Authors: Jessie Press-Williams, Allison Ahern, Wadeisor Rukato

More than half of the world’s population live in cities today, and by 2050, that figure is expected to reach 70%.[1] As cities grow, so does their vulnerability to increasingly frequent and severe climate shocks. Urban leaders, on the frontlines of climate action, face significant challenges, one of the most urgent among them is securing the capital needed to implement mitigation and adaptation efforts. Recent research shows that cities will need approximately USD 4.3 trillion annually for climate mitigation alone through 2030.

During the 2025 London Climate Action Week, the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA), Howden, and Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities) convened a high-level roundtable to explore tangible models for public-private collaboration that can unlock investment for urban climate resilience.

The roundtable discussion highlighted an urgent need to increase climate financing to cities and promoted keeping cities at the heart of climate finance. Key takeaways explored, included:

• The importance of coordination, data and inclusivity
• A need for clarity, innovation, and to replicate models for private investment in cities
• The opportunity provided by insurance to unlock capital
• The barrier posed by regulation and the current fragmentation of the blended finance ecosystem.

The roundtable involved key stakeholders from the private and public sectors in a dynamic dialogue on the necessity to include resilience, climate finance, and private sector input in the broader discourse on increasing financial options for cities to respond and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Participants included city leaders, insurance brokers, commercial bankers, project developers, and ecosystem enablers, like researchers and implementers.

The discussion underscored a clear message: cities are making progress but need more coordinated support to move from millions to billions in climate investment. The purpose of this reflection is to provide an overview of the key insights from the roundtable and some initial thoughts on how to move these insights from ideas into action. All insights have been anonymised and summarised for clarity.

How to work better together: Key takeaways from the roundtable

• Coordination is critical: There is no shortage of capital, but deployment is hampered by fragmented planning and a lack of coordinated financial instruments. Cities need to create enabling environments for investment, supported by technical assistance and coherent policy plans.
• Blended finance needs clarity and creativity: Blended finance lacks a clear definition and needs creative application of different instruments. Grants, concessional loans, and philanthropic capital can de-risk and enable larger investments, especially for long-term infrastructure.
• Insurance as a catalyst: The insurance sector has transformative potential for urban resilience financing. Insurance can unlock capital by making projects bankable and investable. Insurance professionals can provide cities with climate risk expertise and models to understand risk and vulnerabilities better. However, insurance needs to be embedded from the start of project design, rather than being brought in as an afterthought.
• Replication and aggregation: Replicable models and aggregation across cities can diversify risk, reduce transaction costs, and attract investment. Sharing case studies and frameworks can help cities learn quickly and scale solutions.
• Regulatory barriers: Overly restrictive or not-fit-for-purpose regulations can pose challenges to investment, especially in cities in developing economies. A more enabling regulatory environment and sandboxing could unlock longer-term investments and reduce the gap between real and perceived risk for investors.
• Stronger partnerships and ecosystem: Effective partnerships require clear roles, shared skills, and better matchmaking between projects and finance. The ecosystem is fragmented, with duplication of efforts and sub-optimal partnerships.
• Data as a lever: Cities need better data strategies and asset management to demonstrate the opportunity value of projects – including avoided losses and co-benefits – to lower the cost of capital and attract investors.
• Equity matters: Investment models should focus on inclusivity and bring communities along, not just focus on commercial returns.

Collaboration in action: Strategic use of insurance to accelerate transition financing in Glasgow

The discussion spotlighted learnings from the Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship (the Fellowship) project in Glasgow, which was delivered as part of a joint program between Howden and R-Cities that aims to provide city leaders with the knowledge and resources to use insurance to respond to climate risk strategically. One powerful example came from Glasgow, a city with ambitious climate investment plans but limited experience attracting large-scale investment. Glasgow developed a £30 billion Greenprint for Investment, the intention of which was to enable financing for city-wide climate transition projects. However, the city required internal capacity to engage with banks and the private sector at that scale. Through the Fellowship project, an insurance professional was embedded within the city leadership team to help bridge the knowledge gap between the city’s ambition and the requirements banks have for making investments.  The city learned to reframe climate risk from a liability to an investment opportunity based on a stronger understanding of how to identify, manage, and communicate about risk to investors.

Sharing replicable models and fast-tracking cities’ financial readiness is crucial. The expertise and knowledge shared during the Fellowship project enabled Glasgow to favourably position itself to access blended finance. However, the process was slow; it took nearly three years to mobilise £4 million, which is not unique to Glasgow, as it can take years to operationalise city-level investments.

Looking forward

There is an urgent need to increase climate financing to cities. Meeting this challenge requires a coordinated effort among a range of stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Strategic coordination enables the sharing of replicable models, case studies, and frameworks for financing urban resilience projects. This can empower cities to reduce duplication and overlapping mandates, adopt proven approaches efficiently, and build ecosystem capacity.

There is a need to invest in systems for data sharing, scenario analysis, and asset valuation to make the economic case for resilience investments, track avoided losses, and better tailor blended finance structures to local contexts. Integrating insurance and risk modeling into project design from the outset enables more risk-informed planning, making projects more insurable and attractive to investors.

Cities need support in coordinated planning, policy coherence, and technical assistance to improve creditworthiness and investment readiness. Additionally, not to be ignored is the need to advocate for regulatory reform, which allows for more flexible and innovative financing, including aggregation models that lower transaction costs. Going beyond financial returns, investment strategies must also consider social equity, community needs, and long-term benefits.

Advancing urban climate resilience will require more than new tools — it will require new ways of partnering, risk sharing, and building trust between cities and private finance. The discussion was a demonstration of the appetite for collaboration and a growing recognition that cities present an opportunity for testing and implementing the climate finance agenda. In a rapidly urbanising and climate-constrained world, investing in cities is not just a moral imperative — it’s a smart financial opportunity. This roundtable marked a step forward in building the collaborations needed to make that opportunity real.

Keeping cities at the heart of climate finance

CCFLA, R-Cities, and Howden are committed to building on this momentum – advancing the use of insurance to support climate resilient cities and supporting country-level platforms that connect investment-ready projects with the partners that they need. CCFLA is taking this work forward through the  Private Sector Action Group, which aims to coordinate action on this space. Further insights and analysis will also be included in a report on the 2025 Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship cohort, which will be published ahead of COP30 in Belem. Read the 2024 report here.

About the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA)

The Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance is a coalition of leaders committed to deploying finance for city-level climate action at scale by 2030. Trillions of dollars will be required to help cities build the low-emissions, resilient infrastructure necessary to combat and react to climate change. The Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance is the only multilevel and multi-stakeholder coalition aimed at closing the investment gap for urban subnational climate projects and infrastructure worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.citiesclimatefinance.org

About Howden

Howden is a leading global insurance intermediary group with employee ownership at its heart. Established in 1994, it provides insurance broking, reinsurance broking and underwriting services and solutions to clients ranging from individuals to the largest multinational corporations. The group operates in 56 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, employs 22,000 people and handles $47 billion in premiums on behalf of its clients.

For more information, please visit www.howdengroup.com

About Resilient Cities Network

At work in over 100 cities worldwide, the Resilient Cities Network supports brings together global knowledge, practice, partnerships and funding to empower its members to build safe and equitable cities for all.  As the world’s leading urban resilience network, R-Cities supports on-the-ground projects and solutions in thematic areas such as climate resilient, circular and equitable cities while also facilitating connections and collaboration between communities and local leaders.

[1] Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance. 2024. “The State of Cities Climate Finance 2024.” Access here.