Mayors pledge climate action at Brazil summit

Leaders of major cities gather to address global warming ahead of a U.N. conference.

- By GABRIELA SA PESSOA

LONDON MAYOR Sadiq Khan, shown in July, criticized “climate wreckers.”

(SUNDAY ALAMBA Associated Press)

Just days ahead of the U.N. climate conference to be held in Brazil, a group of 300 mayors gathered in Rio de Janeiroto pledge coordinated climate action and address rising heat that is hurting many of their residents.

The summit Monday was organized by C40, a network of mayors from big cities that has pushed to be included in decisions on how to combat global warming and adapt toits effects.

Selwyn Hart, the U.N. special advisor and assistant secretary-general for climate change, said at the opening that mayors are on the front lines of the climate crisis.

“In the midst of all the geopolitical tensions and divisions, it is truly amazing and inspirational to see what is happening in this room and on the ground in your cities,” Hart said, adding that local leaders are needed “more than ever” as the world enters the second decade of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement aims to keep average global temperature from rising beyond 3.6 degrees, and ideally limit it to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with the 1850s. To do that, the agreement says nations must slash planet-warming pollution that results when coal, oiland gas are burned.

Ana Toni, Brazil’s climate change chief and chief executive of COP30, said meeting those goals would be possible only by engaging mayors. “It is you, mayors, who have to make very hard decisions in daily life, together with people,” Toni said.

The U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and set back its climate goals seemed to loom large at the mayors’ summit.