What does neighbourhood climate action look like? A scoping literature review

Abstract

Cities are recognized as an important scale for framing and implementing plans and policies for action on climate change. Within the structure of cities, it is in urban neighbourhoods that climate action becomes tangible and has the potential to engage communities. Despite its importance, scholarly literature has played limited attention to the scale of the neighbourhood as a site for locating climate action. The objective of our paper is to provide an overview of the role of neighbourhoods in leading bottom-up climate action and its implications for urban planning based on a qualitative scoping review. Our findings indicate that neighbourhoods are conceptualized as a physically bounded scale for climate action as well as a web of social networks and relationships enabling this action. Neighbourhood climate action aims to achieve neighbourhood scale sustainability and resilience by engaging with residents, municipalities, local academic institutions, neighbourhood associations and non-governmental agencies. Scholars engage with a wide range of concepts like place-based attachment and social mobilization as well as established practice-oriented tools in defining and measuring neighbourhood climate action. However, the neighbourhood scale struggles with limited resources and power in creating sustained climate action as well as in engaging with and addressing socio-economically marginalized communities.