Female mayors lead the charge against climate change

Global Business

The historic Paris Climate Agreement led to national commitments to reduce carbon emissions.The C40, a network consisting of 90 mayors, is working together to tackle climate change.

It recently launched an initiative called Women4Climate that highlights the important role women play in the fight against climate change.

CGTN’s Karina Huber reports on their recent activities.

According to the United Nations, women in low-income countries are far more likely than men to perish in natural disasters triggered by climate change. That’s in part because they are less likely to have life-saving skills like the ability to swim. But women are also leading the charge in fighting climate change. They initiated the Paris Climate Agreement signed by more than 190 countries.

And now some of the world’s most prominent female mayors representing cities like Cape Town, Madrid, Caracas and Paris have formed the C40 Women4Climate Initiative.

“Sexism is not a myth. It is a daily reality for a lot of women. The aim of our initiative is to shape the future by concretely empowering our girls right now,” Anne Hidalgo, C40 Chair and Mayor of Paris, said.

“Dealing with climate change is such an urgent subject. And by coming together we get the ideas of tried and tested methods that could be used going into the future and to me that is the value of the C40,” Patricia de Lille, Mayor of Cape Town, added.

The event comes at a challenging time for those concerned about the environment. U.S. President Donald Trump is a climate change skeptic and has given mixed signals on whether he plans on withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.

The message at this event was clear -no matter what may be happening on the national level in some countries, municipal leaders around the world – many of them women – view climate change as a serious threat and are determined to tackle the challenge with or without the help of federal governments. 


Karina Huber talks climate change with Cape Town’s mayor, Patricia de Lille

In 2014 only four cities that were part of the C40 network had female mayors. Now its 15. One of those female mayors is Patricia de Lille, in charge of South Africa’s most populated city: Cape Town. Karina Huber asks her about where climate change ranks on her priority list.