Nicola Tollin

Framed within a systemic approach, this chapter discusses key elements for a sustainable, resilient, and carbon-neutral urban transformation. It focuses on solutions that can accelerate action across four transformation realms: land and ecosystems; physical infrastructure; urban resource inflows and outflows; and socioeconomic and governance structures. The chapter discusses how land planning and zoning can support local responses to climate change, addressing both adaptation and mitigation, and reviews the role of urban and peri-urban ecosystems, emphasizing their contributions to urban ecosystem services and health. The chapter then examines the role of urban infrastructure, highlighting solutions and co-benefits. This section addresses the potential of interventions at the urban scale from the perspective of the integrated provision of public services. The emphasis is placed on strategies that promote resource use reduction, efficiency, and circularity, given their centrality to sustainable, carbon-neutral, and resilient cities. It also addresses the role of urban social infrastructure in connecting governance innovation and socioeconomic transformation grounded in justice, equity, and responsiveness to local priorities.

Cities stand at the critical intersection of climate crisis and solutions. Housing over half the world’s population, urban areas generate three-quarters of global economic output while accounting for 67–72% of greenhouse gas emissions—a share projected to increase as 2.5 billion people join urban populations by 2050. This introductory chapter establishes the book’s foundational premise: that cities function simultaneously as hotspots of climate vulnerability and as laboratories for transformative innovation. The chapter traces the evolution of the Innovate4Cities initiative from the landmark 2018 Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Edmonton, which catalyzed the creation of the Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science (GRAA). This transdisciplinary framework emphasizes knowledge co-generation, multi-level governance, and the localization of climate science to support context-appropriate urban decision-making. The chapter concludes by outlining the book’s three-part structure, which progresses from the GRAA’s foundational concepts through its unique enabling mechanisms to a comprehensive systems approach, ultimately providing a blueprint for sustained researcher-practitioner collaboration that accelerates equitable urban climate action aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C target.

This synthesis chapter distills insights from this book, covering various aspects of the Innovate4Cities initiative's six-year evolution, starting with the 2018 Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Edmonton, Canada, bridging science, policy, and practice to accelerate urban climate action. We synthesize and summarize the knowledge co-production frameworks (Chapters 2 – 4 ), operational mechanisms for local action (Chapters 5 – 8 ), and systems approaches integrating biodiversity, infrastructure, finance, governance, and culture (Chapters 9 – 11 ) presented in this book, as a way to look to the future of not only the conference series, but also the direction of climate resilient urban development. Why? Because despite unprecedented ambition—with over 13,800 cities committed through the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy—critical implementation gaps persist. Climate finance reaches only a small percentage of cities stated needs, while technical data and support remain insufficient, especially for vulnerable populations. This chapter presents action-oriented recommendations for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers; identifies seven research priorities informing IPCC AR7 and the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (SRCCC); and emphasizes how integrated systems thinking can catalyze transformative change. Case studies spanning diverse geographies illustrate pathways toward climate-resilient development grounded in justice and equity.

Despite numerous programmes aiming to strengthen resilience in the Global South, few studies assess to which extends they build capacities at the local level and provide long-term impact. This study advances the operationalisation of capacity building for urban resilience in African cities, while contributing to a global debate on resilience practice in the Global South. To achieve this, the study applies an established framework, the Capacity Building Parameters and Enabling Factors Framework for urban resilience, to an in-depth analysis of UN-Habitat’s City Resilience Action Planning (CityRAP) programme in Lilongwe and Zomba, Malawi. A qualitative case-study combined document analysis, stakeholder mapping, sixteen semi-structured expert interviews, and a comparative rating matrix to assess key dimensions of capacity building. Findings indicate that CityRAP strengthens participatory governance, cross-sectoral collaboration, and locally owned planning, and builds relational capacity that enables actors to mobilise knowledge and resources across sectors and scales. However, durable impact requires embedding capacity building within multilevel governance: sustained outcomes depend on institutional continuity, recognising informal actors, setting clear mandates, and financing. Methodologically, the study refines a structured yet adaptable Capacity Building Framework ( Purpose and Capacities , Multi-stakeholder , Finance , National Government , Gender , Knowledge Brokerage , Change , Local Context ) usable to assess needs, guide design, support adaptive monitoring, and enable post-project evaluation.

Cities play a leading role in climate change actions and solutions, yet city-level case study sources remain fragmented, biased towards large cities, and inaccessible to local practitioners, notably in the Global South. In response, the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) is developing a City Solutions Case Study Atlas (City CSA), a centralized and searchable online platform that integrates diverse case studies focused on climate solutions with an interactive global map containing multiple data layers. The UCCRN City CSA provides an evidence base for academics, urban policymakers, city practitioners, city networks, civil society, and the financial sector to facilitate equitable knowledge transfer and support the development and implementation of context-specific, science-informed urban climate solutions. This paper presents the framework, metadata, and structure of the UCCRN City CSA and assesses metadata search filters and large language model (LLM)-assisted discourse analysis as complementary tools for three user types.

The building industry is essential for a national transition towards a circular economy (CE) in Denmark. The Danish state subsidises the Danish affordable housing sector, which is the largest single sector within the Danish building industry, making the sector an essential driver for the transition. The social components of sustainability are considered crucial to ensuring the quality of the environmental and economic components of the CE. However, social value creation (SVC) has been neglected in building processes, and public investments are being used without the policymakers thoroughly assessing the CE’s socioeconomic efficiency and effectiveness. The sector therefore needs integrated methodologies to support comprehensive decision making on the CE during construction and renovation. SVC is an apparent field for architectural firms. Two surveys were conducted among business and sustainability managers of Danish architectural firms to identify the challenges and potentials regarding assessing sustainability and SVC in architects’ practices. The results of the surveys are described and analysed in this study. Several impact categories, indicators and tools are identified, discussed and summarised in a methodological framework that can support architects in decision making about SVC in constructing and renovating affordable housing. Further refinement of the framework to support dynamic and iterative decision-making is anticipated as future work.

Greenhouse gases emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are worsening air quality and affecting the climate system. While climate change impacts on meteorological variables affects air quality by altering the concentration and distribution of pollutants, air pollution significantly influences the climate, leading to negative impacts on human health. Due to the combination of high temperatures, air pollution, and high population density, cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The planning and design of public spaces aimed at climate change mitigation and adaptation can result in multiple co-benefits for human health, while reducing social inequalities. To address the major research gaps in the communication between health and planning experts, and the lack of capacity among public sectors and policy makers, it is necessary to promote capacity building and knowledge sharing between the planning and health sectors. The purpose of this article is to develop preliminary recommendations for a process that allows a comprehensive assessment of the interlinkages between climate and health, social, environmental, and economic vulnerabilities, and the quality of the urban spaces, to support local governments, policymakers, and education institutions in making informed decisions for public spaces. The methods applied were a literature review and interviews with experts.