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With more than half the world’s population living in urban areas, the decisions cities make now will determine whether the world achieves a resilient net-zero future. Fortunately, cities are not only well-positioned to make these decisions on climate change but align them with a variety of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Because of their potential for innovation, flexibility, and proximity to affected stakeholders, cities provide significant opportunities to leverage synergies between climate action and SDGs and help lower mitigation/adaptation costs while building multi-stakeholder partnerships needed to raise ambitions on the Paris Agreement and SDGs. Although synergies hold considerable promise in cities, that potential is not always realized. This may be because urban policymakers lack the knowledge of where to begin when framing arguments for synergies. Cities may similarly fail to understand the concrete measures in key sectors with synergistic potential. Finally, cities may confront institutional and governance barriers that prevent forging connections between climate and the SDGs. This paper is intended to help urban policymakers and other interested stakeholders address these three knowledge gaps. Namely, the paper focuses on (i) demand side action as a key entry point;
(ii) four sectors and corresponding measures with win-win potential; and (iii) three types of governance reforms that can bring synergies to life in cities. The entry point with the greatest synergistic potential in cities are demand-side climate solutions. These solutions are appealing because they not only seek to alter upstream behaviors that can harm the climate but also support the provision of essential services. As such, focusing on the demand side can help address the root causes of climate change at the same time as steadily improving the capacity of cities to improve the well-being of its citizens. The paper details a set of concrete reforms across four sectors that can be used to capture synergies in cities. These includes options for cooling (including blue and green infrastructure); energy efficiency in buildings; interventions to transform transport systems; and making waste management more circular in cities at different levels of development. Actions in each of these areas have strong connections to climate change and the SDGs. Making these connections more visible can help put in motion a cycle of reinforcing interactive dynamics that support transformative changes. Finally, the paper outlines the kinds of governance and enabling reforms that cities can adopt to effectively implement synergies in cities. These include mechanisms to strengthen cross-sectoral and multi-level integration. An additional set of reforms could focus on building urban-rural partnerships (using an approach known as the Circulating and Ecological Sphere (CES)). Finally, cities are encouraged to look beyond their boundaries to learn from peers by engaging in transnational city networks.
