As climate change intensifies, parks are becoming frontline infrastructure for both environmental resilience and community well-being. Beyond offering recreation, they are now tasked with mitigating extreme heat, managing stormwater, protecting biodiversity, and providing shelter and essential services during emergencies.
This session will present a global panorama of solutions where parks serve as critical climate infrastructure. Drawing from global case studies in Latin America, North America, Europe, Asian and Oceania, attendees will learn how how cities and organizations are:
- Implementing nature-based solutions for flood control, heat mitigation, and habitat creation, including urban forests and gardens projects.
- Adopting innovative design and sustainable operations to achieve net-zero goals.
- Building cross-sector partnerships that integrate parks into broader climate action plans.
- Engaging communities to foster trust, combat misinformation, and ensure equitable resilience strategies.
By weaving together diverse examples and actionable lessons, this session will inspire attendees to see parks not just as passive green spaces, but as dynamic, multi-functional infrastructure essential to urban resilience. Attendees will leave equipped with strategies to strengthen their own park systems’ capacity to withstand and adapt to a rapidly changing climate while serving as vital civic assets in times of crisis.
Support is provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.
