Climate change is always close to the mind of Mohammad Atiqul Islam, a local mayor in Bangladesh’s chaotic capital Dhaka. The politician sees thousands flock daily to his city to escape drought, eroding coastlines and other hazards in the disaster-prone nation.

But as officials scramble to accommodate those arriving from other parts of Bangladesh, strained city budgets make it harder to fight the impact of heatwaves and local dengue fever outbreaks that experts link to rising global temperatures.

“Climate displacement … has been a big challenge. I have to ensure their living standard, being a city mayor,” said Islam, mayor of Dhaka North City Corp., which administers an area of nearly six million people. “They’re coming and staying in informal settlements, but we have to give them nice accommodation, we have to create green jobs.”

Islam was among hundreds of mayors, governors and other local leaders at the United Nations climate summit (COP28) in Dubai this week to attend a first-of its-kind summit to exchange ideas on pinpointing — and implementing — solutions to climate change.

The C40, a global network that includes local leaders across Asia, is working on a climate action plan for Bangladesh’s capital to help calculate how much funding is needed to confront its myriad challenges, said Islam, who is a member of the group’s steering committee.

“When climate disasters strike, it is local leaders who have to respond to it first,” COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber said at the start of the global conference. The summit “will provide excellent opportunities to showcase climate action at the local level and take great ideas to be scaled up,” he said.

Cities are key contributors to rising temperatures and climate change, accounting for an estimated 75% of global carbon emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Vehicles and buildings, which require large amounts of energy to operate, are the key culprits.

“That cities need to be part of the solution is something that we [mayors] all recognize,” said Sally Capp, who leads Australian city Melbourne. This is “also recognized by national and state leaders as well … and the necessity of working together to achieve what are really combined outcomes now as we’re all working on our climate-action plans.”

A looming threat for Melbourne is heat. Extreme temperatures could kill 35% of the city’s trees, which are crucial for supplying shade and reducing heat, while ambulance service demand could rise by up to 50% and have “massive economic impacts” as people refrain from going outside, Capp said.

Investing in initiatives to boost health support and make infrastructure more resilient to climate change will save on the much higher cost of heat-related damages down the read, she said.

“We do need to look for ways to increase funding available,” Capp added.

Globally, a slim portion of climate funding available today is steered to adaptation measures like planting trees because it’s tougher for funders to “calculate payback” than other climate projects like switching fossil fuels to renewable energy, the Australian mayor added.

Worldwide, cities are facing a more than $3 trillion shortfall in urban climate financing, according to C40.

“Sometimes cities also need help to make their projects bankable,” said Abigail Binay, mayor of Manila’s financial hub Makati.

Binay’s city is not grappling with the financial challenges faced by some municipalities.

“I’m here to help other cities and help them get connected for finance” by matchmaking multilateral development banks and other funders with projects seeking money, she said.

Communicating with other cities that together make up the Philippine capital has been a key priority for Binay, as they face the urgent need to address intensifying flooding.

While Makati has a resilient drainage system, inadequate measures in other parts of Manila result in water getting “stuck in my city,” she said.

But “climate action should not just be a government action, it should be action on a household level,” added Binay, also a director of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, an alliance of over 12,500 local municipalities from 144 countries. “Not just your city mayor, not [just] your president, [but] what can you do? Collectively, together, it should be applied for everyone.”