Title page 1

Contents 1

Executive summary 1

Introduction 4

Climate readiness: the missing link between climate action and urban transformation 5

Case study and methodology 8

Findings 10

Conclusion: reflections and priority actions 17

1. Recognizing that transformation has many beginnings and a shared rhythm 18

2. Diagnosing your city's starting position 18

3. Designing efforts that can spill outward into adjacent systems 18

4. Using early interventions as learning devices 18

5. Establishing a governance anchor that is light but reliable 19

6. Building the infrastructures that sustain mainstreaming 19

Appendix A. The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities: background, process, and documentation 20

Appendix B. Finalist descriptions (2023-2024 cycle) 23

Appendix C. Data sources 25

Appendix D. Coding matrix 27

Appendix E. Analytical matrices 30

References 33

Acknowledgments 35

Table 1. Conceptual grounding of the paper's five scaling mechanisms, illustrating how they are synthesized from amplification processes and... 6

Table 2. Summary of entry points, trigger moments, and transformative impacts across the finalists 11

Table 3. Illustrative expressions of scaling processes observed across finalists 14

Table 4. Distribution of scaling dynamics across phases of each initiative 15

Figure 1. Analytical framework linking climate readiness, scaling processes, and urban transformation 7

Figure 2. The five finalists of the 2023-2024 cycle for the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities 9

Table A-1. Evaluation process for the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities 20

Table A-2. Evaluation matrix 21

Table A-3. Evidence sources used in the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities evaluation process 22

Table C-1. List of data sources used in the analysis 26

Table D-1. Coding matrix summarizing the analytical codes applied to the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities finalists 27

Table E-1. Illustrative scaling processes across five finalists show how each process manifested in practice, linking directly to observed impacts 30

Table E-2. Scaling process analysis summarizing major phases in the evolution of finalist initiatives 31

Table E-3. Readiness infrastructures analysis depicting the code density with respect to specific infrastructures of climate readiness 32