Global evidence linking development-driven urban actions with climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes

Urban actions are central to achieving global climate goals, yet existing research prioritizes climate goals and overlooks the real-world motivations that drive decisions and shape mitigation and adaptation outcomes, potentially limiting synergies and slowing urban climate progress. Here we systematically evaluate 5,610 studies across over 750 cities using an AI-assisted knowledge extraction framework, shifting from climate-first to framing climate as a co-benefit of development-driven actions. We find that global evidence concentrates on nature-based, energy, and transport actions (54% of total). However, primary motivations vary from a green transition in Europe and Asia to urban resilience in Small Islands. Some actions (e.g., blue–green infrastructure) suggest potential broad applicability, while others appear in few cities, and some even show divergent climate outcomes depending on city type. We identify key barriers, such as economic-political conflicts, to aligning development and climate goals by examining underreported failure cases. Our study advocates for carefully-designed urban actions and leveraging local development agendas as entry points for climate co-benefits.