Paulina Jaramillo, Ph.D.

“Edible forests” are popping up in Boston. Scattered across the city, once-empty lots have been overtaken by fruit trees and berry-filled bushes. Open to the public, they are forage-friendly pockets in the urban grid. The rise of urban food forests...

Background: This research examines 103 climate action plans (CAPs) from 88 C40 cities to explore (a) how measurable indicators are prioritized across thematic dimensions and (b) how city-level context explains variance across planning priorities. Methods: Using UN-Habitat’s City Prosperity Index (CPI) as a guiding framework, we categorize indicators across six dimensions: environmental sustainability, productivity, infrastructure development, quality of life, urban governance, and equity. We use automated text extraction methods and qualitative coding to create a novel data set of indicators from CAPs. Regression analyses assess how city-level variables, including population size, climate risk, and development indices, relate to emphasis on different CPI dimensions. Results: Global cities measure and track a diverse range of metrics across CPI dimensions. Environmental sustainability and infrastructure development are the most commonly tracked indicators, with equity and social inclusion less frequently recorded across cities globally. When measured, equity indicators are most often paired with quality of life and governance outcomes, but these results are heterogeneous across continents. Cities with higher levels of climate risk are more likely to track environmental and infrastructure indicators, and lower quality of life rankings are related to greater CAP emphasis on equity. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that social and economic dimensions of climate action planning, including equity, productivity, quality of life, and governance, remain unevenly integrated across cities globally. Considering heterogeneity in how CAPs measure progress, we suggest that efforts to achieve climate justice require not only scaling up technical solutions but also embedding distributive and procedural equity throughout climate planning approaches.

‘Implementing a human-centric, holistic, rights-based educational approach to climate action is essential for building resilient societies. By address

Indigenous Warriors and Green Pacts Dominate COP30: Brazil Leads Charge Against Global Warming in Tense Geopolitics

An informal seminar series on “Scenarios, Narratives and Modelling of Fair Ambition” was held over the course of 2024-2025. The aim was to generate a more shared understanding of complex issues of equ...

Robert Bryant, a gas station agent helping evacuees in Vernon, B.C., says he's heard many stories about the devastating impact of the wildfires burning in the region. The gas station where he works ha...