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GREEN-LIGHTING GLOBAL URBAN PARTNERSHIPS: THE C40 INITIATIVE By Chloe Laird
In the fight against climate change, the European Union leads the transatlantic community by example. Its all-encompassing European Green Deal aims to tackle everything relevant to creating a carbon-neutral continent, from preserving biodiversity to promoting sustainable finance. Yet recent debates about the pros and cons of nuclear energy highlight internal disagreements that have impeded progress towards a green transition.
passage of its infrastructure package, which designates $50 billion towards climate resilience and weatherization, other, similar efforts, such as the Build Back Better Act, have foundered. In both cases, however, activists are dismayed by the sluggish pace of such supranational- and national-level climate initiatives. The spotlight for movement has consequently been put on others, and cities increasingly find themselves becoming greentransition trailblazers.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States, on the federal level at least, is moving even more slowly towards becoming green. Though the Biden administration scored a major win by gaining Congressional
The C40, a global network of more than 100 mayors whose cities represent 27% of the global economy and a population of more than 800 million, was born out of this necessity. The group was inaugurated in 2005
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as a transatlantic-led effort after the mayors of New York and London decided they needed to cooperate to fight climate change. Today, the C40 is at the forefront of providing support for and facilitating progress in cities. As innovation hubs, with traditionally less bureaucracy than national governments, cities are well positioned to rapidly become trailblazers and have the potential to be centers for sustainable solutions. The C40 offers local policymakers myriad tools to enact systemic change. They range from providing a comprehensive City Action Planning Framework that lays out a blueprint for urban planning to organizing
