El Estado de la Financiación Climática de las Ciudades

The 2021 report on the state of cities climate finance reveals a significant gap between current investment levels and the trillions of dollars needed for urban climate action. While global urban climate finance averaged 384 billion USD annually in 2017/2018, funding is heavily concentrated in OECD countries and China, leaving developing regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia severely underfunded. The report emphasizes a critical shortage in adaptation and resilience funding, which accounts for less than 10% of urban climate finance. It argues that mobilizing further investment requires 'enabling conditions' across national, city, and climate-specific levels, urging governments and international financial institutions to provide predictable funding and technical support to help cities transition to sustainable development paths.

• Annual urban climate finance flows averaged 384 billion USD in 2017/2018, which is significantly lower than the estimated annual needs of 4.5 to 5.4 trillion USD.
• Climate finance for cities is highly concentrated in OECD countries and China, with severe underinvestment in developing regions; Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia received annual averages of only 3 billion USD and 4 billion USD, respectively.
• There is a stark imbalance between mitigation and adaptation funding, with urban adaptation and resilience investments averaging 7 billion USD, representing only 9% of project-level data.
• Private finance, particularly household spending on electric vehicles and residential energy efficiency, accounted for 35% of total urban climate finance (averaging 136 billion USD annually in 2017/2018).
• The International Finance Corporation (IFC) identifies a sustainable investment opportunity of 2.4 to 2.5 trillion USD annually until 2030 in emerging market cities across six sectors: waste, climate-smart water, renewable energy, electric vehicles, public transport, and green buildings.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has strained municipal budgets and increased reliance on intergovernmental transfers, creating a risk that high-emission and vulnerable development paths become 'locked in' if climate considerations are not integrated into recovery efforts.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2021). El Estado de la Financiación Climática de las Ciudades. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Executive-Summary-Spanish.pdf

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. El Estado de la Financiación Climática de las Ciudades. 2021. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Executive-Summary-Spanish.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=El Estado de la Financiación Climática de las Ciudades |date=June 2021 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Executive-Summary-Spanish.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2021estado, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{El Estado de la Financiación Climática de las Ciudades}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = jun, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Executive-Summary-Spanish.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }