To accelerate and increase investment in cities and local governments
GCoM’s Invest4Cities initiative is working to provide value to participating cities by mobilizing the critical financing and technical assistance cities require to access investment in three key ways:
- Creating the “enabling environments” that support local investment and implementation
- Mobilizing technical assistance for cities to develop investment ready projects based on strategic climate action plans
- Advancing large-scale financing instruments to support local implementation of climate protection strategies
Why finance for cities?
Cities around the world require massive and targeted investment to realize their ambition to tackle the climate challenge. Through GCoM, cities have established targets, and developed strategies to meet or exceed the requirements of the Paris Climate Agreement, but to fully achieve this ambition, significant investment, at the local level, will be required.
The Paris Agreement has created a quickly growing market and appetite for investment-ready low-carbon, urban infrastructure projects—and the more ambitious the targets, the more opportunities there will be to invest in innovative solutions and infrastructure. Recent calculations show that if the Paris Agreement commitments are realized in large emerging markets between now and 2030, they will create over $23 trillion in investment potential. Annual global investment in climate solutions is over $1 trillion, and is accelerating – and this investment can be targeted towards urban areas that have made significant and ambitious commitments.
What is GCoM doing about it?
Working with key city networks, governments, and financial partners, GCoM has established a framework to mobilize the resources needed to:
- Increase investment in urban, low-carbon and resilient infrastructure
- Ensure that cities, and their projects, are investment ready by developing targeted technical assistance resources; and
- Advance regulatory reforms that allow for greater partnership between local governments and their national counterparts in climate protection implementation.