City Leaders Must Prioritize Climate Resilience of Vulnerable Communities
City Leaders Must Prioritize Climate Resilience of Vulnerable Communities
As thousands of urban leaders gather in Abu Dhabi for the World Urban Forum, the impacts of the climate crisis on cities have become more visible than ever. Severe floods tore through Jakarta last month. Heatwaves scorched cities from India to Europe last year. ...
Walking the Talk: What Can We Learn from Germany’s New Pedestrian Policy Framework?
Walking the Talk: What Can We Learn from Germany’s New Pedestrian Policy Framework?
Walking, as simple as it is, is key to many current urban issues. As car ownership grows, people are walking less and becoming less physically active generally, especially adolescents, more than 80% of whom are insufficiently active. The impacts are ...
How and Where to Plant 60 Billion Trees in the US
How and Where to Plant 60 Billion Trees in the US
The Trillion Trees Initiative has garnered support from business and political leaders around the world. U.S. President Trump highlighted the initiative as the cornerstone of his plan to protect the environment, a rare shift for an administration that has moved to withdraw ...
3 Ways California Is Taking a Pro-Equity Approach to Electric Vehicles
3 Ways California Is Taking a Pro-Equity Approach to Electric Vehicles
California is home to 7 of the 10 most polluted metropolitan areas in the United States, with transportation being the state’s leading source of greenhouse gases. While pollution from the transport sector is bad for everyone, it disproportionately impacts people ...
5 Strategies that Achieve Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Simultaneously
5 Strategies that Achieve Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Simultaneously
Climate actions have often fallen into one of two strategies: mitigation efforts to lower or remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, and adaptation efforts to adjust systems and societies to withstand the impacts of climate change. The separation has led to ...
For People to Live and Thrive in a Changing Climate, Cities Need to Change – But How?
For People to Live and Thrive in a Changing Climate, Cities Need to Change – But How?
In the 21st century, a seemingly global prosperity masks an unequal distribution of benefits. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world’s cities, where extreme wealth can exist next door to concentrated poverty. In some cities, like those in South Africa, ...
4 Charts Explain Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Countries and Sectors
4 Charts Explain Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Countries and Sectors
Global annual greenhouse gas emissions have grown 41% since 1990, and they are still climbing. While emissions dipped notably in 2016, recent data suggests that carbon dioxide emissions rose each year since then. Where are these emissions coming from, and who is ...
Why Is Sustainable Urban Transport a Great Investment?
Why Is Sustainable Urban Transport a Great Investment?
Transport is the world’s fastest growing source of energy-related carbon emissions. It accounted for 23% of energy-related GHG emissions in 2010, and, within that, urban transport was the largest single source. Depending on where you live, transport also contributes anywhere ...
Young People May Be Changing the World, But Too Many Are Being Left Behind
Young People May Be Changing the World, But Too Many Are Being Left Behind
Teenage activist Greta Thunberg has attracted global renown with her message to the world’s leaders that they must act now to address climate change. Time Magazine recently recognized her as the 2019 Person of the Year. But Thunberg’s recognition is ...
PODCAST: A Mother for Road Safety with Zoleka Mandela
PODCAST: A Mother for Road Safety with Zoleka Mandela
At the annual Transforming Transportation conference this month, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities launched the new Vision Zero Challenge, an initiative to end road deaths by a coalition of global and local partners. Zoleka Mandela, who spoke at the ...