Resilient Cities 2011 calls for funding for CCA to be bottom-up
BONN/Germany – At the current level of commitments from governments 200 billion US dollars will be available for climate change adaptation funding over the next 20 years. However, according to UNFCCC estimates up to 67 billion US dollars will be needed annually by 2030.
To cover the lack of adaptation funding there needs to be a change in global financing mechanisms and acknowledgement that the majority of the costs of adaptation will be borne by urban areas.
In short, an inversion of global adaptation financing is needed. The current top-down approach in funding needs to be replaced by a locally orientated demand-driven approach.
A white paper on „Financing the Resilient City‟, was launched today at ICLEI‟s Resilient Cities 2011 congress in Bonn, Germany. It identifies shortfalls in the global funding structures for adaptation, and sets out innovative ways to overcome them.
Jeb Brugmann, author of the white paper, says: “What is needed is to build on local expertise and institutions and fund what is needed locally, rather than conventional global financing mechanisms determining what local action is eligible for funding.”
Mexico City‟s Mayor Marcelo Ebrard underlines: “The architecture that is available now is not working, why, because it is not designed to help the cities; it is designed to work with the national governments.” Communities should be involved in the decision making and delivery of local adaptation action as well, argues Mayor Didas Massaburi of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
“The challenge for the international architecture is to let go of the command and control wish over climate funds”, confirms Paul Clements-Hunt, Head of the UNEP Finance Initiative.
The white paper also puts forward the idea that financing mechanisms have to be broadened to allow for more private investments in addition to existing global climate funds. Andrew Steer, the World Bank‟s Special Envoy for Climate Change, supports this idea: “We have got to be more imaginative in our environmental financing, managing to make things more comfortable for investors, and maximizing returns”.
The 2011 Bonn Declaration of Mayors advocates for the implementation of the following findings of the white paper:
- Mainstreaming new adaptation and resilience standards into conventional urban development projects.
- Developing specialized financial instruments for comprehensive local adaptation and resilience upgrading projects in urban areas.
- Building additional local institutional capacity to prepare, structure and manage large scale redevelopment.
A key element in transforming financing mechanisms to be demand-driven is to make local climate action measurable, reportable and verifiable (MRV). MRV for local action allows cities to identify which climate actions are most efficient and effective, and therefore most attractive to funders. The carbonn Cities Climate Registry and the Mexico City Pact are enabling cities to make firm commitments, and to measure and report their climate change actions.
C40 and ICLEI have just this week announced that they will establish a global standard for accounting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions to boost cities‟ ability to access funding and implement actions.
Many of the world‟s cities are already feeling the effects of climate change such as more powerful and frequent storms, longer dry seasons and droughts, or more severe flooding.
Because of this, the world‟s cities and local governments are also at the forefront of adaptation and resilience building.
Herbert Bautista, Mayor of Quezon City, Philippines, EMI Partner City, said his city is already working on long term projects on vulnerability and risk assessment for example with the World Bank, but that additional resources need to be made available for implementing actions.
Download the·ICLEI white paper ‘Financing the Resilient City’ and the Bonn Declaration of Mayors here:
