The District endorses the approval of the climate emergency declaration made on Monday, November 9 by the Bogotá City Council. The draft agreement, written by the councilor Susana Muhamad with the speakers for the project councilors Manuel Sarmiento and Óscar Ramírez, will allow guidelines for adaptation, mitigation and resilience against climate change, as well as an invitation to promote joint work between the District Government, the council, the private sector and citizenship.
The draft agreement approved by the Council now goes to the Mayor Claudia López to be signed. “I thank the author and speakers of the project for the excellent joint work with the District Administration that, without a doubt, imposes tasks, activities and obligations with a very high bar, but that will leave us in a much stronger and more robust position to face this enormous challenge for all humanity ”, assured the Secretary of the Environment, Carolina Urrutia. Bogotá is no stranger to the drastic environmental changes that have been taking place in the world.
The increase in greenhouse gases, the increase in temperature by more than 1.5 ° C and natural disasters related to climate turns these decisions into a turning point to change habits and implement actions that allow to care for and conserve the environment. “This is a milestone for Latin America and our country. Declaring the climate emergency, not only discursively, but also agreeing and imposing strict, rigorous and well-planned measures on all the city's actors to face the crisis of the climate emergency is vital ”, indicated the Secretary of Environment.
This measure is added to the one adopted by the District Administration on February 29 when, from the Sumapaz páramo, Mayor Claudia López and the governors of five Central Region departments declared the Climate Crisis in Bogotá and the Region.
These decisions are aimed at ensuring that citizens and institutions work jointly in the creation of strategies that allow the reducing of negative effects of the climate emergency. Protecting water resources, conserving biodiversity, reducing high concentrations of carbon dioxide, changing habits, streets free of fossil fuels and transforming the way of producing and consuming, are some of the actions that must be implemented to guarantee human well-being, especially that of the population most vulnerable to the climate crisis. “Reducing 50% of greenhouse gases by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050 are some of the challenges acquired in the Agreement that were already established in the city's Climate Action Plan, but they now have an additional level of policy attention that will not allow changes with new Administrations ”, highlighted the Secretary of Environment, Carolina Urrutia. Bogotá is one of the cities in Latin America that has been adopting measures to reduce emissions, have less polluted air, increase planting of trees and encourage changes in people's habits in order to stop the negative impact on natural spaces.
The Mayor's Office of Bogotá invites everyone to change habits, create bonds of trust and apply sustainable practices from their homes to contribute to greening the city.
