SDU researchers are lead authors on a new UN report about cities: »Denmark should take leadership«
Professor Nicola Tollin and his colleagues from the UNESCO Chair on Urban Resilience (SDU.Resilience), together with the UN, published a report on cities and local climate action in international climate policies . The report shows that many countries still do not consider cities in their National Determined Contributions (NDCs), among these Denmark, despite all the climate actions currently occurring in Danish cities. Cities are an untapped potential for climate efforts, say the authors.
Urban Content of NDCs. That is the title of the 200-page report that the UN has today published, and which is co-written by UN-Habitat, UNDP, and the SDU.Resilience from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Southern Denmark.
Together, they have looked through all national climate policies, the so-called NDCs, from 194 countries that have signed the Paris Agreement. In these, they have looked for concrete strategies and targets for a climate mitigation and adaptation of urban areas.
And there is room for improvement, the report concludes. Particularly insight of the current revision of NDCs which shall be done by the end of 2025.
Only 27% of NDCs have a strong focus on cities, while 39% have a moderate amount of urban content, and 35% have low or no mention of cities.
In the report, the authors encourage governments across the world to do something about this. Not least because urban areas are responsible for 70% of the world’s energy consumption and 60% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, urban areas can be especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, for instance, extreme weather. Clear targets for the mitigation of cities are therefore needed.
Cities are thereby an untapped potential in reducing emissions, adapt to climate disasters and helping achieve the Paris Agreement goals, they write.
Denmark should take leadership in the EU
Denmark is among the countries where cities are not mentioned in the NDC at all. This goes for all EU countries as they have jointly agreed upon a common NDC.
And if you ask professor Nicola Tollin, leader of SDU.Resilience and one of the lead authors of the report, this is problematic.
- Denmark is the first country in the world where all municipalities have a local climate action plan. Exactly therefore, it is a problem that Denmark does not include the cities in their main national climate policy under the Paris Agreement. Denmark should take leadership in Europe and develop a new NDC for EU with a strong urban content, says Nicola Tollin.
- The inclusion of cities in the national climate policies can support a higher ambition of these policies, and it is also fundamental to support cities in the implementation of their climate actions