In a meeting this Friday morning (15), the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, defended the importance of creating forms of financing to solve the cities’ climate issues. 
The municipal managers are co-chairs of the Global Commission for Urban Finance of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and participated in the Urban 20 (U20) meeting, at Armazém Utopia, in a debate on common agendas of the two large metropolises.
“We are convinced that the multilateralism of cities can change global governance. The UN also embraces this idea,” said Hidalgo.
In the debate, Eduardo Paes recalled that the mayors gathered at the U20 will present a document to the G20 leaders – who will meet on the 18th and 19th at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) – which suggests the creation of a type of guarantee fund, which allows actions aimed at climate change to work more efficiently.
“If you don’t have resources, actions become much more difficult,” said Paes. “And cities in the Global North also need it, but it’s a different reality. The social challenges are fewer. The infrastructures are better and the resources are greater. The reality of the south, with fewer resources, worse infrastructure and greater inequality, poses greater challenges”, he argued.
Paes and Hidalgo highlighted the leading role of municipal management as an antidote to the denialism of many presidents and heads of state. “When we look at these ideological delusions, which deny reality, and we see life in cities, it is the mayors who are much closer to reality, to everyday life. Where the rain falls, where it floods, where the air pollutes, where refugees go to the big city, like in France. This reality allows the denialist ideological component to be much less relevant”, said Paes.
