Gist of Gwangju Declaration by participating cities

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.