The fight against climate change will be won or lost in cities.
Powering Climate Action explores the powers that cities hold over urban assets and functions, which may help them to implement climate actions.
The report highlights the types of urban climate governance that prevail in cities, and presents a pathway to city-led climate action that takes into account political context, governance structure and potential delivery routes and partners.
We analysed data from 66 cities in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40). Within this data, we identified typical power profiles that cities hold across 10 sectors, including transport, energy supply and water. We also observed a series of governance typologies that describe cities’ approaches to climate governance. Our report illustrates contrasting power profiles and governance models in cities from across the globe, but also commonalities that highlight great potential for knowledge sharing between cities. Our research indicates that cities are in a strong position to catalyse climate action, particularly in cases where they collaborate with other actors.
Our report is the first product of a three year global partnership between Arup and C40. Together, we hope cities, their partners and the wider community will receive this report as a firm call to action, to collaborate and move forward together to deliver the transformative action that is needed so urgently.