Cities often struggle with developing climate-friendly and resilient infrastructure. Especially in the Southern hemisphere, cities frequently lack the capacity, finance and support needed for the early stages of project preparation.
This leads to impasses where cities cannot move project ideas to late-stage preparation and implementation. Amid rapid urbanisation especially in developing countries and emerging markets, climate-smart cities are core to meeting global and national climate objectives, including the Paris Agreement.
Announced in 2019, the City Climate Finance Gap Fund helps cities in developing and emerging countries realise their climate ambitions, turning resilient low-carbon urbanisation plans and projects into finance-ready investments. The Fund will help guide climate-smart investments and programmes with the goal of attracting more financing and support for implementation.
During Climate Week NYC 2020, we held an event to bring together high-level champions and partners of the Gap Fund for a discussion on the role of partnerships and targeted finance in driving forward climate-informed urbanisation, particularly in the context of pandemics like COVID-19.
