The year 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, despite a cooling La Niña event. In fact, 2011-2020 the warmest decade on record in which the six years since 2015 have been the hottest (WMO 2021). As per most assessments by the United Nations (UN), especially the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the climate change phenomenon has global greenhouse gas (GHG) contributions and implications; yet there is a growing and unequivocal consensus that the 2°C global warming challenge can be dealt with concerted local actions (IPCC 2014a, UN 2015, UNFCCC 2015). In fact, there is a high confidence of understanding amongst scientists that pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems
(IPCC 2018).

During the COP26, the Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2021 sent strong signal to how the AsiaPacific region presents some unique challenges in achieving global climate mitigation and adaptation goals. The region hosts a significant proportion of the global population, one of the most rapidly developing economies that emit over half of the world’s GHGs. In addition, it is home to most of the world’s low-lying cities (UNFCCC 2021). In terms of climate vulnerability, out of 100 cities facing the greatest environmental risks, 99 are in Asia including 37 in China and 43 in India (Verisk Maplecroft 2021). The risks are from a combination of pollution, extreme heat stress, natural hazards and vulnerability to climate change and concomitant with growing GHGs. It is observed that Bangkok, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Kolkata, Manila, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Yangon are all highly vulnerable to rising sea levels, floods, and other climate impacts (ADB 2015). Meanwhile, Australian communities are increasingly being exposed to excess weather extremes especially heatwaves, bushfires, etc. resulting in social, economic and health impacts (Beggs 2021).

The local governments in Asia-Pacific cities face a complicated situation, a triple challenge of addressing local economic development goals in improving standards of living, abatement of air-pollution and GHG emissions as well as protecting their citizens from extreme climate events (Farzaneh 2019). While there is a growing scientific research into global climate change at the regional level, there is a high degree of complexity, uncertainty/ variability and fragmentation of knowledge that cities have about their climate situation (Sethi et al. 2021).

This is largely on account of variation of approach/ methods followed by these cities (elaborated in section below) that influences their understanding on mitigation responsibilities, adaptation requirements, expected measures and responses of other cities facing similar challenges. The crucial question is how do we bridge the above gaps in urban climate research with greater scientific collaboration and integration efforts for action-oriented decision making
by the Asia-Pacific cities? In order to pursue this systematically, we formulate a probe through an in-depth study into fragmentation of urban climate methods and approaches in scientific literature. This helps to devise a collaborative research framework and an innovative analytical model that integrates disparate approaches across diverse disciples. Through such a project, we test its applicability over a sample of major cities in the Asia-Pacific region to conclude with major findings that underpin the relevance and implications of developing a collaborative and integrated tool meant towards assisting in urban climate action decision making.