Delivered by Nasry “Tito” Asfura, Mayor, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Mr. President, distinguished delegates,
My name is Nasry Tito Asfura, the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras. I am delivering intervention on behalf of Local Governments and Municipal Authorities Constituency to the UNFCCC in my capacity as the Chair of CC35, the leadership of mayors of Latin American capital cities and Member of ICLEI Regional Committee for Mexico, Caribbean and Central America.
At the outset, on behalf of all Latin American leaders for ambitious climate action, I would like to commend Minister Carolina Schmidt, High Level Climate Action Champion Gonzalo Munoz, and all the staff of Chilean COP25 Presidency, as the longest serving COP Presidency.
I also would like to congratulate Alok Sharma, as the COP26 President, Nigel Topping as the High Level Climate and wish all the UK staff the best of success in their term.
Almost 2 years ago in Madrid, the LGMA Constituency laid out its vision TOWARDS a multilevel action COP in Glasgow.
Here in Glasgow, when COP26 kicks-off on the World Cities Day, cities and regions across the world declare that by Time4MultilevelAction has come.
Over the past 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic made the world remember the value of global solidarity, and power of collaboration among all levels of governments as the solution to all emergencies on health, climate and nature.
In Latin America, hundreds cities and regions demonstrated their leadership by declaring climate emergency, committing to Race-To-Zero and contributing to the preparation of more ambitious national climate plans.
Across the Global North and South, from US to Rwanda, from Japan to Dominican Republic, from Europe to Small Island States, similar experiences proved that multilevel collaboration is the beacon of hope to deliver ambitious climate action and respond to age of climate emergency.
In Paris, climate community recognized the importance of collaboration among all levels of governments.
Today, in Glasgow, as COP26 kicks-off the next phase Paris Agreement on the World Cities Day, cities and regions of the world invite all nations to embrace multilevel collaboration as the new normal of the urban World in this decisive decade for ambitious climate action.
This means, additional legal, technical and financial resources are channeled to local and regional governments so that just, ambitious, resilient, transformative climate action becomes a reality for all communities in every country through a collaborative effort.
Starting from COP26 in Glasgow, cities and regions of the world invite all nations to deliver multilevel collaboration action, as our collective responsibility and beacon of hope in order to avoid climate disasters rapidly driving our world and communities to a point-of-no-return.
I thank you.
