UrbanShift Looks Back: On Changing the Conversation around the Role of Cities in Climate Action

The UrbanShift project will conclude in October 2025. In the program’s final year, we will be looking back at our work to support integrated and sustainable urban planning through a series of conversations with the partner organizations who have led UrbanShift. This is the fourth piece in this series. Read the first on our capacity-building work here, the second on finance support here, the third on cross-sectoral climate action here, and the fourth on multi-level collaboration here.

Eillie Anzilotti: Thinking back to the beginning of the Urban Shift program in 2021, why was it agreed upon that an advocacy component would be essential to the structure of the program? 

Sharon Gil: What was really important during the inception stage of the project was that as we were bringing together different organizations, we wanted to ensure that we were singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak, and aligning our efforts as a collective of organizations undertaking this massive effort for sustainable cities. The advocacy component, which was always intended as a core output of the UrbanShift program, was designed as a way to channel our strength as a partnership into raising awareness globally—beyond the cities within the UrbanShift network—on the role of cities in achieving multilateral environmental agreement goals. Especially with UNEP’s unique role of steering the global environment agenda and leaning on UrbanShift’s advocacy work, our aim was both to amplify messages and learnings from across the UrbanShift network in ensuring that urban issues are present in global environmental and development discussions. 

Eillie Anzilotti: Could you explain more what the initial vision was for the Urban Shift advocacy offer? What kind of events and activities would it contain? What were the goals, and how do you feel you delivered against them? 

Elsa Lefèvre: At a high level, our vision was to elevate the role of cities in global environmental governance and promote integrated urban solutions, including by showcasing concrete examples from UrbanShift activities on the ground. We wanted to bring the force of our four organizations together to push for concrete progress around cities’ representation and multi-level governance. Very concretely, to support this vision, we executed an overarching five-year advocacy strategy and yearly plans, and organized over 30 events that reached over 10,000 stakeholders. Through this work, we contributed to key global processes like CHAMP and the Urban SDG Finance Commission. But numbers are only part of the equation—a lot of the outcomes are less quantifiable but no less significant. For instance, our efforts have contributed to the growing conversation around the importance of multi-level governance and broadening access to finance for cities. We’ve also played a role in elevating the value of nature-based solutions for cities. I think that when you look back at how the global conversation has evolved on all of these topics over the past five years, it’s quite significant. 

Eillie Anzilotti: What has been the main challenge of advancing the transformative role of cities on the global stage?  

Gulnara Roll: The program launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted global dynamics and delayed or complicated implementation of the UrbanShift project on the ground. Despite these challenges, the pandemic also highlighted the importance of local leadership and resilience, reinforcing the need for city-level action. Global geopolitics have created both obstacles and opportunities—there has been strong momentum for local action, as national processes sometimes stall. The creation and growth of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) is a key illustration of this momentum, and UrbanShift partners have actively contributed to it, along with furthering the conversation around multi-level governance as a whole. However, it can be hard to ensure consistent visibility of urban issues in global negotiations, which are often dominated by national-level actors. And securing adequate financing and recognition for subnational contributions to global environmental goals remains a huge challenge. 

Eillie Anzilotti: UrbanShift advocacy efforts each year have centered around a particular theme. Can you talk about the process of selecting a theme for each year and why it was important? 

Sharon Gil: The themes were selected based on global trends, and in consultation with the UrbanShift partners around what they wanted to prioritize for the year. It was essential that we followed the conversation and built on opportunities that arose over the course of the program. For example, in 2022, there was a call for us to be more engaged around linking climate action and biodiversity, and we’ve continued to weave that thread through our work. So, it’s not that we have a specific advocacy focus for one year and then we move on; it’s more like we’ve continued to amplify our messages but also add to them.  

We continued to focus on greening in 2023, but we also added in an emphasis around the just transition in cities and regions against plastic pollution, because that was the year that the International Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution convened in Paris and we had an opportunity with the city to develop the first convening that included sub-national governments. The event created a lot of visibility around the role of cities in the negotiating process, and we carried that momentum through to 2024, when we layered in the focus on multi-level governance and urban finance. This was really in recognition of the huge gap that exists between cities’ potential and the finance they can access to realize it. On adaptation and biodiversity, for instance, this gap is profound. Globally, we have $200 billion in investments supporting nature, and $7 trillion against it. 

This past year, we’ve brought it all together with the theme of local action for global success, to advocate for integrated and localized solutions to the triple planetary crisis of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Collectively, over the years, we’ve been able to tell a coherent and layered story and align our efforts with global agendas. 

Eillie Anzilotti: If you had to pick one, was there a particular theme that we pursued over the course of a year that had the greatest resonance with our audience and the global audience of decision-makers that we aimed to reach through our events? 

Elsa Lefèvre: The one that I think got more traction where the cross-cutting topics that were able to really unfold over the years and that have progressed significantly on the global agenda. With multi-level governance and financing especially, there was a strong global momentum to strengthen the role of local and regional governments in international processes and to create the enabling conditions for them to take ambitious action. We’re seeing a lot more attention around the need for more finance for cities if we are to achieve our climate and biodiversity goals. 

All of UrbanShift's organizations are involved in the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance, which is developing actionable recommendations for how cities can obtain more and better financing for projects that contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It is, for example, advocating for the creation of a Green Cities Guarantee Fund, which would help increase the flow of public and private capital into subnational climate projects. 

Eillie Anzilotti: For each of you personally, what has been a highlight of our advocacy work through the Urban Shift program? 

Gulnara Roll: My personal highlight was the UNEA-6 Cities and Regions Summit, held in February 2024 at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi. I had just recently joined the UNEP Cities team, and this event was a powerful demonstration of the strength of partnerships—many organizations came together to make it a success. 

The Summit brought together over 600 participants in person and online and focused on multi-level governance and urban finance, two themes that have been central to UrbanShift’s advocacy. This work and the convening power of UrbanShift also helped us in institutionalizing the Cities and Regions Summit internally and elevate the voice of cities within UNEA and to reinforce their role as key actors in achieving global environmental goals. The event also showcased how cities are not only implementing solutions but actively shaping the global agenda, particularly in the context of MEAs and the triple planetary crisis. 

Elsa Lefèvre: For me, it was really the global launch that we did for UrbanShift in in September 2021 during New York Climate Week. We were online; it was in the middle of COVID, but it was a powerful moment of collective ambition and vision. We were able to introduce UrbanShift’s integrated approach to urban development and its potential to address the triple planetary crisis.  

The technical constraints of COVID reminded us of the necessity of working through obstacles and being nimble in our approach. Even though the pandemic created some delays in the launch of the program and implementation in the cities, it was inspiring to see the strong commitment from cities like Freetown and Ushuaia during the launch and witness how the momentum has grown since that day. 

Sharon Gil: There is so much to choose from—I appreciate how the series of advocacy events over the year have created a community within UrbanShift and our audience. Alongside that, our efforts around plastics have been a standout to me; it's helped to open doors for city-level action and raise awareness of the importance of sub-national governments in ongoing negotiations.  

The Paris International Forum to End Plastic Pollution in Cities that we organized with the City of Paris in May 2023 really contributed to elevating the voice of cities and regions in the process. The Forum led to the formation of the Local and Subnational Governments Coalition to end plastic pollution, which has been involved in the negotiations around the plastics treaty ever since. That event also generated a lot of conversation and momentum around the issue after the fact.  

Eillie Anzilotti: Do you feel like you’ve witnessed a change in the conversation around the role of cities over the course of the program? 

Gulnara Roll: Absolutely. Since the start of UrbanShift, there has been a clear and growing recognition of cities as essential actors in addressing the triple planetary crisis—climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The conversation has evolved from viewing cities as implementers of national policies to recognizing them as co-creators of global solutions, capable of driving innovation, ambition, and impact.  

One of the most significant developments was the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at COP15 in 2022. For the first time, this global agreement includes specific targets that reference urban areas, such as Target 12 which calls for increasing the area and quality of green and blue spaces in urban areas to enhance biodiversity and human well-being.  

UrbanShift has actively contributed to this shift by advocating for multi-level governance. Through high-level events and mayoral calls to action—such as the 2025 open letter to Ministries of Finance, endorsed by 23 mayors—UrbanShift has helped elevate the voice of cities in global policy dialogues. Overall, there is now a stronger global consensus that empowering cities is critical to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, the GBF, and other multilateral environmental agreements.