SmartCitiesWorld Weekly Update - 28 April 2023

It’s great to see the climate action discussion continue on social channels and other platforms this week following our inaugural Cities Climate Action Summit (#CCAS23). One of our aims is to ensure we play our part in keeping the conversation going and a number of key messages from the summit have been reinforced by our news coverage this week in areas like climate action reporting, funding and greening programmes.

UK local authorities will no doubt welcome news of the Anthesis Impact Tracker, designed to help users track progress on implementing their climate action plans and report transparently to stakeholders across their local areas. Anthesis convened a working group of 15 local authorities to design the digital solution. It provides access to a range of data through which the impact of local climate initiatives can be reviewed and includes more than 40 preloaded key performance indicators.

Reporting is vital to show the value of projects when it comes to applying for funding and this week saw the?inaugural Resilient Community Impact Funds awarded in the US. Among those projects qualifying for funding is the Berkeley Pilot Climate Equity Fund, which provides climate change and resilience benefits to low-income residents. The grant will be used to install highly efficient heat pumps in a community-controlled property, owned by Northern California Land Trust. Another beneficiary of the funding is the Lafitte Greenway, an abandoned railroad corridor that has been transformed into a 2.6-mile-long linear park and multi-use trail in the heart of New Orleans. It features recreational facilities, fitness and cultural programming, and open green space.

Green spaces are, of course, integral to building smarter cities and a number of city representatives at the Cities Climate Action Summit highlighted the importance of greening their cities. Those who want further guidance in this area can check out?C40 Cities and Arup’s urban rewilding research, which we report on this week. It shows that restoring natural habitat in cities can help to reduce impacts of climate change and improve the mental health and wellbeing of city dwellers. Through this initiative and C40 Cities’ Urban Nature Accelerator, cities are exchanging best practices with one another as they grapple with increasing ecological degradation.?

For more stories on climate action, go to our dedicated section here and if you have a project you want to share with the SmartCitiesWorld community, do get in touch. For other news and features this week, check out the links below.

Sue Weekes , News editor, SmartCitiesWorld.net

Here is a summary of our most popular news stories and articles of the week!

1. San Diego launches environmental threat dashboard
2. Oklahoma pilots pay-per-mile programme
3. Christchurch proposes street changes around Te Kaha arena
4. Six European cities awarded €7m for data-driven projects
5. US communities awarded inaugural resilience funding
6. Chicago commits $42m to municipal fleet electrification
7. Smart city market to be worth more than $300bn by 2032
8. Climate action plan tracker launched for UK local authorities
9. Urban Exchange Podcast Episode 10 – Safer Schools: Building resilience in education infrastructure
10. Funding unlocked to tackle New York City’s transit deserts
11. Italian bus operator brings mobile ticketing to Potenza
12. How to bring nature back to the cities
13. Azores boosts island connectivity with OpenRoaming
14. Curiosity Lab to test first vulnerable road user technology
15. Mexican municipality to deploy combined smart streetlighting
16. Agencies issue cybersecurity guidance for smart cities
17. Active travel in Glasgow boosted by ￡3.6m funding