Challenges and opportunities for urban climate finance

Global mitigation and adaptation efforts have to be geared up in order to reach the climate goal stipulated in the Paris Agreement and to limit the negative impacts of climate change on human and natural systems. Cities and metropolitan areas have large – and still growing – potential for mitigation and adaptation. On the one hand, cities account for a lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, they are highly vulnerable to the potential impacts of climate change – a situation that is further exacerbated by urbanisation.

Lack or inaccessibility of funding is widely perceived as a major bottleneck for concerted climate action, not least in cities. While a large infrastructure financing gap is already apparent today, the need for significant financial resources to take proactive climate action will, at least in the short run, further widen the gap. This aspect is also crucial when exploring the potential of cities to make a major contribution to global decarbonisation processes in the aftermath of the Paris Conference in December 2015.

The study "Challenges and opportunities for urban climate finance" looks at the status quo, challenges and opportunities for urban climate finance in general and provides detailed overviews of urban climate finance in three case study cities (eThekwini, South Africa; Santiago, Chile; and Chennai, India).

The study was commissioned by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).