IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

City leaders have many options to invest their limited budgets to make their cities more livable. Buy buses, treat wastewater, install smart meters….what to prioritize and how? Often priorities are influenced by political objectives and result into suboptimal outcomes missing climate targets or overstretching municipal finances. The International Finance Corporation has developed a methodology for city leaders to choose a pipeline of green investments in various sectors to maximize the reduction in GHG emissions versus the status quo under budget constraints. Each type of investment (transport, water, waste..) has a cost and GHG reduction impact, estimated within the specific city context based on prevailing engineering calculations, existing studies in the literature, and/or the experience of other cities. Once a meaningful pipeline of green investments is selected, the analysis of municipal budgets and local financing opportunities help determine the optimal financing mix between own resources and debt. I will present an application of this methodology to two Turkish cities: Antalya and Konya. As a first step, we assume the latest recorded city wide emissions in each city as the status quo. Against this baseline, our analysis in consultation with city leaders has identified 32 priority investments to reduce GHG emissions in Antalya and 33 in Konya. Collectively, the prioritized investments are expected to deliver per-capita GHG reductions of approximately 40% in Antalya and 36% in Konya, relative to the respective baselines by 2030. These results are driven primarily by large-scale energy savings and renewable electricity deployment in buildings, together with mode shift and vehicle electrification measures in transport. The selected investments for each city form a coherent and realistic investment strategy, aligning public finance with areas of highest public value while systematically mobilizing private capital where benefits accrue directly to end users.