The IGUTP Guidelines call for “local authorities”, meaning governmental jurisdictions/agencies in urban and territorial areas, to cooperate with other spheres of government and relevant partners, to do the following [verbatim, but short titles are the author’s]:

(a) Create climate mitigative, adaptative, and resilient settlement patterns. Formulate urban and territorial plans as a mitigation and adaptation framework in response to climate change and for increasing the resilience of human settlements, especially those located in vulnerable and informal areas.

(b) Develop energy efficient urban form using renewable energy. Set up and adopt efficient low-carbon urban forms and development patterns as a contribution to improving energy efficiency and increasing the access and use of renewable energy sources.

(c) Relocate high-risk built environments to low-risk areas. Locate essential urban services, infrastructure and residential developments in low-risk areas and resettle, in a participatory and voluntary way people living in high-risk areas to more appropriate locations.

(d) Defensively harden key urban functions to increasingly extreme events and climate conditions. Assess the implications and potential impacts of climate change and prepare for the continuity of key urban functions during disasters or crises.

(e) Provide water and sanitation services and reduce air pollution. Use urban and territorial planning as an action plan to improve access to water and sanitation services and reduce air pollution and the amount of water wasted.

(f) Create high-performing public and green spaces. Apply urban and territorial planning to identify, revitalize, protect and produce high‑quality public and green spaces with special ecological or heritage value, integrating the contributions of the private sector and civil society organizations into such undertakings, and to avoid the creation of heat islands, protect the local biodiversity and support the creation of multifunctional public green spaces, such as wetlands for rainwater retention and absorption.

(g) Preserve and use existing built assets to strengthen social identity when revitalizing areas of decline. Identify and recognize the value of declining built environments with a view to revitalizing them, taking advantage of their assets and strengthening their social identity.

(h) Include waste management in land use planning. Integrate solid and liquid waste management and recycling into spatial planning, including the location of landfills and recycling sites.

(i) Integrate sectoral utility services when synergies create higher value. Collaborate with service providers, land developers and landowners to closely link spatial and sectoral planning and to promote intersectoral coordination and synergies between services such as water, sewerage and sanitation, energy and electricity, telecommunications and transport.

(j) Promote green buildings. Promote the construction, retrofitting and management of “green buildings” through incentives and disincentives, and monitor their economic impacts.

(k) Design, manage, and maintain shaded streets for non-motorized and public transportation modes and carbon sequestration. Design streets that encourage walking, the use of non-motorized transport and public transport, and plant trees for shade and carbon dioxide absorption.