The Nature for Cooling Challenge is a three-year initiative led by the UNEP Cool Coalition and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The challenge aims to showcase how urban nature-based solutions can reduce urban heat exposure, cut cooling energy demand and avoid associated carbon emissions while creating co-benefits for biodiversity and wellbeing.
Although the cooling benefits of urban greening, water bodies and high-quality landscape design are well established, investment remains limited due to gaps in standardized methodologies, monitoring systems as well as financial incentives. The Nature for Cooling Challenge addresses these barriers by establishing robust monitoring frameworks, integrating nature-based cooling into national cooling plans and biodiversity strategies, as well as by strengthening institutional and technical capacity. By generating comparable evidence on cooling performance, costs and wider benefits, the Challenge aims to strengthen the case for integrating nature-based cooling into public investment decisions, urban planning and climate finance programmes.
The Nature for Cooling Challenge commences in Brazil, Cambodia and Côte d’Ivoire, where high-potential nature-based cooling interventions receive grants and technical assistance to strengthen design quality, cooling performance and monitoring. The implementation is facilitated by the Cool Coalition and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL).
This session will highlight how the Nature for Cooling Challenge is supporting the deployment of nature‑based solutions to reduce urban temperatures, drawing on the practical experience of the three participating countries.