Urban climate resilience is a core municipal business. From the outset of the Eurocities Environment Forum in Malmo Deputy Mayor Sofia Hedén set the tone: “We gather here today not in fear of what is coming, but in recognition of what is already here,” she said, calling for partnership over isolation: “We build bridges instead of walls…the future is not something we await; it’s something we build here and now.”
A sharper picture of city needs
Fresh evidence from a Eurocities Pulse survey of 54 cities from 17 countries finds climate threats intensifying faster than local capacity to adapt. Heatwaves, flooding and drought dominate risk registers, with heat the most pressing hazard. Cities are acting: 81% have, or are developing, resilience rules for new development. Yet the existing built environment remains exposed, with only 57% introducing equivalent regulations for retrofit.
Urgency and agency
Europe is the fastest-warming continent and risks are spreading across sectors, yet municipal leadership is a bright spot. “Cities are key drivers of change,” said Ine Vandecasteele from the European Environment Agency, noting that effective programmes blend physical measures, nature-based solutions, early-warning systems and strong community engagement- as also referred to in the recent urban adaptation report.
But many actions still proceed “without really knowing where we’re headed,” something sometimes further exacerbated by a lack of long-term planning. As such, Vandecasteele continued Hedén’s metaphor of the wall, saying that we all too often turn to very short-term measures to deal with climate adaptation, which involves literally pouring concrete into solid physical infrastructure, such as seawalls. This underscores the need for clearer targets, stable long-term finance and a firm place for sub-national action in the forthcoming EU Climate Resilience and Risk Management framework.
the future is not something we await; it’s something we build here and now.
Finance first
Ricardo Martinez of CIDOB highlighted both momentum and constraints, as outlined in the Eurocities Pulse. Early-warning systems are spreading (78%), but only around half regularly integrate climate risks into budgeting, very few work with insurers (7%), and 13% still allow building in floodplains. “Lack of financing is by far the largest challenge,” he said, adding that adaptation “is mainly the mobilisation of public resources,” making capacity-building and cross-department governance essential.
Rules also block access: 30% of cities say national or local regulations restrict certain funding streams. The message is clear: 81% of the cities surveyed in the Eurocities Pulse want earmarked adaptation finance for local action in future EU plans. Cities called for practical enablers: help to find and access funding; guidance to govern adaptation across departments; tools to quantify co-benefits with mitigation; and technical support to build hazard models and assess vulnerabilities.
Bologna’s Deputy Mayor for Climate and new Chair of the Eurocities Environment Forum, Anna Lisa Boni, brought ground-level realities into the room. Citing deadly heatwaves and recent floods, she argued for data-driven responses that protect the most vulnerable and for a stronger EU architecture: “We’ve chosen the right topic… We must stick together and continue the battle,” she said, pointing to ongoing work of the city through Bologna’s Mayor Matteo Lepore opinion in the Committee of the Regions towards a new EU adaptation framework by 2026.
Hedén urged participants to “invest in one another and rise together,” echoing calls for dedicated, long-term investment in city resilience.
Politics with purpose
A panel on long-term planning showed how vision, matched with day-to-day delivery, turns risk into readiness.
- Vienna is planning blue-green infrastructure on a century horizon: expanding groundwater supply, building Europe’s largest covered reservoir, and upgrading pipes and retention capacity – “projects so expensive,” said Jürgen Czernohorszky, Executive City Councillor, “that we can only do them with long-term planning.” Public ownership of water services underpins steady investment.
- Ghent pairs structural fixes with neighbourhood-scale change. De-sealing targets, “green poles” within cycling distance and reopening buried rivers are accelerated through living labs. Deputy Mayor Filip Watteeuw argued that persuasion follows experience: “Vision statements do not convince people… experiment and feeling does. You should have a climate policy without talking about climate.”
- Bologna is strengthening civil protection and early warning after the 2024 floods, opening heat shelters in museums and libraries, and coordinating funding across levels of government. On heritage constraints, Deputy Mayor Anna Lisa Boni recounted a provocative pilot: “We filled the main square with 100 trees to challenge the ministry” – a temporary act that sparked a permanent debate.
- Valladolid links adaptation and affordability: annual pipe renewal, district heating (200 km of pipes over ten years) powered by regional biomass, and inventive public engagement. “We are using culture to reach citizens,” said Councillor Alejandro G. Pellitero.
- Malmo frames adaptation as equity. Planning for a high-emission climate scenario (to RCP 8.5, generally used as the basis for worst-case climate change scenarios), the city maps heat vulnerability and prioritises trees and shade for preschools and elder care. “Adaptation is a tool for climate resilience and social equity,” said Deputy Mayor Sofia Hedén.
Vision statements do not convince people... experiment and feeling does
Nature-based solutions are widespread but underfunded; capacity, early warning and measurable targets remain gaps. The panel’s message to the EU was straightforward: align funding with city programmes and channel it directly to where 70% of emissions, and most solutions, sit. “Only 15% of the funding goes to cities,” Hedén reminded participants. “That speaks for itself.”
From data to decisions
Workshops translated strategy into practice, focusing on risk assessment, governance and financing – with an emphasis on replicable approaches.
- Water resilience – The European Environment Agency outlined evidence needs for water scarcity and saving. Enschede showed how pairing a digital twin with a smart drainage network and more than 200 groundwater monitoring points enables real-time decisions to reduce flood risk in vulnerable districts shaped by complex geology and legacy urbanisation.
- Heat and nature-based solutions – While Malmo outlined their strategy to combine heat exposure map with a social vulnerability index to ensure efficient and targeted nature-based solutions, Bologna presented its Civic Digital Twin, integrating physical, social and behavioural data. Two indices under development will identify where heat hits hardest and which groups are most exposed, guiding targeted greening, shading and service adjustments during peak heat.
- Green infrastructure – Hamburg highlighted governance and open data as the backbone for cooler neighbourhoods. A public register of over 230,000 street trees supports planning and engagement, while pluvial flooding is prioritised alongside heat and drought.
- Retrofitting for resilience – Nantes Metropole is embedding adaptation into everyday design by requiring microclimate analysis in project briefs. Fine-scale modelling tests scenarios – from adding trees to improving air flows – so public spaces and buildings perform better during heatwaves.
Preparedness as governance
Fighting climate change means creating a culture of change
In a closed door discussion, city politicians focused on emergency response and early warning systems, particularly by gathering data to understand where vulnerable people are located, to aid the response. They want stronger recognition of municipal roles in forthcoming EU resilience and preparedness rules, practical budget lines in the next financial framework, and direct pathways for funding pilots to integrate adaptation into wider projects on housing, energy, and district regeneration. Preparedness is not an add-on but core urban governance: integrating risk reduction into plans, safeguarding essential services during extremes, and linking all of it to democratic legitimacy.
Several leaders described cloudburst events overwhelming drainage, with water tracking historic riverbeds and pooling in low-lying streets and shopfronts despite upgraded kerbs and widened inlets. Another explained that the city mapped pre-industrial streams to anticipate today’s flow paths, then reprioritised capital works: underground basins beneath parks, enlarged sewers, regionally coordinated sponge measures, and rapid traffic shutdown protocols to stop wave damage. Difficult choices featured too: how to relocate residents from repeatedly inundated homes, and rethinking utility charges so owners, not only users, help fund adaptation.
Others highlighted everyday resilience: volunteer corps that augment emergency services, more frequent clearance of leaf-clogged drains, and clearer thresholds for school closures and site sheltering. North–south contrasts surfaced around heat and cold: some places restrict outdoor work above certain temperatures, others are drafting heat rules after historically focusing on severe cold.
The conversation repeatedly returned to democracy as an enabler, while promoting climate actions as a ‘shield’ to preserve democracy. Participation that is symbolic breeds cynicism; participation with budget, time compensation and clear mandates builds trust and speeds delivery. And the climate space is a good place to do this.
Cities compared participatory budgeting, citizen juries, and hyper-local energy advice hubs that cut bills while recruiting new voices – especially those with least time and means. Their conclusion: resilience succeeds when technical fixes, social equity and decision-making power move together – from neighbourhood to metropolis to Europe.
Finance that fits the challenge
Cities are innovating on finance as well as engineering. A session on green bonds examined how municipal issuances can channel investment to resilience priorities while maintaining transparency and public trust. The link to the Eurocities Pulse survey was direct: dedicated strategies, predictable multi-level funding and the removal of regulatory blockers are essential to unlock scale.
We have a very, very high responsibility as cities to gain trust and to strengthen democracy
Malmo’s experience underscored the value of multiple routes to market. As the city’s head of finance put it, while sustainable finance may not be a silver bullet, it “is a way of getting to know the lender much better; having a dialogue,” and therefore keeps funds flowing when markets shift – creating this source of diversification in financing options is therefore also important. The city’s framework now spans eight categories, from clean transport and energy efficiency to climate adaptation and water.
What cities need next
The Forum converged on a practical agenda for the forthcoming EU framework and related initiatives:
- People and capacity – Invest in people, staff skills and cross-department governance so adaptation becomes a whole-of-city endeavour.
- Evidence and tools – Support local risk and vulnerability assessments, early-warning systems and modelling capacity, especially for compounding hazards.
- Financing with purpose – Equip cities with adequate financial tools in the next seven-year EU budget (an urban chapter and urban earmarking in the National and Regional Partnership Plans) to ensure that they can implement their goals.
- Mainstreaming by design – Embed resilience criteria into planning, procurement and maintenance to hard-wire adaptation into everyday decisions.
From the closing panel, Anna Lisa Boni drew the line clearly: “Fighting climate change means creating a culture of change” – in data, in regulation, in governance and in how we finance. Jürgen Czernohorszky added the democratic imperative: “The climate crisis is a huge threat for democracy…We have a very, very high responsibility as cities to gain trust and to strengthen democracy.”
Looking ahead
The final reflections returned to partnership: when cities, agencies, researchers and communities work in concert, resilience accelerates – from predictive drainage in Enschede to civic digital twins in Bologna, microclimate-informed design in Nantes and open data for urban trees in Hamburg. There was also a call to share what works – and to pick up the phone. “One thing that you can be sure of is that we are not sure of what will happen in the future,” Hedén reminded the room, “but everyone here has one experience that the rest of us can gain from.”
With the right tools, finance and trust, Europe’s cities will keep people safe, improve daily life and strengthen democracy – one well-planned street, one cooled square, one resilient neighbourhood at a time.
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The Eurocities Environment Forum 2026 will take place in Guimaraes, and focus on the theme of creating a ‘one planet city.’
Photos available here; copyright city of Malmo
