“If we don’t connect climate action to financing, we’re simply not going to solve the problem,” said Shalit. “There are huge amounts of funding available, but to secure a share of it, cities need to make comprehensive climate investment plans, supported by accurate data. The money is there, but without the analysis, cities can’t access it.”
City halls need to be able to consider investments “holistically”, Shalit said, calculating the co-benefits of every environmental investment – so weighing up, for example, the cost of new cycle paths against the benefits for the city’s health system.
On 8 February, the Guardian published the article “They get the big picture': the Swedish tech startup helping cities go green”, featuring ClimateView’s pursuit to bridge the climate financing gap for cities.
"In early 2018, Tomer Shalit looked at the overwhelming mass of data and the tens of thousands of pages of scientific studies and parliamentary reports that had gone into the making of Sweden’s bold new Climate Act, and thought: this is hopeless.
“There was this avalanche of material, but none of it was operational,” he said. “There were solid, ambitious targets, but no roadmaps for reaching them. There was a ton of evidence, but no concrete action plans. And nothing was connected.”
So Shalit – then a consultant devising “agile solutions” for business – took it all and turned it into one four-metre poster that broke Sweden’s entire green transition down into its constituent parts, presenting them in a way that made sense.
He gatecrashed a government event and showed it to an enthusiastic environment minister. With the backing of Sweden’s environment and energy agencies, it went digital and became Panorama – a national climate action plan, on one webpage.
Five years later, Shalit’s poster has evolved into an online tool used in eight countries by a rapidly lengthening list of cities – now more than 50 – including Helsingborg and Malmö in Sweden, Madrid in Spain, Kiel and Mannheim in Germany, Cincinnati in the US, and Bristol and Nottingham in the UK."
In the wake of the new year, New Statesman’s Capital Monitor also featured an interview with Irena Badelska, Chief Revenue Officer at ClimateView.
What did they talk about? A whole lot. ClimateView’s Irena Badelska discussed why and how the mobilisation of finance towards green projects must be accelerated – and the cities already taking a lead in demonstrating working solutions. Basically, frameworks are already in place to drive the urban energy transition, but money is not moving quickly enough. Here's how to make markets a main player in the urban energy transition.
