At a time of rising energy costs and recurring supply disruptions, a useful reframing is emerging from local government practice: Energy access, affordability, security, and resilience are not separate policy tracks. They are different dimensions of the same problem, and cities are starting to address them that way.

Recent global energy crises have made this concrete. Price volatility and geopolitical tensions have translated directly into higher household energy bills, forcing difficult trade-offs for millions of urban residents. Energy poverty, often treated as a long-term development challenge, has become an immediate issue for cities in both the Global North and South.

Against this backdrop, new research emerging from the Global Covenant of Mayors’ Energy Access and Poverty Pillar (EAPP) offers both evidence and direction. Published in Nature Energy in March 2026, the work includes two complementary pieces: A scientific article on “Progress on urban energy access and energy poverty in the Global Covenant of Mayors initiative” and a policy brief on “Standardized framework enables municipal energy access and energy poverty action globally.” 

This research publication led by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) and co-authored by ICLEI and other partners including, C40 Cities, the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) Secretariat, CDP Worldwide, and WWF Portugal, mark a meaningful step. They move the conversation beyond acknowledging the problem to understanding how cities can systematically act on it.

What the evidence tells us

The scientific analysis examines the first operational year of the GCoM Energy Access and Energy Poverty Pillar in 2023, a framework developed to help municipalities assess, plan, and report on energy interventions across three dimensions: Security, sustainability, and affordability. The study covers 1,354 voluntarily participating municipalities across ten regions, representing 296 million people.

Several findings stand out. First, most cities prioritized action planning over formal assessment. Over 90% of participating municipalities obtained a planning badge, while only 22% achieved target badges and 10% completed full assessments. This is partly explained by the framework’s design: Obtaining a planning badge requires identifying at least one relevant energy action, whereas a full assessment demands disaggregated household-level data that many municipalities, particularly smaller ones, simply do not have. The lower assessment uptake is not a sign of disengagement, but of a real data gap.

Second, city size proved more important than economic wealth in predicting engagement. Large cities (over 500,000 inhabitants) completed assessments at 9.5 times the rate of smaller municipalities. This challenges the assumption that ambitious climate action is mainly the domain of wealthier cities. Capacity and data infrastructure matter more than GDP per capita.

Third, among the 341 European municipalities that reported detailed actions, 95% of the 1,095 energy poverty and energy access actions were integrated into existing climate mitigation or adaptation plans. Municipalities are not building separate energy poverty programs from scratch; they are connecting energy access measures to work they are already doing on buildings, transport, and local energy systems. This integration makes sense practically, since a rooftop solar installation on social housing, for example, addresses mitigation, adaptation, and energy poverty simultaneously.

The most common type of action reported was awareness-raising and training, followed by economic and financial tools such as grants and subsidies. Building-related interventions dominated among integrated actions, reflecting that housing is one of the few areas where municipalities have direct governance authority. Sectors requiring coordination with private actors or other levels of government, such as industry or agriculture, were far less represented.

A framework designed for diverse contexts

One of the EAPP’s distinguishing features is that it accommodates different regional priorities rather than imposing a single definition of energy poverty. Regions covering developing countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, prioritized the energy security attribute, focused on access to reliable electricity. 

Regions in Europe, North America, and Oceania prioritized affordability, reflecting a context where grid access is generally available but energy costs are rising. Latin America, China, Japan, and the Middle East and North Africa selected sustainability and security as their focus areas.

This differentiation matters. It means cities in Nairobi, Lagos, or Dhaka are not being asked to measure energy poverty through the same lens as in Berlin or Toronto. The framework allows for local relevance while still enabling global comparison, which is precisely what has been missing from national-level approaches.

Why this matters now

These findings take on added urgency in the current context. Recent global developments have shown how quickly energy systems can come under pressure. But short-term demand management responses do not address the underlying problem, which is structural dependence on volatile fossil fuel systems.

For cities, this translates into a dual challenge: Protecting vulnerable populations from rising energy costs while building long-term resilience into urban energy systems. The EAPP findings show that the most effective path addresses both at once. When well-designed, the transition to renewable energy and efficiency can expand access to reliable local energy, lower household costs, reduce exposure to global market shocks, and decentralize supply. The energy transition is not just about replacing fuels. It is about redesigning urban energy systems to work better for people.

In addition, the growing international momentum around transitioning away from fossil fuels presents an opportunity. As global discussions increasingly focus on implementation, the experiences of cities –grounded in real-world delivery– become even more valuable.

This was the message ICLEI brought to the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April 2026. There, alongside C40 Cities, the Under2 Coalition, the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, and Colombia’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, ICLEI co-led the chapter on local and subnational governments, making the case that cities and regions are not peripheral actors in the energy transition but essential to delivering it.

The gap that remains

Despite the progress documented, the research is clear-eyed about what is missing. Many municipalities still lack the data, mandates, and financial resources to move beyond planning into measurable targets and assessments. The EAPP’s own findings show this: The gap between the 90% of cities with a plan badge and the 10% with a full assessment badge is not just a reporting gap. It reflects limited technical capacity, fragmented governance, and the fact that household-level energy data is rarely collected at the municipal level.

Addressing this requires more than a framework. It requires coordinated support from national governments and international institutions: coherent policy, aligned subsidies, data sharing, and capacity building for smaller municipalities in particular. 

The sub-group of 40 cities that achieved full engagement across all three GCoM pillars (mitigation, adaptation, and energy) demonstrates that comprehensive integration is possible. But this group represents just 3% of participants, concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, two regions with either longer exposure to the EAPP.

What the first year shows

This research documents a first year, not a final verdict. The 1,354 municipalities analyzed are early adopters and likely have stronger institutional capacity than other cities. The action data currently comes almost entirely from European municipalities, and findings may look different as cities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia report in greater numbers.

What is already clear is that cities are beginning to treat energy access and energy poverty as core components of climate strategy, not as separate social welfare concerns. Whether a municipality in Europe is retrofitting social housing to lower heating bills, or one in Nairobi is expanding solar microgrids to reduce reliance on the national grid, the logic is the same: Reliable, affordable energy for all residents is not a future aspiration. It is a planning priority for today.