Bringing cities together to battle climate change
Climate action plan: building technical support
26 cities across South America, Asia and Africa
Project details
Client
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
Services provided by Buro Happold
The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group connects more than 90 of the world’s largest cities, representing 650m+ people and one quarter of the global economy. Buro Happold provided dedicated technical support to inform the development of participating cities’ climate action plans.
Support was given to 26 member cities across Asia, Africa and South America and focused on decarbonisation policies and programmes for new and existing buildings.
C40 is focused on tackling climate change and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban citizens.
Challenge
Deadline 2020 marked a significant point for C40 with member cities aiming to produce a climate action plan before the end of 2020. Core to this project was for Buro Happold to work collaboratively with the C40 Cities Energy and Buildings Programme team to provide support to the greatest number of cities possible.
Our teams helped cities to plan for and deliver climate action in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, specifically through initiatives to deliver ultra-efficient, net zero carbon new buildings by 2030 and ensure all buildings meet that standard as soon as possible.
Given the nature of the support, timelines for providing reviews and feedback to municipalities were often tight. We had to work against the clock to ensure city officers had time to digest and act on feedback.
Climate Action Plans and interim deliverables consider multiple different sectors. In addition, both mitigation and adaptation actions are considered. The scope of this study was initially limited to carbon emission reductions in the building sector. We identified early on however that not considering actions in an integrated manner with other sectors and outcomes could result in missed opportunities and potential competing actions.
In some of the interim deliverables reviewed, it was evident that cities lacked an evidence base for setting climate action goals. This was reflected by a relatively low level of ambition in some cities and in some instances a preference for the status quo with fossil fuels locked in.
Solution
Our team provided cities with a range of different types of support, including a technical review of climate action plans and interim deliverables to ensure opportunities to deliver greenhouse gas emission reductions through buildings are identified, planned and maximised.
We identified synergies, conflicts and possible co-benefits between proposed building climate action initiatives and initiatives in other sectors (e.g. mobility, water and sanitation).
Our experts provided a contextual review of policies, barriers and opportunities to the delivery of ambitious climate action in all cities supported through the project.
The project also saw the development of an industrial energy efficiency briefing paper for Chinese cities in collaboration with C40 Cities.
We invested time early with C40 Cities to understand the most relevant and impactful information for municipality officers. Based on this, our team developed a review template that was applied consistently to all deliverables reviewed through the project. This delivered an efficiency for C40 when digesting the outcomes.
Our experts were able to rapidly pull together a range of publications and real-world case studies. These aimed to demonstrate where other cities had used their mayoral powers or partnerships to set ambitious objectives and effect positive change. A further benefit came through directing cities to existing toolkits and guidance produced by C40 Cities.
Value
Buro Happold’s diverse teams of experts around the world were uniquely placed to provide C40 Cities with the required support. Though led by our sustainability and physics team in London, the project drew on the unique expertise and insights of those situated in other geographic areas with experience of working in the regions and cities supported.
Furthermore, the breadth of subject matter expertise proved invaluable to informing the development of integrated climate action initiatives and encouraging partnerships between cities to support their climate goals.
Through this project, we were able to effectively support cities to develop clear and robust evidence bases as well as raise the level of ambition in cities, for bolder and more urgent climate action.
