nder the heat of not only the Emirates sun but also an increasingly critical rate of global warming, 2023’s UN Climate Conference (COP28) in December showed, once again, how in the past decades cities and city networks have been presenting an increasingly established model of climate cooperation for other diplomats. City diplomacy is undoubtedly stepping up to the forefront of international affairs and has gathered progressive buy–in not only in the philanthropic, private, and academic sectors, but across a multitude of UN frameworks and programs along with a growing cast of national governments. Yet this momentum needs an even stronger diplomatic scaffolding to be maintained, and 2024 might be critical for it.
City diplomats headlined the first few days of COP28 proceedings. For the first time ever at a COP, the summit formally hosted a Local Climate Action Summit to open the conference, with sizable buy–in by the U.S. and China. Shortly after, the signing of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) marked this momentous occasion with a confidence statement in the necessity for central governments to value and connect with their cities.
A key element of maintaining the momentum is diplomatic capacity at the city scale. The third and latest international survey of city diplomacy from the University of Melbourne demonstrates we need greater focus on building skills at the municipal level to strengthen the diplomatic prowess of local government officers, still lacking direct expertise in multilateral affairs. Training and know–how are needed not just for mayors, but, even more critically, to officers and program leads. Efforts to do so, like those of the German Marshall Fund convening a transatlantic group of City Directors for International Affairs (CDIA) since the pandemic, is an outstanding example of these precious gap–filling initiatives.
Down at the antipodes, another such example delivered in Australia in 2023, and celebrated at COP28, has been a pilot City Diplomacy Masterclass. In this specialist exchange, the focus was on raising climate diplomacy ambition and skills with an explicit look at the building of mutual city diplomacy understanding between cities in Australia and China. Core in the exchanges of the Masterclass has been a growing realization between Australian and Chinese cities that city–led international exchanges encourage new ways of thinking and greater collaboration. This was enshrined by 28 city diplomats in a "shared statement" by Australian and Chinese municipal practitioners, stressing the power of city collaboration on a global scale. Masterclass participants underlined how, as well as critical avenues for policy and technical exchange, city–to–city paradiplomatic partnerships strengthen and solidify a sense of shared purpose and solidarity and provide a framework for collaboration.
The appetite and keenness seen in this experience, which mirrors broader efforts by the likes of C40 Cities, ICLEI, or Global Covenant of Mayors to gain a “seat at the table” in major UN processes, has been one of moving from paradiplomacy to actual city diplomacy. This subtle but not just semantic difference is key: cities’ shared ambitions, even across complex geopolitical relationships by their countries, are increasingly demanding realization not in parallel and transversally to international politics, but rather, at the forefront of core institutions of the international systems. Put it simply, mayors are not just meeting on the sidelines, like the famed, offsite cities tent of the failed 2009 COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen, but rather, in the discussions, negotiations, and stages of the UN system itself.
To name a few upcoming opportunities in 2024: COP29 in Azerbaijan leading to COP30 in Brazil, the 12th UN World Urban Forum in Egypt, and the UN Summit of the Future in September, are firm points in this ambitious pathway. Scaling up city diplomacy’s presence is paramount and recognition should not be taken for granted: the Summit of the Future’s draft, as of 2024 March, still has no reference to cities as key global actors. Fortunately, cities and climate action are now spread practically across the entirety of the multilateral calendar for 2024, with increasing degrees of acceptance and legitimacy from their national diplomats. The “urban” initiatives of the G7 and G20, aptly titled U7 and U20, offer a critical space to watch as finance and economic leaders gather in Brazil—a country with an extensive story of paradiplomacy. Opportunities to step up from parallel diplomacy to engaged city diplomacy exist aplenty and show no signs of slowing down.
Coming off its most visible series of interventions at C0P28, city diplomacy continues to be a critical, or even essential, avenue to finding solutions for the global challenges that are shaping our world. It is crucial to bet on the promise and agility of city diplomats and give them a chance to share more common pathways toward global urban collaboration—something for which 2024 has plenty more opportunities in stock.
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Strengthening city diplomacy in 2024
Sydney, Australia. Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash.
March 25, 2024
City diplomacy is stepping up to the forefront of international affairs. Yet this momentum needs an even stronger diplomatic scaffolding to be maintained, and 2024 might be a critical year, writes Michele Acuto, Daniel Pejic, and Ika Trijsburg.
U
nder the heat of not only the Emirates sun but also an increasingly critical rate of global warming, 2023’s UN Climate Conference (COP28) in December showed, once again, how in the past decades cities and city networks have been presenting an increasingly established model of climate cooperation for other diplomats. City diplomacy is undoubtedly stepping up to the forefront of international affairs and has gathered progressive buy–in not only in the philanthropic, private, and academic sectors, but across a multitude of UN frameworks and programs along with a growing cast of national governments. Yet this momentum needs an even stronger diplomatic scaffolding to be maintained, and 2024 might be critical for it.
City diplomats headlined the first few days of COP28 proceedings. For the first time ever at a COP, the summit formally hosted a Local Climate Action Summit to open the conference, with sizable buy–in by the U.S. and China. Shortly after, the signing of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) marked this momentous occasion with a confidence statement in the necessity for central governments to value and connect with their cities.
A key element of maintaining the momentum is diplomatic capacity at the city scale. The third and latest international survey of city diplomacy from the University of Melbourne demonstrates we need greater focus on building skills at the municipal level to strengthen the diplomatic prowess of local government officers, still lacking direct expertise in multilateral affairs. Training and know–how are needed not just for mayors, but, even more critically, to officers and program leads. Efforts to do so, like those of the German Marshall Fund convening a transatlantic group of City Directors for International Affairs (CDIA) since the pandemic, is an outstanding example of these precious gap–filling initiatives.
Down at the antipodes, another such example delivered in Australia in 2023, and celebrated at COP28, has been a pilot City Diplomacy Masterclass. In this specialist exchange, the focus was on raising climate diplomacy ambition and skills with an explicit look at the building of mutual city diplomacy understanding between cities in Australia and China. Core in the exchanges of the Masterclass has been a growing realization between Australian and Chinese cities that city–led international exchanges encourage new ways of thinking and greater collaboration. This was enshrined by 28 city diplomats in a "shared statement" by Australian and Chinese municipal practitioners, stressing the power of city collaboration on a global scale. Masterclass participants underlined how, as well as critical avenues for policy and technical exchange, city–to–city paradiplomatic partnerships strengthen and solidify a sense of shared purpose and solidarity and provide a framework for collaboration.
The appetite and keenness seen in this experience, which mirrors broader efforts by the likes of C40 Cities, ICLEI, or Global Covenant of Mayors to gain a “seat at the table” in major UN processes, has been one of moving from paradiplomacy to actual city diplomacy. This subtle but not just semantic difference is key: cities’ shared ambitions, even across complex geopolitical relationships by their countries, are increasingly demanding realization not in parallel and transversally to international politics, but rather, at the forefront of core institutions of the international systems. Put it simply, mayors are not just meeting on the sidelines, like the famed, offsite cities tent of the failed 2009 COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen, but rather, in the discussions, negotiations, and stages of the UN system itself.
To name a few upcoming opportunities in 2024: COP29 in Azerbaijan leading to COP30 in Brazil, the 12th UN World Urban Forum in Egypt, and the UN Summit of the Future in September, are firm points in this ambitious pathway. Scaling up city diplomacy’s presence is paramount and recognition should not be taken for granted: the Summit of the Future’s draft, as of 2024 March, still has no reference to cities as key global actors. Fortunately, cities and climate action are now spread practically across the entirety of the multilateral calendar for 2024, with increasing degrees of acceptance and legitimacy from their national diplomats. The “urban” initiatives of the G7 and G20, aptly titled U7 and U20, offer a critical space to watch as finance and economic leaders gather in Brazil—a country with an extensive story of paradiplomacy. Opportunities to step up from parallel diplomacy to engaged city diplomacy exist aplenty and show no signs of slowing down.
Coming off its most visible series of interventions at C0P28, city diplomacy continues to be a critical, or even essential, avenue to finding solutions for the global challenges that are shaping our world. It is crucial to bet on the promise and agility of city diplomats and give them a chance to share more common pathways toward global urban collaboration—something for which 2024 has plenty more opportunities in stock.
