VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

A number of cars and motorcycles queued for gas emission  test at the Jakarta Environmental Office on Tuesday (January 26, 2021). ANTARA PHOTO/Fakhri Hermansyah/aww - 

Governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan has put forth a proposal to reduce carbon emissions as concrete action of C40 major cities to address climate change.

Addressing the dialog between C40 mayors and UN Secretary General on advancing carbon neutrality and resilient recovery for cities and nations held virtually on Friday night, Anies came up with two proposals to assist the UN in implementing a carbon emission reduction program and mitigating the impact of climate change.

"First, the UN can drive countries to recognize the achievement of climate action made at a city level and it (the achievement) must be reckoned as part of Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to climate action," he said in a written statement released on Saturday.

Anies believed the UN could lend a hand to encourage the horizontal and vertical integration of actions and policies.Ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) to be held in Glasgow on November 1-12, he appealed to the UN to support countries in developing comprehensive architecture and funding structure to elaborate the benefits achieved by the central government at global forum to be executed at local level.

He said city governments played a role in ensuring that the environment inhabited by their residents is decent and resilient.

"City governments are tasked with providing decent residences for city dwellers by, among others, mitigating the impact of climate change and reducing carbon emissions produced by their cities," he said.

Jakarta has taken various climate actions and has set itself the target of achieving zero emission by 2050, he said."Jakarta is committed to becoming a climate resilience city. Jakarta has transformed from car-based development to (mass rapid) transit-based development," he said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres agreed to the proposal and pledged to follow it up//ANT