From December 2 till 14, 2018 the Chief Representative visited the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland. It was the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24), serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) and thus the 14th meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

As such, it also functions as a platform for side events of companies, international organizations and NGOs, each of which present measures against climate change from their own standpoint. The main objective of this conference was to initiate the entry into force of the rule book on the implementation of the Paris World Climate Change Agreement that was signed last year.

As at COP23 in Bonn in 2017, together with the Chief Representative, a delegation from Yokohama attended the conference this time again and represented part of a total of over 18,000 participants from 197 countries.

On December 9, a forum on sustainable innovations took place and we had an exchange on sustainable development objectives, i.e. government reforms and the communication of sustainable development goals to the citizens, with an expert from the city of Mannheim.

On the next day, Deputy Mayor Kobayashi held a speech on the subject of Decarbonizing era in Cities and Regions. SDGs localization and Environment, Society, Economy in cities and region – Regional Circular and Ecological Sphere 8Circular and Ecological Economy).

In the afternoon, ICLEI and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development hosted a seminar on scaling-up climate finances in cities and regions, at which the Deputy Mayor presented Yokohama’s Zero Carbon project. Afterwards, a successful networking with participants from all over the world took place in the evening at the reception held by the city of Katowice.

During the following two days, the Chief Representative participated in various seminars on Green People’s Energy for Africa, the East Asian Research Initiative on Decarbonization, the challenge of zero emissions based on the initiative for reformative climate change technology, as well as cooperative climate and environmental preservation and established many new contacts.

In addition to COP, Yokohama City participates in international city networks such as C40 and CNCA, and is promoting the sharing of best practices. We are actively promoting efforts to realize “Zero Carbon Yokohama” by implementing the IUC project in collaboration with the city of Frankfurt.