Grist reports that mayors from around the world signed a voluntary pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a Mexico City meeting that is precursor to U.N.-sponsored climate talks in Cancun this week.
“We have to tell the international community that it’s in the cities that the battle to slow global warming will be won,” said Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.
Urban areas consume up to 80 percent of global energy production and emit 60 percent of greenhouse gases, according to Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
With more than half the world’s population today living in cities for the first time in human history, mayors and urban leaders are on the frontline and must lead the way, even when their national governments cannot.
