C40 and Bloomberg Philanthropies recently announced the seven winners of the 2019 C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards. The winners are the best projects that fall under seven categories that define this year’s theme – The Future We Want.
- The future we want is resilient – Medellín, Colombia – the Avenida Oriental Green Corridors are a connected network of plants across the city to improve urban biodiversity, reduce the city’s heat island effect, soak up air pollutants, and capture CO2;
- The future we want relies on green mobility – Kolkata, India – the Low Carbon Commute Transition involves transitioning their city fleet to 5,000 electric buses, along with plans to fully electrify the ferries that run across the Ganges River by the year 2030;
- The future we want runs on renewable energy – Seoul, South Korea – the Solar City Expansion is installing domestic solar panels in 1 million households and solar systems on all municipal sites;
- The future we want engages all citizens – Accra, Ghana – the Informal Waste Collection Expansion integrates its informal waste collectors into the city’s official waste management system;
- The future we want breathes clean air – London, UK – the Ultra-Low Emission Zone requires vehicles to meet Euro emission standards in order to drive in the central London area;
- The future we want requires transformative change – San Francisco, USA – the CleanPowerSF program provides residents with the option to purchase electricity from renewable and low-carbon sources of energy at competitive rates; and,
- The future we want uses green technologies – Guangzhou, China – the Expansive Bus Electrification converted its fleet of 11,220 buses to run solely by means of electricity and installed 4,000 charging stations across the city.
“The winners of the C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards are evidence of the incredible efforts that cities around the world are delivering to address the global climate emergency,” said Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and chair of C40. “These projects should be studied by mayors and city leaders as they each define the future we want in our cities.”