Gist of Gwangju Declaration by participating cities

GWANGJU, Oct.14 (Yonhap) -- The following are the gist of a declaration issued Thursday by Gwangju Mayor Kang Wun-tae at the close of the 2011 Gwangju Summit of the Urban Environmental Accords in the southwestern city of Gwangju.

Representatives of the member cities commit to:
-- Improve our environmental sustainability in the transition towards sustainable cities.
-- Develop or strengthen city knowledge platforms to better understand pressures and trends, barriers and opportunities.
-- Find ways and means to better access finance mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism.
-- Identify enabling conditions to develop sustainable cities, including policies and regulations, market incentives and tools.
-- Contribute to the development and introduction of a common benchmark system against which cities can assess their progress towards sustainability.
-- Promote an integrated and multi-stakeholder approach towards resource-efficient and low-carbon city development in the following five sectors: energy efficiency, sustainable urban transport, waste management, water and wastewater, and ecosystems.
-- Develop actions in at least two of these sectors by 2012.
-- Identify and form partnerships between cities with the support of relevant multilateral organizations for the implementation of above actions.
-- Cooperate with key actors and institutions such as governments, civil society, the private sector, industry and multilateral organizations to better promote and build sustainable cities.
-- Establish a Secretariat in Gwangju to facilitate the global application of the Urban Environment Evaluation Index and Urban CDM. A biannual conference will be held among the member cities to report achievements and progress.