The City Finance Lab is Europe’s first dedicated platform to help develop innovative finance solutions for green urban projects. Such innovative solutions are needed to address the estimated US$1.1 trillion funding gap required to ensure that the future urban infrastructure essential to meet growing needs is low-emission and climate resilient. Barriers to this transition include high transaction costs, uncertainty in national and international frameworks, a lack of resources in making green and sustainable projects attractive to investors, and gaps in knowledge about available finance options and mechanisms.
The City Finance Lab is working to engage cities and municipal finance stakeholders, through tailored support from international climate finance experts, to develop finance that is longer-term, more attuned to emerging risks, and more efficient at delivering returns for the economy and wider society. It aims to leverage US$500 million over the next five years in additional finance for climate action in cities. The City Finance Lab provides technical assistance to the developers, while the project preparation and facility strand is building a pipeline of bankable urban mitigation and adaptation projects, through a network of multi-competence centres that evaluate the finance and technical expertise of urban projects.