Daring Cities 2020 has concluded with some important announcements

This was the first virtual forum on sustainability organized by ICLEI

Yesterday, 28 October, was the final day of a 3-week long global forum organized by ICLEI – the international organization that seeks to promote cohesive sustainable development, spearheaded by local administrations. The organization’s headquarters are in Bonn, Germany but this year the forum was organized in a virtual format, which also helped bring in its largest attendance. Some 4500 participants from more than 150 countries tuned in to the high-profile event, which boasted António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, as one of its many speakers.

This was a forum for urban leaders from all walks of life, such as public, private and the third sector to debate, get up to date and devise commonly oriented action in line with the UN goals for sustainable development for this decade.

4500 participants from more than 150 countries

Mr Guterres expressed the wish that this event would serve as a warm-up session and a launching pad for concrete actions to the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow exactly a year from now.

Out of the numerous workshops and conferences that took place over the past weeks, it is worth mentioning that indeed some specific actions on sustainability were announced. Among them were:

• ICLEI’s Climate Neutrality Framework – guidelines for integrated action on helping cities from all over the world achieve climate neutrality through a drastic reduction in greenhouse emissions, divesting and reinvesting, and compensation for emissions that cannot be avoided.
• Launch of Making Cities Resilient 2030 – one-of-a-kind platform that will synergize action and partner different localities combined in 5 world regions. They will be able to count on technical expertise from a variety of practitioners.
• EcoLogistics Principles – ICLEI set out 8 principles for cities to follow in their mission to make urban freight logistics more people-centred, climate-neutral and efficient.
• Green City Finance Directory – Large sustainable transformation projects need reliable access to funds, which is why this directory was launched to help administrations have an easier time in the planning stages. They will be able to use online resources called project preparation facilities (PPFs) in order to find connections to financing.
• Voluntary Local Review on the SDGs – The host city of Bonn demonstrated its self-auditing programme that uses indicators and trend patterns to regularly verify progress on the implementation of the UN Agenda 2030.

Even in the context of a global pandemic which has tended to overshadow all other global news, Daring Cities 2020 served to remind us that another crisis – that of climate change – has not gone away. It is reassuring to know that many local governments are not faltering in their commitment to tackle it head-on.