Welcome to the Climate Smart Cities online platform!
Context
Cities are central to the fight against climate change. More compact, connected, and coordinated cities could deliver significant greenhouse gas emission reductions, strengthen resilience to physical climate risks while stimulating socially inclusive economic growth. However, a large share of urban growth in developing countries is unplanned and unstructured, which carries significant economic, social, and environmental costs. Rapidly urbanizing areas present a unique opportunity to plan, develop, build, and manage cities that are ecologically and economically sustainable, and which have light carbon footprints. Most growing cities in developing countries - where urban form and infrastructure are not yet locked-in - hold the largest mitigation opportunities. It is urgent to act quickly in order to ensure that these cities can properly manage future urban growth and expansion in economically and environmentally sustainable ways.
Strategy
The Climate Smart Cities is a Community of Practice (CoP) within the World Bank Group (WBG) community that aims to support cities and local governments transition to low-carbon and climate-smart urbanization pathways by: (i) leveraging technical, policy and financing expertise, (ii) strengthening cities’ capacity to develop climate strategies, action plans and detailed analysis, and (iii) exploring diverse financing options for climate-smart investments.
The CoP also seeks to build a new generation of WBG practitioners who are not only technically skilled, but also have the soft skills to engage with clients and development partners in developing a roadmap and shared vision towards sustainable urbanization. The CoP is jointly managed under the Sustainable City Infrastructure and Services GSG and Climate Change Advisory and Operations Unit (SCCAO) of the Climate Change Group.
In the long term, the Climate Smart Cities CoP will:
- Provide access to a more systematic approach to low-carbon urbanization – supported by tools, instruments, analytical products, examples and a pool of internal and external experts
- Mainstream climate mitigation and resilience considerations in Bank operations and into the DNA of practitioners engaged in urban development and service provision
- Establish a one stop shop for operational teams, cities, partners and other global institutions looking for cutting edge approaches, governance, planning tools and best practice on climate smart urbanization pathways
- Explore diverse financing options to realize urban climate goals
To meet these desired outcomes, the CoP will carry out the following sets of activities:
- Building a community of practice by leveraging cross-GP and CCSA linkages and building a coalition around climate action in the urban and DRM sectors through knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer learning. Special attention will be given to topics such as climate mitigation and adaptation, integrated spatial and neighborhood planning, climate finance and related crosscutting issues.
- Analytics, tools and methodology The CoP will support capacity building, knowledge development and produce a series of technical/guidance notes on: (i) climate finance tracking, (ii) climate corporate commitments in urban/DRM operations and co-benefits tracking, (iii) review of models, tools and approaches on GHG mitigation, TOD and compact urban development, (iv) overview of climate finance options and resources for cities, (v) and other urban analytics on climate adaptation and mitigation that CoP members will deem useful and operationally relevant.
- Platform for business development and operational support The CoP will provide hands-on, strategic planning and technical support to operational teams interested in mainstreaming climate mitigation considerations into ongoing and new Bank operations. It will serve as a platform for the roll-out and implementation of the City Climate Finance Gap Fund MDTF (Gap Fund), City Planning Labs and other related initiatives through communications and outreach activities.
If you have any questions or want to become a member and join the distribution list, please send an email to our Community Managers, Yuna Chun (ychun1@worldbank.org) and Gunes Basat (gbasat@worldbank.org).