Cities, engines of the Anthropocene, remain oddly peripheral in climate science—treated as boundary conditions or emission zones, not as dynamic systems with internal feedbacks like glaciers or oceans. This workshop challenges that blind spot. Convened as a methodological and epistemological inquiry, it asks: What would it mean to model a specific city—and the global ensemble of cities—as primary components of the climate system? By reframing cities as legitimate objects of climate inquiry, equivalent in ontological status to cryospheres or ocean currents, we aim to lay groundwork for an eventual IPCC chapter on urban climate systems. Through focused working sessions, we explore the scientific, modeling, and policy questions this shift demands.

About the organiser

Daniel Hogendoorn is a policy fellow at IAS. He works as a policy practitioner to change the long term urban planning and public investment strategies to get Amsterdam within planetary boundaries through different sustainability transitions (energy transition, climate adaptation, circular economy, nature positive city, and increasingly sustainable finance).

Programme