The Green Climate Fund and city leaders: step up your game

Achieving a paradigm shift needs bundled power from all sides

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is getting into a decisive stage. After receiving a number of pledges adding up to more than US$ 10bn, it was able to approve its first eight projects across the developing world at the end of last year. The GCF is positioned as a key actor to significantly shape the post-Paris climate change implementation agenda towards the transformation that the Paris agreement aspires.

Key role of the GCF

To achieve this mammoth task, funding from the GCF will have to be channelled to towards highly transformative projects that will lead the way towards a low-carbon and climate resilient world. One central puzzle piece of the transformation jigsaw is the urban arena: on the one hand, cities are responsible for more than 70% of the world’s energy related greenhouse gas emissions, while on the other, they are hubs of innovation and are avant-garde. Both features underscore the cities’ enormous potential in becoming pioneers of change. So far urban areas have been formally recognized by the GCF, making up two of the initial result areas under the adaptation as well as mitigation window. However, clear operationalisation pathways for the GCF to reach the subnational level are still lacking.

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The entire blog post can be read at the CDKN-website.