Cities have unique role to play in curbing emissions, as clean technologies become cheaper

Cities can drastically curb emissions as clean technologies become cheaper, finds a new report from C40 Cities, Arup and Green Futures Solutions.

Launched as the C40 World Mayors Summit takes place in Rio de Janeiro today (3 Nov), the “Accelerating Urban Climate Action” guide shows how cities can become ‘enablers’ of positive climate tipping points.

Thanks to national-level policies and investment, clean technologies such as electric vehicles and heat pumps are set to become as cheap as their fossil fuel equivalents.

This unlocks a promising solution to the two leading sources of urban emissions: transport and buildings, which account for 79% of potential emissions savings across the world’s cities.

The guide, produced by C40 Cities, Arup, and Exeter’s Tim Lenton, Steve Smith and Femke Nijsse, focuses on how cities and their mayors can capitalise on these opportunities and trigger positive tipping points by:

• Understanding the city’s unique role. As clean technologies approach cost parity, the policy focus shifts from national-level affordability to city-level action. Cities can leverage their direct control over infrastructure, planning, and local regulations to drive accessibility and attractiveness, the key levers they control.

• Deploying proven policy strategies: As leading cities have shown, an integrated ‘mix’ of policies works best: first ‘pulling’ the market with incentives and leading by example, then ‘pushing’ out fossil fuels with pre-announced regulations, all while using key city levers like zoning, building codes, and fleet electrification. To do so, cities can utilise key regulatory levers as well as their unique powers as innovators, advocates, and community partners to pull and push markets.

• Adapting over time and maximising collective impact: The report explains how city strategies must evolve as markets mature. It also demonstrates how collective action among cities can create powerful spillover effects, shaping global markets and driving down technology costs for everyone.