Welcome by IAUC president Ariane Middel and secretary Benjamin Bechtel, and ICUC12 co-chairs Gert-Jan Steeneveld and Marjolein van Esch

Prof. Co Verdaas (Delta Programme Commissioner at Dutch Government): Urgency to adapt to climate change in the Netherlands.

Dr. Tim van Hattum (Program Leader Green Climate Solutions Wageningen University and Research): Nature based approaches- the NL 2120 project.

Dr. Jasper Been (Consultant Neonatologist at Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam): The urban climate and early-life health: safeguarding our future heritage.

At this open meeting, the Board will convene to discuss business and activity of the Board on the Urban Environment as well as open discussion with the community for urban climate researchers to learn more about the board and the efforts being advance to continue to expand and strengthen the urban climate community.

We’re excited to invite you to take part in the World Bank City Resilience Program’s Urban Heat Hackathon — a dynamic, hands-on event that brings together minds from across the urban climate community to co-create solutions for real-world heat resilience challenges.
As UN Secretary-General António Guterres aptly stated, “If there is one thing that unites our divided world, it's that we're all increasingly feeling the heat.” This hackathon is your chance to channel that shared experience into actionable solutions. Whether you're a researcher, developer, policy advisor, or heat resilience enthusiast, join us to turn insights into impact — and help cities around the world beat the heat.
Your mission (should you choose to accept it):
Participants will form teams and take on one of our city-specific challenges*:
● Hot spot mapping: You'll conduct high-resolution mapping of outdoor air temperature, at street or neighborhood scales, to identify the city's critical hot spots. Your insights, both qualitative and quantitative, will empower policymakers, showing them exactly where interventions are most needed to protect vulnerable communities.
● Adaptation strategies: If hot spots are identified, it's time to tackle them! You'll develop and analyze effective urban cooling solutions. Demonstrate the impact of your ideas to inform city planning and directly help cool down the urban environment.
● Indoor heat exposure: Explore how heat affects the indoor environment! You will assess thermal conditions and analyze energy consumption in a school building under different climate scenarios. Then, strategically design solutions, focusing on passive design options, to transform these spaces for optimal comfort and reduced energy consumption.
* These challenges are inspired by real-world World Bank urban heat resilience projects. While the exact locations or scopes may vary, each challenge reflects the kinds of work we're actively supporting around the globe.

Why join?
● Collaborate with peers from across the urban climate community
● Turn science into practice by developing actionable strategies that can inform city policies and investments.
● Showcase your ideas and receive constructive feedback and recognition from top voices in the global urban climate community
● Get certified — every participant receives a World Bank Certificate of Participation, and the winning team gets a special recognition certificate.
● Boost your visibility — the top team's story will be featured on the World Bank's website and social media channels.
● Enjoy a World Bank-hosted dinner with fellow participants and global experts.
Date: Tuesday July 8, 14h00 - 19h30 (directly followed by dinner) Location: ICUC12 Conference Center, Room Leeuwen 1 (on-site only) Who? Open to all — with a special welcome to participants from low- and middle-income countries. Dinner: Immediately following the hackathon, hosted by the World Bank (drinks not included). Please note: ICUC12 conference attendance and travel costs are not covered by the hackathon organizers.

Interested?
Register now → https://forms.office.com/r/LSnwNZLSES Spots are limited — sign up today to secure your place.
Let’s get together, turn up the ideas, and cool down our cities. We can’t wait to see what you'll bring to the table.
Warm regards, Matthias Demuzere & Nicholas Jones On behalf of the World Bank's City Resilience Program and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)

Come join a panel of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Co-Chairs together with members of the author team of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (SRCities) in a discussion about topics related to the development of the report, which is due for completion in March 2027. Issues that will be discussed include: how can ICUC participants contribute to the report? How can urban climatologists, practitioners and stakeholders help with the report a more robust and actionable one for policymakers? What can we expect from the report over the next 18 months? Opportunities to engage in discussion with global initiatives will be available during this session.

The 2025 Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography Special Lecture by Rohinton Emmanuel: A climate-sensitive tropical urbanism under extreme heat
The Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (SJTG) sponsors an annual lecture at a major international geography or geoscience conference. Presented by leading scholars of tropical geographies, the lectures are also published in the journal. Since 1953 the SJTG (and antecedents) has been a leading international forum for scholarship on tropical environments, localities and their connections. The SJTG publishes theoretical and empirical articles and reviews that deal with the physical and human environments of the tropics and development issues from geographical as well as interrelated disciplinary viewpoints.
This year’s lecture will be delivered by Rohinton Emmanuel who is a Professor in Sustainable Design and Construction at Glasgow Caledonian University. An architect with urban design interests, Rohinton has pioneered the inquiry of urban heat in tropical cities and has taught and consulted on climate, energy and environment - sensitive design, building and urban sustainability and its assessment, urban heat islands and energy efficiency.

The international association for urban climate (IAUC) is hosting a networking event at ICUC to kick off new regional committees and an early-career committee.
IAUC regional committees should be active groups of urban climate scientists and practitioners that organise networking activities around urban climate topics in a specific region. The objective of a regional committee is to increase visibility of ongoing initiatives and foster novel collaborations through local networking and active exchange with the global IAUC community. Similarly, the early-career committee should also be an active group of student and postdoctoral members of IAUC that organise networking or training/educational activities. Both types committees have the freedom to design outreach and engagement activities according to its needs and resources.
We are looking for active and enthusiastic members of IAUC to lead this effort. Therefore, in this session we will explain how to become involved and answer any questions you will have. The session will close with drinks, so you can start to make connections.

Reserve your spot now for an inspiring evening at the iconic Maassilo that promises to nourish both body and spirit. Enjoy a plant-based walking dinner while networking with fellow urban climate enthusiasts!

Further information: https://www.icuc12.eu/attend/dinner.html

Urban population density, and its associated infrastructure and resource needs, create an environment unlike any other on Earth. Understanding and managing this “PoliSphere” has never been more urgent as cities become the central stage for confronting global challenges and the changing climate. As global warming alters our weather extremes, exacerbating heat waves, mitigating the urban heat islands that emerge in cities due to their form, function, and fabric is becoming ever more pressing. Fabric, it can be argued, is easier to modify and upgrade than form or function, and as such it has been the main target of heat mitigation efforts. Cool and green solutions have been studied widely and are clearly needed, but they cannot deliver all the cooling cities will require as the planet warms up and heat waves exacerbate. In this talk, we overview the design, modeling, and evaluation of cooling portfolios that include innovative materials and water-based measures for cooling cities. These include retroreflective façades, photovoltaic roofs, phosphorescent pigments, thermochromic roofs, phase change materials, misting, and water-retaining wet walls. We show how these emerging technologies can be effective in developed and developing, or wet and dry cities, making our urban environments more sustainable, resilient, livable, and equitable.

At a time of climate change, it is urgent to rethink the relationship of residents and built heritage with rivers, seas, and other water bodies. How we live with the environment, and notably water, has always been a result of technology, lifestyles, and historical and cultural values. Many historic societies have thrived by focusing on shared values of water use, including nature-positive approaches. Yet, many historic structures and practices have become stumbling stones for sustainable development. The histories we write, the designs we make and the heritage we value for living with water today and in the future require attention.

Growing citizen interest in water and water activities challenges paradigms of the modern, industrial past and invites for close study of historic, nature-based solutions, better protection of heritage, and the design of sustainable futures. Recent developments in Amsterdam and Paris exemplify ways of designing the future based on long-term, value case approaches towards climate resilience. The future of Amsterdam’s quaywalls in line with contemporary requirements for logistics, climate adaptation and biodiversity challenges the maintenance and restoration of historic quaywalls and bridges. The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics activated historical relationships of the city with the river including a rethinking of the Seine as swimmable river and heart of the city

To build for the future and to preserve the heritage of the past necessitates attention to ecosystemic approaches and nature positive solutions connecting multiple water uses, as well as capacity building for advanced understanding renewed negotiation among different stakeholders.

In 1818, Luke Howard published The Climate of London. A book that basically began our field of urban climate science. A hundred years on, we now know a lot about why, when and how things happens.

In 2005, prof Tim Oke published his paper titled “Towards better scientific communication in urban climate”. He lamented the lack of exchanges of what we, urban climatologists, knows, and what has been done in reality for the benefits of urban dwellers. Bluntly speaking, why policy makers, stakeholders, planners and architects continue to ignore what we have been telling them?

As an architect myself, having participated in various city planning, urban and building projects, let me tell you why!

Furthermore, I would like to use this lecture to share with you a few of my, and my team’s, up and down stories of us attempting to be otherwise when we try to agree with Prof Sue Grimmond’s: “the need to go from generating urban climate knowledge to playing a key role in creating urban climates.”