SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 6 February 2025, Thursday |

World’s cities require trillions more dollars to meet climate demands

A report by the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance and the World Bank said that the world’s cities need trillions of dollars more to invest annually to meet urban climate finance needs.

The funding gap is most stark in the developing world, particularly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the research, an average of $384 billion was invested annually on urban climate finance in 2017-2018, compared with the estimated $4.5-5.4 trillion needed to tackle global warming.

The data is particularly stark given that 70 percent of global emissions come from cities, which seven out of 10 people will call home by 2050.

“The numbers are clear, we are failing to provide cities with adequate finance to address the climate emergency,” said Barbara Buchner, managing director of the Climate Policy Initiative, the secretariat of the Alliance. “It is critical that the entire financial system—public, private, and philanthropic—urgently work together to mobilise city-level climate finance at scale.”

Urban climate investments are “heavily concentrated” in China and in the 38 largely high-income nations of the OECD. This contrasts with only small cash flows in the developing world, despite their typically fast growing urban areas.

Figures are not yet available for 2019, but despite an expected increase in funding for that year, the report warns that “investment trends for 2020 and beyond are highly uncertain due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“On the positive side, development banks have increased their climate commitments, some countries have adopted green recovery packages, and consumer investment in electric vehicles has continued on an upward trend.

    Source:
  • The National News