New York Climate Week in Review: CCFLA Highlights

introduce

New York Climate Week (NYCW), held concurrently with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the United Nations Future Summit, brings together more than 100,000 people to discuss some of society's most pressing issues. It’s fitting that cities – both drivers of the climate crisis and leaders in its response – took center stage at the conference against the backdrop of one of the world’s most iconic urban centres.

Leading mayors from around the world, including London Mayor Sadiq Kahn, Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, addressed governments, the private sector and Civil society stakeholders presented solutions to the climate crisis in their respective cities.

CCFLA participates in New York Climate Week

For the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA), NYCW 2024 holds special significance as it marks ten years since its founding at the United Nations General Assembly in 2014 and five years since the Climate Policy Initiative became its secretariat. CCFLA’s annual meeting marks these milestones and provides a forum for CCFLA members to collaborate face-to-face and network in support of our collective goal of accelerating urban climate finance.

In 2024, for the first time, CCFLA members are invited to provide leadership at the conference and raise the most pressing topics to further our mission and support cities’ access to climate finance. The call was met with an enthusiastic response from the member-led session, which featured insightful conversations around four key themes:

1. Urban climate finance at COP29
   • UN-Habitat and the COP29 Presidency shared plans to advance urban climate finance discussions in Baku this November. The Bureau shared the Multi-Sector Action Pathways (MAP) of the Declaration on Resilient and Healthy Cities and highlighted its commitment to ensuring continuity of previous initiatives and connectivity with other important urban forums.
2. Reduce urban private investment risks through guarantees
   • The Green Finance Institute held an extensive discussion on the role of guarantees in mobilizing private investment in urban climate infrastructure projects. Based on the valuable opinions of the SDSN Global Urban Sustainable Development Goals Financing Committee and UNCDF, all parties reached a consensus on the need to strengthen cooperation in guaranteeing urban design.
3. Innovative financing mechanisms unleash urban climate finance
   • Bankers Without Borders and Connected Places Catapult share UK and European success stories in supporting cities to access finance through innovative financing mechanisms. With further examples shared by the Global Infrastructure Fund and the Global Climate Finance Innovation Lab, the conference showcased the exciting work being done by members around the world to accelerate urban climate finance.
4. Matching throughout the project preparation life cycle
   • GIZ hosted a session on the importance of matching during the project preparation life cycle, sharing success stories from South Africa and Kenya, highlighting the importance of CCFLA’s PPF connectors in facilitating matching, and leading members on how to improve future Pairs had a fishbowl discussion.

The CCFLA Assembly also released the State of Urban Climate Finance 2024 report, the most comprehensive assessment of urban climate finance flows published to date and the first assessment of urban climate finance needs. The report tracks $831 billion in annual climate finance flows to cities by 2021/22, triple the figure tracked in 2017/18¹. While significant progress has been made, it remains well below the city's estimated needs, which are $4.5 trillion per year by 2030 and will increase to $6 trillion per year from 2031 to 2050.

How is urban climate financing progressing elsewhere in NYCW?

Elsewhere at NYCW, urban climate finance was a key discussion point at many events, with the main themes being:

private finance

Private actors in New York stepped up to the plate, and mobilizing climate finance was high on many event agendas. There is widespread recognition of the need to accelerate private investment in city climate plans, and the need for effective and targeted public finance to de-risk private investment is highlighted.

The FAST-Infra label is also considered a key mechanism for mobilizing private investment in sustainable infrastructure projects through certification, and green bonds and blended finance conferences increase the potential of innovative finance to accelerate private investment in urban climate plans.

adapt

Urban adaptation is also a priority theme for NYCW, and the discussion focused on the need to accelerate investment in adaptation projects. As Jorge Gastelumendi, senior director of the Center for Climate Adaptation, points out, “There is underinvestment in adaptation because we haven’t yet figured out how to internalize climate risk into our decision-making.”

The importance of data, including the climate risks faced by cities and the potential costs and damages avoided by implementing resilience plans, is discussed in a training course on the Catalyst Climate Resilience Assessment for Resilient Cities and the first CW edition of the Resilience Center in New York. Further discussions were held at training sessions, which highlighted the growing need to build capacity and a strong enabling environment to provide climate finance for urban adaptation.

Raising cities’ voices in national-level climate action

Multi-level governance is a key theme on the city agenda, and the high-level political dialogue of the Coalition for High Ambition Multi-level Partnerships (CHAMP) has further raised the importance of cities’ voices in achieving their NDCs and included the UK and Finland in its agenda. List of recognized countries.

Additionally, the SCALE Climate Action Week dialogue brings cities together with a wide range of stakeholders to discuss solutions to accelerate climate action. Urban voices are also highlighted during the WRI Ross Center Cities Awards and at events hosted by the following organizations. CDP On the power of US inflation-reduction bills to fund urban climate action.

Overall, NYCW 2024 represents an important milestone for the role of city and local actors in climate discussions and demonstrates the growing strength of civil society actors in driving the climate agenda. The importance of dialogue on climate finance, particularly on urban issues such as adaptation, private sector investment and multi-level coordination, further solidifies the role of cities as drivers of climate action and reinforces the need to accelerate the flow of climate finance to cities. Urgent need.

We look forward to building on the dialogue held at NYCW at World Urban Forum 12, U20 and COP29 and invite you to join us at our upcoming events during these important forums.

_{¹ We express climate finance flows as the average of two years of data to smooth out single-year fluctuations.}