KOLKATA: Kolkata will shortly be included in the prestigious C40 group of megacities, which is committed to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
On July 22, the mayor of Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, who is also the chair of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, wrote a letter to Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) chairman and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim saying that the Kolkata metropolitan area (KMA) was a "priority target" of their expansion strategy.
C40 cities act both locally and collaboratively for achieving the common goal of saving the climate. The group offers cities a forum where they can share knowledge to take meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change, said an official.
In the letter, Paes appreciated some of the recent "exemplary measures" of the city for environmental capacity building. Paes mentioned Kolkata Environment Improvement Project, Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor scheme and the integration of railways in the Golden Quadrilateral project to be some of the noticeable environment-friendly measures. "I am positive that KMA will contribute to the success of C40, bringing original local solutions to address climate change at a global scale," Paes said.
In December last year, C40 released the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories, which is the first global standard for cities to measure and report their greenhouse gas emission.
"The inclusion will help us adopt best practices for controlling automobile pollution," said principal secretary-transport Alapan Bandyopadhyay. On July 1, Hakim wrote a letter to Paes expressing his willingness to join the C40 club.
