On the occasion of COP15, which is being held at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, 47 cities responded to Mayor Valérie Plante’s call and signed the Montréal Commitment, which includes 15 actions aimed at protecting biodiversity.
In a speech Monday at a plenary session of the Summit of Subnational Governments and Cities at the Palais des Congrès, Mayor Plante argued that cities were the first to be affected by climate change. “We are those who [peuvent] act quickly and [nous] have some very practical ideas. Cities are key players in implementing solutions to protect biodiversity. »
The mayoress revealed that 47 cities had agreed to join the Montreal Commitment and its 15 actions in favor of biodiversity. These cities include London, Paris, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Dakar, Glasgow and Toronto, among others. The list of members also includes several Quebec cities, namely Quebec, Laval, Longueuil, Gatineau, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Terrebonne and Lévis.
The Montreal Commitment recommends the conservation of existing natural environments, the increase of green and blue spaces, the containment or eradication of invasive alien species, the conservation and recovery of vulnerable species, the elimination of plastic waste and reducing pesticide use by at least two-thirds. However, it does not set specific targets to be achieved for the cities that sign it.
Valérie Plante pointed out that the Montreal Commitment was part of a series of declarations adopted by the cities. In 2020, in Edinburgh, the cities had recognized the urgency of acting on the environment, she recalled. “And next year, with the Berlin Pact, we will specify how to deploy these actions in our cities to maximize their impact,” she said.
A sixth UN office
Monday was also the occasion to announce the opening of a sixth United Nations office in Montreal, that of UN-Habitat. The new team, which should eventually have 28 employees, will be responsible for the global program for “green, resilient and sustainable cities”.
Established in 1978, UN-Habitat is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and works in 90 countries. Montreal was chosen to host this office because of its “state-of-the-art ecosystems in sustainable development and artificial intelligence”. He will collaborate with researchers from McGill University, Concordia University and the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Mila.
We are those who [peuvent] act quickly and [nous] we have very practical ideas
“The UN-Habitat office will focus on cities and communities that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” said Pascale St-Onge, federal minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, during of a press conference held at the Palais des Congrès in the presence of Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat.
“It’s major,” declared the Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, Martine Biron. This global project will support sustainable urbanization to create not cities of tomorrow, but cities of today, those that are green, resilient and adapted to environmental challenges. »
Montreal already has five United Nations offices, namely the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “This will be the sixth office in Montreal. Just to give you an idea, the last time we opened a UN office in Montreal was over 20 years ago, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. At the time, Pierre Bourque was mayor of Montreal,” recalled the CEO of Montreal International, Stéphane Paquet.