By Pourya Salehi & Ginevra Figini, ICLEI World Secretariat
Do we actually have enough science-based research about cities to get to the climate neutral, resilient communities we need? A new Nature Cities Perspective, led by Felix Creutzig and co-authored by an international team of researchers, including ICLEI’s Pourya Salehi and IPCC Vice-Chair Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, offers insights into the gaps in urban climate research and proposes a roadmap for experts to address them and accelerate ecological transitions on the ground. The paper is poised to shape the upcoming IPCC Special Report on Cities (SR-Cities) and push urban climate research into a new era of data- and community-driven multilevel climate governance.
The problem: Local action, global blind spots
Cities are complex systems – highly localized in form, yet globally significant in impact. To accelerate local climate action, cities must overcome major challenges, such as access to capacities, resources, and scientific knowledge.
These challenges are exacerbated by the widespread fragmentation of climate assessments and data. Additionally, Global South cities are drastically underrepresented in scientific research, according to a recently released paper that looked at over 50,000 studies. This limits the scalability, efficiency, and transformational potential of urban climate solutions, hindering cities’ ability to align local actions with global goals, such as the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“We urgently need to bridge the analytical chasm between context-rich urban case studies and the universal models used in global assessments,” says Felix Creutzig, an IPCC lead author for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and Senior researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
He continued, “Our proposed methodologies—ranging from urban typologies to big geospatial and social data—can help ensure no city is left behind, particularly in the Global South.”
Five research gaps and proposals to reshape urban climate policy
Drawing from a global workshop with over 50 experts, the authors identify five core areas where research is falling short and propose specific methods to close those gaps:
- Urban form: How cities are laid out affects everything from emissions to climate adaptability and vulnerability. However, most assessments remain too broad, leaving out crucial geospatial analyses or data information about urban systems, especially in the Global South.
- Costs, co-benefits, and losses: While most climate solutions deliver numerous social, health, and economic co-benefits, these are rarely measured or communicated effectively. By quantifying and monetizing them, cities can unlock finance and political will, especially in countries where such resources often lack.
- Policies and governance: To ensure that climate plans remain as efficient and far-reaching as possible, cities can engage in policy evaluation and cross-sectoral governance. Yet, only a few cities do, leaving the optimization potential of methods like communities’ feedback and real-time data untapped.
- Data and Artificial Intelligence: Thanks to technological advances such as AI and satellite images, cities can now easily quantify and monitor key climate issues. However, data is not a silver-bullet solution: to be equitable, digital governance must be made universally accessible and inclusive, especially when it comes to vulnerable communities.
- System transformation: As the effects of the climate crisis ripple across society, cities must adopt holistic, cross-sectoral approaches. This calls for building local coalitions and ground-breaking solutions, sometimes going back to the basics, such as drawing inspiration from nature itself.
To fill these research gaps and inform the upcoming IPCC SR-Cities report, the authors point to several methods and tools that urban and climate experts can refer to for future research. A few examples include the systematization of urban typologies, the systematic assessment of climate action trade-offs and reporting, big data and geospatial studies, and in-depth analyses of climate change cascading impacts on urban systems.
“The paper is a timely wake-up call,” says Pourya Salehi, co-author and Head of Urban Research, Innovation and Development at ICLEI. “It reminds us that transformational urban planning must connect the dots between climate adaptation and mitigation, social justice, digital governance, and local political realities,” he adds.
Why this matters for cities and the IPCC
The authors emphasize that the forthcoming IPCC Special Report on Cities will only serve its purpose if it provides cities with the answers they have been looking for, such as pioneering solutions to the gaps discussed in this piece. To make this happen, the authors call for urban and climate change experts to address these five core research limitations by studying urban typologies and by leveraging data and participatory methods that make local strategies globally relevant, and vice versa.
In particular, the report calls for greater attention to cities in the Global South, which are often left out of global models due to data and resource gaps. This imbalance not only skews the scientific evidence base, but it risks deepening existing vulnerabilities.
From theory to transformation: What’s next?
The article is already influencing preparatory work for SR-Cities and could serve as a blueprint for organizations like ICLEI, UN-Habitat, and the C40 network to structure future climate assessments. The next steps will require coordinated action, including improved funding for urban data systems, the integration of social science and humanities into climate planning, and city-level capacity-building to accelerate local implementation and inform global climate strategies.
“This isn’t just about better science – it’s about better decisions for people and the planet,” says Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, co-author and Vice-Chair of the IPCC. “We need to shift from a fragmented evidence base to a globally connected one that supports an equitable, just, and resilient climate-neutral future in every city.”
Key takeaways
- Cities need to be evaluated using a systematic, integrated, and holistic approach to allow meaningful comparisons and promote collaboration for implementing effective urban climate strategies.
- Modern assessment and governance tools, such as geospatial data, AI, and participatory modeling, are game changers, but they must be made accessible to all cities, especially those in the Global South.
- The IPCC’s SR-Cities provides an unprecedented opportunity to tackle critical urban climate issues and address the five key assessment gaps outlined in the document. However, accomplishing this will also require support and research from urban and climate experts.
