At the International Conference on Climate Action – ICCA 2019 – in Heidelberg, Germany, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and the European Investment Bank have announced the 20 shortlisted cities of the Global Climate City Challenge.
Launched at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September 2018, the Global Climate Cities Challenge aims to strengthen technical assistance and financing for climate action projects especially in cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as the EU neighborhood. Besides climate adaptation and mitigation, the support will help cities to create jobs while at the same time cutting energy bills, improving air quality, managing sustainably waste and wastewater and supporting resilience.
The Challenge received 145 project proposals from 103 local and subnational governments and 2 consortiums from 43 countries. The first round of 6 cities whose projects will be supported by technical assistance and financing will be announced at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on 23rd September.
EIB Vice-President Emma Navarro, who is responsible for Climate Action and Environment, said: “The Global Climate City Challenge is a concrete example of EU leadership and international cooperation to deliver on the objectives of the Paris Agreement. We are excited to work with our partners and the cities that have applied, to build high-impact climate action projects around the world. The Challenge addresses the concrete demands for technical assistance and financing for climate action in cities. Bringing together expertise from the EIB, the Global Covenant of Mayors network, as well as ICLEI, C40 and GIZ, we will help to get projects off the ground and mobilise finance from public and private sources for investments benefitting local communities. We thank all the cities which applied”.
Original source: EIB
Published on 23 May 2019
