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C40, a network of 97 megacities, has been formed to find ways to mitigate the climate crisis. Cities need to come together to plan and structure how they can address climate action through long-term measures, Shruti Narayan, regional director of C40 cities, tells Sanjana Bhalerao.
C40 is a network of 97 global megacities that have come together to confront the climate crisis. It is a network driven by the cities, for the cities and it is led by the cities. These 97 cities are members and our chair is on a rotational basis. And the mayor of one of the member cities becomes the chair. Cities are the centre of climate change and climate action. They are the epicentre of bringing people together for economic opportunities or livelihood. And they also end up being the largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions. It is for these reasons that cities need to come together to plan and structure how they can address climate action through long- term land use planning and economic planning.
A project aligning or not aligning with the goals is something that requires a broad, detailed structural assessment. We are not watchdogs. We are not lobbyists. We are a non-profit leading on climate action and we believe all our cities at the highest level of political leadership that are committing to climate action are going to deliver what we have structured as leaders’ standards. Every city is playing the balancing act between economic development and climate. We are not like the Ministry of Environment or Forests. At the broad level, we are looking at cities’ compliance with the leadership standards. We engage closely with civil societies.
Financial instruments are very important to unlock and deliver climate action on the ground. Otherwise, it remains academic. One cannot implement the action plan without the availability of finance. C40 per se doesn’t do direct financing. We don’t finance a project in the city. But what we do is we develop a lot of knowledge articles and information on types of financial institutions that could be available.
One of the strengths of the C40s is peer-to-peer learning. We also have something called as Cities Finance Facility (CFF). C40, in partnership with the German government, GIZ and a couple of other partners, supports cities to do project preparation. Once a project is cleared, it goes through a process of financing, this facility does that. We also facilitate discussions with the financial institutes.
Currently, for Mumbai, what we are trying to do is bring together different multilateral development institutes, and private sectors, to look at different actions identified in the Mumbai climate action plan and what could be innovative financial mechanisms. As per the action plans, we also look at different donors, and philanthropic institutions to see the possibility of developing concept notes.
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