The climate emergency is happening right now, in our cities, towns, and regions around the world. Our global leaders are struggling to address this urgent crisis. But the daring actions of local leaders are spreading around the globe.

Created by ICLEI and the Federal City of Bonn, Daring Cities is a virtual, action-oriented forum to recognize and empower courageous urban leaders – including mayors and other decision-makers, technical staff, researchers, private sector representatives, and community organizers – to disrupt business-as-usual and shift towards business-as-possible. Daring Cities showcases and catalyzes exemplary local climate action to tackle the climate emergency, including ambitious resilience-building and climate mitigation efforts.

Find out more at daringcities.org

The Accelerator is at the forefront of driving East Asian cities towards carbon neutrality. By building a robust platform for knowledge exchange and cooperation, this project addresses critical climate challenges head-on. It organizes impactful knowledge exchange events and disseminates best practices, equipping cities with the tools to implement effective and sustainable carbon reduction strategies.

The East Asia Clean Air Cities Network (EACACN) serves as a unique regional inter-city cooperation platform for sharing best practices and building capacity on clean air actions.

EACACN initially began as the East Asia Clean Air Cities initiative in 2016, based on a regional partnership among 9 local governments in China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia and managed by ICLEI East Asia, in response to the urgent need for air quality improvement in the region. Since then, EACACN has grown into a network of 14 local governments across East and Southeast Asia, with stronger operational capacity and commitment.

Find out more at eacacn.org

ecoBUDGET, developed by ICLEI for and with local authorities, is founded on the concept that our natural resources, such as air, potable water, biodiversity, etc. can and should be managed with the same level of care and preciseness as our financial resources.

The tool enables environmental values to be budgeted in the same way a local authority would construct a financial budget. Through the creation of an environmental “Master Budget” local authorities can keep track of, and set goals for, their scarce natural resources in the coming years.

Find out more at ecobudget.org

EcoLogistics promotes the transportation of goods by giving priority to health, safety, low emission, and people-centered urban development. It encourages circular and regional economies while limiting the impact of freight transport.

Through the EcoLogistics initiative, ICLEI aims to transform the urban logistics scene in cities through effective regulatory, planning, and administrative instruments at all levels of government. By highlighting urban freight as a priority area for local, regional, and national governments, ICLEI strengthens institutional capacity through multi-stakeholder participation and encourages a multilevel governance approach to urban freight policies.

In 2021, the ICLEI World Secretariat and the East Asia Secretariat co-produced the publication EcoLogistics in East Asia: The Frontier for Sustainable Urban Mobility.

Find out more at Sustainable Mobility at ICLEI 

The EcoMobility Alliance is a network of ambitious cities, led by innovators and visionaries, supported by experts and businesses, committed to building a sustainable mobility future that is efficient, people-centered, low emission, and environmentally friendly.

Founded in 2011 with six cities, the Alliance has since grown to 23 cities from various regions of the world. Since its inception, the EcoMobility Alliance has worked to become a truly global actor by engaging a geographically diverse range of cities and partners. Cities that have joined have shown significant efforts to advance and implement sustainable urban mobility.

Find out more at Sustainable Mobility at ICLEI

The EcoMobility World Festival series by ICLEI shows that an ecomobile lifestyle can be promoted in cities around the world. The Festival transforms a neighborhood or a business district in a city into a carfree and ecomobile area for a month. Implementing the Festival demonstrates the possibilities of an innovative and forward-thinking urban mobility culture.

Previous festivals:

• 2013 – Suwon
• 2015 – Johannesburg
• 2017 – Kaohsiung

Find out more at Sustainable Mobility at ICLEI

The EcoProcura conference series started in 1998 as a forum to promote exchange and dialogue on the latest strategies and practical solutions for sustainable, circular, and innovative procurement. The conference series has also been replicated in China:

• EcoProcura China 2015: Summary and Highlights (Chinese)
• EcoProcura China 2018: Summary and Highlights

Find out more at EcoProcura 

The proposal for the “Energy Performance Contracting for Residential Retrofitting in Ulaanbaatar City” project, co-developed by GGGI Mongolia and ICLEI East Asia was shortlisted under the 6th Call NAMA Support Projects (NSPs) in 2019. Following the Detailed Preparation Phase extended through 2020-2021, the project is looking to enter the Implementation Phase by the first quarter of 2022. 

The proposed project aims to create a financing mechanism for Ulaanbaatar to carry out thermo-technical retrofitting to 375 precast residential building blocks. It is expected that the project will lead to GHG emissions reduction by 219,553 tCO2e, and over 53,000 residents will directly benefit from improved thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and increased value and lifespan of the buildings. ICLEI East Asia was leading the work packages of financial mechanism design and stakeholder engagement, to ensure the primary beneficiary – i.e. the household – would be supporting the retrofitting project.

The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) is the largest global alliance for city climate leadership across the globe.

Through participating in working groups of GCoM, ICLEI provides technical guidance which addresses mitigation and adaptation in specific data-related sub-groups, including Emissions and Targets; Climate Action Planning; Resilience; and Access to Energy. ICLEI also participates in non-data-related groups, including Access to Finance; Governance and Regional Coherence; Research; and Communications.

ICLEI has a representative in each group and sub-group, submits written comments, and attends calls and in-person meetings. The goal is to unify and centralize how data are reported, using which channels, and how is it communicated to global stakeholders. ICLEI also provides data revision toward GCoM requirements for ICLEI Members and network of cities.

Find out more at globalcovenantofmayors.org

Coordinated by ICLEI, the Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement gathers a group of cities committed to driving the transition to sustainable consumption and production by implementing sustainable and innovative procurement.

Through defining quantified targets for their procurement processes, GLCN Cities act as ambassadors of sustainable procurement to lead to a resource-efficient, low-carbon, and socially responsible society.

Find out more at glcn-on-sp.org

WRI, C40, and ICLEI have partnered to create a GHG Protocol standard for cities formally known as Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC). 

The GPC provides a robust framework for accounting and reporting city-wide greenhouse gas emissions. It seeks to:

• help cities develop a comprehensive and robust greenhouse gas inventory in order to support climate action planning;
• help cities establish a base year emissions inventory, set reduction targets, and track their performance;
• ensure consistent and transparent measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions between cities, following internationally recognized greenhouse gas accounting and reporting principles;
• enable city inventories to be aggregated at subnational and national levels; and
• demonstrate the important role that cities play in tackling climate change, and facilitate insight through benchmarking – and aggregation – of comparable data.

Find out more about GHG Protocol for Cities