Early engagement and co-benefits strengthen cities’ climate commitments

Abstract Cities can lead the way in tackling climate change through robust climate actions (that is, measures taken to limit climate change or its impacts). However, escalating crises due to pandemics, conflict and climate change pose challenges to ambitious and sustained city climate action. Here we use global data on 793 cities from the Carbon Disclosure Project 2021 platform to assess how the COVID-19 crisis has affected cities’ reported climate commitments and actions and the factors associated with these impacts. We find climate actions persist despite funding shortfalls; yet only 43% of cities have implemented green recovery interventions. Co-benefits of climate action (for example, health outcomes) and early engagement on sustainability issues (for example, via climate networks) are associated with sustained climate action and finance during COVID-19 and green recovery interventions. Cities should strengthen sustainability co-benefits and relationships with coalitions of actors to support durable climate commitments during crises.