RMI at The Urban Climate Solution

The Urban Climate Solutions brings together advocates, researchers, public officials, practitioners, and other leaders to discuss the intersection of urban and climate policies. Instead of focusing solely on new technologies or increasing energy supply, this event aims to focus on the system-wide changes that communities and industries can make efficient and clean design choices that will increase comfort and affordability for humans with the co-benefit of reducing emissions.

RMI will be present at multiple sessions on the Wednesday of this week-long event. More details on these sessions can be found below:

All Wednesday sessions are at kyu Collective. Session descriptions are from the official event page, not drafted by RMI.

Build More, Electrify Faster: Aligning Housing Abundance and Building Decarbonization

10:30–11:45 a.m. ET

This session will examine where housing and decarbonization strategies reinforce one another, where genuine implementation tensions arise, and how policymakers, developers, advocates, utilities, and funders can resolve them. Panelists (including RMI’s Raghav Muralidharan) will explore practical approaches to codes, incentives, permitting, utility coordination, affordability protections, and policy sequencing that allow communities to build more housing without locking in long-term emissions or future retrofit costs.

Accommodating Growth in the Global South

1:30–2:45 p.m. ET

Most of the world’s urban growth over the next few decades will happen in cities that don’t yet exist at scale — concentrated in the Global South, where population growth is fastest and infrastructure is least locked in. Whether that growth compounds sprawl-driven emissions or avoids them depends on choices being made right now about housing and land use policy, as well as transportation infrastructure investments. Once made, these decisions produce long-lasting impacts for climate, accessibility, and economies. This panel (which includes RMI’s Samhita Shiledar) will draw from the experience of urban planning, land use, and transportation experts actively working on efforts in the global south.

Making the Case for Climate-Aligned Abundance and Urbanism

3:00–4:15 p.m. ET

The fiscal and climate case for infill housing is increasingly hard to dispute — but data alone hasn’t been enough to overcome the political and aesthetic resistance to density, even if it’s for the better. This panel (moderated by RMI’s Rushad Nanavatty) is about the messaging gap: how advocates, designers, and coalition-builders are translating cost curves and emissions data and examples of beautiful infill housing from around the world into narratives and images that make compact, mixed-use development the changes communities yearn for rather than something imposed on them. Panelists will share what’s worked around the country — and what hasn’t — in turning abundance into a story policymakers, developers, and the public actually want to be part of.