As we’ve discussed before, the cities of the world are playing an important part in mitigating and adapting to climate change. The 10-year-old city-founded C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group now comprises over 75 of the world’s greatest cities. In this role it represents a quarter of the world’s economy and nearly 8% of its population. Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes chairs the C40, and Michael R Bloomberg, three-term mayor of New York, is President of the Board.
This week the C40 kicks off a new effort that will help cities, especially in developing nations, gain swifter access to financing for sustainable and low-carbon climate-related projects. Only 4% of cities in the large developing nations have an international credit rating, and only one-fifth have a domestic one.
The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, an independent philanthropy based in London, is partnering with the C40 to launch a creditworthiness academy that these cities can attend to boost their credit ratings to a point of acceptable risk for lenders. CIFF’s interest stems from its view that climate change poses the single largest threat to the future health and lifestyle of today’s children.
The Greater Amman municipal authority hosts this first weeklong workshop in partnership with the World Bank. Eight cities have been chosen to attend this week:
- Amman, Jordan,
- Bengaluru (Bangalore), India,
- Chennai (Madras), India,
- Curitaba, Brazil,
- Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,
- Durban, South Africa,
- Karachi, Pakistan, and
- Kolkata (Calcutta), India.
C40’s research shows that this measure could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 gigatons by 2050, equivalent to taking 1.6 billion cars off the roads.
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
