AMBITIOUS CITY PROMISES
Engaging citizens. Driving climate action.
The ICLEI Network is advancing climate action and forging new models for climate governance, knowledge transfer and community engagement.
Rapid urbanizing world
In a rapidly urbanizing world, local governments and their communities play a pivotal role in tackling climate change and advancing sustainability in cities. The Ambitious City Promises project is contributing to this work by capacitating local governments, engaging citizens and driving climate action through low emission development strategies (LEDS).
The Promise of Seoul, a comprehensive climate strategy adopted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government at the ICLEI World Congress in 2015, is at the heart of Ambitious City Promises. It provides a model of effective climate action at the community level, showing that cities can be both engines of growth and global leaders on climate action by establishing inclusive low emission urban economies.
Through the Ambitious City Promises, cities in Southeast Asia will adapt this model of inclusive, ambitious climate action, mainstreaming low emission development strategies and creating new climate leaders. By spreading the vision behind the Promise of Seoul, Ambitious City Promises will show how collective action taken in cities, with leadership from local governments, can contribute to achieving and ratcheting up national and global climate goals.
Develop and deploy bottom-up models of climate action planning.
Ambitious City Promises will demonstrate the impact of bottom-up climate action by engaging city residents and integrating stakeholder pledges into the City Promises. By consolidating and integrating community pledges into local action plans, cities can quantify community contributions and make the case for greater ambition at all levels of government. In this way, Ambitious City Promises will create new climate leaders at the municipal and community level.
Establish lasting mechanisms for knowledge sharing.
Ambitious City Promises will strengthen climate action by spreading good practices through city-to-city exchange and support. Inspired by the Promise of Seoul, this project, with the support of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, will guide participating cities in establishing mechanisms that allow for peer learning while supporting and aligning with national climate action plans and polices.
Contribute to local, national and global climate goals.
Ambitious City Promises will accelerate ambitious climate action at the local level by equipping cities to define and implement low emissions development strategies through City Promises shaped by inclusive, participatory processes. These Ambitious City Promises will increase impact and allow for increasingly significant contributions to national and global climate goals.
Where the Promise of Seoul is spreading
Ambitious City Promises kicks off in Seoul
The Ambitious City Promises project was officially launched at the Seoul Mayors Forum on 20 October where representatives from participating cities met with Mayor Park Won Soon. Mayor Park announced the project, passing the torch of climate leadership and spreading the message of the Promise of Seoul. Read more on the project launch here.
More information
Ambitious City Promises is implemented by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) through the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The ICLEI World Secretariat is responsible for project management and coordination. ICLEI Southeast Asia Secretariat and ICLEI East Asia Secretariat are also implementing partners. The Seoul Metropolitan Government is a supporting partner.
View the Ambitious City Promises brochure
Sustainable City
