The Alliance of Water Cities
Considering that Venice has long been recognized as an urban model for adapting to a water-based world,
Considering that our planetary hydrosphere, which sustains all life on Earth, is being reconstituted in the wake of global warming, triggering record winter snowfalls, torrential spring floods, devastating summer heatwaves, wildfires, and deadly autumn hurricanes that devastate ecosystems, infrastructures, and societies,
Considering that our species has wrongly judged the very nature of our existence and what sustains our life,
Considering that we have long believed we live on a terrestrial planet, neglecting the reality that we live on a water-based planet,
Considering that the city of Venice is already active in reducing fossil fuel use and emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming,
Considering that we must rethink water as a "source of life" rather than a "resource" and learn to adapt to the hydrosphere rather than trying to adapt the hydrosphere to us,
Whereas Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has already declared that Venice is not only "a city of planet Earth," but "the capital of planet Water,"
Whereas Jerome Rifkin has reiterated that “renaming our home ‘Planet Water’ is not just a rhetorical exercise, but a shift in our species' planetary orientation,”
Therefore, from the works of the Venice Climate Week, hosted by the City of Venice, we aim to advocate for the launch of a Blue Deal to complement the current Green Deal, inviting all other municipalities and regions of Italy and the European Union to implement practices, programs, and incentives to encourage new blue technologies, infrastructures, businesses, and jobs that will be necessary to adapt to an unpredictable hydrosphere,
Finally, considering that water should no longer be seen as an element of division between landmasses, but as a unifying element that permeates every corner of the planet,
From the first Venice Climate Week, the Alliance of Water Cities is born,
With an invitation to the mayors of the ten thousand largest cities in the world to recognize that they are not only "cities of planet Earth," but also "cities of planet Water,"
With a commitment, for the next Venice Climate Week, to initiate from local authorities a second official formal naming of the planet as "Planet Aqua" in their agreements, codes, laws, and statutes to recognize the existence of our species on a single water-based planet in the universe.
