The C40, the largest global climate summit of mayors, has closed this Friday with specific funding announcements. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), CAF and the World Bank have committed to allocate 77.9 billion dollars to public policies that reduce carbon dependence in cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Obtaining money for climate adaptation was one of the main claims of the cities of the global south, which have taken to the summit the premise that the responsibility for the fight against climate change is shared, “but not for everyone equally”, according to the mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, host of the meeting.
Cities generate between 50% and 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. But the conversion towards a friendly use of the environment is a serious problem for the cities of the developing world. While 50% of the world’s population lives in them, last year they received only 25% of the investments. The C40 has tried to remedy part of this deficit. “It had been many decades since there had been such a powerful financing policy for developing countries. Subnational governments have a central role in this fight: we are the cities that emit the most, the ones most affected by this emission and the ones with the greatest potential to tip the balance”, said Rodríguez Larreta at a press conference together with the president of C40 , Londoner Sadiq Khan, and mayors Claudia López Hernández (Bogotá-Colombia), Joy Belmonte (Quezon-Philippines) and Elizabeth Tawiah Sackey (Accra-Ghana).
Sadiq Khan was especially tough on the COP, the climate summit of countries. “The difference is that we have concrete announcements,” said the mayor of London. “The cities are the doers and, often, the national governments are the ones that delay. As chair of the C40, one of my priorities has been to support cities in the global south, which are on the front lines, facing the worst consequences of climate change. It is clear that this is a drop in the bucket and that to meet our 2030 goals, cities will need record investment this decade to go much further, much faster,” he explained.
The mayor of Barcelona and vice-president of C40, Ada Colau, also demanded the attention of the nation states, and said that a group of European cities will attend COP 27, which will be held in November in Egypt, and will make a joint request to the Union European in that sense. “We have agreed to speak directly with the European Commission and make it understand that it not only has to listen to the cities, but that the cities are the main actors in responding to the ecological crisis and the economic and social crisis,” Colau said at a the top. “We want to act, we want to be part of the solution, but for that we need the European Commission to recognize us as interlocutors.”
The multilateral financial aid will work like a traditional line of credit, with specific projects by cities. The approval or not will depend on the pertinence with the climatic objectives that are promised to be achieved. The figure collected is important, but it is only a first step if the underlying problems are to be solved. According to CAF calculations, 600,000 million dollars a year are needed to permanently close the gaps in infrastructure and development in the region. During his presentation at the summit, the vice president of the multilateral, Christian Asinelli, said that to reach such a figure it is necessary to “coordinate” the work of the different contributors “so as not to overlap programs, be more efficient and generate the greatest possible impact” in countries.
Sadiq Khan also insisted on the importance of cities developing their own environmental protection policies, because, at the end of the day, “it is the mayors who know cities best.” “But the problem often is that there is no connection between the cities and the financing,” he said, “and so you have to prepare for the funds to be released, which may be in private donors or development banks. C40 works with the mayors, but it will be up to them to present those that have to do with solutions to climate change”.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América newsletter and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region.
#Climate #Summit #Mayors #announces #financing #billion #dollars #cities #Latin #America #Caribbean