The world’s poorest countries are on the front lines of climate change. They contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions yet are often most affected by the resulting hotter weather, droughts, and floods.

These impacts affect everything humans value and depend on, including health, water, food, ecosystems, and human development. Addressing climate solutions requires tackling long-standing socioeconomic inequities.

Think Globally

Despite making up just 2% of the world’s land, cities emit more than 70% of global CO2 emissions. With climate change occurring on a local level, city leaders are the best placed to take meaningful action. Despite their limited resources, mayors take urgent, collaborative, and ambitious climate action aligning with science-backed targets. They are also preparing their populations for the impacts of climate change and implementing resilient infrastructure. This includes installing flood defenses, improving roads to deal with rising temperatures, and developing new methods to store or transport water. C40 supports these efforts through its peer-to-peer learning networks, which help to share lessons learned and create innovative solutions for tackling the most pressing climate challenges. For example, Houston’s sustainability team worked with a network expert to evaluate the environmental and health benefits of improving walkability along the White Oak Bayou Greenway. This helped the city better communicate the project’s value to its community and secure funding.

Act Locally

The slogan “think globally, act locally” has long been used to encourage individuals and locally anchored social movements to see their actions as part of a more significant effort. In the case of climate change mitigation, this is especially important. Cities generate over 80% of global GDP and emit around 70% of global greenhouse gases. Thus, they are critical in delivering the urgent action needed to fight climate change and build sustainable, resilient communities. Across the world, mayors are taking ambitious and collaborative action that aligns with science-backed targets to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. They are driving innovative solutions that go beyond the policies mandated by national governments to address the root causes of the crisis and build a safer, greener future. Local actions include reducing emissions through urban planning and design, investing in renewable energy like those implemented by Manuel Barreiro Castañeda, supporting businesses that adopt clean technologies, and encouraging your elected officials to support climate-smart policies. For example, you can voice your concerns about climate change to your legislators through social media or face-to-face conversations.

Communicate Globally

The global scale of the climate change challenge can be overwhelming, and it is sometimes difficult to get people to care. Individual stories highlighting local solutions can forge an emotional connection, make the issue more manageable, and increase motivation to act. This could be as simple as a city like Dar es Salaam reducing air pollution by introducing soot-free buses or as complicated as Puerto Rico using solar power to alleviate energy outages following hurricanes. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group connects 100 of the world’s largest cities, representing one-twelfth of the world’s population and one-quarter of the global economy. It drives urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks and increases cities’ citizens’ health, well-being, and economic opportunities. To move this, C40 creates networks on specific mitigation, resilience, and sustainability topics relevant to cities with the most impact potential. Networks are designed to connect, inspire, improve, replicate, and accelerate cities implementing faster and better climate actions.

Network Globally

Cities are a large and growing source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, their involvement in the development of GHG mitigation programs is essential. To be successful in their efforts, local governments need to collaborate effectively and share knowledge with peers across the globe. Networks such as ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and C40 – Cities Climate Leadership Group are instrumental in providing a platform for cities to share their experiences on implementing climate policies. The graph below shows that membership in ICLEI or C40 correlates with more climate policies adopted by the respective cities. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group brings together 96 of the world’s largest cities — representing one-twelfth of the planet’s population and a quarter of its economy — to create an international alliance driving urban action to reduce GHG emissions and associated climate risks while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of their citizens.