The cities of the world will give us the entrepreneurs to solve the climate puzzle
Investment in climate tech companies has increased five-fold since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. This year, there has been venture capital investment in climate tech than in all of 2020. That’s good news – but it’s not enough.
Cities have questions to answer for their role in creating pressures on the climate – but they also provide solutions.
Only with the world’s best entrepreneurs can we tackle climate change. That innovation needs investment and support to scale the challenge. London is brilliantly placed to do that: we have the entrepreneurs, the capital, the global connections and the support networks. But London must work with other world cities to scale innovation at the speed needed to achieve our shared climate goals.
London is already home to the biggest cluster of climate start-ups in Europe. There are unicorns with valuations over $1bn like electric vehicle technology company Arrival, renewable energy provider Octopus Energy and circular economy platform Depop. London is home to innovators in vertical farming by companies like Crate to Plate and Hoxton Farms.
The pipeline of start-ups is strong too, with more funding rounds for climate tech in London than anywhere else except the Bay Area.The capital is also here.
Half of Europe’s dedicated climate tech venture capital funds are based in London and the city has 18 dedicated climate tech VC firms – the greatest concentration in Europe. London is a global leader in green finance.
London’s universities are at the cutting edge of research into urban climate change solutions. Imperial College London has established its Centre for Climate Change Innovation, UCL has a leading faculty for the built environment at the Bartlett, and the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of East London looks at key urban challenges.
As a city, London is making serious commitments to sustainability with a raft of measures, including Sadiq Khan’s Green New Deal to make the capital a net zero-carbon, zero pollution city by 2030 and net zero-waste by 2050. But London cannot do it alone. Cities are powerful drivers of innovation, but also major sources of emissions and waste.
London must work with other global cities to accelerate progress. We are currently chairing the C40, a group of cities leading the way on climate change through the power of city-to-city collaboration. Through that group London has joined forces with cities such as Bangalore to lead a global partnership of 20 other world cities to use innovation to tackle air pollution in urban centres.
Last weekend London hosted the world’s first awards ceremony for the Earthshot Prize for innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems. The message from the awards was one of optimism: it is possible to solve the biggest problems facing our planet.
So, as global leaders and climate experts gather at the Cop26 conference in Glasgow, we need to look at the role of cities and the entrepreneurs that power them.
London – with its powerful climate tech sector, deep pools of capital and global connections – can lead the way.