Search

Urban infrastructure investment needs in the developing world are immense, particularly when the additional costs associated with lower carbon, more climate-resilient options are considered. These cannot possibly be financed from fiscal sources and ODA flows alone; private financing will need to be accessed. Focusing on the ability of city governments and subnational urban utilities to mobilize private finance, this paper makes two core arguments. First, private investment in municipal infrastructure requires robust institutional, fiscal and regulatory systems that are often absent in developing countries. Establishing such systems often requires policy and institutional reform, much of which lies beyond the competence and control of city governments themselves. Second, while the marginal investment needs related to climate mitigation and adaptation complicate and aggravate the picture, they do not alter the fundamental requirements of private investors. Put simply, municipalities and utilities will need to satisfy the requirements of regular private finance before they can attract green private finance. This paper looks across the main avenues for city governments to mobilize private finance – municipal borrowing, public–private partnerships, and land value capture instruments – and identifies four broad factors that determine the potential size and scope of city leveraging activity. It then offers a new framework to understand where the most pressing constraints to private investment readiness lie and proposes priority measures that local and national governments, together with development partners and other stakeholders, can take to address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When cities in the global north are considered environmental sustainable, this largely depends on how one measures emissions and understands space. Production-based and consumption-based approaches are two different ways of measuring emissions, but they are not simply measuring techniques: they relate also to different interests, they hide and reveal power relations, and they come with very different spatial implications. In this paper, we examine the Swedish city of Malmö, and the city district of Western Harbour in particular, which is often considered an environmental 'role model'. We argue that this reputation depends precisely upon how we understand space and measure emissions. We argue that so-called sustainable cities and city districts in the global north can only be considered environmental role models if one chose to ignore the fact that they completely depend upon emissions being emitted elsewhere, and ignore any relation between affluence and emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Paris Agreement that put stronger emphasis on the development of climate change adaptation policies and on the definition of financing mechanisms, there is a patent need to track whether actual planning efforts are proving sufficient. This entails the development of assessment methods and metrics as plans are drafted and actions implemented. To this end, this paper explores the concept of credibility as a critical issue in climate policy and develops an Adaptation Policy Credibility (APC) conceptual and operational assessment framework for helping to allocate public funding and private investments, and for implementing and catalysing climate policy. Through a pilot testing in four early-adopting cities (Copenhagen, Durban, Quito and Vancouver), a clear potential for large-n tracking and assessment exercises of local climate adaptation plans is envisaged. The APC approach might also be useful to guide individual cities that aim to improve their adaptation planning and policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]