EU-funded GCoM assisting Asian cities to implement City Climate Action plans

A way forward to develop and implement city climate action plans for the South Asian region, the European Union (EU) funded Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) in Asia Support Project is providing technical assistance to Asian cities to strengthen its role in the global response to climate change. A webinar on ‘Integrated Climate Action Planning and Reporting for South Asian Cities’ hosted by ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability South Asia, was held on September 28, 2022 to facilitate capacity and knowledge building of the GCoM South Asian cities on effective climate action planning, implementation, and reporting

The webinar began with Soumya Chaturvedula, Deputy Director, ICLEI South Asia, with her welcoming remarks, and Edwin Koekkoek, Counsellor, Energy, and Climate Action, EU Delegation to India, who spoke about the programmes of the European Union and highlighted vulnerable these South Asian cities are, and the importance of addressing these vulnerabilities. He mentioned the significance of GCoM in combating climate change.
Pratibha Caleb, Senior Project Officer, ICLEI (South Asia) moderator, introduced Ashish Verma, GCoM India Coordinator, to the panellists. He shed a light on GCoM’s framework, explaining that it is an international alliance of more than 11,000 cities that have voluntarily committed to taking action against climate change and helping the local governments to prepare climate action plans, organise training programmes, and to some extent, finance bankable projects.
The network is supported by more than a hundred partners including the European Commission, UN-HABITAT, ICLEI, UCLG, C40 Cities, etc., and has 13 regional covenants across continents.
In India, the secretariat is jointly managed by the Technical Coordinator, ICLEI South Asia, and Networking and Governance Coordinator, All India Institute of Local Self Government, of the South Asian region.
Verma highlighted the benefits of joining the community by stating that through GCoM cities, we can develop and implement locally relevant solutions with strategic climate action plans. He added that since 2019, more than 1500 cities including 20 new countries, and 28 Indian cities including cities like Thane, Shimla, Gandhinagar, etc. have joined this ever-growing community.
Keshav Jha, Manager for Research and Advocacy, ICLEI South Asia, addressed the Common Reporting Framework (CRF) that allows cities across continents to use a single approach in sharing knowledge and information on climate action. Launched in 2018, the five elements of CRF are greenhouse gas emissions inventory; risk and vulnerability assessments; target setting; climate action and energy access planning; and monitoring and reporting. He broadly spoke about the five CRF elements on their requirements, including their parameters. He also mentioned the CDP-ICLEI Track, a world-leading climate progress accountability mechanism for cities which is also a climate reporting platform. More than 1,000 cities report the progress in their climate commitment, performance, and actions in this CDP-ICLEI track. One can access open data portals and city analytics to gauge their performance against other cities, get recognition for intervention at the local level, and receive feedback from experts on ways to take stronger climate actions.
Nikhil Kolsepatil, Senior Manager for Energy & Climate, ICLEI South Asia, spoke about the climate action planning for South Asian cities. He mentioned that developments are taking place in Indian cities on a mega-scale across sectors including water supply, housing, and so on. With it comes the opportunity to integrate Climate-Resilient Urban Development in Indian urban areas. Climate resilience includes both mitigation and adaptation, that is efforts to reduce emissions that cause climate change, and ways to manage the adverse climate change impacts. It should also include actions to manage risks of climate impacts and solutions to reduce GHG emissions in an integrated manner. The key element of all these resilient actions is inclusivity of all sections of society and must address vulnerable groups as well.
The key urban sectors for climate-resilient actions in cities are road and transportation systems, land use and development, solid waste management, water supply, sewerage, and drainage, health, biodiversity, etc.
He added examples of South Asian cities including Thane, Rajkot, and Nagpur to name a few, which have developed climate resilience action plans and addressed multiple sectors. The emission reduction target of these cities ranges from 8 per cent to 33 per cent based on their local context. He further added case studies of city projects in key municipal sectors and provided details of the systematic process of Climate Resilient Cities (CRC) Methodology.
Mohini Udaykumar Bhaisare, Senior Associate, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), discussed the Urban Outcomes Framework (UOF) 2022, which is an initiative to develop a transparent and comprehensive database based on cross-city outcomes across sectors such as economy, demography, education, finance, energy, governance, health, housing, mobility, planning, solid waste management, safety and security, and water and sanitation. Although the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) has taken various initiatives to measure the performance of the cities in India and add data points to sectoral relevance and populate the data bank, UOF aims to facilitate the process of achieving sustainable development and socio-economic progress by making data available on crucial issues about development. Through UOF 2022, it will also streamline data across 14 sectors to increase focus on data collection and analyse disaggregated data. She further added that a few of the take-aways of the urban outcomes framework is to focus on capacity building and city-specific climate action plans, ‘assessment’ to ‘action’ projects, climate data observatories, and e-learning platforms.
Pashim Tewari, Technical Director, All India Institute of Local Self-Government, explained the role of AIILSG in GCoM. Being the network and governance coordinator, they are the first line of communication with the cities, interacting and getting cities on board in this initiative. AIILSG’s role is to manage and coordinate intercity communications including south Asian cities. It also looks after the local and regional sensibilities and ensures the local government of GCoM communication materials.
He explained the ways AIILSG supports the signatory cities through direct help for all the South Asian cities and assists them in GCoM activities, coordinating calls to track their progress and targets, mobilising various seminars, conferences, training programs, and international events under GCoM and using social media to highlight the cities achievements. He proposed Indian and South Asian cities to join hands and avail the benefits of GCoM including financial support.
The event was concluded with a short Q&A session and closing remarks by Ms. Soumya Chaturvedula.

Global Covenant of Mayors is an international alliance of more than 11,000 cities that have voluntarily committed to taking action against climate change and helping the local governments to prepare climate action plans, organise training programmes, and to some extent, finance bankable projects. The network is supported by more than a hundred partners including the European Commission, UN-HABITAT, ICLEI, UCLG, C40 Cities, etc