The Global Climate City Challenge is part of a new partnership under the umbrella of Global Urbis, an ambitious global initiative announced during the One Planet Summit in Paris in December 2017, that provides cities and local governments around the world with technical assistance and financing for climate action. The Challenge is a collaboration between the Global Covenant of Mayors and the European Investment Bank with city networks including ICLEI and C40, as well as the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). ICLEI screened project applications and proposed an initial short list of 20 projects to be considered for the final list of 6 to access technical assistance. The frontrunners were announced at the COP25, out of which 2 ICLEI Transformative Actions Program projects were selected in Recife, Brazil and in Jambi City, Indonesia.

Rising global energy use remains a major challenge, with cities and regions being central players in making energy more secure, clean and sustainable. To transform from a linear to a circular economy there is a growing need to take advantage of renewable resources, including energy. ICLEI supports the cities and regions initiatives aiming at 100% Renewable Energy. Since 2007, ICLEI has offered an international forum for discussion and exchange among policymakers and practitioners from various levels of government, energy experts, energy services providers, researchers and business representatives.

Responding to the Fijian COP23 Presidency call, in its capacity as focal point of the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) constituency at the UNFCCC, ICLEI worked with UN-Habitat and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy to mobilize Cities and Regions Talanoa Dialogues in 2018. The aim was to enable discussion between different levels of government on scaling up climate action.