"Cities are the climate avengers”: Eric Garcetti on mayors, momentum, and the COP30 Action Agenda

Cities, home to more than half the world’s population, are increasingly becoming the frontline of climate action. With their ability to act quickly and close to the people, they can implement the solutions that national governments often delay: from e-vehicles in the Philippines removing 1.5 tons of CO2, to Paris cutting 40 per cent of its pollution with 300km of bike lanes, to creating 2,000 green jobs with Bogota's sustainable transport system. Leading this work is C40, a network of almost 100 of the world’s largest and most influential cities committed to tackling the climate crisis collaboratively, urgently, and equitably.

We spoke with Eric Garcetti, Former Mayor of Los Angeles and C40’s Ambassador for Global Climate Diplomacy, on how cities and their mayors are driving forward climate solutions and pushing forward COP30’s Action Agenda.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is C40 and how does it connect cities to the COP30 Action Agenda?

C40 is like the Avengers of local government. These hero mayors, who represent more than a quarter of the world's GDP, are taking climate action to protect their people, create safe communities, and invest in the green economy of the future. It’s a platform for talking about climate, the economy, health and responding rapidly – much more quickly than nations can – to crises.

We are also one of the most accountable organizations. C40 can be honest about progress shortfalls, where we hit the mark or even exceed it. We model those learnings for institutions, nations, communities to say, this isn't us versus them, it’s all of us together.

Often we talk about millions of tons of CO2 and use big words like mitigation and adaptation. The average global citizen scratches their head and says, "What's that mean?”. But they do understand family health, wanting a good job, extreme heat, or fires and flooding.

The Action Agenda is the framework that mobilises voluntary climate action from cities, businesses, and non-state actors – a “whole of society” approach designed to accelerate the delivery of the Paris Agreement. C40 works alongside the diplomatic negotiations at the UN Climate Conference (COP30) to ensure that promises translate into on-the-ground delivery within our cities and local communities. The redefined Action Agenda, led by the COP30 Brazilian Presidency, is specifically designed to close the most urgent gaps identified by the Global Stocktake, gaps in the commitments that national governments have agreed to deliver by offering a unified platform to organise all of the climate action happening beyond the negotiation rooms. We have to shine a light on climate action that makes it easy for other communities to see how affordable it is, how beneficial it is, how healthy it is, how protective it is. The Action Agenda is about doing things today that help this generation and that ensure the next generations have a hope of survival.

If a skeptical mayor asked you: “What’s the point of a collective Action Agenda?”, how would you answer?

Of course, actors can do things on their own – protecting one street, neighborhood, community and city at a time. But then you’re missing the exponential strength. For example, if Mexico City introduces rapid buses, I can bring that idea to Los Angeles. As C40 Chair, I launched the Green Ports Forum, a network of port cities committed to decarbonizing ports and supply chains. That work quickly evolved into the establishment of the world’s first green shipping corridor, connecting the ports of Shanghai, Los Angeles and Long Beach – a corridor that only 3 years later is delivering clean ships and the clean fuels infrastructure necessary to support clean shipping, with over 20 cities now participating in the Forum.

A shared Action Agenda drives acceleration, innovation, collaboration, and communication. We have to accelerate because the crisis demands it, innovate and be brave because today's solutions won't comprehensively solve the challenges, and collaborate because nobody does this alone.

How can COP30 put people at the heart of climate action?

Community links are the very foundation [of climate action]. The root word for politics comes from the Greek word for city, ‘polis’ – people come to cities for neighbour, intergenerational, cross-racial and cross-sector engagement. It's not conversations that bring us together, but our common work. The most successful mayors listen, learn, and then lead together with their citizens to implement solutions. In Los Angeles we prioritised shading solutions because extreme heat was hurting and even killing people. We let communities decide where and how, such as tree cover at bus stops and lighter coloured pavements to cool down temperatures.

In particular, youth engagement has brought both the toughest and most inspiring moments. Tough, because young people call us out and say step aside or do more. But inspiring, because when C40 launched its youth council in 2019 – and strongly urged every city to create one with real power, not just an advisory role – we saw how quickly climate action can occur.

How can cities advance climate policy when national governments push back?

There are some countries where the national government is in sync with the local officials and policymakers when it comes to climate. You have other places where that's discordant. Several years ago, I co-founded Climate Mayors and we found that more people – Republicans, Democrats, independent mayors – raced towards implementing the Paris Agreement goals at the local level when our government was looking to withdraw at the national level. And perhaps we made even more progress because we didn’t depend on the national government to resolve the issue for us.

It doesn't matter whether you're in a country where things are perfect with your national government or whether they're a little bit out of whack or where they're completely hostile. Note, don't cede the power you have before you exercise it. Local leaders and local communities have the power to look at where they can organize and take action today.

The narrative in global media is that climate ambition is fading, governments are backtracking on commitments, multilateralism is weakening. Do you believe that?

No, I think the green revolution is inevitable. I live in California where 30 per cent of the car purchases were electric vehicles last quarter, where more new homes built are electric homes, where solar energy is now the cheapest, safest and the most dependable route forward. So that narrative doesn't ride with me. I have not found any mayor who regrets going too fast and I don't know any city that's moving backwards. Because when your people are choking on air pollution or are looking for quieter buses that emit less, they don’t care where you are on the political spectrum – they want you to find solutions for their health and security.

Even investors I talk to say there's never been a better pipeline of deals regardless of governments being down on ambition. It's actually creating a cheaper marketplace to implement it faster.

Rhetoric aside, results in implementing these solutions continue. The question is will we accelerate them fast enough to meet the moment, and bend the curve on temperature rise even harder.

My message to skeptical countries and leaders is the longer you wait the more you lose: in jobs, in industrial power, in progress and the future. Don't be part of the ‘death cough’ that is carbon economies. It will hurt your grandchildren and their grandchildren profoundly. I'm confident that this will be the generation that writes the chapter that moves the story to the ending we all want to see.