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Strategies to improve the impact of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities

Nature Climate Change volume 14, pages 685–691 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The planned Special Report on Climate Change and Cities represents a key opportunity to connect the IPCC assessment process to the topics of cities and global urbanization, which are both critical elements of climate adaptation and mitigation during the current ‘decade of action’. To help seize this opportunity, we recommend the development of inreach and outreach strategies that can help the report to have greater impact. The new strategies could allow interest groups, including practitioners and policymakers, along with researchers and IPCC representatives to be more coordinated and enhance the utilization of the assessment results. These advances would be useful not only for the upcoming Special Report but also for future IPCC reports and other comparable scientific assessments.

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Fig. 1: Potential inreach and outreach strategies, and engagement of city representatives and interests in the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to M. Garschagen, LMU University Munich, for providing comments on earlier draft of this paper. Additional special thanks to C. Overton, City University of New York, for editorial work on the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth and Environmental Science Program, Department of Geography and Environmental Science and Graduate Center, City University of New York-Hunter College, New York, NY, USA

    William Solecki

  2. School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, South Africa

    Debra Roberts

  3. Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Karen C. Seto

Authors
  1. William Solecki
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  2. Debra Roberts
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  3. Karen C. Seto
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Contributions

W.S., D.R. and K.C.S. contributed equally to this paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to William Solecki.

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Competing interests

W.S. is a co-founder and co-leader of the Urban Climate Change Research Network. D.R. is an advisor to the United Cities and Local Governments. K.C.S. declares no competing interests.

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Nature Climate Change thanks Aditya Bahadur, Danny Marks and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Solecki, W., Roberts, D. & Seto, K.C. Strategies to improve the impact of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 685–691 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02060-9

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