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Increasing calls for transformation to address climate change and related challenges underscore the societal imperative to shift from mindsets that drive environmentally unsustainable and socially unjust processes to mindsets that enable urban sustainability transformations. However, it is not always clear what such mindsets comprise, if and how they can be shifted and under which conditions. Fragmented understandings of the concept of mindsets across disciplines and limited empirical analysis beyond Europe and North America have hindered progress in this field. To address these gaps, this article proposes a novel conceptual and analytical framework for identifying mindsets. The framework is applied to data collected from an exploratory survey involving over 150 participants from five Urban Labs in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Through cluster analysis, three distinct personas are identified: the Skeptical Activist, the Optimist Technocrat and the Bystander with Mixed Feelings. These are fictional characters that represent groups of individuals with defining mindsets, demographic characteristics, capacities, trust levels and network features. Results offer valuable insights into the emotions, beliefs, values, perceptions, attitudes and worldviews that guide the behavior of diverse stakeholders, from policymakers to often marginalized community groups, in urban climate governance. Despite its limitations, namely the relative homogeneity of our non-randomized sample, the article advances the understanding of the human dimension of climate change and its interlinkages with urban development goals. It also proposes social innovation strategies to trigger mindset shifts, foster climate action and accelerate urban sustainability transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities and networks play an important role in climate change mitigation. Various international, regional, and local networks seek to increase cooperation between cities or between cities and other stakeholders. However, we still have a poor understanding of how these formalised networks help cities to mitigate climate change at different levels of urban climate governance. Here, I analyse experiences of participation in formal climate change mitigation-related networks from the global to the local level in three European capital cities: Helsinki, Madrid, and Stockholm. As multilevel networking is a strategic tool for cities, different benefits are highlighted at different levels of governance. Some networks are more oriented towards politics and planning, while others are more practical. Formalised networking is also networking between individual people, which should be studied further. The results demonstrate both the advantages of networks and challenges in developing beneficial networking to support climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration is strongly promoted as an effective means for cities to respond to climate change. While collaboration is perceived to offer opportunities to progress climate action in cities, little is known about how collaboration can enable low‐carbon transformation in practice. Furthermore, while collaboration is largely framed as a positive endeavour, there is a need to more carefully explore the challenges and barriers that may arise. This paper explores the aims, processes, and outcomes of collaboration within urban climate governance. Drawing on a policy review and semi‐structured interviews, we present empirical findings from the case study of Hong Kong. This paper identifies three types of collaboration that are structured by regulations, oriented to policy goals, and emerge as everyday practices within the governance of climate change and the energy system. The forms of collaboration challenge the assumptions that collaboration always brings positive outcomes in mobilising action for climate change. While collaboration opens up different modes of governance within cities, the paper highlights significant barriers in terms of the diverse roles of actors, ongoing power imbalances, and shifting governance spaces for intervention. Given the prevailing interest in working together, it is critical to review carefully how collaboration facilitates cities to achieve their climate goals and create momentum for action. The paper explores the opportunities and challenges of collaborative climate governance. It draws on a case study of Hong Kong and identifies three modes of collaborative climate and energy governance: regulatory, consensual, and participatory. The paper challenges the assumption that collaboration brings positive outcomes for action on climate change and offers new insights into potential barriers for climate action in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban governance, the interplay of governmental bodies with other actors shaping decision-making and its implementation, plays a key role for mitigation and adaptation measures in cities. While knowledge co-production is advanced as an instrumental approach to support climate action, a gap between knowledge and implementation persists. The objective of the article is to better understand the complex nature of urban climate governance with which science – through data and people – is expected to interplay with. We introduce a framework, based on the analytical lens of co-production, to unpack the entanglements of rules and norms, interests and visions, knowledge and capacities in a particular local context in order to identify aspects that may encourage meaningful knowledge co-production. We build upon two cities as case studies: Hamburg, Germany and São Paulo, Brazil. We present the results of interviews in dialogue with insights from city documents and an online workshop. We found that even though data and expertise is available, its use remains unsystematic, while climate action is mostly hampered by missing political capacity, silo mentalities, and a structural lack of resources. We identified a paradox where social transformation is addressed by technocratic solutions and a high appreciation for mutual learning in knowledge co-production processes. We conclude that to make use of its transformative potential, the implementation of knowledge co-production for climate action in practice needs to become more holistic. This includes the integration of non-climate information linked to local concerns and values as well as a shift in focus from output to its procedural benefits. • Available climate information does not automatically lead to action in cities. • We investigated Hamburg and São Paolo by using the analytical lens of co-production. • We depict the complex entanglements in urban climate governance. • These entanglements shape the climate action taken in a particular context. • We propose a more holistic approach for the co-production of climate information in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments are expected now more than ever to lead climate action planning as climate change intensifies and urbanization increases rapidly. However, studies indicate limitations in the comprehensiveness and level of integration of adaptation and mitigation in existing climate action plans. To develop suitable climate action plans that are comprehensive and consistent with globally accepted standards and benchmarks, this study proposed an Urban Climate Action Planning framework and pilot-tested it with 257 urban climate action plans. Overall, 43 criteria are included in the framework across three stages of climate planning. The pilot test revealed that more than half of the sampled plans have a medium level of suitability, with 39% having a weak level of suitability. About 51% of plans from Europe have a weak level of suitability. Surprisingly, none of the plans sampled from Africa and Latin America achieved a weak level of suitability despite lacking a significant share of global climate research and development funding. A Kruskal-Wallis test shows a statistically significant association between stages of climate planning and (a) city types (p-value of 0.004326) and (b) year of adoption or publication of climate plans and suitability scores (p-value of 0.0001027). Urban climate action plans adopted or published more recently (2018–2022) are likely more suitable than those adopted or published earlier. The sampled urban climate action plans from the Global South had higher average suitability scores than those from the Global North. The study presents key findings and considerations for urban climate action planning and future research. [Display omitted] • A framework for assessing the suitability of Climate Action Plans (CAPs) is proposed. • The framework is used to pilot-test the suitability of 257 urban CAPs. • Suitability analysis is done across city types, regions, and the global divide. • Most sampled plans achieved a medium level of suitability. • The CAPs lack criteria related to implementation and monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities around the world are playing an increasingly active role in global climate governance. Considering their share in global emissions on the one hand, and the direct threats they face from climate-related disasters on the other, urban communities are at the forefront of mitigation and adaptation actions. While cities generally implement such actions as part of their State's international climate commitments, they sometimes go beyond, or even against the nationally adopted policy stance. This article explores the evolving normative role of cities in relation to climate change, considering how they can contribute, both to the development of new rules of international law, and to the implementation of existing norms for climate action at the domestic level. Based on an analysis of current developments and concrete examples, the article reflects on the potentialities and constraints of cities as "normative global climate actors". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban plans and infrastructure investments in sub‐Saharan Africa need to support human and economic development, while also helping countries and cities stay within the global carbon budget. To date, however, no analyses have focused on the economic costs and benefits of pursuing less carbon‐intensive urban growth in sub‐Saharan African cities. This is significant as the perception that low‐carbon urban development is more expensive than higher‐carbon alternatives can be enough to preclude consideration of opportunities for more sustainable development, especially in highly resource‐constrained contexts. This paper examines the validity of this perception through an economic appraisal of the scope for low‐carbon development in Kigali, Rwanda. We find that the city of Kigali could theoretically invest 0.6% of its GDP each year for 10 years in economically attractive mitigation measures. This would generate annual energy savings equivalent to 1.5% of its GDP and reduce city‐scale emissions by 39% by 2032 (relative to business‐as‐usual trends). The economic case for urban climate action is therefore substantial, and although the city is in some ways unique, this suggests that promising opportunities also exist in other sub‐Saharan African cities. However, few national or local governments in the region have the political will and institutional capabilities necessary to realise this mitigation potential. We also find that although potentially significant in the short to medium term, these economically attractive measures would not be sufficient to decouple economic development and greenhouse gas emissions in Kigali in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing interest in the potential of cities to contribute to climate mitigation. Multiple assessments have evaluated the scale and composition of urban GHG emissions, while others have evaluated some aspects of urban mitigation potential. However, assessments of mitigation potential tend to be broadly focused, few if any have evaluated urban mitigation potential on a measure-by-measure basis, and fewer still have considered the economic case for investing in these measures. This is a significant knowledge gap as an economic case for action could be critical in building political commitment, strengthening institutional capacities, securing large-scale finance and targeting investment and implementation in cities. In this paper, we conduct a comparative analysis of the results of five recently completed studies that examined the economic case for investing in low-carbon measures in five cities: Leeds in the UK, Kolkata in India, Lima in Peru, Johor Bahru in Malaysia and Palembang in Indonesia. The results demonstrate that there is a compelling economic case for cities in both developed and developing country contexts to invest, at scale, in cost-effective low-carbon measures. The results suggest that these investments could generate significant reductions (in the range of 15–24% relative to business-as-usual trends) in urban carbon emissions over the next 10 years. Securing these savings would require an average investment of $3.2 billion per city, which if spread over 10 years equates to 0.4–0.9% of city GDP per year. However, the savings generated in the form of reduced energy bills would be equivalent to between 1.7% and 9.5% of annual city-scale GDP, and the average payback period of investments would be approximately 2 years at commercial interest rates. We provisionally estimate that if these findings were replicated and similar investments were made in cities globally, then they could generate reductions equivalent to 10–18% of global energy-related GHG emissions in 2025. While the studies offer some grounds for optimism, they also raise important questions about the barriers to change that prevent these economically attractive options from being exploited and about the scope for mitigation based on the exploitation of only the economically attractive options. We therefore discuss the institutional capacities, policy environments and financing arrangements that need to be developed before even these economically attractive opportunities can be exploited. We also demonstrate that, in rapidly growing cities, the carbon savings from such investments could be quickly overwhelmed – in as little as 7 years – by the impacts of sustained population and economic growth. We conclude by highlighting the need to build capacities that enable the exploitation not only of the economically attractive options in the short term but also of those deeper and more structural changes that are likely to be needed in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Urban climate change agenda furthered by aligning adaptation plans with development goals. • Near-term benefits delivered by aligning adaptation, mitigation and development. • Synergistic adaptation-mitigation planning leads to inclusion of co-benefits and avoidance of trade-offs. • Informal networks can enhance coordination required for co-benefit approaches. This research explores the approaches eight cities – Durban, Cape Town, London, Manchester, Surat, Indore, Montreal, and Vancouver – are taking to plan for mitigation co-benefits of adaptation strategies. The approaches set out in city adaptation plans are analysed and compared to provide insight into the uptake of mitigation co-benefits in terms of the extent to which they are strategically planned for and the types of measures utilised. The research also identifies common barriers cities face that prevent the implementation of co-benefit approaches. Finally, drawing on approaches taken by the cities that comprehensively plan for adaptation-mitigation co-benefits, three actions are outlined to serve as recommendations for cities to help catalyse the uptake of co-benefits and avoid trade-offs in adaptation planning. Delivering mitigation co-benefits of adaptation actions was a strategic aim of five of eight cities. Four of these cities comprehensively identified mitigation co-benefits of planned adaptation measures. Certain types of co-benefits were more commonly utilised by cities, such as ecosystem-based strategies and building design measures. The alignment of adaptation and development goals is a more common aim than the alignment of adaptation and mitigation. Incentives to meet multiple policy priorities, reduce costs, and increase resource efficiency can deliver co-benefit approaches that cover adaptation, mitigation, and development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change could be seen as a 21st century phenomenon. This topic has been taken up equally by professionals as well as the general public. Adaptation and mitigation actions are needed, especially in cities where the concentration of population and an increased demand for resources (e.g., water, food, land) are expected in the coming years. Already, 400 cities have been declared to be in a "climate emergency" state. There are no longer any doubts that current environmental state requires actions and solutions for both the alarming climate situation and urban quality life development. If such action is not going to be taken, the environmental state will deteriorate. One possible solution could be the use of green infrastructure. This research compares approaches to green areas and green infrastructure development in Bratislava (Slovakia) and Wrocław (Poland). A comparison was made for projects realized between 2013 and 2018—i.e., since the publication of the European Union (EU) Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change in 2013. The research presents an overview of delivered projects regarding land use. The overview, which is supported by a density map of implemented green projects, verifies whether the new greenery fits and fills in the existing natural areas. Secondly, the green projects were analyzed according to years and land use types using Tableau software. Moreover, the legislation of climate adaptation mechanisms and practical aspects of green infrastructure implementation are shown. Finally, actions concerning the greening of the cities were categorized into practical, educational, and participatory ones, and the potential of green infrastructure as a positive landscape, micro-climate, health, and aesthetic influence was examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]