Climate Change and Health Impacts in Urban Areas: Towards Hybrid Evaluation Tools for New Governance

Abstract

The shift towards the new paradigm, that is, the “ecological and humanistic” paradigm, introduced by the United Nations in the Agenda 2030, and the current period of health emergency due to COVID-19 place the human dimension at the centre of the development strategies for our cities. The humanistic dimension, in particular, is related to human wellbeing, health and living conditions. The health and wellbeing of citizens depend on factors and actions that go beyond the health sector. In particular, here, the attention is focused on the negative impacts produced by pollution and climate change, issues that concern (and that are closely related to) most urban agglomerations in the world. The pandemic due to COVID-19 has highlighted the close relationship existing among social, natural and economic systems. Each system is interdependent on the other. Thus, the pandemic has boosted the necessity to accelerate efforts to address climate change. Therefore, in this framework, new urban development models are required. The circular economy model is proposed as a model able to reduce the negative impacts of urban transformations. The attention is then focused on implementation tools for improving decision-making processes and, in particular, on the evaluation tools for assessing the multidimensional impacts of urbanisation on human health.