Creative campaigns for climate action
C40’s campaigns capture the creativity and courage of people reshaping cities right now. They tell the human stories behind climate action that numbers can’t capture. Mayors and city leaders joining forces with local communities and businesses, artists imagining new futures, workers building the green economy, and residents reshaping their streets.
C40 develops campaigns that:
- Raise awareness by calling out disinformation and false narratives that undermine climate progress
- Build public support for ambitious climate policies through compelling storytelling, data, and community engagement
- Drive a just transition by tracking green job creation and sharing workers’ stories from cities worldwide
- Engage communities by organising residents, transport workers, and activists around clean air and public transport
- Inspire through visual storytelling by showcasing urban solutions through film, art, content, and media partnerships
- Mobilise collective action by uniting cities around science-based targets and ambitious climate commitments
Explore successful approaches to public engagement, creative messaging, partnerships, and strategies that have helped cities turn ambition into action.
Active campaigns
This campaign calls out false narratives designed to delay climate action. Since the 1970s, fossil fuel interests have manufactured doubt about climate science and policy. Our work helps cities counter disinformation, build public support for ambitious and inclusive policies, and protect mayors and city staff who are making courageous decisions despite organised opposition.
This campaign supports cities as they prepare for floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather. Nearly all C40 cities face severe climate threats and frontline communities are hit hardest. Our work helps mayors redesign streets, expand green spaces and upgrade infrastructure to make cities safer, cooler and more resilient
This campaign helps cities make sure the data centres they host are sustainable and benefit the people who live nearby. More than 1,700 data centres now operate within C40 cities, keeping everything from emails to transactions running. Our work supports mayors to plan for this growth and cut its climate impact.
Cities are driving the creation of good green jobs and are tracking progress toward 50 million of them by 2030. Through powerful workers’ storytelling, valuable resources for youth and cities, and an interactive good green jobs dashboard, this campaign shows how good green jobs deliver fair wages while cutting emissions.
This campaign tackles air pollution through bold air quality policies. In 2024, the campaign organised an eight-week global marathon showcasing cities leading on the creation of clean air zones and expansion of zero-emission transport, bringing together over 10,000 residents across four regions for community activities and air quality workshops. In 2025, it partnered with Breathe Cities to unite mayors, athletes, doctors, and activists in support of ambitious urban clean air solutions.
This visual storytelling series, produced with BBC StoryWorks, showcases urban solutions across two seasons and 17 stories. It meets the people making their cities climate-resilient, from Rio’s food waste-to-power programmes to Amsterdam’s city-wide sustainable travel.
Co-created with the International Transport Workers’ Federation, this campaign unites mayors with transport workers, union leaders, and civil society to call for doubling public transport by 2030. Materials translated into 13 languages help build a global coalition demanding investment in zero-emission transit.
Past campaigns
Global artists imagining cities where climate action, wellbeing, and inclusivity thrive. Instead of critiquing what’s broken, this campaign asked creatives from Cape Town to Beijing to visualise what’s possible when leaders work together for a green and just future.
Accompanying the C40 Urban Nature Accelerator, this campaign made the case for accessible green and blue spaces through videos and “Letters to Nature” written by mayors. Thirty-one cities committed to increasing trees, parks, and green space to protect residents while building climate resilience.
Three series across multiple years invited artists worldwide to imagine thriving, equitable cities rather than simply documenting problems. The 2020 series focused on green recovery during COVID-19, while the 2019 series asked creatives to visualise the cities they want to live in.
Over 1,000 cities signed onto this global campaign committing to net zero emissions by mid-century, with interim targets for the 2020s. Launched ahead of COP26, the campaign unified city action on science-based targets and demonstrated that mayors are ready to partner with national governments on ambitious climate goals.
A collection of short animated films explaining C40’s work across key areas. The videos cover climate migration and the Global Mayors Task Force, urban nature commitments, the push for 50 million green jobs, and cities divesting from fossil fuels to invest in climate solutions.