Cities are energy-hungry, climate hotspots but when they become greener you see immediate benefits for the climate, the environment and those that live there.
Cities are both in the front line of increasingly extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods, and major sources of the pollution that pushes climate breakdown. But green a city, and you help to make it more climate-proof and take the pressure off global warming. Once steps are taken to green cities, a host of other benefits emerge. The air becomes cleaner, reducing childhood asthma and a host of other lethal health complaints directly linked to dirty air. By involving a wide range of people in the process, cities can benefit from their knowledge and ideas to make greener cities work for everyone.
Shifting away from the dominance of polluting, private cars toward clean mass-transit systems makes our streets and neighbourhoods safer places to play, and more peaceful for all residents. Living streets bring communities together too. Urban growing can rebuild a relationship between people and real food, make a shift to better diets easier, and also bring people together.
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Story of change
There is such a thing as a free-ride! Rapid innovations in urban transportIn the United States, once the home of car culture, cities are experimenting with free public transport following successful international experiments. In...
Story of change
Transition Towns – the quiet, networked revolutionThe Transition Network began in 2006 in the small rural UK town of Totnes, Devon. It was initially a response to the twin threats of climate change and peak...
Story of change
Unnecessary travel? The return of breathable air and rethinking transport in a crisisBowing, perhaps to inevitability, the group of scientists responsible for assessing ways to cut the pollution that causes global heating, working group...
Commentary
What would a climate emergency plan look like?Across the world, national and local governments are declaring a climate emergency on the back of dire warnings from UN scientists about the need for urgent...
Story of change
When behaviour changes overnight – from stay-at-home, to smoke free air and switching sides of the roadHow quickly, in peacetime democracies, are people prepared radically to change their behaviour? The Covid-19 pandemic provides some clues. One of the most...
