Climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and socio-economic pressures such as energy poverty and inflation are exacerbating inequalities in many countries. To strengthen the resilience of vulnerable populations — such as those experiencing discrimination, poverty, or heightened health risks — and bolster public support for climate action, an intersectional solution that delivers social and economic good alongside a just transition from fossil fuels is essential.
Cities are uniquely placed to develop and drive forward such a solution. They are home to over half the world’s population — a percentage that continues to increase as the impacts of climate change displace rural communities — and generate more than 70% of global emissions. Their interactions with populations make them perfectly positioned to help residents lead community solutions that impact local lives positively, such as by enabling young people to access skills for green jobs. And they work on a scale that facilitates multipartner participation, resulting in solutions that can be adapted for other contexts.
“City governments interact closely with residents, so have a better understanding of their needs and circumstances, as well as what opportunities or challenges a transition from fossil fuels might pose to them,” explained Jazmin Burgess, deputy director of the Inclusive Climate Action program at C40 Cities. Cities are also agile “doers, not delayers,” and are able to plan and implement climate action faster than many other implementers, she added.
Innovative cities are already leading the charge on socially inclusive climate action, supported by C40’s Global Green New Deal, or GGND, initiative for cities. With a diverse range of context-specific but highly replicable pilot programs, mayors from nine C40 cities so far — Accra, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Warsaw, and South Africa’s Cape Town, Durban, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, and Tshwane — are demonstrating how it is possible to deliver a just transition from fossil fuels while simultaneously improving livelihoods, creating jobs and protecting the most vulnerable from rising living costs.
Successful programs share many characteristics — such as being based on thorough partner mapping and collaborating with civil society and community organizations — which other cities can adapt to create a green new deal for their own residents.
The Inclusive Climate Action pilot in Accra engages marginalized informal waste workers to help solve the city’s waste crisis while improving their economic resilience. As well as being a dumping ground for the world’s discarded electronics and garments, Accra produces around 2,200 metric tons of solid waste per day. Accra is yet to attain a universal municipal solid waste, or MSW, collection coverage and this coupled with inadequate infrastructure such as treatment and disposal facilities such as an engineered landfill means waste is often discarded openly and pollutes waterways or is burned in open pits — worsening the city’s water and air quality, increasing emissions, and damaging health.
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Informal waste workers have a vital role in combating this, according to Victor Kotey, deputy director of the Waste Management Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly. They pick through a third of Accra’s waste to identify items that can be reused, recycled, resold, or repurposed, and are the sole providers of waste-collection services to informal settlements.
However, the city administration historically created barriers, such as seizure of equipment and fines, to deter informal waste workers, and they were excluded from city-level decision-making about waste management, Kotey noted. This created mistrust. Informal workers additionally face income insecurity and — partly because many are also migrant workers — social discrimination, he added.
An important first step in Accra’s pilot was a series of needs assessment workshops where informal workers shared challenges they face and proposed solutions. One such issue was the lack of a formal contact point in the city government dedicated to addressing informal workers’ concerns, Kotey said. As well as addressing this, the city administration has built trust further by donating office space within the Waste Management Department for use by informal waste picker and collector associations. It is also seeking to combat discrimination against informal workers through print and digital media that highlight their contribution to public health and sanitation.
The pilot has run capacity-building and training workshops, helping informal workers improve their organizational capabilities and knowledge of city bylaws, and helping city urban planning become more inclusive. The city has also collaborated with civil society groups to help informal waste collectors gain the licenses required to operate motorized tricycles, the primary equipment for solid waste collection in low income communities.
As a result, informal workers are more efficient and are collecting more waste. Fewer households are burning waste and the city administration’s costs associated with removing waste from the environment have reduced significantly, Kotey said. Sanitation in informal settlements and low-income communities has improved.
By supporting and acknowledging the role of informal waste workers in cleaning up the environment — and in turn reducing the risk of illnesses such as asthma and diarrhea — the pilot is helping raise awareness of their contribution to society, said Lydia Bamfo, national president of the Borla Taxi and Tricycle Association, which collects waste from homes, markets, restaurants and elsewhere using tricycles. This is improving their social standing and should attract more educated young workers to the sector to support the local economy, she argued.
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The pilot’s next steps include creating a childcare center, due for completion by October 2023, so fewer mothers carry their children on their back while working, exposing them to risks associated with waste and recycling. It plans to make it easier for migrant workers to obtain identification documents so they can access health and financial services. It is also working to facilitate informal workers’ access to formal waste collection infrastructure — a barrier also flagged by Bamfo.
Warsaw’s GGND pilot has demonstrated how city-level partnerships and inter-departmental cooperation can help vulnerable households access cleaner and cheaper energy. It also offers a model for how cities can overcome political resistance to win funding for ambitious transition goals.
The burning of coal for household heating is a major contributor to air pollution in Poland, but environmental action can be politically divisive, noted Magdalena Młochowska, director coordinator for Green Warsaw. So Warsaw’s city government made tackling energy poverty — a priority for most political parties locally and nationally — an integral part of its GGND strategy.
For example, the city government was committed to phasing out the use of coal- and wood-fired stoves in single-family buildings even before the GGND pilot, by subsidizing their replacement with alternatives such as heat pumps, which are both cleaner and cheaper to run. But while it had successfully transitioned 4,300 households using such stoves, 4,500 remained.
To identify which of these were in low-income households that would benefit most from cheaper energy but would struggle to pay even part of the replacement costs, Młochowska’s department collaborated with the city’s social welfare centers. They analyzed social security data to see which benefit recipients were still claiming a subsidy for burning coal. To gain access and trust, air protection officials accompanied social workers on their next visit to 35 prioritized homes and explained how a fully funded replacement system could reduce their energy bills. All agreed and have received a retrofit.
Warsaw has now secured further central government funding for this work. It expects to have a total budget of €2 million ($2.2 million) to €4 million — roughly 70% from central government — to expand its replacement of coal- and wood-fired stoves to 200 single-family homes and conduct outreach with the remaining 6,800 homes using them.
Młochowska credits this to the pilot’s success so far, as well as proactive networking by the city’s mayor, who has also assumed leadership positions on the environment at the national and European levels.
To help more cities replicate these successes and contribute to C40’s broader initiative to create 50 million good, green jobs by 2030, C40 is now expanding GGND into a second phase. This includes a new pilot in Bangalore to upskill waste workers, an expanded Europe-wide pilot focused on energy poverty, and continued work in African cities on just transition and informality in climate sectors. C40 is now exploring how to further expand this work for future years, helping cities identify inclusive solutions to emerging challenges such as loss and damage from climate change.
To enable more cities to access funding for similar approaches, C40 has also launched an Inclusive Climate Action Cities Fund — the ICA Fund. This helps cities develop, strengthen and implement equitable and inclusive climate-focused policies and programs, unlock broader organizational and financial support for inclusive climate action, and showcase success stories.
The first phase of the ICA Fund is supporting six cities across five regions to implement projects that address specific socio-economic barriers to accelerate climate action that is just, fair, inclusive, and benefits all residents, especially communities vulnerable to the effects of global heating. These six inaugural beneficiary cities are Bogota, Dar es Salaam, Los Angeles, Quezon City, Vancouver, and Warsaw.
C40’s Knowledge Hub and recently launched just transition toolkit offer practical tips and resources for cities and policymakers looking to drive forward their own inclusive climate action.
However, to fully leverage cities’ power as agents of change, they need more commitment, support, and resources from national governments, multilateral agencies, civil society, and private-sector partners.
To learn more about GGND and how to participate, please contact Jazmin Burgess at jburgess@c40.org or Emma Blunt at eblunt@c40.org.