Clean air, healthy citizens and equal societies: Making the case for ambitious, inclusive, climate action in cities

Event aim

The event will be a launch for exciting and innovative efforts to unlock accelerated and transformative city action on climate change and a range of wider SDG's, by establishing a global evidence base on the wider (co)benefits of action. Three core initiatives are being launched:

1. The Climate Action Benefits Framework: The Framework has been developed to allow urban stakeholders to explore and measure how climate action can also deliver on wider urban priorities, such as health, jobs, economic prosperity, quality of life, air quality, security and so on. The New Urban Agenda, the SDG's, the Paris Agreement, all provide reference points for progress, but represent a complex range of priorities for urban policy makers to navigate. Cities report that they lack the tools, resources and crucially the evidence needed to make the case for climate action, and be able to link that climate action to the other priorities they face. Where evidence does exist it is partial, inaccessible and often developed using inconsistent methodologies. The framework and work that follows aim to address this. The project was a widely collaborative effort, led by C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and consultancy Ramboll, with extensive input and support from a number of universities (LSE, UCL, Leeds), cities (15 different C40 cities including several from the global south), multi-nationals (UNEP, OECD, WHO, IEA), other city networks (ICLEI), private sector organisations (PWC) and research organisations and NGO's (SDI, TNC, ITDP, IS-Global).

2. Inclusive Climate Action Partnership: C40 has brought together a loose association of organizations, including those listed above, most of whom will be in attendance, who share the aim of unlocking transformative climate action in cities, who have understanding or interesting in its links with the wider urban agenda, to establish an Inclusive Climate Action Partnership. This partnership will form the vehicle for building on the Framework to deliver three main goals:

o Between now and 2020 to have established a comprehensive and robust evidence base of the wider benefits of implementing the key climate actions needed for cities to deliver on the ambition of the Paris Agreement

o In 2018, provide a universally accessible online platform/tool allowing access to the above emerging evidence base and dynamic exploration of all the wider impacts of urban climate action, for instance their link to individual Sustainable Development Goals

o By 2020 to have supported all C40 cities in demonstrating the wider benefits of their individual Paris Agreement Climate Change Action Plans