Climate change and urban nature: impacts and policies at the urban level

The chapter highlights the potential of nature in cities in mitigating and adapting to climate change. The concept of nature-based solution (NBS) has gained more and more attention in relation to its capacity to provide a wide array of ecosystem services (ES) in different contexts, including urban areas. NBS can address several urban challenges, as ecosystems in healthy condition provide a variety of functions and deliver multiple services, so contributing to climate commitments and more in general to social welfare. Targeted policies and instruments can be adopted by local governments to foster the implementation of NBS in urban areas to enhance resilience and mitigate emissions. In particular, payments for ecosystem services (PES) can protect and enhance natural assets connecting users and providers of ES through voluntary or regulated transaction schemes. Specific urban PES case studies are analyzed taking into account the stakeholders engaged, the revenues generated, the ES generated and the transaction mechanisms. Results show that PES have proven to be effective in investing and managing urban NBS. The complexity of urban environments and the interactions between many ES requires to adequately value the benefits generated.