ICLEI and the Federal City of Bonn welcome you to Daring Cities, a global forum on climate change for urban leaders taking on the climate emergency. Daring Cities is designed to empower urban decision-makers – such as mayors, city councilors, administrators, and urban thought leaders, as well as national government representatives, researchers, technical staff, business leaders, civil society decision-makers, and community organizers – to lead in the climate emergency.
“The climate crisis is global. But the work to address it is global, national, regional and local.”
Axel Grael
Mayor, Niterói, Brazil; Chair of the ICLEI Climate Action Support Portfolio
“Timely, bold, and visionary: these three words capture the essence of Daring Cities 2024 Bonn Dialogues.”
Yunus Arikan
Director, Global Advocacy, ICLEI World Secretariat
From August to October, policymakers, urban practitioners, technical experts, researchers, private sector stakeholders, NGO representatives, and the entire Daring Cities community engaged in our dynamic virtual offerings and training workshops. These sessions explored diverse topics on integrated and holistic approaches to tackling the climate emergency, such as the interconnected factors between food and nature within urban policies and the Town Hall COPs initiative.
The Daring Cities Virtual Forum is a free, globally-accessible program of solution-oriented online events exploring strategies to tackle the climate emergency.
With the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, every sector of society across every corner of the globe has been turned upside down, and the work to address climate change is being reprioritized, interrupted or delayed. Local and regional governments have had to redeploy sustainability resources to ensure immediate safeguarding of their residents and employees.
On the international level, we are experiencing major disruptions of the global climate process.
But climate science hasn’t changed. The climate emergency is still happening right now, in our cities, towns and regions around the world.
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“The climate emergency requires swift, decisive action in an urgent timeframe, yet national and international leaders are struggling to address this urgency through comprehensive action. Cities, towns and regions are undertaking the ambitious and urgent local climate action to help tackle the climate emergency. But they cannot do it alone. We have demands for national governments, fellow local and regional governments, and broader civic society that need to be met in order to achieve the level of climate action necessary to limit climate change before it reaches dangerous tipping points. Daring Cities will help us to articulate these demands.”
Katja Dörner, Lord Mayor of Bonn
An ICLEI Member since 2000, the Federal City of Bonn, Germany, is the seat of the ICLEI World Secretariat and a pivotal force in the fight against climate change, hosting Daring Cities annually since 2020 while marking more than twenty years as a UN stronghold. Over this period, Bonn has evolved into a global sustainability and resilience hub, housing over 20 UN agencies, including the UNFCCC headquarters.
Join our expanding Daring Cities community on social media. Stay updated with the latest news and be inspired by how bold leaders are tackling the climate emergency. Thousands of urban climate leaders have already joined—become a part of our community today and connect with like-minded professionals on our LinkedIn page.
An ICLEI Member since 2000, the Federal City of Bonn, Germany, is the seat of the ICLEI World Secretariat, and Lord Mayor Katja Dörner currently serves as Chair of the Climate Action Governance Portfolio for the ICLEI Global Executive Committee. The City is constantly working on improving its sustainable performance by adopting local action programs, successfully establishing forms of cooperation with cities all over the world, and by launching activities that advance sustainable development.
