Ten cities setting the bar on climate disclosure
Conor Riffle
When you work for an organization that operates on an annual cycle, there are certain events you look forward to each year. For me, one of those events is the annual tally of which cities are leading the way on climate change reporting. I am delighted that we can now share the results of this work.
Every year CDP singles out ten city governments excelling at reporting on climate change. We provide these cities with an InFocus report, which catalogues the city’s climate change achievements in a formal, bound booklet.
This year CDP would like to congratulate the following cities for leading the way on climate reporting in 2015:
Adelaide
Atlanta
Canberra
Durban
Leon
Mexico City
New Taipei City
Oslo
Ravenna
Vancouver
These ten cities have scored highly for the quality and completeness of their environmental risk reporting. As we know from the growing investor-driven demand for climate data, disclosure is critical for guiding investment decisions and taking meaningful action to address environmental risks.
These cities’ accomplishment is significant. More than 300 cities now use CDP’s system to report on their climate change progress. This group of cities includes many of the world’s largest and greenest cities, including more than 90% of C40 cities. CDP is an official reporting platform for the Compact of Mayors, to which hundreds of cities made reporting commitments ahead of COP21 last year. The competition to receive an InFocus Report is seriously strong.
Why is it important that these cities excel at reporting? Well, here’s the thing about disclosure: it works. Our colleagues working with the supply chains of major companies recently released a report that showed how disclosure is driving climate action in companies around the world. Companies that had been reporting for three years or more showed higher levels of risk recognition, risk management procedures, and were more likely to have set emissions reduction targets.
Cities show similar results. Cities that have disclosed to CDP for three or more years report significantly higher levels of emissions measurement and management data, risk recognition and adaptation actions and opportunities. The results suggest a strong correlation between disclosure and action.
We congratulate the winning cities and encourage you to check out the amazing work they are doing to combat climate change. Think your city can do better when it comes to climate reporting? The 2016 reporting platform is open and we encourage all cities to log in today and start seeing the benefits of climate reporting.