1,000 cities seize agenda with carbon-neutral vow

London Mayor will head up global drive as leaders pledge to halve emissions by 2030

- Ross Lydall

MORE than 1,000 world cities today vowed to halve their emissions by the end of the decade and go carbon neutral by 2050 as local leaders sought to seize the green agenda from national governments.

The “net zero" pledge - designed to keep global temperatures beneath the 1.5C maximum needed to avert climate catastrophe - was hailed as one of the most significant commitments likely to emerge from the COP26 summit.

It came as London Mayor Sadiq Khan was today confirmed as the new chairman of the C40, a group of cities committed to addressing climate change, with a pledge to spend two-thirds of its funding on developing nations known as the Global South, where the impacts are most acute. Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles and outgoing C40 chairman, told the Evening Standard: “This might feel like a hopeless moment but we are bringing a lot of hope. I think it will be the biggest commitment made at this COP, outside of national pledges.

All 97 [C40 members) are part of it. It will be over 1,000 [cities]. I set that goal and last week we passed that number.