A review of U.S. city climate action plans

Cities are increasingly creating climate action plans (CAPs), but it is unclear what potential these have for cities to sufficiently address the climate crisis. We conducted a review of 157 CAPs published by U.S. cities between 2018 and early 2023 to assess the current state of the practice. Through a qualitative content analysis of these plans, we analyzed explicit planned strategies to describe what sectors receive the most attention, what types of actions cities commonly take, and what domains of urban life are most leveraged to solving climate change. We found that a strong plurality (40%) of all strategies target municipal operations, nearly half (49%) of all strategies are focused on creating new plans and assessments, and energy and mobility contribute to nearly half (43%) of all strategies. These findings identify shortcomings of conventional climate action planning, including opportunity to work across sectors, to create stronger interventions, and to integrate climate action across all urban domains, including food and water. Climate action planning has become a ubiquitous practice for cities, and cities’ climate action will continue to increase in importance over the next decade. While cities have been pursuing climate action for over twenty years, we are still observing early stages of its evolution. This research identifies areas to improve climate action planning and concludes with recommendations for practice.