RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTATION
Key recommendations for climate-neutral cities
A perspective outlining five practical steps to help cities close the gap between net-zero ambition and implementation.
Cities can close the climate ambition-implementation gap through transparent accounting, innovative finance, inclusive governance, and integrated planning.
The authors examine why many city climate-neutrality pledges are not translating into delivery and propose practical recommendations grounded in experience from global city networks and plans. The paper investigates the institutional, financial, technical, and social conditions needed for credible urban climate neutrality. It also weighs the risks of narrow or inequitable net-zero strategies against more comprehensive and participatory approaches.
The problem
Cities generate a large share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet many urban climate targets are poorly tracked, underfunded, and only partially implemented. Only a minority of cities report sufficient data to assess progress, and very few existing targets align with 1.5°C pathways. Without stronger accounting, governance, finance, and justice-oriented implementation, cities risk making net-zero commitments that lack credibility, effectiveness, or social legitimacy.
Key findings
- Cities account for most global emissions, but implementation remains far behind ambition.
- Evidence reviewed in the paper shows that emissions data, finance capacity, and governance coordination are major bottlenecks to climate neutrality.
- The authors find that credible city net-zero strategies depend on comprehensive inventories, careful handling of residual emissions, innovative finance, and inclusive, polycentric governance.
- They also stress that justice and co-benefits must be embedded in planning to avoid exclusionary transitions.
67-72%
Share of global greenhouse gas emissions attributed to cities in 2020.
40%
Share of cities in a G20 study reporting enough data to assess mitigation progress.
7%
Share of existing targets aligned with 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot.
+37%
Additional collective ambition by 2030 versus regional or national counterparts.
What cities should do
Overall, this is most useful for cities pursuing net-zero or climate-neutrality targets, especially those struggling to turn plans into delivery.
- Build complete, regularly updated GHG inventories covering sectors, gases, and Scope 3 emissions.
- Report assumptions, uncertainties, targets, and residual emissions transparently to strengthen credibility.
- Prioritize direct emissions reductions before relying on offsets, sinks, or carbon removal.
- Develop finance-ready project pipelines and expand beyond conventional funding tools.
- Use polycentric governance to align city departments, higher governments, businesses, and communities.
- Design participation processes with clear citizen roles, goals, and inclusive co-creation methods.
- Assess distributional impacts so climate policies reduce, rather than worsen, inequality and poverty.
- Integrate climate, land use, mobility, energy, and digital planning into interoperable urban strategies.
Implementation Approach
The paper recommends a staged but integrated approach that starts with credible emissions baselines and governance capacity, then builds finance pipelines, inclusive participation, and cross-sector planning. Cities should institutionalize transparency, align actors across levels, and use justice and co-benefits as decision criteria throughout implementation. The approach is iterative, with monitoring and adjustment built into each phase.
Years 1-2
Compile comprehensive baseline inventories, improve data systems, and clarify targets, assumptions, and residual emissions treatment.
Years 1-2
Set up governance structures that coordinate departments, higher-level authorities, businesses, academia, and communities.
Years 2-3
Prepare finance-ready projects, assess capital needs, and test green finance and innovative procurement mechanisms.
Years 2-4
Run structured citizen engagement and co-creation processes, with safeguards for vulnerable and underrepresented groups.
Years 3-5
Implement integrated planning across energy, transport, buildings, land use, and digital systems, while tracking KPIs and adjusting actions.
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