The global signals of climate change are felt acutely in cities through unprecedented heatwaves, floods, and climate-related disasters, placing increasing pressure on urban systems and practitioners’ ability to manage risks. Cities, home to over half the world’s population and major contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, are increasingly vulnerable to these impacts.
Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer a powerful pathway for addressing these challenges. Urban NbS can reduce heat stress, regulate temperatures, enhance stormwater management and mitigate floods. They improve air and water quality, restore habitats and ecological connectivity, and create social and health co-benefits, from better urban well-being and public spaces to stronger community engagement.
This Guide demonstrates how multilevel governance can unlock this potential, based on tried and tested approaches developed by several cities around the world. The information and tools presented in this Guide aim to support practitioners both at the national and local municipal levels:
- For national governments, it offers steps to embed urban NbS within climate and biodiversity strategies, align regulatory, legislative and fiscal instruments, and strengthen enabling environments that reduce risk and mobilize investment.
- For local municipal governments, it presents approaches and tools to integrate NbS into urban plans and strategies, develop credible project pipelines and leverage different types of soft and hard policy instruments when prioritizing nature in urban areas.
Developed under UNEP’s Generation Restoration project by the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, the publication demonstrates how urban action can significantly accelerate progress on climate, biodiversity, pollution reduction, and resilience agendas.
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