The Blue Mountains Mayor Andrea Matrosovs said she learned a lot about the importance of local leadership at an international climate change summit she attended recently.
Matrosovs spent the first week in December at the COP28 Local Climate Action Summit in Dubai. Matrosovs said at the summit more than 60 countries were represented and she was joined by 250 mayors and governors from around the world for the event.
While at the summit, Matrosovs participated in two major events: the Local Climate Action Summit (LCAS) and the Ministers Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change.
She said the conference, which she attended at no cost to the Town of The Blue Mountains, offered an excellent opportunity to see how other countries are tackling the issue of sustainability. She was proud to be able to share the TBM Future Story - Integrated Community Sustainability Plan and the Going Green in Grey plan while at the conference.
The focus of the LCAS was the impact leadership at the local level of government can have on sustainability.
“It was to stress and highlight the importance of sub-national action and leadership,” Matrosovs said in an interview after her return from the event. She said 64 countries endorsed a pledge to enhance the consultation process with local leaders.
“The local level knows how to do it, but needs funding. We’ve got the action steps that can happen on the local level,” she said.
Matrosovs praised the overall experience of the summit and said Canada was represented well by federal, provincial and local leaders. She said leaders from Guelph, Kitchener, Oakville, Halifax, New Westminster and Canmore participated in the event.
“It went fantastic,” she said, noting that there was a clear message that climate and sustainability policies must work for everybody. “The national policies have to be acceptable at the local level.”
The second major event Matrosovs attended was the Ministers Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change.
She said the Ministers of the Environment for 40 different countries, including Canada, participated in the event. Each minister was allotted two minutes of speaking time, but that was a tough limit to stick to.
“It was a very long morning,” she said.
Matrosovs said the session reinforced how critical local actions can be for sustainability.
“It boils down to: local action produces global impact,” she said. “It was inspiring.”
Matrosovs said she is particularly interested in learning more about how Denmark has approached climate change and sustainability. She said Denmark has taken an approach that Canada can learn from.
“They have a national push of: 'we’re all in this together,' said the mayor. “Their conversation is much different. They have progressed to the point everybody is on the same page. Here, there is a lot less direct national-to-local conversations.”
Matrosovs also said for the first time, the summit leadership has baked a progress report mechanism into the conversations. In two years at the next event, the organization will be looking at achievements based on the goals set in Dubai.
She said she is excited to be able to include aspects of the worldwide summit into the town’s own sustainability summit to be held in the first quarter of 2024.
Matrosovs said it was a great honour for the town to be selected as a representative at the event and as a result The Blue Mountains will be eligible for project funding in the future. She said more information about the funding will be released in the coming weeks and months.
“It was so very important there was diversity at the table. This is not something to leave to the big cities,” said Matrosovs. “It was important to have a variety of us there.”
