Scenario modelling shows urban planning can reduce city-scale GHG emissions in transport and buildings by 14% in 2050

Date

2026-07-01

Author

Creutzig, Felix
Javaid, Aneeque
Mastrucci, Alessio
Kılkış, Şiir
Nachtigall, Florian
Zhao, Bingyu
Martinez, Luis
Napiontek, Jakob

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Urban planning (UP) is a key lever for municipal climate mitigation, relevant for both reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in urban transport and within the building sector. However, it is unclear how large the municipal mitigation potential of UP is. Here, we develop scenarios that explicitly consider the contribution of new settlements between 2025 and 2050 for both transport-by reducing the distance travelled by cars and by modal shift-, and buildings-by supporting more compact building forms that reduce energy use and construction demand. We find that UP-a focus on compact design, mixed use, and low-carbon transport infrastructure-can reduce future GHG emissions by 14% compared to business as usual, with about equal contributions from transport and building sectors, notably including construction. Compact UP benefits the public purse, but requires land markets that internalize social costs. Our analysis highlights the importance of developing and rapidly growing cities in Asia and Africa in supporting UP-related mitigation efforts.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119892

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Article