London, 24 June 2026 – 4.5 million people at risk of extreme heat, flooding, water stress, and other hazards in the cities of Amman, Jordan and Chennai, India, will benefit from new climate planning policies implemented by city authorities in collaboration with the Jameel C40 Urban Planning Climate Labs. The policies were showcased at an event hosted today by Community Jameel and C40, co-founders of the Jameel C40 Labs, at the London headquarters of design firm Gensler, as part of London Climate Action Week.
Working closely with city governments, planners, and local stakeholders, the Jameel C40 Labs have helped tackle climate risks in Amman and Chennai through planning regulations, master plans, local area plans, neighbourhood frameworks, and other statutory planning instruments, while strengthening the capacity of planners and municipal officials to integrate climate resilience into future decision-making.
The London Climate Action Week event, titled (Re)designing cities and neighbourhoods for a climate-safe future, featured a discussion on how cities can respond to climate change through the way they plan growth, infrastructure, mobility, and public space.
The event comes as cities worldwide face the challenge of accommodating growth while responding to rising temperatures, worsening air quality, flooding, water scarcity, and increasing pressure on public services.
Drawing on lessons from the Jameel C40 Labs, the discussion explored how climate evidence can be translated into planning regulations, master plans, neighbourhood projects, and practical tools that shape how cities develop.
The event follows a high-profile presentation at the Bloomberg Local Climate Action Summit, where Uzma Sulaiman, Associate Director of Community Jameel, showcased the work in Amman and Chennai to an audience of over 30 global mayors and 1,100 delegates.
Established by Community Jameel and C40 to embed climate considerations into urban planning policies, the Jameel C40 Urban Planning Climate Labs have worked over the past three years in Amman and Chennai, two rapidly growing cities facing different but connected climate pressures.
Amman has grown from around 5,000 residents a century ago to nearly four million today, while Chennai is managing rapid metropolitan expansion alongside increasing exposure to extreme heat, flooding, and deteriorating air quality.
The Jameel C40 Labs initially conducted climate change risk assessments and greenhouse gas inventories to evaluate the risks posed to residents.
In response, the labs have contributed to 15 planning policies, regulations, strategies, and statutory planning instruments across both cities. If fully implemented, these policies are projected to reduce emissions by 26.5 million tonnes of CO₂e annually by the 2040s, equivalent to avoiding the burning of around 11 billion litres of petrol.
The benefits extend beyond climate mitigation. Cleaner air means healthier cities. Air pollution is linked to cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and lung cancer. In Jordan, lung cancer represents the nation’s third most prevalent malignancy, with a projected 30% increase in cases over the next ten years as air quality worsens. Similarly, Chennai’s atmosphere has seen a severe decline in air quality alongside intensified traffic, construction, and metropolitan growth.
The Jameel C40 Labs are also helping to shape the forthcoming Master Plans for Amman and Chennai, which together will influence how metropolitan regions with a combined population of more than 14.5 million residents grow in the coming decades.
Chennai’s Third Master Plan is expected to release its first draft in September 2026, while lessons from the city’s Planning and Zoning Regulations and neighbourhood pilots are helping inform Amman’s future Master Plan, expected to be adopted in 2028.
Alongside city-wide planning, the Jameel C40 Labs have translated climate objectives into neighbourhood-scale action in Kherbet Al-Souq, also known as Southern Gate, in Amman, and Madhavaram in Chennai.
In Kherbet Al-Souq, one of Amman’s key future growth areas, the Jameel C40 Labs supported a plan for a neighbourhood expected to grow from around 25,000 residents today to 42,000 by 2050. Completed and handed over to the Greater Amman Municipality in May 2026, the plan provides a framework for accommodating growth while protecting cultivated landscapes, reducing infrastructure pressures, improving mobility, expanding access to services and public space, and strengthening climate resilience.
Building on this work, the Jameel C40 Labs are collaborating with Sanabel, a landscape architecture and urban design firm, on a tactical urbanism pilot project in Al Yarmook neighbourhood in Amman. Due to be completed and inaugurated in August 2026, the pilot marks an important transition from planning to implementation.
The Al Yarmook pilot will test climate-responsive public-space improvements before larger investments are made, including shaded gathering areas, drought-tolerant planting, urban greening, pedestrian-safety measures and nature-based cooling solutions tailored to Amman’s climate.
The pilot will also show how simple and affordable interventions can reduce urban heat, improve walkability, encourage social interaction, make streets safer for communities, and create more comfortable public spaces during increasingly hot summers.
In Madhavaram, Chennai, the Jameel C40 Labs are supporting a pilot to redesign the built environment to better address flooding, heat and environmental degradation. Studies estimate that future flood damage in the city could reach up to USD 10 billion if urban growth continues to undermine flood resilience. The plan combines mobility, public space and nature-based solutions, including ecological restoration, blue-green infrastructure and improved water management, to support a more resilient and liveable neighbourhood.
As Chennai prepares to adopt its Third Master Plan, the pilot provides a practical example of how climate objectives can be translated into neighbourhood-scale projects and investment priorities.
Nader Iskandar Diab, Head of Programmes, Community Jameel, said: “As cities face increasing climate risks, actionable planning policies are essential to improving quality of life and strengthening climate resilience for residents. Through close collaboration with city authorities in Amman and Chennai and guided by community priorities, the Jameel C40 Labs have helped translate climate evidence into policies, neighbourhood projects and practical tools that support more climate-safe urban development. We are pleased that the lessons from this work are now informing the C40 and UN-Habitat Urban Planning Accelerator, helping extend this approach to cities around the world.”
Hélène Chartier, Director of Urban Planning and Design at C40 Cities, said: “Urban planning is one of the most powerful tools cities have to combat the climate crisis. What we have achieved through the Jameel C40 Labs in Amman and Chennai proves that when we embed climate evidence directly into everyday zoning laws, master plans, and neighborhood designs, the benefits to emissions reductions, climate resilience, public health and the local environment are immense. By taking these proven, data-driven approaches and scaling them globally through the Urban Planning Accelerator, we are empowering planners worldwide to fundamentally redesign our cities for a safer, more livable future.”
Participation and shared ownership have been central to the Jameel C40 Labs’ approach to enhanced planning. Through community consultations, stakeholder workshops, and neighbourhood visioning exercises, local priorities have shaped planning decisions in both cities.
Through the Jameel C40 Students Reinventing Cities Challenge, more than 170 university students from Jordan, Egypt, and Italy developed proposals for the future of Southern Gate, exploring how mobility, public space, water management, urban greening and climate resilience could be integrated into one of Amman’s most important future growth areas.
Building on this work, Jameel C40 Schools Reinventing Amman is engaging around 400 school students through Minecraft Education, inviting them to redesign public spaces in Southern Gate and explore challenges including urban farming, food security, public space, and climate resilience. The initiative will conclude in August 2026, with selected proposals shared with the Greater Amman Municipality, giving young people a voice in shaping the future of their city.
The Jameel C40 Labs have also produced practical knowledge products, including the Climate Action Guide for Urban Planners, which translates lessons from the programme into tools that help planners integrate climate action into plans, regulations and development decisions. A dedicated India edition of the guide is set to be released soon, helping planners across the country apply climate action in urban planning practice.
The work produced by the Jameel C40 Labs has also laid the foundations for the C40 and UN-Habitat Urban Planning Accelerator, launched at COP30 in Brazil in 2025, which is now supporting 33 cities globally and scaling approaches first developed through the labs, including Amman, the home city where this approach was piloted, as well as Jeddah, Accra, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Madrid, and Nairobi, among others, with Chennai set to join in the near future.