THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thiruvananthapuram is set to become the first city in Kerala to prepare a climate budget. The first-of-its -kind initiative will be undertaken with technical assistance from C40 Cities, a global network of mayors from leading cities. The civic body is planning to unveil its climate budget on the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation was the first urban local body in the country to present a climate budget for 2024-25 fiscal. The Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation will be introducing the climate budget with help from Mumbai Corporation and technical assistance from C40 Cities. Mayor Arya Rajendran said that the city corporation will introduce a climate budget for the capital this year.
“C40 will be assigning a technical officer to help us prepare the climate budget with lessons from Mumbai Municipal Corporation. Trivandrum city has undertaken many carbon-free initiatives including deployment of electric buses and solar rooftop projects. Now the task is to document the impact of all the initiatives we have adopted to reduce carbon footprints and we have featured many projects in the present budget that focuses on making the city green and reducing carbon footprints,” said an official source.
The climate budget will provide a comprehensive framework and will identify financial allocation for projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving climate resilience and promoting sustainable development.
Besides this, the capital is also gearing up to tie up with Indore to develop a model waste management project that can be replicated by all cities in the country. The city corporation was one among the 11 cities in the country to participate in a workshop - ‘Financing Waste in Indian Cities’ - oragnised by C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) held recently.
“We will be working with Indore City to develop a model waste management project. We got the invite because of the segregation and the collection mechanism we have. Indore has a better waste transportation system which generates alerts for better monitoring. Both these practices will be converged to improve the present system. This would be a model project that will be recommended for all cities in the country,” said the official.