New alliance on city finance unveiled at UN Summit on climate change

The Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance was announced at today’s UN Climate Summit as part of a series of initiatives for cities, which also saw the release of a report on how cities can transform reductions in global emissions.

Michael Bloomberg, speaking in his capacity as UN Special Envoy on Cities and Climate Change, said the UN Summit marked the first time that cities were officially at the climate table and he thanked the UN Secretary General and his colleagues for giving cities the recognition they deserve.

“Cities are a beacon of hope for progress especially when it comes to climate change,” said Bloomberg, revealing that his foundation had worked with city network C40 and the Stockholm Environment Institute to produce a report on the impact cities can have on global emissions.

The report, released today, showed that if all cities targeted their transport, waste management and building systems and took every possible action to make them more efficient, in just 15 years, cities could reduce emissions 4 gigatons beyond what national governments are currently targeting.

“That means in a relatively short amount of time, cities alone can eliminate the equivalent of a quarter of all the emissions from coal use today and that is a very big difference,” said Bloomberg. “This reports also provides guidance to cities on what the biggest opportunities for reductions are.”

Bloomberg then invited Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, to announce the launch of the Compact of Mayors, which brings together over 2,000 cities across the global city networks of C40, ICLEI and UCLG.

Under the Compact, local emissions data will be collected through existing city platforms, including partner platform CDP Cities, and will be made publically available through ICLEI’s platform, the carbonn Climate Registry. Cities reporting through the Compact will be using the Global Protocol on Community-scale GHG Emissions to ensure the consistency, credibility and quality of their local emissions data.

“This will be the world’s largest effort from city leaders to publicly commit to reducing emissions and the impacts of climate change,” said Mayor Paes, Chair of C40.

In terms of assisting cities financially to combat climate change, a new coalition, the City Climate Finance Leadership Alliance, was announced at today’s special session on cities. Bringing together 21 partners including the World Bank, Standard & Poor’s, Citibank, UN-Habitat and members of the International Development Finance Club such as the Agence Française du Développement (AFD), Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the alliance aims to stimulate the flow of public and private investment to cities to generate the trillions of dollars needed for climate-smart infrastructure.

“AFD, as an international financing institution, views the City Finance Leadership Alliance as a particularly efficient initiative to actively address the barriers to the scaling-up of financing for low-carbon and resilient urban infrastructure,” said Anne Paugam, CEO of the Agence Française du Développement.