The meeting of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) Municipal Solid Waste Initiative, from 10 to 11 October 2013 in Vienna, brought together participating cities and initiative partners to strengthen international action to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) from municipal solid waste. The CCAC Initiative fosters peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges, provides training opportunities, and continues to build a supportive global network of cities taking action on SLCPs. The major objective for this meeting was developing plans for direct and on-the-ground action that the CCAC and new participating cities can carry out jointly through 2014.

Solid waste management is a vast, multidimensional, and expensive challenge associated at times with severe environmental and health impacts. The importance of effective solid waste management is growing – the World Bank projects that global municipal solid waste streams will nearly double by 2025. Landfills are the third largest source of global methane emissions. Open trash incineration emits black carbon and other air pollutants, as well as greenhouse gases. This is why CCAC launched a Municipal Solid Waste Initiative to work directly with cities around the world to significantly reduce short-lived pollutants like methane and black carbon from the waste sector.

One major objective for workshop in Vienna was to develop plans for direct, on-the-ground measures that CCAC and interested cities could implement together over the period of 2013 – 2014. In the context of this two-day meeting, existing partnerships could be strengthened and new ones could be established between cities in developing and industrialized countries.