Cities are responsible for three quarters of the world’s energy consumption and, therefore, must play a critical role in reduction of carbon emissions and mitigation of climate change, says the Climate Summit organisation.

Delegations from 46 cities from six continents are scheduled to attend the summit, where they can listen to keynote addresses from NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former US President Bill Clinton, London Mayor Ken Livingstone and dozens of other internationally known figures.

The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) is working with members of the C40 largest cities to develop and implement programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CCI is providing technical experts to individual cities, pooling the buying power of these cities to lower prices on energy saving products, creating a common emissions measurement tool and sharing best practice.

These examples of best practice lie in the domains of energy, waste, buildings, transportation, lighting and water. In the energy section of the summit, there will be contributions from: Berlin (an innovative energy efficiency programme there is driving down CO2 emissions and generating savings at no cost to building owners); Woking in the UK (brought down its CO2 emissions by 82% by introducing decentralised energy generation); Toronto (reducing 90% of energy use for air conditioning by using lake water); and Copenhagen (where 97% of heating supply comes from waste heat).

Full details of the New York City 2007 Climate Summit sessions and events can be found at www.nycclimatesummit.com