C40 Mayors Vaccine Equity Statement

C40 Mayors Vaccine Equity Statement

Our mission is to overcome the climate emergency, but that will not be possible unless we first overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why today C40 mayors from across the world have again spoken out to support vaccine equity in our cities and around the world, and joined the call for fairer, faster, and more affordable access to COVID-19 vaccines, including a call – now backed by more than 100 countries – that Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) should urgently agree to waive relevant intellectual property obligations to accelerate the manufacture and distribution of vaccines in developing countries.

In many of our cities the threat from the COVID-19 virus is now receding, thanks to strong public health measures to eliminate the virus and accelerate widespread vaccination. But at the same time, new waves of suffering from the pandemic are rising across the globe – most seriously at present in our sister cities in India.

Our collective success in creating multiple, safe, and highly effective vaccines against this new virus is a testament to the ingenuity and resilience of our species. Yet now these vaccines exist, every newly bereaved family and hardship felt by those around the world represents a failure of our shared humanity. With every day that passes, the lack of access to vaccines is making the impact of the pandemic increasingly inequitable and undermining our collective health.

Our member cities in the USA and Europe generally now have sufficient vaccines for our populations, but sister cities elsewhere have only been able to access vaccines for a small fraction of their populations. As we heard when we met recently with World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom, ensuring that the most vulnerable in every country have access to a free vaccine is essential to ending the pandemic. WTO action is a vital and necessary step to bringing an end to this pandemic. It must be combined with efforts to facilitate the transfer of vaccine know-how and technology.

This affects all of us, and no one is safe from the impact of this pandemic until everyone has access to this life saving tool. C40 cities will continue to support each other, sharing advice and experience on effective public health approaches to stop transmission of the virus and achieve a fast and comprehensive vaccination of our residents.

Signed,

C40 Chair, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, Rotterdam

Mayor Steve Adler, Austin

Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Freetown

Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis, Athens

Governor Anies Baswedan, Jakarta

Mayor Joy Belmonte, Quezon City

Mayor LaToya Cantrell, New Orleans

Mayor Ada Colau, Barcelona

Mayor Jenny Durkan, Seattle

Mayor Soham El Wardini, Dakar

Mayor Kate Gallego, Phoenix

Mayor Phil Goff, Auckland

Mayor Rafael Greca, Curitiba

Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris

Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul

Mayor Raymond Johansen, Oslo

Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, Durban

Mayor Sadiq Khan, London

Governor Yuriko Koike, Tokyo

Mayor Claudia López, Bogotá

Executive Mayor Geoff Makhubo, Johannesburg

Acting Mayor Eduardo Fabián Martinez, Guadalajara

Mayor Fernando Medina, Lisbon

Mayor Jorge Muñoz, Lima

Acting Mayor Ricardo Nunes, São Paulo

Mayor Oh Se-hoon, Seoul

Mayor Eduardo Paes, Rio de Janeiro

Mayor Dan Plato, Cape Town

Mayor Daniel Quintero, Medellín

Mayor Horacio Rodríguez-Larreta, Buenos Aires

Mayor Giuseppe Sala, Milan

Mayor M. Adjei Sowah, Accra

Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Vancouver

Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston

Mayor Randall Williams, Tshwane

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El alcalde Daniel Quintero Calle presentó las estrategias de Ecociudad y Valle del Software en el Primer Foro de Jóvenes de C40

Mayor Daniel Quintero Calle presented the Ecocity and Software Valley Strategies in the first C40 Youth Forum

Leaders from all five continents, including Mayor Daniel Quintero Calle, met virtually this Saturday, April 24th at the first C40 Global Youth and Mayors Forum, to discuss and implement actions to address the climate emergency that the planet is experiencing.

The Ecocity strategy represents the clearest goal that the Medellín Futuro Development Plan has to stop climate change.

Since 2020, and as a result of the pandemic, the Antioquia capital has taken a leading role in the C40 network, with a presence at the main table of Mayors for Green Recovery and just after the start of the Coronavirus. Thanks to this participation and environmental strategies, the city was chosen to represent Latin America in the C40 Global Youth and Mayors Forum.

In his speech, the mayor of Medellín reiterated that the opportunity for change is now or never, giving the power of decision back to the people, “but to create the disruptive changes we need to fight climate change, we need to bring the government back to the people and especially to our youth ”, he said.

This forum promotes collaboration on climate action and in favor of a Green New Deal.

The Medellín Futuro Development Plan is aligned with the C40 New Global Green Agreement in which governments and leaders commit to recognize the global climate emergency, keep global warming below the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, put inclusive climate action at the center of all urban decisions and invite political leaders, CEOs, unions, investors and civil society to join this commitment.

Under this perspective, the Ecocity strategic line seeks to make Medellín Carbon Neutral by 2050, with infrastructure works that guarantee sustainable mobility, such as the 80th Avenue Metro, the great north to south bicycle route that will connect the 10 Aburrá Valley municipalities and the creation of Protected Air Zones to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Another significant progress is the technical approval of the Medellín Climate Action Plan by the C40-Cities Climate Leadership Group which outlines the road we need to follow to become a carbon neutral city by 2050. This achievement makes it the first in the country to have the endorsement of this city network.

In addition, the local leader highlighted the creation of programs on a city lever, “What for? To invest in education, to sign the climate action plans signed at the begining of the pandemic, to create development plans, to turn our cities into Ecocities and to change education”

Therefore, the Software Valley strategy brings opportunities to all young people, with the delivery of scholarships, guaranteeing free public university education, building universities dedicated to training and research in areas of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and with the delivery of computers to children in the city, to strengthen a knowledge-based economy.

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