By Hassan I. Conteh

A global network which is working on tackling climate crisis in cities around the world, C40 Cities, has met in Freetown to innovate approaches to mitigate the climate crisis affecting nations in the world.

The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is also C40 co-Chair.

She was recently addressing the media at Freetown City Council (FCC)’s hall on Wednesday 2nd April, 2025.

“We are experiencing rising temperatures and we are using now nature based approach not high technology to mitigate the effects of climate impacts on our citizens,” she said.

As co-Chair of C40 Cities, Aki-Sawyerr is committed to advancing key priorities, including to strengthening multilateral action to ensure collaboration across all levels of governments in accelerating climate efforts, while securing increased financing particularly for low and middle-income countries in the world.

The mayor said the C40 Cities network has approved Freetown’s Heat and Health Funding project with $100,000 grant being given to Freetown.

“This is meant to look at interventions to reduce the impacts of heat on our citizens especially outdoor market women, pregnant women in the country,” she said.

The mayor said at a recent African Heat Summit held in February this year, lots of personal testimonies were shared by people being affected by rising temperatures and how that is impacting them a lot.

“We are not only going to solve our challenges in the city [Freetown] but in other cities, and districts nationally. We want the government to approve our priority projects such as the cable car project.”

Speaking about this project, the mayor said, a two year and a half feasibility studies had been done on the Cable Car Project through support by German -GIZ.

As it now awaits implementation to ease transport difficulty in Freetown, Aki-Sawyerr assured the public that the proposed Cable Car New Transport System will reduce travel time to about 50%.

“This is one of the practical examples of what it means for us; we all know the challenges that women face in terms of transport in the country.”

The cable car project is part of ways to decongest the city, while waste control and Freetown Tree City projects are all meant to ensure Freetownians breathe clean and fresh air as always.

Officials said the C40 Cities Finance Facility is collaborating with Freetown to develop the city’s first cable car system in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

In a short note by C40, it reads “with our stations spanning 3.6km, the system will have the capacity to transport 6,000 people per hour in each direction.

“This project supports the vision of making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr also talked of the need to plant more trees as a way to move on the Freetown Tree City Initiative.

Already, FCC has planted about 1.2 million trees in a bid to cover up the 750 hectares of forests destroyed in Sierra Leone alone in 2024, that is, according to report by WHO.

The mayor said during their Universal Tree Audit in 2023, they recorded 82% survival rate of the trees planted while others may have been affected by bad weather conditions.

She said C40 Cities had previously launched a special program called CHAMPS at Dubai Climate Change Summit, years back, and in that event they told the world that the need for climate action cannot be done just by cities, by nation states, by civil societies, by climate sector but that ” it needs us to work together including the media.”

The mayor’s initiative has seen the creation of more “roof gardens” planted in Kroo Bay community in Freetown.

She said they would continue with those efforts to open up more roof gardens in Freetown, including the introduction of “community harvest water” initiative in the capital.

FCC is to embark on emergency waste collection exercise dubbed as Operation Promote the New By- Laws.

The said 2025 by-laws have already been passed into law and they will be implemented by FCC’s Met Police.

On his four days visit in Freetown, C40 Cities, Executive Director, Mark Watts, who is from London representing the global north, has been in the country since April 1st and he is expected to make several field visits in Freetown till April 4th 2025.

His visit is to familiarize himself with the work of C40 co-chair and Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, who is representing the global south as co-chair at C40 Cities.

He addressed journalists on the work of their network.

“This is an organization of 100 quite leading influential cities in the world – – in New York, Paris, Shanghai, Mumbai, Tokyo, and Freetown.”

He said these are cities in “the world that are having the biggest influencial drive in the world to overcome the climate crisis and also comprise a quarter of the world 25% of the Global GDP, having 607 million people.

Speaking about the formation of the Network furthermore, Mr Watts said the network is a team of mayors around the world.

C40 Cities’ mayors pledge to take inclusive, science-driven, and collaborative approach to reducing emissions by half by 2023, thereby helping to limit global temperature rise while building healthier, more equitable, and resilient communities.