Belize City Council Joins Global Covenant of Mayors

The Belize City Council is the newest member of the Global Covenant of Mayors, the largest global alliance of over twelve thousand cities from over a hundred and forty countries with a commitment for city climate action. The focus of these cities are mitigation, adaptation and energy. Today, representatives of G-CoM met with Belize City Mayor, Bernard Wagner and City Administrator, Albert Vaughan to discuss how Belize can actively take part and benefit from the partnership. News Five’s Marion Ali was present and filed this report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

A new partnership between City Hall and the Global Covenant of Mayors is set to provide Belize City with invaluable technical support, enhancing our ongoing efforts to combat the devastating impacts of climate change. This collaboration positions our city to make significant strides in sustainability and resilience.

 

Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City

“What this mission will seek to do is to help work along with our technical people here at the City Council to develop our Climate Action Plan. For many cities, if you don’t have a Climate Action Plan, there is no clear direction on how you want to go and you speak about it. The flooding of streets, all the coastal erosion that is occurring, but all of these are as a result of the impact of climate change. And what this Climate Action Plan does is focus on your mitigation strategy and your adaptation strategy in clear goals, clear objectives that will contribute to the reduction of those same things.”

 

Daniela Monteiro is an International Relations Assistant for the Global Covenant of Mayors in America’s Helpdesk. She highlighted that Belize City’s membership could open doors to opportunities through “bankable projects,” which offer significant potential benefits for our community.

 

Daniela Monteiro, International Relations Assistant, G-CoM in America’s Helpdesk

“Once you get a climate action plan, once you get project, and once you get recognized as an important city, as a city that has, you know, relevant local actions in climate change. We do facilitate the access to, you know, funding opportunities. We give visibility to the city, and we usually try to invite, as we have invited before, uh, the city’s representatives to international events. So you get that coverage, you get out there that you are interested in climate change, you are interested in doing the work, in putting the hours, so, you know, the chances of getting a project funded are a little bit better.”

G-Com collects progress reports from its member cities every two years. However, this timeframe is flexible, if cities demonstrate their commitment to taking meaningful climate action. This approach allows for adaptability while ensuring that efforts to combat climate change remain a priority. For Belize City, Mayor Bernard Wagner says we’ll need to start looking at how we’re doing things with a view to improve them rapidly, and it will take everyone’s effort.

 

Bernard Wagner

“We have to be doing something different. We have to begin to take ownership of climate change. Even in our own little local communities, how do we treat our environment? How do we put in place mitigation and adaptation in respect to how we dig our drains? So in our own communities, it can’t be that you wa sit there as a resident, knowing that climate change is here and do not participate in the cleaning of your drains right in front of your own property. What sort of structures we build in respect to streets? Will it be concrete? Will it be hot mix? Will it be chip and seal? All of this will be captured in our climate action plan; these are the priorities.”

 

Wagner reports that the technical team at City Hall has already completed a status report on the streets damaged by recent rains and floods. The estimated cost to repair these streets is a staggering one point six million dollars. Meanwhile, Daniela Monteiro said that Belize City can look to other cities that have improved upon the same challenges that we now have, in areas of infrastructure, transportation emissions, water treatment, and waste management. Marion Ali for News Five.