Paris the City of Lights took home the title Global Earth Hour Capital in WWF's Earth Hour City Challenge 2016 among stiff competition.
The international jury was extremely impressed with Paris and saw the city as a role model for climate action in cities around the world. The jury specially noted Paris' ambitious vision and successful engagement of key stakeholders on its journey toward sustainability.
Paris hosted last year’s historic global climate summit and has shown strong climate leadership, creating a model for other city governments to replicate. In addition to creating an effective centralized Climate Agency, ensuring clean vehicles, extending public transportation and developing waste-to-fuel conversion, Paris has also incorporated a regular review process to ensure that the city is on track to meet its sustainability goals as well as the current and future needs of its citizens.
Selected from a shortlist of 18 national winners, Paris impressed the international jury with its innovative actions, long-term vision and willingness to collaborate and share knowledge capital with cities around the globe.
WWF, with the support of Accenture, selected 1-3 finalists per country who were then evaluated by an international jury of experts. The jury analyzed actions and commitments reported by these cities, and identified one sustainability leader per country for the National Earth Hour Capital Awards. From among these progressive cities, one was awarded the title Global Earth Hour Capital 2016. All finalists gained the status of National Earth Hour Capitals. These inspiring cities will be presented at an Award Ceremony in Quito, Ecuador during the United Nations Habitat lll conference in October 2016.
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earth hour city challenge, paris