The State of City Climate Finance

This is the inaugural report of the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA), a coalition of cities, banks, national governments and civil society organizations with the aim of accelerating and scaling up climate related finance for the world’s cities. Today’s financing landscape does not provide cities with adequate access to affordable financing suited to low-emission, climate-resilient infrastructure. The challenge is not simply to increase the amount of money in the pipeline, but also to create an enabling environment that encourages existing and new financing to flow from a broad spectrum of sources.

This report proposes measures to six major barriers that must be overcome:

1. Uncertainty over regulatory and tax policies that affect low emission, climate-resilient infrastructure;
2. Difficulty in incorporating climate goals into urban infrastructure planning;
3. Lack of city expertise in developing low-emission, climate-resilient infrastructure projects that can attract financing;
4. Insufficient city control over infrastructure planning and complex stakeholder coordination;
5. High transaction costs; and 6. Lack of proven funding models at the city level.