Covenant of Mayors - Europe
The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy was launched in 2008 in Europe with the ambition to gather local governments voluntarily committed to achieving and exceeding the EU climate and energy targets. Not only did the initiative introduce a first-of-its-kind bottom-up approach to energy and climate action, but its success quickly went beyond expectations.
The initiative now gathers 9,000+ local and regional authorities across 57 countries drawing on the strengths of a worldwide multi-stakeholder movement and the technical and methodological support offered by dedicated offices.
The Covenant of Mayors will publish a report detailing the aggregative impact of commitments that cities have made through the initiative during COP. All cities that made commitments to the Covenant of Mayors agree to report publicly the results of a city GHG inventory and climate risk assessment, set public targets for emissions reductions and adaptation and develop climate action & adaptation plans. The city data will be published on the EU open data portal.
For 2020 and beyond?
Long term goals of the Covenant of Mayors are to:
Increase the number of cities making public commitments to reduce emissions, improve resilience, and enhance access to clean and affordable energy.
Signatories commit to achieving or surpassing the EU and national targets regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation and energy access to all.
Support multi-level governance approaches that result in more efficient achievement of results, in particular fostering the co-operation among the various government layers in each country as well as global and regional city networks and other city service providers active in this space.
Advance all committed cities through all steps to compliance – for mitigation, adaptation and access to sustainable and affordable energy (target uf0e0 inventory uf0e0 plan uf0e0 implementation).
Link reported data on city climate commitments and impact to financial investments in new, low carbon, climate resilient infrastructure in cities and local governments.
- Covenant of Mayors Board
The European Covenant of Mayors Board gives local and regional leaders the opportunity to play a greater role in shaping and further guiding the initiative. Board members will also campaign for enabling frameworks for local climate and energy action from the national and European level, raising awareness about local needs among European and national decision makers.
This Board of Mayors aims to discuss the strategic orientations of the initiative, to ensure it best fits cities’ needs and is further tailored to their expectations and to foster the dialogue between the European Covenant Community and the EU institutions. The Board is composed of 7 mayors or local elected representatives.
- Covenant of Mayors Office
Funded by the European Commission, the Covenant of Mayors Office provides support to the Covenant community in the following areas: Capacity Building, Communication & Awareness Raising, Reporting, Monitoring & Evaluation. The Office serves also as Help-desk for the community.
The Covenant of Mayors Office is manged by a consortium of city networks including: Energy Cities, Climate Alliance, EUROCITIES, ICLEI Europe, FEDARENE and CEMR - Council of European Municipalities and Regions.
