📅 10 – 12 October 2023
Virtual
Grounded in the latest research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the science is clear: climate change demands increasingly urgent transformative action to reduce emissions, meet core human needs, and increase social, energy, and environmental resilience. Cities and local governments can play a crucial role in implementing climate action but require cross-sector partnership and collaboration to meet the moment.
The Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) invites all cities and local governments, and their partners in climate action research and innovation, to the first-of-its-kind Innovate4Cities (I4C) Global Marketplace October 10-12 online.
Building on research and innovation priorities identified via key city & climate change science agendas, the Innovate4Cities Global Marketplace is a shared space to connect and match cities, local governments, funders and financiers, academia, and other levels of government to tackle the policy, research, and innovation gaps most critical to urban action.
The I4C Global Marketplace will provide a virtual space to identify, explore, and connect the challenges, knowledge, and solutions focused on tackling the climate crisis through action implementation in cities and local governments. The Marketplace aims to catalyze regionally relevant partnerships that maximize shared priorities and ambitions to implement need-based city climate actions and solutions that deliver a net-zero, climate-resilient, and safe future.
Format for the Marketplace- There will be sessions in suitable hours for all time zones across the three days, with meetings and presentation opportunities open to all who are interested. Organizations will be in touch to discuss options to actively participate in the marketplace – to present or pitch your ideas for research and innovation, relevant to the local climate action needs.
Participants can attend one day, half a day, or just a specific meeting – with a program focusing on a few high-level stock-take plenaries on research and innovation for cities and local government climate action; and many small to medium meetings to generate meaningful partnerships for research and innovation to close the implementation gap on local climate ambition.
Moreover, the I4C Global Marketplace informs the development of the Innovate4Cities Conferences by taking stock of the appetite for cross-sector partnership and implementation that addresses crucial research and innovation priorities. City and climate change science agendas will benefit directly from the knowledge and opportunities shared and developed within and across Marketplaces.
The reasons to attend the I4C Global Marketplace
- Connect and match with regionally relevant businesses and academics on unique project/solution/program offerings that can facilitate action plan implementation;
- Learn from other cities and local governments, industry, academia, and business about sustainability-related challenges and opportunities they face – and share good practices to address them;
- Generate knowledge around policy, research, and innovation gaps at the nexus of city climate action that feeds into longer-term engagement opportunities
