Welcome to the C40 committee!

The C40 Committee is excited to welcome all delegates to ASMMUN 2021! The C40 Climate Leadership Group concerns itself with fighting climate change and driving urban action through municipal jurisdiction. This year, ASM has decided to add the C40 committee to one of the many committees that students have been dedicating themselves to in the past years. It is in this same manner that two topics will be debated in the c40 committee this year. ​

---

​​

The first topic concerns the issue of solid waste around metropolitan areas. In developed cities, pre-existing infrastructure is the main body responsible for the disposal of waste, nevertheless, the quantities of waste generated can be too large for such programs to manage them. When landfills get full, crises can ensue. The use of a circular economy (one which relies on waste as a resource for production) in developed cities today is far more rare that a linear economy (one which seeks out new resources and disposes of waste). The committee will focus on making the transition from linear to circular economies in urban spaces. The second topic concerns the issue of data collection for law enforcement in public spaces. Surveillance is typically categorised into two types of data collection: firstly, there is mass data collection enabled by large, modern network technology such as databases of phone records, and secondly, there is direct surveillance enabled through means such as the surveillance of CCTV cameras or neighbourhood watch programs. The risks of these methods of surveillance are inherent to the practice of data collection for law enforcement; with the collection of data for the prevention of criminality, social groups are targeted. The committee will seek to find methods of confronting the ethical and political issues that arise from an overemphasis on data collection as a tool through which law enforcement controls urban spaces.


We, Sarah Lo Vecchio and Iraklis Kantzelis (your co-chairs), are looking forward to creating an environment in which delegates are motivated to be active, make insightful contributions, allowing for the C40 committee debate to truly flourish. We also, however, are committed to making sure delegates feel comfortable speaking and interacting with each other so that they can all enjoy the time they are dedicating to the ASMMUN conference.

By Sarah Lo Vecchio 

2 minute read.