On Sept 4th-5th 2019, the Urban Institute hosted a two-day international workshop on ‘The New Climate Urbanism' as part of its ongoing research on this theme. The workshop gathered together over thirty participants working across urban and political geography, engineering, planning, science and technology studies and environmental sciences to reflect on the novelty and distinctiveness of an emergent climate urbanism at the global scale. This workshop report highlights some of the key themes that emerged from the two-days conversation, which we hope will provide useful starting points for a future research agenda on climate urbanism, namely:
- Understanding the novelty, potential and limitations of the concept;
- Analysing the rescaling process at play in defining the relationship between urbanism and a changing climate;
- Understanding the challenges (and possible changes) brought about by the implementation of integrated climate action at the urban scale;
- Exploring the technical rationalities shaping a new climate urbanism;
- Critically unpacking the forms of knowledge that are mobilised in and would be needed for a new climate urbanism;
- Understanding the role of non-state actors in shaping more just forms of climate action.
