Through Ambitious City Promises, target local governments across Southeast Asia participate in in-country consultations to facilitate capacity building, policy advice and technology transfer support; develop new or improved comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventories; actively engage city residents and key local climate stakeholders; prepare concrete climate action plans – called City Promises – that include ambitious targets and integrate community pledges; initiate implementation of City Promises through pilot projects; report aggregated city plans, actions and achievements; and engage in learning and cooperation opportunities with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and other cities.

Through Ambitious City Promises, ICLEI aims to develop and deploy bottom-up models of climate action planning, establish lasting mechanisms for knowledge sharing, and contribute to local, national and global climate goals.

The Promise of Seoul, a comprehensive climate strategy adopted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government at the ICLEI World Congress in 2015, is at the heart of Ambitious City Promises. It provides a model of effective climate action at the community level, showing that cities can be both engines of growth and global leaders on climate action by establishing inclusive low emission urban economies.