the c40 cities climate leadership group recently held its global mayors summit in sao paulo, brazil. the event hosts mayors, city representatives and climate and sustainability experts from around the world and encourages the sharing of best-practices — at the local level — for mitigating the impacts of climate change.

in a series of exclusive interviews during the event with mayors and experts from around the world, the c40 cities live blog team has captured some of the more innovative actions being taken by cities as they continue to take a strong leadership position in combating the impact of climate change on their cities and citizens.

in this video, dr. rohit aggarwala, key architect of planyc and now special advisor to c40 chair new york city mayor michael r. bloomberg, discusses a new focus at the c40 on data and accountability. that focus includes a groundbreaking partnership between c40 and iclei, first announced during the mayors summit. the two organizations are working to establish a global standard for tracking and reporting greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions at the local level. the standard will enable cities to develop robust and consistent ghg inventories, facilitating planning around actions to reduce emissions and combat climate change impacts.