Mayor Sadiq Khan has bold ambitions for the City of London to become zero-carbon, zero-pollution by 2030. However, to truly hold ourselves accountable and hit these massive 2030 goals, it’s about ensuring that cities work together to collectively address an issue head on that impacts us all. Cities like New York and London need to work in unison to scale and grow climate change programs and climate tech innovators to help the greater good.
Here are a few actionable ways cities, policy makers, and organizations have been collaborating, and how I envision it growing. POLICY MAKERS CAN’T JUST CHECK ESG BOXES Policy makers cannot work in silos and need to provide platforms where collaboration is being fostered. Fortunately, organizations such as C40, a collection of dozens of mayors across the world looking to work together on climate change, have helped set the foundation for more in-unison work as well. They have a clear-cut mission to halve the emissions of their member cities within a decade while simultaneously stimulating the green economy. Earlier this winter, C40 mayors announced they would collectively develop programs and initiatives to drive the creation of 50 million additional green jobs by 2030, led by C40 chair Khan. Cities looking to join also need to have an actionable climate plan or initiatives that drive urgency and attention given to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rises to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (the equivalent of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). This helps set a global model for cities around the world to follow suit and work toward a zero-carbon future.