The many roles of nature in carbon-neutral cities

Cities are home to an increasing majority of the world’s growing population, and are responsible for more than half of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (IPCC, 2023). Cities will need to make use of carbon sinks in order to achieve net-zero emissions according to the timelines of their various climate action commitments, as laid out in e.g. the Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2023). Even cities which have made significant progress towards ambitious climate goals, such as Stockholm, Sweden, will need to focus on maintaining and growing carbon sequestration capacity in addition to further reducing emissions if they are to meet their goals (Page et al., 2025, 2021).

Nature-based solutions (NBS) can help cities to take action for both climate change adaptation and mitigation, while also improving the health and wellbeing of their residents (Chiabai et al., 2018, Kalantari et al., 2018). Our research finds that NBS can play a significant role in reducing emissions in cities, and that they have the potential to help accelerate the transition towards net-zero in many cities (Cong et al., 2023; Pan et al., 2023).

Using modelling, we investigate how NBS can be combined with other urban planning and policy actions, seeking to understand i) how to design city-wide NBS implementations which maximise both climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits, and ii) how best to integrate NBS into existing climate action plans for accelerated net-zero transitions.

References:

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Cong, C., Pan, H., Page, J., Barthel, S., Kalantari, Z., 2023. Modeling place-based nature-based solutions to promote urban carbon neutrality. Ambio 52, 1297–1313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01872-x

IPCC, 2023. Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland.

Kalantari, Z., Ferreira, C.S.S., Keesstra, S., Destouni, G., 2018. Nature-based solutions for flood-drought risk mitigation in vulnerable urbanizing parts of East-Africa. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, Sustainable soil management and land restoration 5, 73–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2018.06.003

Page, J., Kareflod, V., Kåresdotter, E., 2025. Chapter 1.1 - Forests for climate change mitigation: Temporal dynamics of carbon sequestration in the forests of Stockholm County, in: Pan, H., Kalantari, Z., Ferreira, C., Cong, C. (Eds.), Nature-Based Solutions in Supporting Sustainable Development Goals. Elsevier, pp. 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-21782-1.00001-4

Page, J., Kåresdotter, E., Destouni, G., Pan, H., Kalantari, Z., 2021. A more complete accounting of greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration in urban landscapes. Anthropocene 34, 100296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2021.100296

Pan, H., Page, J., Shi, R., Cong, C., Cai, Z., Barthel, S., Thollander, P., Colding, J., Kalantari, Z., 2023. Potential contribution of prioritized spatial allocation of nature-based solutions to climate neutrality in major EU cities. [Manuscript]. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2399348/v1

United Nations, 2023. The Paris Agreement [WWW Document]. United Nations Climate Change. URL https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement (accessed 9.20.23).