Finland’s major cities combat global warming
Municipal heads of Finland’s six biggest cities have vowed to decrease their cities’ energy consumption. Among proposed measures are energy-efficient building plans and ecological support personnel at workplaces.
Mayors of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Turku, Oulu and Tampere made a joint climate declaration on Wednesday in a meeting held at Helsinki’s old town hall, Vanha Raatihuone. In the declaration, the cities commit themselves to various concrete measures to bring energy consumption down.
The mayors emphasised the responsibility of cities in combating global warming, and presented six climate initiatives that their cities would work to promote.
The initiatives are related to building, supporting citizens’ climate-friendly actions as well as developing the cities’ own operations.
Climate network of city leaders
The municipal heads of the six biggest cities already established a climate network of city leaders in the past spring. The initiative for the network came from Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, and it is included in the ERA17-programme of the Ministry of the Environment, Sitra and Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation).
The climate network promotes ecologically efficient city development. It works to bring about new initiatives, increase co-operation and to spread ecologically sound practices between the major cities.
The mayors of the six cities believe that their example will inspire other cities to develop their ecological efficiency.
