Budapest new municipal assembly has declared a climate emergency, adopting a proposal by the city’s newly-elected mayor, Gergely Karácsony.

“Climate change and global warming are already having a serious impact on our daily lives,” said Mr Karácsony. “We have a moral responsibility to leave the best world we can to our children and grandchildren, but not worse than what we received from our parents and grandparents.”

The municipal assembly has committed itself to prioritise any action to fight climate change. The decision does not contain specific measures, but the assembly has vowed to take environmental effects into account on any matter that directly or indirectly affects CO2 emissions and to increase the transparency of information relating to the climate effects of municipal firms.

The assembly also adopted the mayor’s request that it review Budapest’s extreme weather contingency plan and the effects that the municipality and its institutions and firms have on the climate.

The city will also prepare a climate adaptation and mitigation action plan by the end of 2020, and a concept for making Budapest and its institutions and firms carbon-neutral.