[Cities 1.5 main theme music]  

00:00:03 David 

I'm David Miller and you're listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast by University of Toronto Press, produced in association with the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 of the world's megacities, committed to accelerating climate action. C40's mission is to halve the emissions of its member cities within a decade, while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone, everywhere to thrive. Join me as I connect with leading mayors, experts, policymakers, and youth leaders who are helping ensure a 1.5 degree world by leading city-based climate action. 

Each week, we delve into the necessary transformative solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. The fight for an equitable and resilient world is closer than you think. [Cities 1.5 main theme music fades out] 

[driving music] As we aim towards a 1.5 degree future, we need to fundamentally shift the way we lead our cities. One substantial change is that cities need to look to a new form of governance, one that places climate action at its heart, enables cities to inspire and mobilize multiple actors, adapt dynamic infrastructure, and create space for climate resilience.

[upbeat, energetic music] A critical tool for cities is a climate budget. A climate budget is a governance system that offers a way for cities to turn climate commitments into funded and measurable actions across the government. It embeds climate targets, measures, and considerations into decision-making as part of a city's ordinary budgeting process, increasing the city's ability to deliver on their climate targets. A climate budget can drive the short-term implementation of actions and deliver medium- and long-term climate targets. 

Just recently, C40 worked with a group of international cities to adapt climate budgeting to their own unique urban and social contexts. Cities like London, Tshwane, and Montréal are already creating full climate budgets or developing key elements of the approach, and this will support other cities who can more easily adopt the policy, now that they can learn from their proven examples. [music fades out]

[light, rhythmic music] The guests joining me today are each climate budget experts. First, I speak with Catrin Robertsen, C40's own Head of Climate Budgeting. Before joining C40, Catrin worked for the Climate Agency for the City of Oslo as their lead technical adviser to their climate budget, so it's safe to say she knows a thing or two about climate budgets and how cities around the world can take their own actions, based on the successes from leaders in the field like Oslo. 

Next, our academic expert, Trond Vedeld, joins me for a discussion about his research into the place of climate budgets in governance systems. Trond contributed his article, “How to Lead Collaborative Governance for Climate Transformation: A Guide for City Leaders and Decision-makers” to the first issue of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, which is available online. His research has brought him into contact with national and international governments, bridging the gap between scholastic and practical climate governance in cities.

So, let's dive into all things climate budgets. [music fades out] [upbeat, percussive music] Catrin Robertsen is the head of climate budgeting at C40 and has delivered a climate budgeting pilot. This pilot was led by the city of Oslo and joined by a cohort of cities from the Global North and Global South. This program supported cities to improve their governance systems to operationalize and deliver climate targets, reducing their carbon emissions by managing and reporting on climate measures as rigorously as they do for financial spending. Catrin's prior experience includes national emissions inventories and impact assessments at the Norwegian Environment Agency. [music fades out] Catrin joined me for a remote interview from Oslo on July 12th, 2023. At C40, we call her the "queen of climate budgeting." Catrin, welcome to Cities 1.5.

Catrin Robertsen 05:06 

Thanks so much, David.

David 05:07 

So, our listeners can understand, can you just say a few words about yourself, your career, and tell us what you do now for C40?

Catrin Robertsen 05:16 

I'm currently the Head of Climate Budgeting at C40, and I've been working with C40 since 2021. I started as a secondee from the City of Oslo, to deliver a climate budgeting pilot in collaboration between the City of Oslo and C40. So, prior to joining C40, I was the lead technical adviser on Oslo's climate budget. Now, what I do for C40, we started off with a pilot which ran from September 2021 until December last year, and we had a strong cohort of cities working together. So, across five different regions—Barcelona, Berlin, Los Angeles, London, Milan, Montréal, Mumbai, New York City, Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Tshwane—and what we wanted to test was if climate budgeting, which was first introduced in Oslo in 2017, if it was applicable across regions and beyond Oslo and Norway. Are there any generic steps? What are the barriers and opportunities?

So, we started this pilot with the mission of facilitating knowledge-sharing, provide guidance to cities and collect experiences to upscale to a future program. Now, we did that through a training course with webinars and workshops, and we've been working really closely with the cities over the past two years, and what we have seen is that we have this proof of concept. We have an understanding of regional or city-specific adaptations, and we also see that this is not a one-size-fits-all; this is something that each city really needs to integrate within their governance system and work on, and I'm very glad to say that we have some first movers and commitments among the cities that we have been working with, which leads to a great potential to upscale in the future, to work with more cities in developing knowledge materials on this topic. So, that's where we're at, at the moment.

David 07:28 

So, a lot of progress in a very short period of time. Maybe, for our listeners, you could speak just a little bit about what climate budgeting is, and then we can talk about its rapid progress and the idea being shared around the world. But, from a basic perspective, what is climate budgeting? Why does it matter?

Catrin Robertsen 07:49 

So, there are a lot of misconceptions and confusions around the terminology, and we address this in the pilot, working with the cities, coming to a common understanding and actually, global definition of what climate budgeting is. Before I go to the definition, I just want to say that this is all about governance. It's not just another technical assessment. Our definition is that a climate budget is a governance system that mainstreams climate commitments and considerations into decision-making on policies, actions, and budgets, and this is done through integrating climate targets from the city's climate action plan, in the financial budget process, and assign responsibility for implementation, monitoring, evaluation reporting across city governments.

So, why is this important? With a climate budget, we're not creating something new; we are just changing the way that we are working through improving an existing system. We had mayors of London and New York City say that budgets are moral documents and this is their way of mainstreaming climate into every decision. How we spend our money, it has major impact, so this has really changed management in practice. Everyone is pulling in the same direction and the city leaders are held accountable through this transparent process.

So, the evaluation after the pilot showed that cities were able to break down the traditional silos. They have set up cross-departmental teams between the finance and environment teams. They have been able to engage more strongly, internally, in the climate work, so it's not the sole responsibility of the climate department or climate teams but everyone has this as their core function, and they now have a deeper understanding of the strategic future opportunities and they see that climate action is now at the forefront of city priorities. 

So, this really shows that we have seen immediate benefits of these cities working on their climate budgets and we're looking forward to more cities advancing on this.

David 10:09

[light pizzicato string and percussive music] The point that a budget is a moral document is a very interesting one, because I think people perhaps assume budgets are very dry accounting documents. Money goes here, money goes there. One of the interesting things, to me, about this is a budget implements the priorities of a city administration and the mayor. So, to overlay climate on that budgeting process, one with which every public servant is familiar, is an extraordinary tool, from my perspective.

You were with Oslo when this was first developed. Can you speak a bit about how Oslo came to that insight that this connection between budgeting and greenhouse gas reduction goals was so powerful?

Catrin Robertsen 10:58 

So, I think that Oslo, like many other cities, reached a turning point where they saw that it was time to move, and I think it was the governing mayor who said that, "We cannot wait for others to act. We have to act."

David 11:13 

Mayor Johansen.

Catrin Robertsen 11:13 

Yes, Governing Mayor Johansen. So, the story of climate budgeting in Oslo started back in 2015 with a new coalition of political parties coming to power. So, it was a coalition of the Labour Party, socialist Left Party and the Green Party, and I think it was the first time the Green Party came to power in the city. [music fades out] So, they developed this political platform and that's where the decision to develop a climate budget, and also to establish a climate agency to work on this, was made. After that, they developed a new climate action plan with very ambitious targets, political priorities, and actions and strategies.

So, as a result of that, Oslo has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the world and this ambition really required the commitment of the whole city to act. They need to go from pledges to implementation and action on the ground, and the speed and the scale needed is something that really shifts the way the city functions, and that's why they look to the budget process established – "Exactly what had to be done? Who is supposed to do that? What will it cost?" and really grounding that goal. And so, the city is now on their eighth iteration and annually improving the system, so showing that it is an iterative process of planning, delivering and monitoring, and they do course correct through their climate budget.

David 12:49 

Very simply, when I talk about this, Norwegian curlers are famous in Canada because the men had these very fancy trousers. [Catrin laughs] Catrin is laughing, but it's true. So, when I speak to this, overly simplistically, I will say to people, "If the city of Oslo commissions a new curling rink for these wonderful curlers, the parks department, the recreation department, not only have to have a monetary allocation, they have to have a carbon allocation out of the limited carbon available," and that all gets worked out through the budgeting process. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying there but, directionally, is that how things have evolved to work in Oslo?

Catrin Robertsen 13:39 

Absolutely. It has really made the city assess every decision that is made and really ensure that they have integrated and embedded these considerations into every process that goes through. No project can be delivered unless the entrepreneurs or those doing that project meets the requirements set by the city.

David 14:05 

When you were speaking to your current work, you talked about differences in approach, and you've got a range of global cities, so this project has the chance to set the standard, globally. Can you speak a bit more about those pilots, lessons learned from the international cities? You know, we started with a powerful and effective idea from Oslo. Oslo's emissions are coming down rapidly. What lessons are you seeing come out, globally, about how to apply these principles in diverse places like Tshwane and Rio and New York and London?

Catrin Robertsen 14:47 

We started off the pilot, wanting to check if this model was applicable, globally, and we have seen that there are some generic steps and approaches to climate budgeting, but they need to be adapted. So, even though they are universally applicable and flexible and could accommodate any policy instrument at any scale, this is something that really needs to be delivered through the existing systems.

We did investigate also other approaches and methodologies in these cities, but we found strengths and limitations to the different ones, but what we really found was that they complement each other. The combination of these helps the city build robust climate budgeting systems where you use data to inform decision-making, and you set the direction of the work and take necessary action today. So, across these cities, what we see is that climate budgeting really allows for that immediate action. They are breaking down their long-term targets, so say 2040, 2050, to annual targets to know what we're going to do next year – "What are we going to do within the next five years?" 

And this also allows for holistic planning. It allows the mayors to assess, across sectors, what needs to be done at what time, and cities are now working on really embedding these considerations into every decision. [pensive music] They do that through the formal processes, so they are amending the existing financial processes with the instructions, the guidance, and the templates going out. So, this is not only a top-down approach, but really a bottom-up as well, because they need everyone to be part of this and do propose that immediate action come up with solutions to projects that will help deliver these targets, and the informal processes, the collaborations, the conversations happening, are incredibly important.

Now, cities have made amazing progress. We have New York City, who has announced that they will be doing a climate budget from next year. This was announced in their newly updated climate action plan. Mumbai has committed to climate budgeting in their climate action plan as well, from spring '22, and they're establishing a climate cell, which is similar to the Oslo's Climate Agency to support this work and put the resources needed into it. 

Tshwane shared their plans on introducing climate budgeting for 2024 at the C40 Summit last year, and I think we all know about London who published their first climate budget in December 2022. So, they're taking this face-based approach, but they were really fast in getting that first version out, and they're expanding over the next two years to include the boroughs and those emissions that fall outside of their direct powers. [music fades out]

David 17:54 

Leadership from the mayor, the governing mayor, the head of council – essential. Bottom-up approach integrated into regular city processes, particularly the budgeting processes – important lessons that have come out from your work. Anything else that's a key ingredient that a city—or anyone else, for that matter—contemplating a climate budget needs to think about?

Catrin Robertsen 18:19 

I think that starting at a political level, so having that strong political commitment and support is crucial. Securing, both to get started, but also along the way, I think that a strong mandate and direct support in the rollout is incredibly important to be successful. Then, it's the time and resources. This is a process that really takes time, so make sure to dedicate time and resources. Set this cross-sectoral team and start breaking down those traditional silos.

Then, there's the institutional point. Mainstreaming climate will require institutional restructuring and change of focus and, as I had mentioned, this is change management in practice, so really working on getting everyone on board within the city administration, through both the formal and informal processes and utilizing this existing system – not develop something new, but do that climate overlay that you talked about. 

And then last, it's the technical and educational. Start training the city administration. Avoid misunderstandings, lack of interest, but make sure that you educate the organization, speak the same language, avoid those misconceptions that we talked about at the beginning. And I think what we've learned from these cities is that implementing a climate budget can be challenging, but the impacts are significant, and you can do annual improvements so start with what you have. This is not a one-time exercise. It's not a report that is put on the shelf, but it's something that we are reminded of every day, so changing the organization's culture and prioritize actions that will have direct impact. 

And lastly, just showcase the leadership, that you're actually taking climate action seriously. That is something that you can do through a climate budget.

David 20:23 

Very clear advice. As we both know, changing an institution's culture is easy to say, but lots of work to make it happen. Just to wrap up, any thoughts about where this should go in the future? Where will cities be? How instrumental are climate budgets? Are there some examples, already, of positive impacts of climate budgeting? And what needs to be done, whether it's from a C40 perspective, or from a city perspective, in order to ensure that this new approach produces results globally in the way it already has in Oslo?

Catrin Robertsen 21:02 

Yeah, I think that every city should be doing climate budgeting within a few years.

Davis 21:08 

That's a lot of cities, Catrin.

Catrin Robertsen 21:10 

[laughs] We're working on it, David. But I think that, without climate budgeting in place across cities, it will be much harder to meet these climate targets that we have set, and it's no longer enough to make new commitments. We really need to act on them and climate budgeting is a way of doing that, and breaking it down and help shape the cities and how we evolve. So, I think that those cities that are really ambitious and want to be climate leaders, they should do this, and we're definitely, from a C40 perspective, hoping to upscale to a program where we can continue that knowledge-sharing across cities. We can push each other to find those innovative solutions. We all know that low-hanging fruits are already picked. We need to move at a much faster rate and work systematically, turn every stone.

So, that is what I've seen as an impact within the cities. I can do an example from London. When they first did their climate budget, they were able to allocate an extra £90 million in their climate budget, because they were able to reveal the greenhouse gas emissions and also the financial gaps that they needed to plug. So, when they actually saw that this was needed, they were able to allocate more money towards climate action. They see that more London boroughs are following suit, and they're reporting back that their finance directors really love this. It gives them a good reason to get involved with climate, and that climate budgeting and climate finance, so the focus on that has made top priorities in the city and for the administration going forward. 

So, I think we see concrete examples from these cities on actions being implemented and more funding going towards climate action. But, in general, what we will see is the impacts it will have on ground, how this will create better cities with lower emissions, cleaner air, more green spaces. It will make the city a place for its residents, and the whole city will come together and mobilize to take action on climate. And for the mayors in particular, providing that climate leadership and showing that they have the willingness to act and be accountable through this transparency is a great opportunity, so I think that this is a system that will last for a long time. It is not dependent on a city government or administration, but it's something that will survive those mayoral transitions.

David 24:07 

Well, it's a beautiful vision of potential future cities, with a combination of mayoral leadership and finance directors being excited about climate. That's a powerful insight, Catrin, from your work.

Final question – if you had one wish to help climate budgeting succeed, what's your wish?

Catrin Robertsen 24:27 

[chuckles] A very good question. I think that getting the idea out there, cities picking it up and really turning it into action, so setting those cross-departmental working groups, I think that is a key first step. [pensive music] And then go to our Knowledge Hub, find information on how to do this, roll it out in your city. It's not a silver bullet, this. It really requires that everyone allocates time and money to implement these actions, but that is, I think, on top of my wish list to see cities taking this seriously through allocating internal resources to this.

David 25:12 

Well, we have a small but mighty team. One day, hopefully it'll be a bit larger so it can spread to far more cities. Catrin, thank you so much, not just for being with us today, but for your ongoing work and leadership in taking this brilliant idea from Oslo and already making sure that it's spread globally. And, as we learn more lessons, more cities can take the principles on board and make real change, which we must, so thank you for that work and for being with us today on Cities 1.5.

Catrin Robertson 25:40 

Thanks so much, David. [music continues then fades out]

[light, rhythmic music] Trond Vedeld is Research Professor of Political Economy, Public Administration, and Urban Politics, Climate Governance and Climate Services for the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) at Oslo Metropolitan University. His research interests include specializations in governance, urban development, climate change, and institutional and environmental analysis, with a focus on India, Africa, and Norway. Trond joined me for a remote interview from Oslo on June 13th, 2023.

Trond, welcome to Cities 1.5.

Trond Vedeld 26:32 

Thank you, David.

David 26:35 

We've asked Trond to join us today because he's one of—if not the—world's leading researcher on the issue of climate budgets. But before we start speaking about climate budgets, Trond, I just wanted to ask if you could tell us a bit about your background, your professional interests, how you got to the point of looking at climate budgets, and what your research interests have been over time.

Trond Vedeld 27:00 

I have now more than 40 years of experience working both internationally and nationally in Scandinavia. I have a background in economics and political science and I've specialized on collaborative governance and co-creation, in particular, related to climate governance in cities. I also have a background with the World Bank and the UN, working hands-on with cities in India and Africa.

David 27:27 

You've got an interesting background, both working hands-on with cities and academically, and I think that's going to inform today's discussion as it's quite rare. We're thrilled you're with us, and we're also very appreciative of the research you've submitted to the journal. In that research, you outlined the innovative governance practices of cities like Cape Town, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Oslo. Can you speak a bit about the theory of climate governance from an academic perspective, because our listeners, like me, might not realize that there is an academic specialty in climate governance?

Trond Vedeld 28:05 

Yeah, I think what you realize about climate change is that it raises very complex, wicked, or unruly public problems, and a city cannot resolve this kind of problem on its own. It is completely reliant on other public, private, and civic actors, including a broad range of citizens. [urgent music] So, a city needs to, as I indicated, work with these different actors in different manners, mobilizing them, because the city does not have direct control over external actors.

David 28:52 

You've spoken to the internal needs. Can you speak a bit more about co-creational leadership?

Trond Vedeld 28:58 

Yeah, I mean, co-creational leadership is about achieving results, through or with others, and it's sort of different from direct leadership within an organization. So, it's about engaging, inspiring, motivating other actors, both inside and outside the public sector. [music fades out] It's about facilitating and giving direction to co-creation processes.

So, if you look to, for example, Cape Town, when they develop their climate goals, the climate agency mobilized sort of a climate think tank, consisting of academics and civil society actors to sort of bring in both technical and climate governance expertise, while Oslo did it differently. Oslo mobilized a network of professionals related to the private sector and private business and they developed their climate goals, both cities working with external stakeholders.

David 30:04 

So, there's a need for internal leadership, clarity of purpose, and necessity for collaboration. What else would your research have produced as examples from these four cities?

Trond Vedeld 30:16 

If you look to the way these cities work—integrative—that means internally, we find it's essential, I mean first of all, to establish sort of political commitment to goals and approaches; secondly, to have a kind of a climate agency that takes a leadership role in coordinating and driving their agenda; thirdly, there may be a need for the kind of integrating instruments which climate budgeting is an example of.

David 30:53 

Before we get to climate budgeting, what do you mean by integrating instruments in the context of cities?

Trond Vedeld  31:00 

Integrating instruments may be to mainstream the climate goals and climate strategies and approaches, and it can be done by a climate agency taking leadership, or by cross-sector working groups, or combining this with climate budgeting processes. The main thing is to form internal alliances, assembling and bringing sector departments and agencies on board towards a joint process, an agreed process, agreed climate actions.

David 31:37 

So, the housing department or the roads or transportation department or the parking agency need to be part of this process. [light, gentle music] You learned these lessons from research into these four cities, but particularly your specific work in Oslo. Can you speak then to climate budgeting – how it answers that call for internal leadership, for co-creational leadership, and for this kind of necessity for every city department being engaged in climate?

Trond Vedeld 32:05 

I think, if you look to the climate budget as an internal instrument, it's kind of a collaborative, a mixed governance instrument that brings not only the internal actors together, but also external, and I'll explain why. I mean, first of all, to gain acceptance for doing a climate budget means that you push for political approval of goals and climate strategies. [music fades out] Then, the climate budget needs to sort of set emission reduction targets and link these to specific climate activities across sectors. That means you need to bring internal actors together for both goals and prioritizing actions and, in particular, like they have done in Oslo, they have linked the climate budgeting process to the financial budget. That means they link co2 emission goals to the main instrument for internal government, you might say – the budget and the activities that are linked to the budget.

David 33:24 

Why does that matter? Why did Oslo do that? [light string music] And from your perspective, why is it a good thing, on the assumption, of course, that it's an effective tool?

Trond Vedeld 33:33 

I think, if you look to many cities, a main problem has not been to design nice climate strategies, but our main issue has been to actually move from strategies to climate action on the ground, and a climate budget really sets up emission goals linked to activities so, if a transport department or a building department do not achieve its activities, it will not achieve its co2 reduction emission goals and this will have an impact on the next year's budget. So, it's about actually moving from talk-centric to action-centric climate activities. [music fades out[

David 34:29 

That's a very powerful answer and I think it really leads to a logical question – if connecting the financial budget to the climate practices of the various departments of a city is so effective, does this mean a climate budget is an essential step for cities to move from talk to action?

Trond Vedeld 34:49 

It's possible to move from talk to action, but definitely a climate budget is a very strong instrument, and I think the beauty of the way the climate budget process works in Oslo is that each of the entities—and there might be 20 different departments and entities involved—they negotiate goals and activities, also with external actors. So, in a way, the climate budget both brings together internal, silo-based agencies, but also brings on board external actors.

David 35:30 

So, it's doubly powerful from that perspective. That all sounds very positive and optimistic, but based on your research and your work, are there barriers for cities to both create climate budgets and to lead on this kind of collaborative governance? And, if there are barriers, what are the paths to overcome them?

Trond Vedeld  35:52 

There definitely are barriers, which links to whether or not the city is willing to adopt sort of a collaborative governance approach. I think, first of all, you need brave public leadership and you also need internal change agents like a climate agency that has sufficient mandate to actually not only coordinate the agenda, but also drive the agenda, and then to get the political approval for getting the climate budget going.

In addition, there are also barriers related to sort of ingrained political and public administrative roles. You actually need co-creational type of leadership that is reflexive, that has capabilities to think in terms of collaboration, and to be motivators of both internal and external actors. Obviously, this also relates to the institutional design and sort of cross-sectoral champions, as we have already indicated. 

Again, this has to do with the history of collaboration in sort of institutional interaction. [gentle music] It's about adopting cross-sector instruments, so a lot of this has to do with institutional capacity and competencies and we should not forget that, in order to achieve collaboration with citizens and external, private business and civil society actors, you also need them to have certain competences and capacities, and we do see that when it comes to participation and cooperation, there is a tendency that sort of private property owners, private business, and also organized civil society is more easy to get on board than citizens and lay actors. Citizens and lay actors tend to become engaged climate agents when something happens in their neighbourhood – parking spots are removed, densification occurs, circulation routes are changed, and so on. [music fades out]

David 38:28 

There are different levels of buy-in you've spoken about – the internal city departments and agencies, the private sector, citizens, and other institutions like universities and hospitals. Any insights from Oslo or elsewhere about how to structure processes or collaboration so that you do get that buy-in from people and these other institutions?

Trond Vedeld 38:54 

What you see in Oslo is a kind of a cross-political drive to get climate action going, and it's important to get pilots going, experimental projects going, and to try to scale them up, and what happened in Oslo in 2015, right after the Paris meeting, was that a civil society organization and a public building agency came together and said, "Let's try to do a phosphide-free construction site". So, it started with one pilot, which led to a second pilot, and now Oslo is pushing this in all the municipal construction sites, and it's also become common on private construction sites. This shows how the municipality can use its power and resources to, in a way, initiate pilot schemes that work and that can be scaled up.

David 40:04 

So, that's an interesting insight – start with something achievable and scale it up if you want to get the buy-in of city departments, of non-city actors like the private sector and institutions, and the residents of the city. From your perspective, is that where a climate budgeting process should start? When mayors and their staff are listening to this podcast, what would you say is the place they should start if they're going to try and think about, and act on, climate budgeting?

Trond Vedeld 40:33 

As I indicated earlier, they first need to start with themselves and realize that this is an extremely powerful tool and it's doable and it doesn't require all that much initially, internally, although it does require, as it moves along, both capable staff and monitoring capabilities, and also data to sort of cover the changes in the mission and so on. 

David 41:09 

Trond, that's an optimistic perspective, I think. Thank you very much for the article that you've submitted to the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy on climate budgeting, which was published in our first issue. Are there any parts of the article that you'd like to mention that would help practitioners, city policy staff, mayors, and academics think more about this issue?

Trond Vedeld 41:31 

Yeah, I think, if you look into the article, you will find what we call 10 Essentials for Climate Leadership. In addition to the C40 Manual guideline on the climate budget.

David 41:46 

[urgent music] The article I'm referring to is “How to Lead Collaborative Governance for Climate Transformation: A Guide for City Leaders and Decision-makers” in Volume 1 Issue 1 of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, which is available in print and online. Trond, thank you again for this article and for giving some insights into the 10 essential lessons that cities should learn. We really appreciate all of your efforts on this issue. 

Trond Vedeld 42:13 

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. [music fades out]

David 42:20 

[upbeat, energetic music] Although much climate policy comes from leading academics, we're also seeing theory come to life through inspiring examples from around the world, thanks to global cities like Oslo, Berlin, Mumbai, Paris, and Rio.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but governance systems like climate budgeting are helping to sketch out the map for the future and help assure us that there might, in fact, be a future for us to look forward to. [music continues then fades out]

[light pizzicato string and percussive music] Next week on the podcast, we'll be bringing you an excerpt from the London Climate Action Week's live event, Investing in Public Transport, boosting green jobs and climate action, organized by C40 Cities and the International Transport Workers Federation. This conversation was hosted by youth climate activist, Mikaela Loach, and features Seb Dance, Deputy Mayor of Transport for London, Livia Spera, General Secretary of the European Transport Workers Federation, and Paul Ainsworth, Unite London Buses Division. They discuss the future of sustainable public transportation and good green jobs. You won't want to miss it.

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] Thanks for listening to Cities 1.5. I'm David Miller, the Managing Director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and know, first-hand, the impact cities can have in solving the climate crisis.

Cities 1.5 is produced by Jessica Schmidt. Our executive producers are Isabel Sitcov, Peggy Whitfield, and Jessica Abraham. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. Cities 1.5 is a production of the University of Toronto Press and the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy.

To find out more, visit the show’s website link in the episode notes. See you next time. [Cities 1.5 main theme music continues then ends]