Greening Cities
The Healthy Cities Report aims to provide policymakers and development practitioners with an action-oriented framework for achieving healthy cities. Informed by an extensive literature review, it draws on the wealth of World Bank experience in urban development, citing examples and case studies of healthy city successes and challenges globally. It also recognizes the significant existing global efforts made by other stakeholders and partners on the healthy cities agenda, incorporating these lessons and practices.
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As part of a series of publications to help financial institutions understand the relevance and implications of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), this briefing provides banks a first overview of how the GBF applies to their industry, through the axes of risk, opportunities, dependencies and impacts. It aims to support the industry in managing associated risks, capturing relevant opportunities and preparing for anticipated policy developments that will yield new compliance and disclosure requirements.
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The State of Finance for Nature is a series that aims to quantify public and private finance flows to nature-based solutions and the extent to which finance flows are aligned with global targets and the investment needed to limit global warming to below 1.5°C, halt biodiversity loss and achieve land degradation neutrality. It has a broader scope than the inaugural report in 2021.
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In the face of unprecedented biodiversity loss, 196 countries adopted in December 2022 the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) providing a global framework to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. This report provides an overview of the goals of the GBF and recommendations on how investors should implement them. It supports investors in managing associated risks and preparing for anticipated policy developments.
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Infrastructure is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. For example, 95% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is within 5 km of a road. Infrastructure also contributes approximately 79% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with most associated with energy, buildings and transport. There is increasing recognition that the two greatest challenges of our time – climate change and biodiversity loss – cannot be meaningfully addressed without a fundamental shift in how we conceptualise, design and construct our infrastructure.
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Nature-based solutions (NBS) have gained traction in recent years because of their potential to promote sustainable development and reduce disaster risks. In addition to their socioeconomic benefits for people, NBS can be used for up to 37 percent of the climate mitigation actions needed to achieve the emissions goals of the Paris Agreement.
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This paper discusses how the Latin American and Caribbean region is on the verge of a transition from experimenting with nature-based solutions (NBS) to adopting it on a much wider scale that can transform infrastructure planning and investments for the better. NBS can contribute to equitable and sustainable development across this region, and can provide benefits to multiple sectors and societal challenges.
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This strategy paper draws from existing research and practical project experience applying nature-based solutions (NBS) for adaptation and building climate resilience in informal areas to better understand the potential for upscaling implementation as well as the challenges.
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Green spaces in urban areas supply multiple benefits, however, this was thought to come at the cost of density. New evidence argues that while there is often a trade-off between increased density and providing green space, this does not need to be the case. In parts of the US, Singapore and Curitiba, there are examples showing that an urban world that is both green and dense is possible, if society chooses to take advantage of the available green interventions.
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The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 created a temporary crisis of confidence in the future of cities. However, a broad consensus is that urbanization remains a powerful twenty-first century mega-trend; and that well-planned towns and cities remain central to the sustainable development trajectory. There is a sense of optimism that the crisis may provide us with the opportunity to build back differently, more inclusively, greener and safer.