The International Urban Cooperation (IUC) program (funded by the European Union) is pleased to announce the successful applicants for the ‘Regional and Metro-scale Climate Leaders’ initiative:
- Chicago Metropolitan Region
- Denver / Boulder Region
- Kansas City Region
- Metropolitan Washington
Across the next 18 months, IUC and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) will be working closely with these beneficiaries to help develop regional Climate Action Plans through coordination and cooperation at the metropolitan level. Although there are a number of organizations/partnerships working on climate change at metropolitan level, the traditional approach for cities and communities in the US to respond to climate change has been to do so at the scale of municipal government. There are numerous examples in other regions of the world, especially the EU, where a more regional, multi-level governance approach has been adopted, offering an opportunity to foster more ambitious and widespread action on climate change and more holistically considers trans-boundary climate-related issues such as transportation, waste, and renewable energy generation. The opportunity to collaborate between local governments also offers a significant economy of scale and eases the burden on municipal resources.
GCoM is an international alliance of cities and local governments with a shared long-term vision of promoting and supporting voluntary action to combat climate change and move to an inclusive, just, low emission, resilient society. There are currently over 150 members of the GCoM in the US, all of whom have made a commitment to reduce GHG emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The GCoM has been working in the USA with partners such as the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), ICLEI USA, C40 and others to help build a program that will help support US cities in their efforts on climate change. One key strategic objective which national stakeholders have identified is to help foster more metro-scale or regional ‘Climate Action Plans’, bringing together multiple local government entities and regional organizations to tackle the issues.
