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Abstract Cities and other human settlements are major contributors to climate change and are highly vulnerable to its impacts. They are also uniquely positioned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lead adaptation efforts. These compound challenges and opportunities require a comprehensive perspective on the public policy of human settlements. Drawing on core literature that has driven debate around cities and climate over recent decades, we put forward a set of boundary objects that can be applied to connect the knowledge of epistemic communities and support an integrated urbanism. We then use these boundary objects to develop the Goals-Intervention-Stakeholder-Enablers (GISE) framework for a public policy of human settlements that is both place-specific and provides insights and tools useful for climate action in cities and other human settlements worldwide. Using examples from Berlin, we apply this framework to show that climate mitigation and adaptation, public health, and well-being goals are closely linked and mutually supportive when a comprehensive approach to urban public policy is applied.

Climate action is far from meeting the internationally agreed adaptation and mitigation goals. Even though climate action planning has increased since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the implementation rate of those plans remains low. Climate planning literature claims that accounting for long-term planning and implementation times, accurately estimating costs, identifying synergies and trade-offs between measures, or considering justice and equity issues might increase the quality of climate plans and facilitate the further implementation of climate actions.Also, there is no uniform way of responding to the climate crisis. Existing climate action databases typically focus on a particular type of response, sector, hazard, or type. In parallel, national governments and international initiatives provide tools and guidelines to facilitate the development of climate action plans. However, the primary climate action recording and monitoring initiatives and projects do not share the same framework as those tools, resulting in a lost opportunity to improve climate actions' knowledge transferability.Thus, we reviewed nine existing databases of adaptation and five mitigation databases, comprising a total of 7.130 adaptation actions and 11.409 mitigation actions, and detected a lack of alignment with climate planning practices and claims. Furthermore, we revealed a lack of coherency regarding the level of abstraction of climate actions and their role in the implementation process. Not all climate actions are meant to operate similarly from a planning perspective: while some had a direct outcome on the target indicators, others are thought to facilitate their implementation.Ultimately, we created a new integrated database of adaptation and mitigation measures in Europe, focusing exclusively on climate planning and implementation practices. First, we identified specific and transferable mitigation and adaptation measures and instruments through an originally designed decision tree. Second, we harmonised the collection of climate actions in a unique framework based on one of the biggest climate planning initiatives: the Sustainable and Energy Climate Action Plans by the Covenant of Mayors. Our integrated database of adaptation and mitigation measures (1) classifies and relates the different types of climate actions; (2) provides data that may improve the quality of climate plans and facilitate implementation; (3) allows a better perspective of systematic problems by identifying potential synergies and trade-offs; and (4) defines and characterises measures using a framework that draws on actual practice. The database compiles a total of 191 adaptation measures, 188 mitigation measures, and 97 measures that account for each, and a total of 609 associated instruments. For monitoring their outcomes, 93 Sustainable Development Goals relevant indicators are included.