Guide: How to work with other cities for faster, more effective climate action
C40 Cities
Collaborating with other city governments can have significant advantages for all cities, but the opportunity is particularly compelling for small and medium-sized municipalities, which typically have more limited access to finance, lower capacity and less political clout. More and more cities are joining forces to respond to the climate emergency in a quicker and more effective way.
There are many networks and organisations that specialise in enabling cities to support each other or work together on climate action. Regardless of network membership, however, all cities have much to gain from seeking direct partnerships with others to advance aspects of their climate change response.
The C40 Cities guide sets out collaborative approaches that can be replicated by any city, drawing on the experience of independent city-city partnerships as well as ideas and advice from collaborative approaches that have been facilitated or supported by a third party. This is not an exhaustive list of opportunities, but offers ideas and inspiration.
Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur: The cities sharing big ideas
C40 Cities
Cities or municipalities with shared climate concerns and ambitions can gain from working together. It helps to raise ambition, establish common standards, and share ideas and experience. Tokyo’s support for Kuala Lumpur, by sharing its knowledge and experience as a leader in building energy efficiency, is one example.
Recommendations at a Glance:
- Cooperation on climate action planning processes is proving highly beneficial and has become more common, taking the form of a city-city partnership, metro-area partnership, group of municipalities with similar characteristics or other configuration. Seek partner cities with shared ambitions, starting in the local area, and consider involving a regional authority.
- Collaborate within your locality to create opportunities for innovation and to pilot priority measures. Partnerships between a metro-area authority and smaller municipalities can offer a low-stakes way to experiment with new ideas.
- Jointly procure goods and services to take advantage of economies of scale and share the cost of legal advice, staff and equipment, among other benefits.
- Collaborate to deliver major infrastructure and other mutually beneficial climate measures. Partnerships with neighbours can help cities to finance and manage expensive and complex climate projects, and can offer a more effective way to build cross-boundary infrastructure.
- Use collective action and group advocacy, as a group of cities lobbying a regional or national government for specific policy changes or international group of cities working to change the policy discourse.
