The low carbon investment landscape in C40 cities
According to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, there is tremendous opportunity for collaboration between cities and the private sector to invest in sustainable projects, and also the need to accelerate investment and development in sustainable infrastructure in order to deliver a climate safe future. In the study Deadline 2020, the group estimates that C40 cities need to spend US$375 billion by 2020 on low carbon infrastructure in order to be on the right trajectory required to meet the ambition of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. To make their job easier and to get a better sense of the investment potential in C40 cities, C40 and CDP have partnered together to produce an analysis of sustainable infrastructure projects currently in development across the C40 network. The report is accompanied by a “beta pipeline” that highlights planned projects in C40 cities. The data shows that there are over 3,000 low-carbon infrastructure projects in planning stages across C40 cities worldwide, with over 700 in the buildings sector alone. Cities have only reported costs for 15% of these projects – but even this 15% amounts to US$15.5 billion in required investment.