Edinburgh will join cities around Europe in a pact to limit the effects of climate change, councillors decided today.
A report to the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee on Tuesday recommended that the city signs up to the EU Mayors Adapt, an initiative supporting local authorities to cut carbon emissions.
Launched in March last year, the scheme requires member cities to develop a strategy for building resilience to the impacts of climate change.
It will allow Edinburgh to promote its existing work to combat the effects through a network of peer cities, as well as learning from the experience of other Mayors Adapt members.
Proposals follow the approval of Resilient Edinburgh: Climate Change Framework 2014-2020, which sets out a strategic approach to building resilience to the effects of a changing climate.
As well as identifying risks, the framework has proposed a series of high level actions to address these, including monitoring the impacts of climate change on transport infrastructure and assessing the threat to the city’s property and land use planning.
Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said:
“Climate change is a challenge facing us all, and by working together we can only strengthen our approach to tackling it.“We hope to learn from our European neighbours by signing up the EU Mayors Adapt, as well as sharing our own ideas, raising greater public awareness and building on our own sustainability framework.”
Joining the Mayors Adapt initiative will also add weight to any Edinburgh bid for EU funding towards adaptation in addition to offering publicity and reputation benefits.
Find out more about Resilient Edinburgh on the Council website.
