Gwangju successfully hosts environment summit

GWANGJU, Oct. 14 (Yonhap) -- The Gwangju metropolitan government successfully hosted a three-day global urban environment summit, the biggest international gathering to date for the southwestern city, which came to a close this week, organizers said Friday.
The 2011 Gwangju Summit of the Urban Environmental Accords (UEA), hosted by the Gwangju metropolitan government, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the U.S. city of San Francisco, came to a close on Thursday in the city about 330 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
"This summit is meaningful as it was the place to reaffirm values such as sustainable development and coexistence been the environment and humans," Cheong Sang-hwoi, public relations manager of the organizing committee, said. "Most of all, the summit marked a milestone for Gwangju as an eco-friendly city."
The four-day summit, under the theme "Green City, Better City," brought together representatives from nearly 130 cities and international organizations.
A total of 115 cities, including Curitiba, Brazil, and Barcelona, Spain, joined for the event, with a record number of foreign officials and mayors discussing the future of the global environment. Mayors from 23 different cities and deputy mayors from 11 cities attended.
The 115 cities are comprised of 52 from Asia, 37 from South Korea, 12 from Europe, six from Africa, six from North and South America, and two from Oceania.
A dozen international organizations, including UN-Habitat; the World Bank; and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also participated as sponsors.
In addition, a handful of well-known officials and activists joined the panel of keynote speakers during the summit. They include Achim Steiner, executive director of the UNEP; Joan Clos, executive director of U.N.-Habitat; and Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown.
Most of all, the participants praised the Gwangju government for its smooth operation of the event, along with perks such as eco-friendly amenities provided for use at participants' accommodations.
The summit delved into two major topics: developing a system to evaluate environmental policies and trying to revive a previous effort to set up an emissions trading framework.
Summit attendees developed a practical and universal index to evaluate cities' eco-friendly policies. The existing standards have been considered either outdated or too similar for developed and developing countries.
Also, the summit set up a framework for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as part of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A joint study with the UNEP has been under way since 2007.
The CDM was created under the Kyoto Protocol as one of several ways to facilitate carbon trading in an effort to get cities to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The 1997 protocol obliges nearly 40 developed countries to reduce their emissions over a five-year period through the end of 2012 by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels.
But the CDM has not led to a functional carbon trading system, and so summit attendees discussed the agreement and hammered out a new framework for emissions trading.
Meanwhile, the Gwangju metropolitan government signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with nine different cities, including San Antonio of the United States and Maputo of Mozambique, to spread the use of its "carbon bank" policy. Under the deal, partner cities are to adopt Gwangju's so-called "carbon bank" policy, a reflection of Gwangju's unique environment policies that other international cities can use as a benchmark.
Enacted in 2008 by the Gwangju regional government, this unique policy provides households with points for reducing carbon emissions that can be exchanged for cash. The government awards carbon points based on the amount of a household's monthly reductions in electricity, gas and water usage. Nearly half of the households in Gwangju were participating in the program as of August.
Also, a handful of regional companies that produce renewable energy and eco-friendly products have inked MOUs worth 11.2 million won to export their products, contributing to boosting the local economy.



khj@yna.co.kr
(END)