How national governments can recover from COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis and secure shared prosperity through cities
Today, the Coalition for Urban Transitions launches a new report, Seizing the Urban Opportunity. This flagship report demonstrates, through the lens of six of the world’s largest emerging economies—China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa—how national governments have a central role to play in unlocking the enormous potential of cities. By putting cities front and centre in both COVID-19 recovery and longer-term climate action, national governments can create jobs, advance key development priorities, and accelerate the shift to net-zero.
Across the six focus countries, implementation of technically feasible solutions could collectively create:
- Climate benefits, including cutting annual emissions from key urban sectors (buildings, transport, materials use and waste) by 87–96% by 2050 beyond their initial NDC commitments under the Paris Agreement.
- Economic benefits, including economic returns with a net present value of over $12 trillion by 2050, based on energy and material cost savings alone.
- Development benefits, including potentially supporting millions of new jobs in 2030.
- Resilience benefits, including creating climate-resilient infrastructure and urban development to reduce climate risks and addressing the socio-economic drivers of vulnerability.
Join us today at 9:30am EDT / 1:30pm GMT for the Coalition’s global flagship event and launch of
Seizing the Urban Opportunity. The event will hear from global leaders such as COP President Designate Alok Sharma, Professor Lord Stern, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa and many others. The event will inspire, inform and build momentum for enhanced climate ambition by national governments and other actors ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.
