Belmonte, Binay call for climate action funding from development banks

MANILA, Philippines (Updated March 30, 5:39 p.m.) — City leaders worldwide, including Makati Mayor Abigail Binay and Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, called on multilateral development banks (MDBs) to increase the flow of financing for ambitious climate action in urban areas.

The C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) asked MDBs to increase urban climate investment, integrate urban climate action into their strategies, and implement tailored programs to support city projects.

“As cities we do not lack climate ambition. What we lack is the finance to make this ambition a reality,” the groups of mayors said in an open letter issued ahead of next month’s World Bank Spring Meeting.

Around 2.5 billion more people are expected to call cities home by 2050. Most of the increase is expected to be highly concentrated in Asia and Africa.

Urban areas, as centers of industry and commerce, produce over 70% of global carbon emissions. But cities are also on the frontlines of the climate crisis, facing flooding, fires and extreme temperatures.

C40 and GCoM mayors stressed that development banks can significantly improve city financing by providing policy advice and facilitating the leveraging and de-risking of private finance.

“We write to you now to ask you to turn your gaze and your influence to cities to help create an environment in which we can narrow the city climate finance gap and allow cities to take the ambitious climate action that will drive down our emissions,” they said.

According to an earlier report by C40 cities, three-quarters of the coalition members have surpassed their national targets in per-capita emission reduction, highlighting the effectiveness of city-led policies and initiatives.

“The world cannot climate change without action in cities. We ask you to work with us to make our climate ambitions a reality,” they said.

Belmonte is part of the C40 coalition of cities, a network of nearly 100 mayors of cities “that are united in action to confront the climate crisis.” Binay, meanwhile, is a member of GCoM, which is the “largest global alliance for city climate leadership.”

Erratum: An earlier version of this article indicated that both Belmonte and Binay are part of the C40 Cities. We apologize for the error.

Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com.