[Climactions project: document review of policies and measures of climate change adaptation and mitigation in urban areas].

BACKGROUND

public health aims to promote a health-centred approach in all policies, even in adaptation and mitigation policies for climate change.

OBJECTIVES

to provide a critical summary on legislations, policies and case studies at international, national and local level and to assess the implementation of the "health lens", in support of researchers and workers on environment and health.

DESIGN

document review on legislations, policies and case studies, focusing on mitigation of urban health island and sustainable mobility.

METHODS

a policy and legislation review was carried out from institutional websites at European and local level. Sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMP) and energy and climate action plans (SECAP) were retrieved for the cities included in the Climactions project (Genoa, Turin, Bologna, Rome, Bari, Palermo) from local authorities' websites. Best practices of urban heat island mitigation and sustainable mobility were searched from European platforms (Climate adapt, Urban mobility observatory -- ELTIS, EIT Urban Mobility) to obtain a critical picture of adaptation and mitigation options in cities.

RESULTS

the review shows a large number of legislations, plans, and programmes on adaptation and mitigation both at European and Italian level with a gap between planned and actually implemented actions also due to the lack of dedicated economic resources. There is also an inequal level of implementation among Italian regions, with some criticalities, for example, in the citizen participatory process within the strategic environmental assessment of SUMPs, SECAPs, and adaptation plans. At the local level, in the last decade, several best practices of urban heat island mitigation and sustainable mobility were experienced in different sectors including new urban green space infrastructures, albedo enhancement measures, car-pooling apps, incentives to active mobility, temporary streets liberation, and a combination of measures within adaptation plans such as London Climate Action Plan and Barcelona Superblock programme. Only few measures were health centred embedding public health into urban planning (e.g., the London plan based on the 'healthy streets' approach) suggesting health benefits for the population.

CONCLUSIONS

the recent increase in regulations and policies at European and national level is not paralleled by real progresses in climate actions, despite the constant growth of annual emissions. Therefore, there is the need to accelerate the fossil fuel emission mitigation while promoting adaptation to be ready to counteract actual and future climate related risks. Health workers such as paediatricians, family doctors, epidemiologists can advocate the transition and support the citizens and youth engagement in climate-related decision making.