Leading Mayors unite for Net Zero

ICLEI Oceania

Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Oceania

Mayors’ Statement May 2021

The role of cities and local governments in achieving Net Zero is crucial and effective

We as Mayors and leaders in the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Oceania, welcome the significant targets set by the leaders of the UK and EU, USA, Japan, New Zealand and many other comparable nations.

We also welcome the Australian Prime Minister’s announcement of the government’s intention to achieve Net Zero Emissions. However, we strongly urge the Prime Minister to highlight the importance of cities and their communities in tackling emissions reductions and to prioritise action in this regard.

City governments have already set ambitious climate change targets, both for emissions reductions and adaptation – well ahead of the Australian Government’s current targets.

Nations that are achieving deep cuts in emissions are those that are working most closely with their cities. This is a key requirement of the Paris Agreement and should be supported by the Australian Government.

We call on the Prime Minister to work with Mayors to design a national cities emission reduction program as this is the key to achieving a zero carbon target quickly. We call upon the Environment Minister to invest into the local government sector in the areas of emissions reduction and climate adaptation through approaches like the Global Covenant of Mayors and the current Race to Zero campaigns. We call upon the Federal Government to support the $400 million climate budget proposal put forward by the Australian Local Government Association.

Cities have been stepping into the breach of national climate policy, and most local authorities are already working with their communities, business and other partners to reduce emissions. These cities have shown the effectiveness of modest investments by local communities having big impacts. Many have already achieved, or are close to achieving, net zero in their own operations or across the entire municipality.

Taxpayers’ money, generated largely from urban populations, capital cities and our regions, is being used to bankroll new and yet to be proven technological approaches. We say put some money into the proven capacity of local government to achieve emissions reductions of up to 70% by 2030.

Internationally more than 10,000 cities are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors movement, many of them partnering with their national governments to achieve Paris targets as soon as possible and well before 2050, and we would welcome the PM agreeing to work similarly with the local government sector in Australia, including inner city councils.

For example through the combined effort of those 10,000 cities there is a major collective potential and if fully realized these city and local government actions could account for 2.3 billion tonnes CO2e of annual emissions reduction by 2030, matching yearly passenger road emissions from the U.S., China, France, Mexico, Russia, and Argentina combined.

We the undersigned urge the Australian Government to invest urgently in city climate action as part of its response to the Paris Agreement.

Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds, City of Hobart, GCoM Board Member

Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, City of Newcastle

Lord Mayor Cr Gordon Bradbery AM, Wollongong City Council

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, City of Adelaide

Mayor Michael Coxon, City of West Torrens

Mayor Ann Ferguson, District Council of Mt Barker

/Public Release.