming to our coast as we speak. that's been destroying homes, that's been looking at the erosion of our coastline. And last month, August was the hottest month on human record besides July 2023, the hottest August ever and the second hottest month we've ever experienced, which meant that people suffered, people died. We can't account for how many heat deaths there are, but this literally is life and death. And so the urgency of today, I come with both a message of extreme urgency, but also hope. Because on one hand, you feel like climate work is on the defense, certainly in this country with this administration that people are backing off of commitments. And yet we know the Global Covenant of Mayors and through C40 Cities, which we both represent here, that cities are actually ahead of the Paris goals, unlike the countries of the world, all of which are not there. And data centers is a great example of the power of subnational governments. So C40 Cities launched with the Global Covenant of Mayors and Climate Mayors the first data center compact that establishes the standards that say no, unless you play by our rules, which means no gas powered plants, no dirty coal energy. In order for us to have a slightly easier AI search or query, that we have to make sure that water, heat are contained, or we draw the line and saying that we will not in our cities around the world, now representing over 200 million citizens, global citizens, and I guarantee you a month from now, will double again, saying collectively, you cannot play us off each other. We have standards and we're not willing to just sacrifice our communities and the earth for your goals.

Yeah, that's so interesting what you all are doing on that globally as this issue really continues to expand. Speaking of global issues in cities, Ambassador Hidalgo, during your time as mayor of Paris, you championed so many areas of climate action and core to the SDGs. urban nature, finance, gender equity, and you're now the global ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors. I'm wondering if you can share some examples of some of the work you championed in Paris and how you're using this experience now to garner support for other cities looking to replicate some of that.

Thank you so much. I'm very happy also to be here with my brother, my friends, because now it's like a family. When one mayor meet another mayor, they are talking about things of mayors, and it is about citizens. This community of mayors helped me a lot when I was mayor of Paris, because of course, as mayor, we faced a lot of challenges. Maybe one thing about my experience, and I want to share that. When I was mayor of Paris, I bring the opportunity with the COVID crisis to accelerate the transformation of the city. about, for example, the bicycle lanes and this new infrastructure. This infrastructure was for me very, very important for the citizens because in my objective, in my goal, in my proposal to have less air pollution, we needed to change the model of the mobility in the city and the bicycle lanes were for for us, for the city, very important. And the COVID gave me the opportunity to change that very quickly. And it was an accelerator. The second, and we share that together, the Olympic Games, because we win together, the Olympic Games, we win together. We had this competition between our cities, but also not just competition, also collaboration. And we together. And for me, hosting the games in 2024 was also an opportunity to accelerate and I align the objective, the target of the Paris Agreement with the target of the Olympic Games in my city. I think the mayors have this opportunity to bring one crisis and accelerate the transformation. Second, I think because now I'm a global ambassador at the Global Government of Mayors, the same family that the C40, we are based in Brussels and we have in this organization 14,000 cities, smaller cities than the C40 network and around the world. I think what is important now for us in this agenda and this climate agenda for the mayors is to bring the discussion, the conversation, to bring the mayors at the conversation about the climate goals in the Paris Agreement. And I'm working in a very interesting platform. This platform was launched and was born in Dubai for the COP28, the CHAMP initiative. It is an initiative for the multi-level, multi-actor action. We need it because today the multilateralism is in trouble and we need to open the door to the actor and the mayor are the actor, essential actor for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. And this initiative is very interesting because we have today 78 countries involved in this initiative and the cities, and what we are trying to do for the next COP, for the next stage, it's to have a conversation together and this conversation need to bring the cities at the right level. They need to have a direct access to the finance. They need to be present in the discussion, in the negotiation about the climate change because they are facing directly with the citizens the impact of the climate change and they are also the level of the implementation of our goals for the climate, for the Paris Agreement.

Yeah, that's, I'm glad you mentioned kind of working all cohesively together, winning together. And that takes me over to Ms. Assis. We know for a climate transition, we can't leave anyone behind. It needs to be a just transition. And that's part of the challenges. And I'm wondering if you have examples from Sao Paulo, like how you all are facilitating this transition financially to make sure no one is left behind, facilitating green jobs. What does it look like for you?

Yes, first of all, I would like to thank the opportunity to talk on behalf of Sao Paulo. It's a pleasure to be with these two personalities that I admire as an internationalist. I have to say that I'm a little bit nervous, so I have a clue.

You're great. You're doing great.

But I'm very glad you asked me this question because I think Sao Paulo is making a strong effort to connect economic development, climate action, and social inclusion. So from the perspective for Sao Paulo, the ecological transition cannot be only about reducing emissions or adapting our city, it also needs great opportunities for people, especially for those who are already facing great social and economic vulnerability. A good example that I have to say, it's a pilot project that we are going to launch next year that counts with a grant with Maia's Migration Council. It's a project that's called in Portuguese, Novo Solo, in English, New Soil. And it brings together three important issues like migrant inclusion, descent work, and urban climate resilience. The idea is quite simple, but makes a lot of change, is to help migrants, especially those in a vulnerable situation, access training and job opportunities in areas that are important, Sao Paulo ecological transition. Like we have a big transformation now of our bus fleet as well, so we have to grab these opportunities to improve and connect not just this ecological transition, but providing opportunities to people access green jobs. As a huge city, we also have initiatives that promote innovation, but we are aware that this kind of innovation can be limited to people that have access to money, to grants. So we have also a program that's called Hubby Green Sampa. That's a public incubator that provides grant to green solutions to people that have a startup and want to make great solutions to the city. And other thing that I would like to end my, the part of my speech is that when we think about Sao Paulo, we think about the city that is so much populated, but we have like 32% of our territory is rural. So we are also working with like producers. I think that Paris has incredible work that so many times we take to exchange this kind of experience to make the whole system work. So we also bring them to the table.

That's so, that's wonderful, thank you. And speaking of, you know, working within the specific fabric of your city and taking lessons from what your city might look like, Eric, I'm interested, when you were mayor of LA, which is a really cool city and faces a lot of really unique challenges, you saw it through COVID, you know, implementation of LA's Green New Deal. You were acting, and during the first Trump administration, you know, when cities had to take action potentially without the help of a federal government. I'm wondering, as you're looking at cities acting now, what lessons can they learn from your leadership, from other city leadership? What lessons can federal governments learn about how cities act during crises and how cities take opportunities for green transitions?

So I'll tell you a quick story from COVID. a succeeded and as chair she's like my my sister that I just follow in her footsteps she had the Olympics I'm gonna have the Olympics she was the chair I was the chair whatever she's doing it's just a preview of my life so it's very exciting let me tell you a little brother of you exactly and My second Zoom ever, before we knew what Zooms really were, like now we just take them for granted as part of our bodies, you know, we clicked on and I brought together all the mayors, 'cause C40 is the only association of mayors of the top 100 cities of the world on any topic. It happens to be on climate, but there's no other mayor's club. And so with this crisis coming and knowing that things like germs and climate ignore borders. I said, I called, I kind of put the bat signal out in comic book terms and saw how many mayors, and we had over 60 of the 100 mayors get on across every time zone of the world. And it was amazing because the now late mayor of Seoul started talking about drive-through testing, that you could be tested for something in a car. We're like, that sounds crazy, mind blown. We had the mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, talk about, because remember the peak of COVID early on was in Northern Italy, about how to arrange beds in the hallways of your hospital so that fewer people would die. Very sober, very important, immediate stuff. And we all got off the call and started doing those things. And our successor, our current chair of C40, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who often gets some shout outs here at the UN, he said something that he met with his then prime minister, Boris Johnson, if we remember him. And he was describing what C40 was doing and how mayors were implementing this right away. Wartime leadership, the way generals on a battlefield, like see a problem, try something, if that doesn't work, try something else, but you have to act. And Boris Johnson turned to his cabinet and said, why are we doing this stuff? And they said, sir, we're preparing a report. It'll be ready in a week or two. Then you can read the report. Then you can start talking to presidents and prime ministers and other leaders. And It struck him that national and international multilateral is at a glacial pace compared to what mayors do, because we literally have to save lives. In LA, it was the scariest thing I ever had to do, but to shut down restaurants, we were the first big city in America to shut down. We were a week ahead of New York, which was a little ahead on the infection, but the data showed that we had half the deaths per capita. So the lesson learned is in a crisis, and certainly we face a crisis with climate, accelerate, collaborate, innovate, and also relentlessly communicate. And really, the last point I'll make is don't see the power you have before you exercise it. When Trump in the first administration said, I'm gonna be the only leader and we're gonna be the only country to withdraw from Paris, literally the only one, instead of crying in a corner, climate mayors with this group that I've mentioned, that's the Republican, independent, and Democratic mayors in 47 states, but we only had about a dozen or so members then, we got on the phone. And by the end of that day when he made the announcement, we had over 50 folks signed on saying that if he's out, we're in. We will implement Paris in our cities. That got up to 200 by the end of the month, and it peaked at over 360 mayors in all but three states in America across party lines. And when we went to the COP in Glasgow, I was the only leader that wasn't a national leader allowed to be on the stage the first two days as we presented on behalf of our organization and 1,000 cities that we pledged carbon neutrality. The UN made the calculation, that's the equivalent of the fifth largest country in the world, and we're actually doing it. Unlike the empty words of a lot of nations that are falling short, we're actually doing it.

I think that is a really nice note to end on. We don't always get those at Climate Week, so. Thank you all for being here with me today, and I really appreciate our conversation. Thank you.

Thank you so much.