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.
Story of change
Making streets people friendly: the rise of car free communitiesThe rise of ‘low-car to no-car’ residential initiatives is gathering pace in many cities around the world. In the UK they offer a glimpse of how to address multiple problems that cities face:...
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
The ‘instant’ local economy – how communities saved themselves when mainstream economics failed in ArgentinaArgentina is again in the grips of an economic crisis – with debt and default with the International Monetary Fund looming over the country. It all seems...
Story of change
The Attenborough effect and the downfall of plasticsA pilot whale carrying her dead calf across the ocean for days. A baby albatross bringing up a plastic bag. Millions worldwide watched these events unfold...
Story of change
The Medellin miracleIn the early 1990s Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia, was the most violent city in the world. The homicide rate reached an unprecedented and...
Story of change
The Sunrise Movement: how a US grassroots youth movement helped set the national climate agenda for rapid changeThe enthusiastic and prominent position given to climate policy by the new United States (US) President, Joe Biden, might have surprised some. If so it...
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...