Publication: Banking on Cities: Investing in Resilient and Low-Carbon Urbanization
Loading...
Published
2025-06-03
ISSN
Date
2025-05-12
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Cities around the world are responsible for ever-growing shares of people, assets, and economic activities vulnerable to climate disasters. They are also responsible for the majority of the world’s carbon emissions. Cities in low- and middle-income countries still have a window of opportunity to grow in resilient and low-carbon ways, to protect their populations and build strong and sustainable economic foundations.
What are the resilient and low-carbon investments that these cities could make in the coming decades? How much will these investments cost, and where can cities look for resources to pay for these investments? These are the questions that Banking on Cities: Investing in Resilient and Low-Carbon Urbanization considers.
The publication provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of key resilient and low-carbon investment costs in major urban sectors in all low- and middle-income countries to 2050. These include investments in urban transportation, energy-efficient buildings, solid waste management, water and wastewater, flood protection, and heat resilience.
The estimated total cost of these investments revealed by this analysis is sobering: between US$256 and US$821 billion per year. However, “climate” investments are not a separate category of investments that cities need to make in addition to their regular investments. These are core urban investments that cities need to make for their local economic and social benefits in addition to their climate benefits.
Banking on Cities advances the discussion on urban climate finance by exploring how cities can identify sources of funding and finance that are suited to different types of resilient and low-carbon urban investments. Just as climate investments are not a separate category of investments, climate finance is not necessarily a separate category of finance. While climate-specific sources, including carbon markets, green bonds, and others, are part of the picture, making these investments will require cities to address their financial fundamentals, including revenues, transfers, creditworthiness, and fiscal efficiency.
This report will be a helpful guide for cities and national governments as they develop their urban investment strategies.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Deuskar, Chandan; Murray, Sally; Leiva Molano, Juan Sebastián; Khan, Ibrahim Ali; Maria, Augustin. 2025. Banking on Cities: Investing in Resilient and Low-Carbon Urbanization. Urban Development Series. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43183 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication A Workbook on Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of Disasters : Adapting Experiences from Vietnam’s Cities to Other Cities(World Bank, 2012-01-26)This workbook is intended to help policy makers in developing countries plan for a safer future in urban areas in the face of natural disasters and the consequences of climate change. It is based on the experiences of three cities in Vietnam, Can Tho, Dong Hoi, and Hanoi, that worked with international and local experts under World Bank supervision to develop local resilience action plans (LRAPs) in 2009-10. An LRAP is a detailed planning document that reflects local concerns and priorities based on the experiences of the past and projections for the future. It is not a wish list of projects that may never be completed because they are too costly or lack political support. Rather, it should be a realistic document that describes and establishes priorities for specific steps that can be undertaken in the near term to adapt to both climate related and other hazards. Regardless of their size, location, political orientation, or technical capacity, other cities can learn from the experiences of these pilot cities to develop their own LRAPs. The purpose of this workbook is to adapt the initial experiences of Can Tho, Dong Hoi, and Hanoi to benefit the national government and other communities in Vietnam and beyond. Indeed, the process described in this workbook was later adopted in the cities of Iloilo, the Philippines; Ningbo, China; and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and the concluding chapter of this workbook draws on some of the lessons learned in these cities. However, the workbook, while generalizable to other contexts, largely reflects the Vietnamese experience.Publication Climate Change and the World Bank Group : Phase II - The Challenge of Low-Carbon Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010)The first volume of Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) series (IEG 2009) examined World Bank experience with the promotion of the most important win-win (no regrets) energy policies, policies that combine domestic gains with global greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. These included energy pricing reform and policies to promote energy efficiency. This second phase covers the entire World Bank Group (WBG), including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). It assesses of interventions, from technical assistance to financing to regulatory reform. This project-eye view of activities pertains to all the action areas of the Strategic Framework on Development and Climate Change (SFDCC). The third phase will look at the challenge of adaptation to climate change. The WBG's resources, human and financial, are small compared to the task at hand. The International Energy Agency estimates that developing and transition countries need $16 trillion of energy sector investments over 2008-30 under 'business as usual' operations, plus an additional $5 trillion to shift to an ambitiously low-carbon path. Much more is needed for sustainable land and forest management and for urban transport. So a prime focus of this evaluation is how the WBG can get the most leverage, the widest positive impact on both development and climate change mitigation, from its limited resources.Publication Reimagining Central Asian Cities for a Resilient and Low-Carbon Future(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-14)This study is a novel attempt to analyze the patterns and trends of urbanization in medium to large cities in Central Asia. It encompasses a broad range of parameters, and employs an evidence-based approach to outlining strategic directions and actions for fostering green and resilient urban development. The Central Asia Regional Study on Resilient and Low-carbon Cities (CARL-Cities/Study) is an innovative attempt to systematically understand urbanization and its potential in CA. It analyzes urban growth trends in medium to large cities using comprehensive parameters and an evidence-based approach to promote green and resilient urban environments. The study enhances knowledge of local challenges and identifies actionable steps for cities across the five countries to develop low-carbon, climate-resilient cities and regions. The study conducted a comprehensive urban and spatial analysis for 48 urban areas in Central Asia, identifying key urbanization and climate-related characteristics. It assessed urban development across five main dimensions: urban form, urban services and amenities, urban environment, economic activity, and urban mobility. This report summarizes the study’s key findings and recommendations.Publication Africa - Making Development Climate Resilient : A World Bank Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa(World Bank, 2009-10-30)This strategy for making development Climate-Resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa is the World Bank's operational response to climate variability and change on the continent. Grounded in a climate risk review of the Africa Region's sustainable development portfolio, it adds the climate change dimension to the Region's development strategy and business plan, the Africa Action Plan (AAP, 2009-2012), and will be an integral part of the AAP in the future. The AAP and the climate change strategy are a sound and realistic framework for climate-resilient development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy is based on the premise that increased climate variability threatens the development gains of African countries, and that these effects need to be anticipated so that development efforts can be made more resilient to climate change. Climate has always featured prominently in African development, and people across the continent have been living with and adapting to a high degree of climate variability and its associated risks for many centuries. Yet the accelerated changes in the climate and increasing incidence of climatic disasters (floods, droughts, cyclones) during the last century, and the scientific consensus that Africa is the continent most vulnerable and least able to cope with these changes, have brought these risks into sharper focus, and made the need to address them more urgent.Publication Climate-resilient, Climate-friendly World Heritage Cities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)While the negative impacts of climate change on urban areas are well-known and widely discussed, its implicit impacts on historic downtowns have not been studied as extensively. In recent years, cultural heritage conservation and valorization have increasingly become drivers of local economic development. Many projects supported by the World Bank in this field help leverage cultural heritage for economic development while developing infrastructure and services for residents and enhancing the livability of cities. The World Bank has also been very active in addressing climate change risks and increasing resiliency of urban areas. This paper is an effort to merge these two critical agendas. The paper investigates the impacts of climate change on 237 world heritage cities (WHC) and provides an overview of the geographic distribution of these cities around the globe. It discusses the importance of historic downtowns and provides various options available to the governments of these cities to address risk mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Further, it provides examples of WHC which have taken action to address vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change. This report is organized in following five sections: section one presents an overview of WHC, geographic distribution, and the growth of the urban agglomerations to which they belong. Section two presents the natural hazard risks and climate change impacts facing WHC, their location on the coastline or interior, and their rank in terms of level of vulnerability. Section three outlines the characteristics that historic cities have in terms of carbon emissions and potential for climate change mitigation. Section four discusses the sources of financing which WHC may turn to in order to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Section five presents the climate change adaptation and mitigation action plans being implemented in the WHC of Paris, Tunis, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Hue, and Quito.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Changing the Trajectory : Education and Training for Youth in Democratic Republic of Congo(World Bank, 2009-06-01)This report, Changing the Trajectory: education and training for young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, provides an analysis of the current educational attainment and current school enrollment of youth in the 12 to 24 years age group and the educational opportunities and training available to them in the formal and informal sectors. Using the results of a simulation model that incorporates enrollment in alternative education programs and the educational level attained by out-of-school population, the report explains the various scenarios for the development of the post-primary sector. The results of each scenario are evaluated according to their impact on the human capital accumulation of young people and sustainability of public expenditures. The report offers various options for rapidly raising the educational achievements of young people who will enter the labor market in the next two decades, including expanding opportunities for alternative education and training for school children, extension of the primary cycle and the reorganization of secondary education and technical/vocational education to reduce early specialization. This study is of interest to other African countries, education professionals and staff development organizations struggling to grapple with the challenge of expanding access to post-primary education in a context of low primary achievement and limited resources.Publication Reboot Development: The Economics of a Livable Planet(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-01)“Reboot Development: The Economics of a Livable Planet” explores how the foundational natural endowments of land, air, and water—long taken for granted—are under growing threat, putting at risk the very progress they helped create. For generations, natural resources have powered development, supporting health, food, energy, and economic opportunity. Today, strains on these resources are intensifying. This report argues that failing to maintain a livable planet is not merely a distant environmental concern, but a present economic threat. Drawing on new data, the report shows that over 90 percent of the world is exposed to poor air quality, degraded land, or water stress. Loss of forests cuts rainfall, dries soils, and worsens droughts, costing billions of dollars. The nitrogen paradox emerges—fertilizers boost yields but overuse in some regions harms crops and ecosystems. Meanwhile, air and water pollution silently damage health, productivity, and cognition, sapping human potential. The report warns that these hidden costs are too large to ignore. Yet the message is not one of constraint but of possibility. Nature, when wisely stewarded, can drive growth, create jobs, and build resilience. The report shows that more efficient resource use—like better nitrogen management and forest restoration—yields benefits that far exceed the costs. It also urges a shift to cleaner sectors and producing “better things,” noting that these provide new sources of growth, creating more jobs per dollar invested. The findings are clear: Investing in nature is not only good for the planet, it is smart development.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-01-10)Global growth is projected to decelerate sharply, reflecting synchronous policy tightening aimed at containing very high inflation, worsening financial conditions, and continued disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Investment growth in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is expected to remain below its average rate of the past two decades. Further adverse shocks could push the global economy into recession. Small states are especially vulnerable to such shocks because of the reliance on external trade and financing, limited economic diversification, elevated debt, and susceptibility to natural disasters. Against this backdrop, it is critical that EMDE policy makers ensure that any fiscal support is focused on vulnerable groups, that inflation expectations remain well anchored, and that financial systems continue to be resilient. Urgent global and national efforts are also needed to mitigate the risks of global recession and debt distress in EMDEs, and to support a major increase in EMDE investment.Publication No Broken Link(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06)The global economy is increasingly digital. The internet and other information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs) are changing the way individuals, businesses and governments operate. Theirresilience to natural disasters, and their ability to recover in the aftermath, is thus critical to the resilience of the economy. This chapter discusses the impact of climate events on various types of digital infrastructure. It highlights key considerations for governments and digital infrastructure owners to make their infrastructure more resilient, while maintaining affordability of services. We find that digital infrastructure is vulnerable to various climate risks, but that technology choices and network design can improve redundancy and resilience of networks, by design. Certain infrastructures warrant greater ex ante investment in their resilience considering their criticality in the broadband value chain (submarine cables or landing stations) while others could follow repair and recovery options (mobile network antennas, poles, and towers). We conclude with recommendations for the public and private sectors, noting that governments and sectorregulators can improve network resilience, and increase coordination given the distributedownership and governance models in the industry.Publication Economic Modeling of Income, Different Types of Capital and Natural Disasters(2009-03-01)This paper provides empirical estimates of the impacts of natural disasters on different forms of capital (with a focus on human and intangible capital and natural capital), and on real gross domestic product per capita. The types of disaster considered are droughts, earthquakes, floods, and storms and their impacts are measured in terms of the number of people affected or people affected per capita. The authors find statistically significant reductions on the values of human and intangible capital and land capital as a consequence of the disasters, and these reductions are greater when the impacts last for longer periods. Based on the assumption that natural disasters indirectly affect the level of income via losses in capital, the authors estimate a Cobb-Douglas production function using the different forms of capital as inputs. The losses in income are found to vary across different countries and the type of natural disaster studied. However, a common finding is that the losses in income depend generally on two factors: the relative magnitude of impacts of a natural disaster and the values of different forms of capital. The estimates in this paper are national level figures and cannot be useful in predicting the cost of damages at the local level, where much larger amounts can be experienced per capita. Nevertheless, the estimates provide some indication of magnitudes for different disasters and for different groups of countries. More work and more data are needed to get a dynamic profile for the losses of capital and income. But given the study's results, the time profile is estimated to range typically between two and five years.