Cities’ knowledge to shape global climate science

Nairobi, 24 July 2025 – Cities are central to tackling climate change but remain underrepresented in global climate science, particularly in the Global South – a gap that experts and practitioners aimed to address during a three-day workshop convened by UN-Habitat and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) in Nairobi.

The meeting brought together more than 60 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) authors and urban practitioners to strengthen the link between science and practice. It built on the updated Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science (GRAA), developed during the 2024 Innovate4Cities Conference, which identifies priority areas for integrating local perspectives into climate research.

Insights from the workshop will help inform the IPCC’s forthcoming Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (SRCities) – the only IPCC report scheduled before the next Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement. With cities already experiencing the brunt of climate impacts, the report is seen as a crucial opportunity for urban voices to inform global climate action.

Participants examined how lived experiences – from managing migration and waste to addressing housing in informal settlements – can enrich scientific assessments and lead to actionable solutions. They emphasized engaging practitioners as equal partners, integrating diverse knowledge systems, simplifying scientific language, addressing misinformation, and tailoring findings to local needs so that research drives tangible results in cities.

Field visits to the informal settlements of Korogocho and Kibera of Nairobi allowed participants to see how communities are fostering resilience and leading local climate solutions despite limited resources. These visits underscored the urgent need for climate finance to reach local levels, the importance of capturing both social and economic costs of climate action, and the need for more equitable representation of Global South data in global climate research.

“We are facing a global housing crisis [and] the way we address housing now and in the future will have a major contribution to the challenges we are facing. We need to plan land use in a way that responds to the ecological and social needs of society,” said Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat.

The workshop also advanced the development of the City Climate Knowledge Centre, an AI-powered platform that curates peer-reviewed and grey literature to strengthen collaboration across science, policy and practice. Consultations will be launched in the coming months to shape the next phase of the Centre.

By connecting researchers, practitioners, and local communities, the workshop reaffirmed UN-Habitat and GCoM’s commitment to ensuring that cities’ knowledge and experiences inform the SRCities Report and other major processes, including COP30, the 2026 Innovate4Cities Conference, and the thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), to accelerate just and resilient urban transitions worldwide.