COP30 Ignored the Importance of Cities in Climate Policy

Belem concluded COP30 with a paradox that is hard to ignore. On a planet where nearly 60% of the population lives in cities which concentrate emissions, vulnerabilities, and also many of the possible solutions the urban agenda saw no progress in the conferences formal decisions. At the so-called "Implementation COP," the absence of commitments to issues related to urbanization is not a technical detail: it is a symptom of a structural blockage in climate multilateralism. Is the game, then, lost? From the outset, the climate conference presidency and the Brazilian government insisted that this COP in the forest should also be the COP of cities. In that spirit, they worked with UN-Habitat to convene the 4th Ministerial Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change, bringing together ministers of cities and urban development from several countries. Among non-governmental actors, the effort was equally intense. However, the list of core decisions does not include any item dedicated to multilevel governance or to the urban localization of nationally determined contributions (NDCs).