Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull has lauded the latest efforts by international cities to tackle climate change.
Last week, the world's two eminent city-led climate change and energy initiatives - the Compact of Mayors and the European Union Covenant of Mayors - announced they would combine efforts to accelerate climate action at the local level.
The new Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy will be the world's largest coalition of mayors supporting voluntary action to combat climate change and move to a low carbon economy.
The move was welcomed by Mr Cull.
"I am pleased to see the Compact of Mayors join forces with the EU Covenant of Mayors,'' he said.
"The coalition recognises the need for significant and urgent action on climate change and allows for greater collaboration between cities across the globe to achieve this.
This strong global agreement also demonstrates that climate change is now a core issue for communities throughout the world.
"On my recent visit to China, civic leaders from Shanghai, Qingdao and Qingyuan all acknowledged the growing challenges to their cities of climate induced inundation of one type or another.''
The Dunedin City Council, a signatory to the Compact of Mayors, last year passed a series of resolutions aimed at addressing climate change. The council has already committed to measuring greenhouse gas emissions, setting and reporting against reduction targets, and adopting an action plan.
Mr Cull said the council was working on achieving first and second-year compliance within the first year of commitment.
"The DCC is committed to mitigating the effects of climate change,'' he said.
"We've taken a number of significant first steps in this direction in recent times, including divesting our shares from fossil fuel companies, agreeing to gradually introduce electric vehicles to the DCC fleet, investing in more active transport and adopting an energy plan just to name a few.
"As we move into implementation of our energy plan and the setting of our compact greenhouse gas target, we will be doing so as part of a network of cities committed to action on climate change.''
The Compact of Mayors was launched in September 2014, while the Covenant of Mayors was launched in 2008 by the European Union.
Both initiatives support local governments in setting climate reduction goals, taking ambitious action to meet those objectives and measuring their progress publicly and transparently.
The new single initiative builds on the commitment of more than 7100 cities from 119 countries and six continents, representing more than 600million people.
