Mayors to stopglobalwarming.eu - The Italian launch and next steps

"Clima Comune" (Municipalities for the Climate) is the Italian network of mayors in favour of StopGlobalWarming.eu, the European Citizens' Initiative promoted by political activist Marco Cappato which, upon reaching 1 million signatures, will oblige the European Commission to discuss the Carbon Tax proposal, shifting the tax burden from labor to CO2 emissions, an idea validated by 27 Nobel laureates.

The online event organised on the 10th of February was organised with the endorsement of EarthDay.org and the media partnership of ANSA (the most important Italian news agency) and it will be replicated in March 2021 with the launch of the Mayors to StopGlobalWarming.eu network. 

All EU citizens can sign the European Citizens Initiative on StopGlobalWarming.eu until the 22nd of April 2020, World Earth Day. 
 

OVER 70 MAYORS UNITED TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY 

Already over 70 Italian mayors have given their support to the initiative, including the mayors of Rome: Virginia Raggi, Milan: Giuseppe Sala, Naples: Luigi De Magistris, Bergamo: Giorgio Gori, Palermo: Leoluca Orlando, Florence; Dario Nardella (also President of Eurocities), Pesaro: Matteo Ricci (also President of ALI - Italian Local Autonomies) and many others. The mayors promoting StopGlobalWarming.eu formally joined the campaign with the commitment of their local authority, pledging to inform citizens about the possibility of signing the European Citizens' Initiative also via the municipality's website and institutional spaces. A template for a local motion had been adopted by the Mayors. 

'Clima Comune' was presented recently in a webinar organized by EUMANS, the Pan-European Movement of Popular Initiative founded by Marco Cappato, Treasurer of the Luca Coscioni Association, and promoter of the Stopglobalwarming.eu initiative, which over 50,000 European citizens have signed to date, including Mogens Lykketoft, President of the UN Assembly at the time of the Paris Agreements, Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 20914, 3 former European Commissioners (Emma Bonino, Violetta Bulc, Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis), the committee of Earth Day (the organizers of World Earth Day) and many personalities from the world of science, culture, and entertainment. (Full list of supporters)
"Clima Comune" has already crossed national borders after obtaining the signatures of the mayors of six European cities, including Frankfurt, Dublin, and Dortmund. The deadline for reaching one million signatures is on the 22nd of April 2021, World Earth Day. 
 

MAYORS TO STOPGLOBALWARMING.EU FROM ITALY TO EUROPE- HOW TO JOIN 

In the near future, we will be organizing this online assembly on a European scale as well, in order to reach our desired target and promote participatory democracy across Europe. Therefore, we call on mayors across Europe to become a part of the initiative, to promote the ECI and inform their citizens of the possibilities to take an active role in combatting climate change through the means of participatory democracy. 

As a mayor, you can support the initiative by sharing it on your platforms, requesting a link to integrate the collection of signatures on your website, and to share it in your network of other municipalities.
As a citizen, you can contact your Mayor and ask them to join the initiative. At these links, you can find an appeal that you can customise for this purpose and a sample of the local motion. 

For more information on how to take part in the upcoming assembly or on how to support the initiative, please send an email to info@stopglobalwarming.eu.
 

CLIMA COMUNE - MAYORS TO STOPGLOBALWARMING.EU ON THE ITALIAN MEDIA

ANSA.IT - Media Partner  - Live broadcasting
La Repubblica
Corriere della Sera
Il Fatto Quotidiano
Startup Italia 
La Nazione
Varesenews
Teleambiente
Eco di Bergamo 
FirstRadioWeb 

THE DECLARATIONS OF SOME OF THE SPEAKERS ATTENDING THE EVENT:

VIRGINIA RAGGI, MAYOR OF ROME 

VIDEO RAGGI HERE 

"Rome Capital supports and promotes the StopGlobalWarming.eu campaign for carbon pricing in the European Union and to combat environmental pollution. For this reason, I appeal to all citizens to join this important initiative which will continue until the 22nd of April 2021, World Earth Day. It doesn't take much: everyone can take an active part in the fundamental commitment to build a better and more beautiful world to hand over to our children, young people and our future", said Virginia Raggi, Mayor of Rome, in her comments on joining the campaign.

DARIO NARDELLA, MAYOR OF FLORENCE AND PRESIDENT OF EUROCITIES. 

VIDEO NARDELLA HERE

"Giving a voice to mayors on the question of the environment is both necessary and very useful as there are many steps that cities can take independently when dealing with the great challenge of climate change. This is why I will also commit as President of Eurocities, the association that represents more than 200 cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants in Europe, to relaunch and extend this important campaign to other cities so that we can all together embrace this important challenge", said Dario Nardella, Mayor of Florence and President of Eurocities. 

LEOLUCA ORLANDO, MAYOR OF PALERMO

"The digital world can make an important contribution to this extraordinary campaign, which leverages key international agreements, such as the 2015 Paris agreements, now strengthened by the return of the US. A cultural change is needed, good for both quality of life, and also in economic terms. At this difficult historical moment, we have two allies in our favour: one is Covid which has increased attention to natural global emergencies; then there is the desperate flight of migrants, refugees forced to flee from environments rendered uninhabitable by desertification. Structural and definitive interventions are needed, which must necessarily be at the center of the Recovery Plan. This suggests that we should ask the incoming Government to provide the metropolitan cities most affected by emissions with a series of investments in line with the proposed stopglobalwarming.eu". 

GIORGIO GORI, MAYOR OF BERGAMO

"I am absolutely convinced of the need to establish a carbon tax, to encourage green reconversion and the related necessary investments within a supranational programme that draws its lifeblood from individual municipalities. Switching taxes away from work also means creating new businesses, jobs, investments. Each of us becomes the promoter of this initiative after joining it, a European project that finds impetus thanks to the efforts of the individual territories".

Matteo Ricci, MAYOR OF PESARO AND PRESIDENT OF ALI (ITALIAN LOCAL AUTONOMIES)

"We join StopGlobalWarming with conviction, in line with the project we have just launched, namely the creation of the Association of Sustainable Municipalities, a result of the agreement between ALI (Italian local authorities), Istat and Asvis. This project is open to all municipalities and allows you to measure the eco-sustainable well-being of a city. This is because we need new indicators to measure environmental risk which will also be useful for measuring sustainable development. Our city is at the forefront of these issues, at national level the path will depend on the developmental model chosen in the management of post Covid ".

"I thank the mayors who, together with us, want to get our proposal on the desks of the European Commission and to be part of this strong network that is increasingly widespread throughout Europe", said Marco Cappato, the political activist who is active internationally on the issue of sustainability with Stopglobalwarming.eu. "We are experiencing a double crisis, the pandemic and the climate crisis, which unlike the former is destined to last much longer and to produce even more devastating effects. The task is to unite these two urgencies and offer the necessary answers. The world of work is under pressure, favouring excessive consumption of natural resources. This is why it is necessary to discuss the carbon tax, and to mobilise at a  European level, starting from the territories".
 

For more information:
Virginia Fiume, coordinator Eumans

virginia.fiume@eumans.eu 

Press Office: 

Stefania Cicco

Tel: 328 3146032 

Mail: stefania.cicco@associazionelucacoscioni.it 

Useful resources:
Site of the European Commission - Registered European Citizens Initaitives
Official site of stopglobalwarming - https://stopglobalwarming.eu  
List of supporters - https://stopglobalwarming.eu/supporters