València: from climate ambition to just resilience on the ground
València is Spain’s third-largest city, with more than 840,000 residents, and is widely recognised for its work on sustainability, urban innovation and climate action. The city participates in the European Missions for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change, and was designated European Green Capital in 2024.
Its urban history is closely shaped by water and adaptation. After the historic 1957 flood, València transformed the old Turia riverbed into a seven-kilometre urban park, now one of the city’s most important green corridors, cooling spaces and public assets.
In JUST4CARE, València acts as a Replicant City within the Community of Practice. Its role is to connect lessons from the pilot cities with its own transition from climate planning to street-level implementation.
City overview and replication context
València offers strong mirror potential for JUST4CARE because it combines a mature climate agenda with very tangible climate justice challenges.
Like Madrid, it faces intensifying heatwaves and urban heat-island effects. Like Çankaya and Rome, it must manage extreme rainfall and flooding. Like all pilot cities, it is working on how to ensure that adaptation reaches people and places with fewer resources to protect themselves.
The city’s experience with the Turia riverbed also makes València a relevant case for understanding how large-scale urban transformation can become part of everyday climate resilience, public space and care.
València climate and justice challenges
València faces increasing heatwaves and urban heat-island effects, with serious health risks for older people, children, people living in energy poverty and residents with fewer resources to cool their homes or access comfortable public spaces.
The city is also exposed to extreme rainfall and flooding. The catastrophic DANA event in 2024 showed how climate hazards can affect people unequally, particularly older residents, people with disabilities, children and young people, and families facing socio-economic vulnerability.
These risks make climate adaptation a question not only of infrastructure, but of care, accessibility, territorial balance and public protection.
València alignment with JUST4CARE
València’s current city vision, reflected in the 2026 update of its Climate City Contract, is centred on the idea of a shared city where the green transition leaves no one behind.
This aligns closely with JUST4CARE’s approach to just resilience. The city is already working with a Fair Transition filter in its Climate Action Plan, drawing on lessons from the Fair Local Green Deals project. This approach helps connect climate action with territorial balance, protection of people and communities more exposed to climate risks, and concrete care-oriented measures.
Examples include the expansion of a Climate Shelter Network in high-risk districts, universal accessibility in public spaces to reduce heat exposure, and strengthened home-based services for older and dependent residents affected by climate-related health risks.
València replication objective
Through JUST4CARE, València aims to bridge the implementation gap between strategic planning and co-implementation at street level.
The city is particularly interested in tools that can support municipal staff, strengthen monitoring and evaluation, and improve work with local communities. JUST4CARE can help València move its just resilience vision forward by offering practical methodologies, shared criteria and lessons from pilot cities facing similar climate and social challenges.
What València brings to the Community of Practice
València brings experience in climate neutrality, adaptation planning, urban innovation and large-scale public space transformation. It also brings a strong question for the Community of Practice: how can an ambitious climate strategy become a fair, practical and locally grounded process that protects people in everyday life?
Its contribution will help JUST4CARE understand how cities can move from plans and contracts to implementation that is accessible, inclusive and attentive to unequal impacts.
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