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Transformational Climate Actions by Cities

Transformational Climate Actions by Cities

This special issue advances understandings of the nature, extent and effectiveness of cities' implementation efforts to realise low-carbon, climate resilient cities.

Papers in this special issue expose ambitious actions that some municipalities are taking: visioning, target-setting, and planning (undertaken with community engagement), climate-friendly regulations (for the built environment and urban infrastructure particularly), innovations in finance and capital mobilization to fund climate adaptation, novel institutional configurations, and partnership arrangements with civil society actors. Despite these progressive steps, these papers reveal that an implementation gap remains.

Guest Editors: John B. Robinson and Kim R. Slater

Based on the case studies presented, the nature of this gap in large part stems from capacity and jurisdictional limitations, rather than a dearth of ambition or willingness to advance bold moves per se. Multiple insights emerge from the papers in this special issue regarding how local governments might begin to close the gap and meet the climate challenge.

A predominant theme in the papers is a need for more effective, multiway, climate governance. Vertically, there is a need for more coordinated efforts between levels of government, with higher levels of government enabling cities.  Horizontally, there is a need for more coordinated/less siloed multi-departmental, multi-sectoral, multi-jurisdictional approaches.

In examining climate governance, this collection of papers shows how social practice and transitions theories afford complementary analytical approaches. Ultimately, they suggest both differing and overlapping intervention points from social practice-informed recommendations for normalizing climate action to multilevel perspective-informed suggestions for improved niche-regime-landscape configurations and communication that accelerate multisectoral climate action.

Meaningful public engagement, particularly by way of co-production processes, is also valuable for fostering social learning. Several papers highlight this can occur through multiple avenues such as experiments, pilots, demonstration projects, or living labs that involve residents and other community stakeholders helping to innovate climate interventions. It is vital that local governments ensure their regulations are flexible enough to accommodate and take up learning born of local experiments and living labs. The facilitation of collaborative visioning can help move local governments along the adaptation spiral, while prompting social learning among planners and policymakers.

Table of contents

Transformational climate actions by cities (Editorial)
K.R. Slater & J.B. Robinson

Institutionalisation of urban climate adaptation: three municipal experiences in Spain
M. Olazabal & V. Castán Broto

Stretching or conforming? Financing urban climate change adaptation in Copenhagen
S. Whittaker & K. Jespersen

Integrating climate change and urban regeneration: success stories from Seoul
J. Song & B. Müller

Transformational climate action at the city scale: comparative South-North perspectives
D. Simon, R. Bellinson & W. Smit

Assessing climate action progress of the City of Toronto
K.R. Slater, J. Ventura, J.B. Robinson, C. Fernandez, S. Dutfield & L. King

Climate action in urban mobility: personal and political transformations
G. Hochachka, K. G. Logan, J. Raymond & W. Mérida

Canadian cities: climate change action and plans
Y. Herbert, A. Dale & C. Stashok

Meeting GHG reduction goals with waste diversion: multi-residential buildings
V. MacLaren, E. Ikiz & E. Alfred

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Content

Journal Content

Beyond the building: governance challenges in social housing retrofit
H Charles

Heat stress in social housing districts: tree cover–built form interaction
C Lopez-Ordoñez, E Garcia-Nevado, H Coch & M Morganti

An observational analysis of shade-related pedestrian activity
M Levenson, D Pearlmutter & O Aleksandrowicz

Learning to sail a building: a people-first approach to retrofit
B Bordass, R Pender, K Steele & A Graham

Market transformations: gas conversion as a blueprint for net zero retrofit
A Gillich

Resistance against zero-emission neighbourhood infrastructuring: key lessons from Norway
T Berker & R Woods

Megatrends and weak signals shaping future real estate
S Toivonen

A strategic niche management framework to scale deep energy retrofits
T H King & M Jemtrud

Generative AI: reconfiguring supervision and doctoral research
P Boyd & D Harding

Exploring interactions between shading and view using visual difference prediction
S Wasilewski & M Andersen

How urban green infrastructure contributes to carbon neutrality [briefing note]
R Hautamäki, L Kulmala, M Ariluoma & L Järvi

Implementing and operating net zero buildings in South Africa
R Terblanche, C May & J Steward

Quantifying inter-dwelling air exchanges during fan pressurisation tests
D Glew, F Thomas, D Miles-Shenton & J Parker

Western Asian and Northern African residential building stocks: archetype analysis
S Akin, A Eghbali, C Nwagwu & E Hertwich

Lanes, clusters, sightlines: modelling patient flow in medical clinics
K Sailer, M Utley, R Pachilova, A T Z Fouad, X Li, H Jayaram & P J Foster

Analysing cold-climate urban heat islands using personal weather station data
J Taylor, C H Simpson, J Vanhatalo, H Sohail, O Brousse, & C Heaviside

Are simple models for natural ventilation suitable for shelter design?
A Conzatti, D Fosas de Pando, B Chater & D Coley

Impact of roofing materials on school temperatures in tropical Africa
E F Amankwaa, B M Roberts, P Mensah & K V Gough

Acceptability of sufficiency consumption policies by Finnish households
E Nuorivaara & S Ahvenharju

Key factors for revitalising heritage buildings through adaptive reuse
É Savoie, J P Sapinski & A-M Laroche

Cooler streets for a cycleable city: assessing policy alignment
C Tang & J Bush

Understanding the embodied carbon credentials of modern methods of construction
R O'Hegarty, A McCarthy, J O'Hagan, T Thanapornpakornsin, S Raffoul & O Kinnane

The changing typology of urban apartment buildings in Aurinkolahti
S Meriläinen & A Tervo

Embodied climate impacts in urban development: a neighbourhood case study
S Sjökvist, N Francart, M Balouktsi & H Birgisdottir

Environmental effects of urban wind energy harvesting: a review
I Tsionas, M laguno-Munitxa & A Stephan

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Latest Commentaries

The current situation is implausible: there are pledges for 2030 but no roadmaps for their fulfilment over time. Image: Giovanna Cassavia (TU Graz).

To achieve net zero GHG emissions by mid-century (the Breakthrough Agenda) it is vital to establish explicit sector-specific roadmaps and targets. With an eye to the forthcoming COP30 in Brazil and based on work in the IEA EBC Annex 89, Thomas Lützkendorf, Greg Foliente and Alexander Passer argue why specific goals and measures for building, construction and real estate are needed in the forthcoming round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0).

A session from a participatory drawing workshop at the Rumi Library, led by Sadia Sharmin in 2019

While Living Labs are often framed as structured, institutionalised spaces for innovation, Sadia Sharmin (Habitat Forum Berlin) reinterprets the concept through the lens of grassroots urban practices. She argues that self-organised knowledge spaces can function as Living Labs by fostering situated learning, collective agency, and community resilience. The example of a Living Lab in Bangladesh provides a model pathway to civic participation and spatial justice.

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