Posts in the 'Guest Contributor' category
Imagine stepping into a city where sustainability isn’t just built upwards but also downwards. While cities worldwide grapple with intensifying climate risks—flooding, heatwaves and infrastructure strain—an untapped solution lies right beneath our feet. The underground isn’t just for subways and ...
COP30 in Belém, Brazil, will be the most substantial and strategic mechanism for local and subnational governments to influence and impact national and global sustainability agendas in 2025. As we gear up for the mid-year Bonn Climate Conference, it is ...
Livability is key to the quality of city life as we look to the future. We don’t have to look far into that future to see how this plays out on the streets. On Sunday, December 15, 1974, a group ...
“Hum faltu hai [in English, “We are useless”] …I don’t even know what the budget of the council is. Nobody tells me about the procurement process [or] the number of tenders that have gone public…I don’t have enough knowledge about ...
Research around the world shows that pollution levels can vary enormously within the same city and even within the same neighborhood. Local monitoring data can thus prove essential to understanding air pollution sources, how they affect different communities and groups, ...
Do informal transport networks in African cities provide equitable services for everyone that needs them? Unsurprisingly, the answer is often no. Operators frequently prefer to drive the safest and most central routes, inadvertently prioritizing commuters traveling to formal jobs in ...
Amazonian cities are diverse in opportunities and needs. The region’s biodiversity is among the world’s most important, but its cities’ sustainability challenges are less well-known. These jurisdictions require financial support and capacity building to create sustainable, conservation-oriented, equitable, urban green ...
Every three years, ICLEI hosts the ICLEI World Congress to showcase how subnational actors advance sustainable urban development worldwide. The most recent installment, ICLEI World Congress 2024, held June 18-21 in São Paulo, Brazil, converged over 1,500 global attendees to ...
Climate change and social inequality are two of the most pressing challenges of our time. But, in the race to net zero, a narrow focus on decarbonization risks exacerbating inequality and results in a rising tide of “greenlash” (backlash against ...
At the 43rd session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2016, the Panel decided to include a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities in the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle. This achievement marked a ...
Although it is widely recognized that gender disparities are echoed in the design and operation of urban transportation systems, gender-responsive transportation planning is still in its early stages. Drawing from the TOPUK project, which stands for “Women Accessing Public Transport,” ...
With recognition of the vital role of both subnational and national governments in the climate agenda, the G7 Roundtable on Subnational Climate Actions was established by the G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers Meeting in 2023 under the presidency of Japan. The ...
As dense hubs of diverse talent, skills and innovation, cities are perfect places for public-private collaboration. In light of urgent calls from the international community for solutions, the wealth of creativity and expertise on urban sustainability in Global South cities can ...
Cities have always been dynamic hubs of culture, education, economic growth and opportunity, and most importantly, centers of social interaction attracting residents and visitors alike. It is no surprise then, that Asia and the Pacific have become increasingly more urban ...
It’s an island no one in their right mind wants to be on, but sadly many of us increasingly find ourselves due to global warming. “Heat islands” are a concept British climatologist Gordon Manley came up with way back in ...
