Local Solutions, Global Impact The Role of Small and Medium Cities in Accelerating Climate Action

Discover how intermediary cities from Germany, Mozambique and Ukraine lead in climate action! This event spotlights their unique strategies, proving smaller cities play a powerful role in driving sustainability and resilience globally.

Firdaous Oussidhoum

Facilitator

November 5, 2024 | 11:00 - 12:30

Voices from Cities - room D

Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy

Belgium

English

Reference:

VC-D 2

WUF12

Voices from Cities

Summary

While megacities dominate discussions on urban sustainability, the critical role of the smaller in accelerating climate action is often overlooked. In Europe, out of the over 11,000 signatories of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, 89% of its signatories have less than 50,000 inhabitants. According to UCLG estimations, 20% of the world's population lives in intermediary cities, those counting 50,000 to 1 million inhabitants. Bringing some concrete examples from different regions, this session explores the unique potential of intermediary cities to drive innovation and implement effective green solutions tailored to their specific contexts. By experimenting on both mitigation strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation strategies to build resilience to climate change impacts, small and medium-sized cities establish their role as leaders in creating a more sustainable future. Leveraging the closer proximity of their community and a deep understanding of the local natural, social and economic ecosystem, they take courageous steps in the climate action process while fostering a just and sustainable future for all through the engagement of stakeholders such as businesses, academia and civil society.

Despite ambition, intermediary cities often face additional challenges due to limited human and financial resources for infrastructure upgrades, institutional communication, community engagement, process management and in maintaining up to date legislative and technical knowledge. The underestimation of the role that intermediary cities can play leads to difficulty for them to access schemes, projects and initiatives which are designed for the bigger ones, making it difficult for them to keep the pace needed to achieve the Paris objectives.

The event, organized by the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and energy (GCoM); the Covenant of Mayors Europe (COMO EU) and UCLG, will bring experiences from the cities such as Bonn (Germany), and Quelimane (Mozambique) to showcase how small and medium size cities can make a difference, what actions can be successfully upscaled but also what challenges they face and what support they need in their climate journey to advance at the same speed as the bigger cities. In an interactive panel discussion, city representatives will bring examples of integration of adaptation and mitigation actions, heating and cooling decarbonization, as well as the city-to-business relations among others. Questions from the audience will be included in the exchange with panelists which will be split in three rounds of questions, touching on the social, environmental, political and economic aspects of their experiences and, more in general highlighting what would be the favorable conditions for an intermediary city to accelerate the action toward a sustainable and inclusive future.

Objectives

The session aims at showcasing the actions of intermediary cities with the twofold intention -to present successful strategies of territorializing democratic processes -and to highlight the key role they play in delivering a successful ecological transition that is centered in human values. Another key objective is to call attention to the barriers that limit this potential, starting from the limited data available from intermediary cities and their rural-urban linkages which are often also less represented in formal processes.

Actions implemented at the local level have higher replicability potential than the ones experimented in big cities. On average, actions implemented in small or medium sized cities rely on a lower level of complexity and resources compared to the ones implemented in a big city, which would have to be downscaled. Hence, the possibility to transfer approaches and lessons learned from small to big is easier, while it is more difficult to downscale the approach from a big to a small or medium city. The relatively small dimension of intermediary cities creates a good environment to test innovative approaches. It is more common to have a higher level of trust and social cohesion at the small scale and this allows participation, community engagement and design services which are citizen-centered. Small and medium-sized cities are often overlooked in discussions about urban sustainability, which can create some barriers for them to benefit from incentives and support provided through different programmes. This session highlights their unique potential as innovation hubs due to their agility and local focus but it also brings some suggestions on how the intermediary cities can be better considered in the planning of schemes or initiatives. The session goes beyond general discussion by providing practical strategies and concrete examples of green initiatives tailored specifically for small and medium-sized cities. This empowers participants to return home and implement real change in their cities.