Posts tagged with 'buildings'
To Meet 2030 Targets, Cities Need Systems Change
To Meet 2030 Targets, Cities Need Systems Change
Cities are not just places where people live—they are interconnected networks of people, services and economic activity. A city is a system of systems, bringing together transportation, energy, buildings, water, waste management and more. Transforming these interconnected systems is vital ...
Building for People: Towards an Equitable Transition in the Built Environment
Building for People: Towards an Equitable Transition in the Built Environment
The built environment is not on track globally to achieve its sectoral climate targets. Accounting for over a third of total energy system emissions already, the continued use of carbon-intensive materials paired with inefficient energy use throughout the built environment ...
A Community Program Is Transforming New York Schoolyards Into Climate-Resilient Spaces
A Community Program Is Transforming New York Schoolyards Into Climate-Resilient Spaces
In Brooklyn, one of New York City’s five boroughs, a new schoolyard features newly-planted native trees offering shade and bright playground equipment that sits adjacent to a track and turf field. Colorful murals celebrating the diversity of its Boreum Hill ...
Oslo’s ‘Climate Budget’ Is Building a Cleaner City
Oslo’s ‘Climate Budget’ Is Building a Cleaner City
In the stylish Grünerløkka neighborhood in Oslo, construction workers are busy rehabilitating Sophies Minde, an old medical clinic, into a new nursery school and maternal health center. Tidy piles of building materials along the perimeter of the construction site wait ...
Better Buildings Are Taking on the Climate Challenge 
Better Buildings Are Taking on the Climate Challenge 
In March 2024, the inaugural Buildings and Climate Global Forum convened more than 1,000 participants to spur action towards built environment decarbonization and resilience. The first-of-its-kind forum was welcome, as the sector needs a shakeup.   The big issue on the table was ...
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
In the crowded slums of Zambia, Africa, members of the Zambia Youth Federation, a social movement of the urban poor, conducted climate change research and presented it in an emotional spoken word poem. Their message let policymakers know how climate ...
TheCityFix’s Top 10 Blogs From 2023 
TheCityFix’s Top 10 Blogs From 2023 
2023 was hot but ultimately hopeful. The past year saw record-breaking temperatures and an onslaught of extreme weather events like droughts, floods and heatwaves. Cities often bore the brunt of these conditions, exacerbated by the urban heat island effect: when ...
India’s Shift to Low-Carbon Construction Must Not Leave Workers Behind
India’s Shift to Low-Carbon Construction Must Not Leave Workers Behind
India aims to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 45% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070. The country can’t achieve either goal without a radical transformation in its buildings and construction sector, which was responsible for around 17% of the nation’s ...
The Future of Extreme Heat in Cities: What We Know — and What We Don’t
The Future of Extreme Heat in Cities: What We Know — and What We Don’t
The past year registered record-shattering global temperatures. People around the world are already witnessing epic heat waves, wildfires and drought at 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F) of global warming, compared to pre-industrial averages. With current policies putting the world on ...
Tracking Climate Action: How the World Can Still Limit Warming to 1.5 Degrees C
Tracking Climate Action: How the World Can Still Limit Warming to 1.5 Degrees C
Today’s climate change headlines often seem at odds with each other. One day, it’s catastrophic wildfires wreaking havoc around the world; the next, it’s an optimistic piece on the rapid scale-up of solar and wind power. Taken together, such stories ...
Pink City to Green City: Building Jaipur’s Climate Resilience Through Nature-Based Solutions
Pink City to Green City: Building Jaipur’s Climate Resilience Through Nature-Based Solutions
India experienced almost one extreme weather event per day in the first nine months of 2022. And the state of Rajasthan is no stranger to this phenomenon, with its capital city, Jaipur, ranking 22nd on the Global Climate Vulnerability Index. ...
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
City officials tasked with reducing and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from their communities face a tricky task in estimating building emissions as they work to prevent the most harmful impacts of climate change. The biggest challenge is that there isn’t consensus ...
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
“Climate change is affecting cities all around the world, and Freetown is no exception.” That’s what Eugenia Kargbo, Freetown’s Chief Heat Officer, told UrbanShift during the City Academy hosted in Kigali last year. Through her role—the first of its kind in ...
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
This summer the Northern Hemisphere has been so hot with record temperatures — including at sea — that discussions have turned to the limits of human survival. Even in the Antarctic, sea ice is failing to re-form, a drastic departure ...
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
Climate change is impacting cities and their residents in many profound ways, from poor air quality to flooding to biodiversity loss and extreme heat. Now, with the help of a new tool, select cities can access localized, integrated data to ...
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