C40’s Mark Watts on harnessing cities’ power to supercharge national climate goals

By Climate Champions | September 20, 2024

As countries prepare to share their post-2030 climate commitments, so-called ‘Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs)’, we spoke to Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40, the global network of nearly 100 mayors from the world’s leading cities united in  confronting the climate crisis, on the massive potential for regions and cities to boost the ambition and effectiveness of national goals.

C40 acts as a friend of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action which was introduced at COP 28 and co-led by the COP 28 High-Level Champion, Razan Al Mubarak.  Mark also reflected on the aims of CHAMP – to align regional and national governments – to create a multiplier effect on the capacity of countries to set ambitious goals and deliver them on time.

How did you become a cities leader?

I feel like I’ve been doing this forever now! I’ve been Executive Director of C40 for 10 years, but altogether I’ve worked on cities and climate change for 20 years. My career in this space began when I was advisor to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone – who put climate at the heart of his mayorship. He was very influenced by Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary and he decided London was going to become the first megacity with a dedicated climate unit and climate strategy. And so, twenty years ago – with no prior knowledge whatsoever, I was tasked with setting up a framework. We found London had lots of climate commitments, but 20 years ago, frankly, not a lot of expertise. 

So, we looked around the world to see which cities were leading.  Stockholm, Copenhagen, Toronto and San Francisco stood out. We learned so much from them that we thought “Why don’t we make this a permanent network where cities can constantly share ideas, and strategies for emissions reduction?” This led to the creation of C40.

We currently comprise 96 member cities around the world, representing just under 600 million citizens, and around 22% of global GDP – and we engage nearly 2,000 city officials to lead science based climate action.

A recent study found that most national NDCs fail to include the emissions reduction potential of cities. How is C40 tackling this missed opportunity?

That was a really interesting study by UN-Habitat. For those of us working on subnational climate action, it proved what we’d always suspected – that the vast majority (nearly two-thirds) of country national climate commitments have yet to really take account of what’s happening at the subnational level. 

The analysis clearly framed the challenge of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action, which was launched at COP 28, committing 72 countries to strengthening their new NDCs by coordinating the efforts of national governments with cities and states and regions. This means that, at the next COP, we will not just see commitments of national governments, or in some cases, departments in national governments, but genuinely integrated commitments by all levels of government, across the whole country.

C40 acts as a friend for CHAMP, supporting the UAE in shaping the initiative and encouraging collaboration between our members, many other partner organizations and country leaders. In the countries where I personally have been engaged, such as Brazil, it’s been very enlightening to see the new federal government – led by President Lula – establish a policymaking process that is designed to convene the different layers of government – bringing together Mayors and the State Governors on climate policy. That’s resulted in Brazil’s world-leading Green Resilient Cities program, which is backed by a large chunk of national government money. We’d like to see that kind of approach being taken by all of the signatories to CHAMP and indeed, all of the signatories of the Paris Agreement.

Ultimately, effective climate action is not about competition between different levels of government, it’s about maximizing the use of public investment. Often, policy and regulations that affect the whole of the country are set at the national level, but most often it’s local or state governments that are responsible for establishing and enforcing them on the ground.

Within C40, there’s tremendous momentum and leadership on climate and a willingness to collaborate across international boundaries, different cultures and levels of economic development. That has enabled city governments often to go a lot faster than their national counterparts. CHAMP is about unleashing that leadership further – enabling national governments to realise that collaboration can help deliver stronger commitments. The more countries can enable the different layers of government, the more capacity they have to deliver those commitments on time.

The research also shows that low and middle-income economies lead in their inclusion of ‘urban content’ in NDCs, what’s driving that? 

Yes, that was very interesting. Generally-speaking, higher income countries are more likely to have decentralised governance structures, where responsibilities and powers are more likely to have been passed down to local and regional governments. Contrastingly, there’s more likely to be a centralised top-down approach in lower middle income countries. 

Counterintuitively, the study showed that there’s more likely to be local policies and actions  in the national climate commitment of lower and middle income countries. In many cases, that’s because it’s a very centralised government system, so there are straightforward rules for national delivery at a local level. There’s insights we can take from both scenarios. 

In Colombia, the robust integration of local and subnational climate action into national frameworks, acts like the strong roots of a tree that allow it to thrive and grow tall. The country’s multi-level governance framework acts as the deeply intertwined roots, ensuring that every layer of government, from local to national, works together to strengthen the trunk—the national climate goals. This gives subnational levels a greater stake in the delivery of the national climate goals, but also means that the national plan has subnational goals ‘built in’, so that the national government is monitoring and calculating how to maximise its mitigation and adaptation resources. 

Similarly, Rwanda’s national Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy, which resulted in the Rwanda Green Fund, is Africa’s largest climate investment fund, having mobilised nearly 250 million USD of public and private investment into high-impact green ventures. The fund acts like a rich soil that fuels growth. The fund is easier to access at the subnational level than might otherwise be the case because the commitments at the local level are incorporated into the national strategy.

In high income countries, like the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act is like a powerful sunlight, nurturing cities and states with financial resources to drive faster growth toward a low-carbon future. The funding is akin to light filtering down to every part of the tree—making sure that local governments have the tools and support to ensure the national plan bears fruit. This coordinated approach turns subnational actors into strong, thriving branches contributing to a healthy, climate-resilient tree.

In terms of middle income countries, the one that really stands out is China. China’s climate governance can be compared to a giant cypress tree, where the national government is the strong, central trunk, and the subnational governments—the cities and provinces—are the deep and widespread roots. The integration of policies between these levels is like the seamless connection between roots and trunk, ensuring that resources, knowledge, and strategies flow efficiently from the local level to the national and vice versa.

The benefits of the level of integration in China are striking. For example, a national policy to put KPIs on cities to reduce their air pollution, combined with investments to clean up transport – led to most big Chinese cities implementing one hundred percent electric bus fleets way ahead of the rest of the world. This, in turn, led to a huge investment in electric buses, which then drove the entire international market, accelerating the spread of electric buses globally and hastening the end of polluting diesel vehicles. China’s program drove the entire international market, but it happened because of a strong policy – national – to local.

Cities have a proven ability to be nimble, progressive and responsive drivers of climate action, are national governments now grasping this potential?

Much more so than ever before but there’s still a way to go. It was amazing to have the Local Climate Action Summit at the start of COP 28 in the Blue Zone. This was the first time there’s ever been a major gathering of local leaders and national leaders, right at the start of a COP, when the Presidents and Prime Ministers and Ministers, were still there. 

It’s almost inconceivable that this would have been possible four, five years ago. I think partly this is due to the severity of the climate crisis and globally our failure to deal with it, as is clear from rising emissions. The pressure is on for the world to cut emissions by 40%- 50% in just the next five years. Policymakers have got to look at every tool available to them including devolving power – which is often the hardest thing for those in power to do. 

The biggest opportunity for leadership on climate is at the local level, where action is palpably stronger, and faster than at the national level. The internationalism of the city space in particular is very potent. Mayors have a willingness to collaborate and learn from each other, to copy good ideas, and not to be put off by political and cultural differences or problems of language. 

There is a healthy competition between cities to be the cleanest, best places to live, and to attract investment to deliver that. That means getting rid of pollution and showing that you’re in tune with the future, that you’re driving towards the way the world needs to go, which is zero carbon.

That is one of the things that’s really missing in the intergovernmental sphere, where the discourse of negotiations is often still conducted as a ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ with countries saying “ok, I’ll only go so far, if you’ll go a little bit further.” This has only led to incremental progress. We just don’t have that kind of conversation at the city level. The discussion between cities is very much along the lines of “Okay, this is what the science says is necessary. Let’s work out how we’re going to do this together.”

What is the next frontier of city climate leadership, and which cities are leading? 

CHAMP is helping to stimulate a new generation of leadership, with national programs that bring all local regional governments together towards a national target. We need higher levels of ambition to start with and then greater efficiency in the use of resources through collaboration. We need a better dialogue with national governments so that there’s stronger legislation and regulation to get ‘all hands on deck.’ 

We’ve seen that in a few countries already. A great example is Denmark’s DK 2020 program which has led all 98 of the country’s municipalities to draw up and commit to climate action plans, using the C40 framework. The program brings together the broad support of its municipalities, with the assistance of a philanthropic fund and the national government to really drive up the ambition of the national target. That’s what we need to see in every country.

We’re just about to conduct a new stocktake of progress across our member cities, but our last analysis in 2022 found that 75% of our member cities were cutting their emissions faster than their respective national governments. For the remaining  25%, we didn’t have the data to be able to verify. The level of action is really good, but cities should be going even faster. 

There are many great examples of city-led initiatives being adopted by national governments. 

For example, we have been working closely with all of our five South African member cities within C40’s Green New Deal Pilot Implementation Initiative on the country’s key issue – to achieve a just transition in an economy where so many people’s livelihoods are currently dependent on coal, other fossil fuels, or mineral extraction. Urban decision-making is a key lever for shaping a higher quality of living for citizens, while also ending climate-harming industries – and this city element is now a key part of the National Presidential Climate Commission.

Another great example is Oslo’s introduction of climate budgeting – effectively capping emissions permitted across the city each year, which meant that the most impactful interventions are more likely to be funded from the city’s annual budget. This put responsibility for delivering climate action squarely on every department. That approach is now being trialled at a national level by the Norwegian government.

Also, I was in the Philippines recently where I met Quezon City’s incredible Mayor Joy Belmonte who led their really innovative ‘Joy of Urban Farming’ scheme. The initiative originated from the pandemic, when they were really struggling to get food into the city. At the same time, unemployment rocketed, particularly for the poorest in society – many of whom were street-sellers whose livelihoods were wiped out by the pandemic.

To help them, Mayor Belmonte requisitioned 750 square-metres of land which was earmarked for development, but instead was turned into urban farms. This created an opportunity for people in the surrounding informal settlements to become farmers, as well as generating a source of healthy vegetables which could be sold into schools, with organic waste turned into methane gas for use in cooking. With more than a thousand urban farms in operation, the scheme is now being taken up across the Philippines. Once again, you can see how strong city policy can drive powerful change at the national level.  

How is C40 addressing growing inequality in fast urbanizing mega-cities, including growing informality? 

The informal sector makes a massive contribution to many national GDPs, as in many global cities more than 40% of the citizens are living in informal areas and mostly working in the informal economy. Climate action must be inclusive; it’s no good just reducing emissions or improving overall resilience. We also need to demonstrate that it’s reducing inequality. 

We estimate that for the C40 cities to deliver their emission reduction and resilience targets by 2030 – 50 million new good green jobs need to be created. For example, the capital of Ghana, Accra is working to formalise overlooked segments of city economies, such as waste pickers, who provide an incredible service to the city. They are providing training and support but also the assurances that tender contracts for collecting and managing waste can be won by informal waste pickers. Waste pickers are increasingly organizing into collectives to bid for larger contracts on better wages with some health support and time off – as a result, their contribution to the city is beginning to be recognized. 

Our first duty in climate action is to consider the needs of the most vulnerable, and then work backwards from these to deliver climate action that achieves the overall emission and resilience goals from cities.

How can the finance sector be reformed to unlock finance for city climate action?

The single biggest reform that is needed is to stop the public subsidy of fossil fuels. We need to remove the incentives to invest in the stuff that’s killing us, and instead make polluters pay – and provide the incentive to invest in the green economy.

That may sound  trite, but the reality is that every year trillions of dollars are still invested in fossil fuels when not a single cent, penny or peso should be going in that direction. It’s the single biggest thing. There’s no shortage of capital, it’s just going in the wrong places and we need to shift it. To redirect the flow of investment we’ve established a program to support our cities to divest their local authority pensions from fossil fuels and, crucially, to re-invest into the green economy – often in each other’s cities.

Economic incentives play a crucial role, not just for national governments, but for city governments and local authorities. When central London introduced its ‘Ultra Low Emissions (ULEZ) regulations, it essentially made it unprofitable to sell and run polluting vehicles in the city, while giving a big market incentive to the manufacturers of the alternatives – clean vehicles, public transport, and cycling.

In terms of the mechanisms that are out there, we need a greater focus on what’s in the power of city governments at the moment to create and shape markets so that we’re definitively moving towards a green economy. 

China’s success with electric buses inspired Latin American C40 cities to take bold action. Despite European and North American suppliers focusing only on diesel buses for the region, mayors demanded clean air like their global counterparts. They united investors, manufacturers, bus operators, and regulators to create a market for cleaner buses, shifting the narrative and attracting investments despite supplier hesitation. As a result, instead of only the Chinese manufacturer BYD acting as the single supplier of electric buses to Latin America only five years ago, there are now five suppliers in Brazil alone.

I hope we’ll see CHAMP convening national finance platforms, where development banks, private investors, and other levels of government come together to crowd in finance for urban climate projects. If the need for climate finance is integrated within a national framework, aligned to an NDC, there’s a much greater chance to secure public and private financing to meet that requirement.

How is city governance evolving to tackle the climate crisis?

Regulation is the single most critical route to delivering our climate goals. There is a massive role for markets but we’ve conclusively seen over the last two decades that a market-led approach alone to tackling the climate crisis is just not going to succeed. You see that very squarely at the moment in the energy markets where even though it’s now cheaper to produce a new unit of electricity through renewables than gas and oil and coal, still private and public investment flows into fossil fuels – because the levels of profit are higher.

Ultimately, in a capitalist economy investment flows where the rate of return is the greatest. That’s why regulation is so critical. We need robust regulation and legislation that makes it expensive and difficult to invest in the things that are killing us. And makes it cheap, and easy to invest in the stuff which will create a thriving prosperous future. 

The clean air zones approach that we’re seeing in cities from London, to Milan, Bogota and Warsaw is really critical in creating new markets, but also sending that strong signal about the polluter paying. 

In a less well-known example, Freetown in Sierra Leone, introduced a highly innovative policy following decades of deforestation, leading to flooding and overheating. The mayor essentially relabeled the city as ‘Treetown’, introducing a ‘pay to grow’ policy, where citizens are paid to plant and monitor trees and mangroves, via an online platform. The initiative is funded with tokens sold on private carbon markets. 

The replanting program created a new economy in the city, not just from planting, monitoring and protecting trees, but also through growing medicinal plants, which is attracting investment into the city as a bioindustry hub. Freetown has shown that a poor city, with relatively low levels of education, can benefit from high-tech solutions. Critically, it is led by smart regulation and a commitment to regain their tree cover in a decade, using  every instrument at their disposal to drive investments towards their goal.

What are your hopes for New York Climate Week and the coming COP29?

I’ve been impressed by the clarity of the leadership of the UN Secretary General, who keeps reminding us that we’ve got to stop using fossil fuels. We’ve made it our collective mission across the C40 cities to halve the use of fossil fuels by 2030. It doesn’t mean we’ve stopped focusing on halving emissions, but noting that, to achieve that we need to halve fossil fuels. This clarity of focus has been really helpful in demanding that this next round of NDCs are not just thin numerical commitments to reduce emissions, but they need to be backed by investment and an action plan. 

For this year’s New York Climate Week and the subsequent COP, we’re seeing a clear focus on finance. We want to see significant reform, particularly of the Multilateral Development Banks so that climate is the central goal guiding public investment. We need every development bank to have a program of urban climate investment. 

Cities are home to over 50% of the world’s population and generate 70% of greenhouse gas emissions  – they are the level of government with the closest link to citizens, so a huge amount of political leadership resides there. As a means to achieving swift and powerful multi-level climate action, cities are probably our best chance.