COP31: Cities rise on climate agenda as leaders face demands for action

Climate change is often paired with images of melting glaciers, disappearing forests and devastating fires. But for millions living in cities, the crisis is increasingly knocking on their doors. 

The signs are everywhere: in floodwaters pouring into family homes, unbearable heat inside poorly built housing, and neighbourhoods where inadequate drainage turns heavy rains into disaster.

“Perhaps we have to change … the imaginary when we talk and think about climate change,” UN-Habitat Executive Director Anacláudia Rossbach told UN News on the sidelines of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.

Her message was simple: cities are on the front lines of climate change, and protecting them means protecting the people who live there.

For the first time at a UN climate conference, the COP31 Leaders' Summit dedicated a high-level dialogue to urban resilience, adaptation and climate action.

The meeting brought together national and local leaders, financial institutions and other partners to address a growing challenge: up to three billion people lack adequate housing, while more than one billion live in informal settlements, often exposed to floods, landslides and extreme heat. 

In remarks delivered on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, UN-Habitat chief Anacláudia Rossbach stressed that housing must be at the heart of climate action.

“Housing is climate action. Urban planning is climate action. Access to basic services is climate action,” she said.

Speaking separately to UN News, she called for greater attention to the poorest communities, particularly those living in informal settlements, who have fewer resources to prepare for disasters or recover from them.

Protecting them requires more than stronger buildings. It also means access to drainage, sanitation, electricity and water, backed by better urban planning and financing.

“We need systemic change,” Ms. Rossbach said, underscoring the importance of partnerships among governments, banks, businesses and communities.

There are signs of progress. A new UN-Habitat analysis found that 80 per cent of national climate plans now contain well-developed urban measures, up from 50 per cent in the previous round.

Yet cities need around $4.5 trillion in climate investment annually through 2030, while current financing covers only about one-fifth of that amount.

For Ms. Rossbach, the meeting marked a turning point.

“We brought everybody that we need to bring together at this meeting,” she said, expressing hope that cities would gain a stronger voice in future negotiations and better access to financing.

In other positive news, 69 mayors representing more than 250 million people committed to another year of climate action through the Yearly Offer of Action initiative, a 60 per cent increase from last year.

Their plans include flood-warning systems in Addis Ababa, London's first dedicated heat plan and incentives to improve the environmental performance of 400 commercial buildings in Melbourne.

At the second day of the Leaders’ Summit, developing nations renewed appeals for support as they grapple with mounting climate-related losses.

Seychelles warned that recovering from increasingly destructive storms and floods can leave small countries trapped in debt, while Nepal highlighted growing dangers facing mountain communities as glaciers melt and extreme weather intensifies.

After failing to secure a dedicated agenda item earlier this week, Nepal, Bhutan and Kyrgyzstan joined Tajikistan and Pakistan in calling for greater protection of glaciers and mountain communities. Nepal also proposed a “Sagarmatha to the Sea” partnership linking mountain and coastal communities, alongside stronger early warning systems and climate finance.

In other highlights, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the country’s first special representative for climate security, citing growing links between climate change, food insecurity, migration and conflict.

In the negotiation rooms, delegates continued to wrestle with disagreements over adaptation finance and the future of fossil fuels.

Small island nations demanded faster emissions reductions, while fossil fuel-producing countries defended their development priorities, underscoring the difficulties of reaching agreement.

Financial commitments did emerge elsewhere. Philanthropic organizations announced more than $480 million to tackle methane and other powerful greenhouse gases, alongside an additional $25 million to support emissions reductions in seven countries.

“The climate crisis is already here and now and it is already a matter of life and death,” she told journalists gathered in the media zone, accusing political leaders of failing to confront the emergency.

“The actions from those in power here are completely detached from reality,” she said.

“The planet is not dying, it is being killed, and we know by who, and it's being killed by the very same people often thought to come to our rescue. No one is coming to our rescue.”

Beside her, Nepalese parliamentarian Sagar Dhakal recalled helping dig people from the rubble after a deadly landslide near the Nepal-Tibet border earlier this year.

“I don't think there are words in the dictionary to describe it,” he said.

He then raised his phone to show journalists a report about Switzerland, where authorities had monitored an unstable glacier and evacuated residents before a devastating collapse.

“Switzerland could do it because they had enough research and resources,” he said. "But Nepal couldn't do it.”

For communities living beneath the Himalayas, the contrast was clear: access to science, technology and early warnings can mean the difference between life and death.

Follow the latest developments from COP31 through our new podcast, Talk & Action, and our special daily coverage of the conference.