Assessing urban climate actions: A quantitative pathway to decarbonisation

This study presents a spatially explicit, scenario-based framework to assess the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of neighbourhood-scale urban climate actions across multiple sectors. Applied to the city of Valencia (Spain), the results show that coordinated implementation of a limited set of high-impact actions can reduce city-wide emissions by more than 80% under a moderate policy ambition scenario, assuming partial (50%) implementation of mitigation actions and electricity grid decarbonisation aligned with national plans. Mitigation potential is unevenly distributed across neighbourhoods, reflecting differences in urban morphology, energy demand, and mobility patterns. Sensitivity analysis highlights strong dependence of electrification-based actions on electricity grid decarbonisation, while demand and mobility driven measures remain more stable. The framework supports spatially differentiated, evidence-based urban decarbonisation strategies.