Convention on Climate Change
Cities can recalibrate the world
Cities can recalibrate the world
With more and more people moving to cities every year, scaling the solutions that cities are implementing today can build a resilient future for billions
Local governments worldwide are leading the transition to clean energy, increasing access to basic services, improving public health and enhancing the resilience of communities.
COP28 offers cities an opportunity to showcase their successes, share their knowledge, and advocate for more funding and influence policy.
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Global goals. Local implementation.
We represent 100 cities building resilience and advancing urban transformations across the world.
Together, we help build the political environment for climate action.
R-Cities COP28 Key Messages
Energy Resilience
- Building energy resilience is an opportunity to reshape our urban systems and economies to provide for all urban residents and encourage cleaner, greener, and more resilient urban living.
- When cities change their energy systems, they can make energy cheaper and more accessible, and reduce their carbon emissions.
- Affordable, reliable, and abundant urban power unlocks paths to prosperity and can improve the quality of life of 55% of urban residents living in slum-like conditions without access to reliable electricity
- Urban Power Solutions in cities:
- Enable a community – focused energy transition.
- Activate local economies
- Create Green jobs for all members of society.
Water Resilience
- Water is vital for life and for building resilient cities. Investing in urban water resilience is a strategic action that protects our communities against natural hazards like drought, floods, and rising sea levels while simultaneously offering a pathway to urban transformation.
- Urban water action:
- Ensures access to clean drinking water for everyone.
- Positions water as a key driver for sustainable development.
- Supports healthy biodiversity.
- By analyzing water through a resilience lens, a city becomes aware of its interconnected role with urban systems and its wide-ranging impact on communities. This approach transforms water into an opportunity to transition to a sustainable future, stimulating economic activity, decreasing emissions, improving public health, and protecting urban biodiversity.
Community Resilience
- Equity builds resilience. Shocks and stresses disproportionately affect unrepresented communities facing vulnerabilities. Community resilience can be significantly enhanced by conscientiously nurturing and interweaving the social, physical, natural, and financial capital of communities.
- By knowing how communities perceive risk and what barriers make them more prone to risk, local governments gain a deeper understanding of what actions and solutions help them become more resilient.
- The intensifying effects of climate change are deeply connected to the health and well-being of communities, especially, communities facing vulnerabilities.
- Building community resilience means that everyone, regardless of their background, has equal access to resources and opportunities to adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of climate disasters and other challenges.
Cities Speed Up Change
Together with policymakers and funders, we can collectively power change by investing in city resilience projects.
Cities are centers of innovation and economic growth, generating over 80% of the world’s GDP. They are also responsible for 70% of all GHG emissions and home to widening inequality.
This dual nature of cities makes them ideal catalysts for change.
Urban action unlocks new opportunities to address challenges on a global scale.