Planning for climate proof cities and for preserving cultural and natural heritage

The impacts of climate change on urban systems are constantly increasing and expected to still grow up in the next years. These impacts largely affect cities, where people, strategic equipment, economic activities as well as much of the historical and cultural heritage are gathered. Meanwhile, cities are more and more recognized as key players in addressing climate issues (Luise 2014), by turning global goals and strategies into actions tailored to the peculiarities of local contexts. Starting from the early 2000s, Europe has launched some initiatives aimed to engage cities in facing the global challenge of climate change, contributing to achieve the goals established in the international agendas. These initiatives were mostly addressed to support cities, firstly, in reducing the causes and, secondly, in better coping with the impacts of climate change. Current international trends lead to consider these two goals as synergistic (Duguma et al. 2014) more than complementary, favoring actions capable to address both causes and impacts of climate change, providing meanwhile opportunities for regenerating urban areas, redefining current socio-economic development models and preserving cultural and natural heritage. In this line, this contribution focuses on the European Initiatives aimed to engage cities in counterbalancing climate change, shedding light on the long process that has led from the prevailing attention to mitigation strategies towards a growing integration between mitigation and adaptation strategies in European cities.