Northern India is no stranger to heavy rainfall and monsoons. Yet what the region has suffered through this year has been nothing short of exceptional. From April through October, extreme rains and flooding in the region have left destruction across wide swathes of the country — particularly in cities like Delhi, India’s capital, and Shimla, in the Himalayan foothills. Hundreds have been killed. Rivers have overflowed, destroying bridges and roads. Power and electricity have been severely disrupted, and thousands have been evacuated.
Each flood and the accompanying destruction are yet another reminder: our cities and urban areas are on the front lines of the climate crisis. Many are located near water, making them geographically vulnerable to extreme weather events like devastating floods and rising sea levels. Many are rapidly growing due to migration patterns and their own population increases: more than 55% of the world population lives in urban areas, and the number is expected to grow to 68% by 2050.
In the past few months alone Agadir, Morocco, exceeded a 50°C temperature for the first time in its history. Derna, Libya, has seen extreme flooding take more than 5,000 lives. South Tarawa, Kiribati, is at risk of falling off the map due to rising sea levels. These threats are all too real. But so, too, is our opportunity.
Urban areas provide massive potential for climate action: places that hold the key to our collective future. Local governments are not only first responders to the climate crisis—they are also one of the best vehicles for climate solutions. Cities contribute more than half of the world’s GDP and 70% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Local governments can help translate even the boldest climate goals into practical projects that will have real impacts on people’s livelihoods, quality of life and health.
We must seize this moment to not only protect these cities and their people, across the developing world — but to create resilient, sustainable cities of tomorrow that power a greener future for all of us.
Funding local climate action is one of the most cost-effective investments that any government can make. And yet, only 10-15% of global climate finance reaches local governments. Subnational actors have ambitious climate plans, but often lack the funding and support to turn plans into action.
As the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM), representing more than 12,800 mayors across the world, and the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) — the world’s largest multilateral climate fund supporting developing countries — we are calling on the global community to recognize the urgency of this moment.
If we get this right in the cities of tomorrow — by empowering local authorities to be more involved in the global conversation about what they need; by seeding funding effectively for cities to pilot different initiatives; by providing the technical support and know-how they require; and by de-risking these investments so that private funding follows in multiples — the impact on global climate action will be enormous.
Right now, cities are confronting the dueling challenges of the climate crisis and exponential population growth. We need development that is both sustainable and resilient — revitalized urban landscapes with clean air, sustainable transportation, green employment, and healthy food production. Yet they’re too often held back by the same challenges: infrastructure deficits, where capital projects in areas like public transit are too far behind; governance and institutional capacity issues, where enabling environments do not yet exist; a lack of bankability and access to low-cost financing often presents hurdles as well.
Smart climate finance holds the key: bringing integrated approaches, tackling mitigation and adaptation, green and grey infrastructure, energy consumption and production — in short, tackling cities as a system.
That is what CIF has done since its inception 15 years ago. In Beira, Mozambique, CIF financing helped fund nature-based solutions that reduced flood risks and benefitted local communities, businesses, and the city at large. In Bangladesh, CIF supported coastal towns to protect nearly 568,000 people from tidal flooding and other climate-related threats. In Egypt, CIF financed clean mass transportation in Cairo and jump started a wind energy revolution benefiting 1.4 million people in the Suez area.
That work has taught us invaluable lessons about what cities need in this moment — lessons we are thrilled to bring to bear in a new program, called Climate Smart Cities. This program is rooted in the same idea at the heart of the CIF model that has proven successful since our inception in 2008: low-cost financing to the developing world, getting first-of-its-kind climate action off the ground, can kickstart a climate revolution. Climate Smart Cities will work to make our cities more compact, where people are close to jobs, public transit, and services, which promotes scale and specialization; more connected, where we facilitate the exchange of ideas and new innovations; and more coordinated, where every level of government is working together to support this kind of urban growth.
These projects may take many forms: integrating waste management, building resilient water systems, promoting electro mobility, greening existing buildings, and launching sustainable cooling projects, to name a few. But the mission will always be the same: to support our cities and seize this incredible moment of opportunity.
We can protect our people; we can build smartly; and we can create resilient, sustainable cities of tomorrow that power a better path forward for our planet. Together, we can bridge the subnational climate finance gap through partnerships that increase investment for climate action in cities and subnational governments.
Co-authored by Climate Investment Funds and Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy