On June 1, 2011, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and the World Bank signed an agreement that will help cities accelerate activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. The C40 is an organization of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. C40 cities account for 8 percent of the global population, 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 21 percent of global GDP. In 2006, the C40 partnered with the Clinton Climate Initiative to tackle climate change in cities.
The agreement was signed by C40 Chair New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick during the C40 Cities Mayors Summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said: “This unique partnership with the World Bank will help solve many of the problems that cities face in obtaining financing for climate-related projects, both from the World Bank and other lenders. It will also make it easier for C40 cities to access the resources of the World Bank.” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said: “This agreement will help us work with C40 cities to integrate growth planning with climate change adaptation and mitigation, with special attention to the vulnerabilities of the urban poor.”
The key objective of this new partnership is to enable megacities to expand mitigation and adaptation actions while at the same time, strengthen and protect economies, reduce poverty and protect vulnerable populations. In particular, it will address structural issues that make it difficult for cities to finance climate actions that have been identified by both C40 and the World Bank Group.
Under the agreement, the C40 and the World Bank will establish:
• A consistent approach to climate action plans and strategies in large cities to enable stronger partnerships between cities on shared climate goals, and to permit potential investors to identify opportunities across cities. The lack of a standard approach or process – such as exists for national government action plans – has made it difficult for investors and grantors to assess city action plans and thus has made them reluctant to fund projects.
• A common approach to measuring and reporting on city greenhouse gas emissions to allow verifiable and consistent monitoring of emissions reductions, identify actions that result in the greatest emission reductions, and facilitate access to carbon finance. This is necessary because carbon finance requires quantitative assessments of impacts, but currently no single standard for reporting citywide carbon emissions exists; the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Measurement for Management report identified several different protocols in use by C40 cities, with no single protocol used by a majority.
In addition, the World Bank will establish a single, dedicated entry point for C40 cities to access World Bank climate change-related capacity building and technical assistance programs, and climate finance initiatives by December 1, 2011. Furthermore, the C40 will identify and work with national governments who are interested in funding climate change projects and identify private sector partners to provide project financing in C40 cities. In turn, the World Bank will identify opportunities from among sources of concessional finance, carbon finance, and innovative market and risk management instruments as well as the private sector through the International Finance Corporation. These may be accessed by project developers supporting climate action in cities.
For more information on this partnership and other C40 initiatives, please refer to the C40 web site