by Brianna Crandall — December 28, 2015—Green infrastructure is no longer out of reach for cities in developing countries thanks to the launch of the C40 Cities Finance Facility, a major project by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Germany, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) to provide the skills, technical assistance and connections to funding opportunities needed to unlock up to $1 billion worth of sustainable infrastructure in cities across low- and middle-income countries by 2020.
This transformative partnership launched at the C40 Forum during the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris reinforces the joint commitment to bring practical solutions to unlock the potential of all cities to deliver action on climate change. It will allow numerous cities to leverage significant public and private financing for green infrastructure projects.
Also announced the same day was funding from the British philanthropy the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation to ensure take-up of a new system for transparently measuring and reporting city emissions.
The C40 Cities Finance Facility, with €3.5 million (U.S.$3.7 million) funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and $2 million from the IADB, will provide technical assistance to cities within the C40 network to help them prepare sustainable infrastructure projects for investment.
The first step towards $1 billion of green infrastructure
The first round of funding for the C40 Cities Finance Facility was announced at the C40 Forum. The initial $5.7 million is expected to ultimately reach as much as $20 million in technical assistance for cities, unlocking up to $1 billion worth of green projects worldwide within four years.
The C40 Cities Finance Facility will not only reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — sustainable infrastructure investment will also improve urban life, public health and economic growth, targeted at cities in the Global South.
For example, Lima’s highly popular bus rapid transit (BRT) system was developed after the city received support from international experts, which in turn led to loans from Spanish bank BBVA and Banco del Credito de Peru. The Cities Finance Fund Facility will provide support to cities looking to develop similar projects that will help reduce their emissions and increase their resilience to climate change.
New resources to measure and report city emissions
C40 also announced at the Forum new funding from the British philanthropy the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), which will provide $5.3 million to help a minimum of 30 C40 cities in the Global South to conduct accurate inventories of their greenhouse gas emissions, set targets and develop action plans.
The aim of the investment is to create a critical mass of cities across the world quantifying their urban emissions and setting robust reduction targets using an international gold standard — the Global Protocol for Community Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories (GPC) — and thereby supporting the implementation of the Compact of Mayors.
The funding will increase the number of cities in every region of the world that are measuring and reporting their emissions on a consistent basis, says C40. This will enable comparison between regions and provide examples for other cities to follow.
If 30 cities identified as eligible for this support were to act in three areas — building energy, transport and planning — this has the potential to decrease global GHG cumulative emissions by around 4.8 GtCO2e by 2030, says C40, improving the chances of keeping temperature rises below the 2°C target.
