Behind the Scenes of Climate Action: Lessons from Colombian Cities

June 22, 2026 — Climate change is severely affecting cities worldwide. But before measures to reduce climate risks and emissions can be implemented, a great deal must first happen inside city governments.

This includes coordinating across departments, planning, financing and aligning priorities. In Colombia, these responsibilities are distributed across three levels of government. The national government sets the policy framework, including the nationally determined contribution (NDC) and the Long-Term Strategy (E2050). Departments (32 subnational units) play an intermediate role, providing technical assistance, coordinating across sectors and planning climate action through Integrated Territorial Climate Change Management Plans (PIGCCT). They may also assign specific actions to Colombia’s 1,103 municipalities. Municipalities are the primary implementers, translating plans into concrete action on the ground. 

In practice, this multilevel system faces a persistent structural gap: the responsibilities expected of local governments often exceed their available funding and capacity. A 2024 study by the Federación Nacional de Departamentos found that 94% of Colombian municipalities reported needing additional resources just to fulfill their existing responsibilities.  

Closing the gap between ambition and implementation is at the heart of WRI's work through the CHAMP initiative in Colombia. Over the past year, WRI has worked closely with four city governments — Cali, Montería, Armenia and Valledupar — as well as the national government to strengthen multilevel climate action and help unlock implementation at the city level.

The initiative reviewed local climate action and other municipal plans for alignment with national policies such as the NDC and the E2050. It also connected projects to external funders. Through this work, the initiative developed a scalable approach and generated key insights into what is advancing and what is constraining climate action in Colombian cities.

Here are highlights of what WRI and participating cities learned: 

Climate action and land-use plans can drive long-term multilevel climate action.  

Colombian law currently does not require or provide clear incentives to municipalities to formulate climate action plans (CAP), which could explain why so few cities have developed one. Yet cities that do adopt them, such as Cali and Montería, can benefit from a shared long-term vision that aligns across sectors and political cycles. For example, Cali found that its CAPs helped make climate action everyone’s responsibility, especially across the multiple departments within the city government rather than just within environmental departments. It also encouraged broader engagement and shared responsibility from civil society.

Beyond CAPs, embedding climate considerations into key statutory plans that guide local investment decisions offers a practical opportunity for municipalities, including those with limited resources and capacity. Land-use plans (Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial, or POT) take a 12-year horizon and, although they are not typically thought of as climate policy documents, can be powerful instruments for long-term, cross-sectoral and multilevel climate action.  

Valledupar is taking this approach. The city government is using the POT revision process to integrate climate action that meets Colombia’s NDC and E2050 goals, working in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Housing.

“Sometimes there is a wrong perception that implementing internationally submitted climate goals is solely a national government effort, and that it cannot also become a local effort. Our POT does not [currently] have a clear climate action vision and policy — we want to add a strong component related to that,” said Jhan Perez, from Valledupar’s planning office. 

In practice, city governments are only able to secure municipal funding and internal support to implement climate-related projects when these are included in local development plans. Development plans have a four-year horizon and are a key enabling instrument for municipal climate action. WRI’s experience with participating cities shows that integrating climate action projects from CAPs, POTs and sectoral plans into development plans is a necessary step that significantly increases their chance of implementation.

Embedding multilevel climate action in municipal plans and priority projects is the first step, but bolder action is also needed.

Turning climate action outlined in municipal plans into reality requires city hall staff to translate proposed measures into projects with clear objectives, stages, costs, timelines, monitoring mechanisms and expected benefits for society.  

WRI’s work also focused on helping participating cities identify priority projects with potential climate benefits and supporting teams to strengthen their bankability and climate impact.

One finding that surprised city governments was that climate action can deliver quick wins. Many identified projects were already contributing to local climate adaptation, greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and Colombia’s NDC targets — such as Montería’s Botanical Garden — but had not been framed or assessed from a climate perspective. In other cases, targeted adjustments to priority projects, such as adding nature-based solutions to parks in flood-prone areas or incorporating solar panels into new buildings, created additional adaptation and mitigation benefits and supported Colombia’s NDC.

“A project may not necessarily be about climate change, but it can still be adjusted to support this goal. It’s not always obvious, but involving different departments can reveal opportunities,” said Aura María Bustillo, leader of international affairs and cooperation at Cali’s Administrative Department of Environment Management (DAGMA).

While quick wins are possible, advancing climate action requires bolder efforts from municipalities. This includes introducing new measures and rethinking existing ones, especially those contributing to high GHG emissions or to population vulnerability. A cross-sectoral, multi-department internal group is also fundamental for designing high-impact actions with climate response at their core.

Attracting funders requires technical details, climate impact assessments and financial planning. But municipalities often lack the resources and capacity to produce them.  

In some cases, municipal budgets and national transfers cover only part of the cost of climate-related projects, requiring cities to seek additional funding from national banks and funds, multilateral development banks or international cooperation agencies through grants or loans.  

In a later phase of the initiative, WRI connected priority projects with potential external funders. Analysis and funder feedback from matchmaking meetings revealed several common gaps: 

• First, projects often lack a clear demonstration of expected climate impacts. Climate-focused banks and funders typically require quantified estimates, such as avoided GHG emissions or indicators of reduced vulnerability and increased resilience. Many cities lack the technical expertise or staff capacity needed to quantify these indicators and produce the required assessments.
• Second, many initiatives have early planning in place but still lack feasibility studies, technical designs, implementation roadmaps and robust risk assessments, especially for infrastructure projects. This creates uncertainty around costs, timelines and risks, making investors cautious. Strengthening early-stage technical work is key to turning ideas into ready-to-implement, financeable projects. 
• Third, many projects lack strong financial planning. While investment needs are often identified, detailed cost analyses and funding strategies are often missing. Without a clear strategy for long-term financial sustainability, projects are less attractive to potential funders. Strengthening early financial structuring through detailed cost estimates, funding mixes, financial risk analysis and implementation models is essential to making projects bankable and ready for implementation. 

The need for these assessments, studies and financial analyses are not always well understood within city governments, making staff capacity building a critical need. The information, project presentation and language used to apply to domestic funding differ significantly from what external funders expect and require. This requires capacity and expertise that local governments struggle to mobilize.  

“We realized that sometimes we need to seek resources to undertake the studies needed for a project, before it can be submitted for funding,” said Marcela Villa González, leader of climate change and risk at Cali’s DAGMA.

Municipalities are critical to delivering multilevel climate action.

WRI’s work with national and subnational governments in Colombia demonstrated that there is both political will and opportunity to consolidate multilevel climate action in municipal planning and projects. The experiences of Cali, Montería, Armenia and Valledupar show that coordination within and across government institutions can accelerate multilevel climate action and support implementation of Colombia’s NDC and E2050. This can lead to more concrete measures that reduce emissions and help cities and their populations adapt to climate change.

WRI will continue to support Colombian cities and national governments over the next three years to advance CHAMP objectives. Accelerating internal processes and funding flows behind the scenes is a crucial step in ensuring that Colombian cities, people and nature continue to thrive