by Brianna Crandall — January 1, 2016—Research published against the backdrop of the crucial COP21 climate negotiations shows that the world’s greatest cities are taking decisive action right now on climate change, and they are just getting started. With increased resources and financing, along with more support from national political leaders, the progress made by cities could increase threefold.
The research published by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and multinational engineering services firm Arup identifies the 27,000 specific activities, programs, procurements, and policies that cities could implement over the coming years, showing the vast potential of cities.
Of these, C40 has identified 2,300 high-impact, readily deliverable actions that could save a massive 450 MtCO2 by 2020, equivalent to the annual emissions of the United Kingdom, and could be unlocked with just $6.8 billion.
Noting how critical the next five years are to prevent future emissions from being locked in too high, C40 says the findings of the Potential for Climate Action report are striking because they represent the actions that mayors and civic leaders can and will deliver regardless of the results of intergovernmental efforts to agree a treaty on carbon emissions and before any COP21 agreement kicks in, in 2020, says C40.
From the implementation of building retrofit schemes in the Business Energy Challenge in London to new energy-from-waste facilities in Oslo, these 2,300 priority actions represent the projects that will have the highest impact in terms of reducing emissions in C40 Cities, or which can most realistically be implemented, through existing powers or collaboration with other cities.
Since the last major COP in Copenhagen, C40 cities have reportedly taken 10,000 climate actions — a doubling of actions in just six years — and have committed to reduce their CO2 emissions by 3 Gt CO2 by 2030, equivalent to the annual carbon output of India.
Obstacles to progress
The report analyzed the challenges that mayors face in delivering on the climate actions they want to see underway in their cities. With 21% of the challenges related to resources and financing, C40 recently announced a new C40 Cities Finance Facility to help cities prepare sustainable infrastructure projects for investment. [See the article on FMLink: “C40 partnership to finance green infrastructure for developing cities.”]
An additional 20% of the challenges identified by cities related to political leadership, including difficulties in collaboration on climate action with the private sector or national governments. Therefore, the report finds that a collaborative approach between the private sector, national government, regional government and civil society is crucial.
