As Countries Step Back, Neighborhoods Unlock Climate Action

The transformation of Buenos Aires’ Rodrigo Bueno neighborhood over the last decade is remarkable. What was once an informal settlement lacking sewers and clean water is now a thriving, diverse community where residents own their homes. A new street system and electrical grid power, businesses like a food court and organic garden, as well as a range of transportation options. Against a backdrop of high inflation, GDP contraction and political unrest, Rodrigo Bueno’s evolution proves that neighborhoods can hold the key to unlocking progress on climate and social equity, even in the face of national and international turmoil.

Finding ways neighborhoods can transform is especially inspiring in our current political environment. Within the United States, the new administration is rolling back critical climate programs and slashing funding for many equity-focused projects. Within Europe, national spending is shifting toward other priorities. As a result, opportunities to make progress on the issues that directly affect people's everyday lives — housing, climate action and health — feel like they are disappearing.

But cities — especially neighborhoods — hold enormous potential for creating direct benefits improving the lives of people on the frontlines of the climate crisis. High-level policy changes don’t always trickle down to a person’s lived reality, but efforts to plant trees along a busy corridor or upgrade housing with reflective roofs for better cooling can mean a substantial improvement in quality of life. Especially amid times of global and national uncertainty, neighborhoods can be an avenue for tangible and meaningful transformation.

Here we look at how neighborhoods around the world, like Rodrigo Bueno, are already making progress to create climate-resilient affordable housing, improve residents’ health and respond to climate change.