Rio+20 closes today; Mexico City Pact and cCCR upheld as examples of voluntary commitments

Rio+20 is a conference on implementation. As such, an important part of the conference is about making and delivering commitments. More than 700 tangible and action oriented commitments have been registered at Rio+20. These include registrations from governments, business & industry, civil society and the UN system.

Under the auspices of the Conference Secretary General, a major press conference event was held to announce commitments registered at Rio+20. Mexico City Pact and Carbon Cities Climate Registry (cCCR) were showcased as one of the select sample of registered commitments by a range of stakeholders.

Marcelo Ebrard, Mayor of Mexico City, Mexico, spoke at the press conference in Rio, emphasizing that cities have not only made commitments through the Mexico City Pact, where 138 Mayors have committed to transparency, accountability and comparability of local climate action but have also been introducing the concept of measurable, reportable, verifiable climate action by encouraging signatories to report commitments, together with GHG inventories and relevant actions to the carbonn Cities Climate Registry (cCCR). Mayor Ebrand said, “Cities are committed to measurable, reportable, verifiable climate action that the world can count on.” 

Cities that announce commitments are invited to report their baseline and latest available GHG inventory to monitor their progress in meeting their targets. GHG inventory reporting is based on the International Local Government GHG Emissions Analysis Protocol (IEAP), which has evolved into Global Protocol for Community Scale GHG Emissions (GPC). cCCR already compiles 270 GHG inventories that represent total community GHG emissions of around 1.2 GtCO2e/yr. Capacity building in use of GHG accounting and reporting tools, such as HEAT+ will also help cities to monitor progress.

Read more about the Mexico City Pact and cCCR voluntary commitment.