Introduction Climate change has had a significant impact on quality of life in urban areas. Summer heatwaves disproportionately affect urban areas, in part also due to a poorly managed urbanisation process. A loosely regulated urban planning that allowed for exceptions to rules after 1990, combined with individual motorised traffic(caused largely by construction practices and the decades’ long lack of interest from local public authorities in public transport policies) are among the factors contributing to the intensification of extreme summer heatwaves in Bucharest. Studies reveal that heatwaves cause the highest number of weather-related deaths in many cities around the world(Luber et. al., 2008). Cities and metropolitan areas concentrate the majority of a country’s population and material assets, and the local and national administrative functions are carried out from offices located in urban areas. Bucharest is the most dynamically developed area in Romania, with over 2 million permanent residents and several hundred thousand more people present daily within its urban perimeter. Such population density, combined with the expansion and complexity of the infrastructure, a dynamic and complex urban metabolism, and the duration of habitation, have affected the environment deeply and irreversibly. The urban climate is a clear example of the changes induced by cities. The temperatures are higher than in the surrounding rural areas, the air is drier, and the wind can intensify locally along canyon-like streets and public squares. What is more, cities are the most heterogeneous environments, with a wide variety of land uses, colours, structures, and materials that change swiftly and generate specific microclimates. Within a small area, one can encounter fully built-up surfaces with one or more storeys, with more or less vegetation, lakes, and parks of various sizes, each with its own, distinct microclimate. In July, the hottest month of the year, the average air temperature in Bucharest reaches 22.5⁰C, which places Romania’s capital in 9th position behind Athens, Madrid, Rome, Tirana, Skopje, Lisbon, Belgrade, and Istanbul. Nonetheless, a recent study by the World Bank shows that mortality associated with extreme heat is high in many capitals in Central and South-Eastern Europe(for instance, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb, Sofia, Athens)(World Bank 2025). On the other hand, Bucharest has the highest heat-associated mortality rate overall among all cities in Central and Eastern Europe, surpassed only by Istanbul. This is why the issue of the effects of the climate crisis should be a fundamental public health concern(besides the social costs associated with treating people affected by heat, managing chronic illnesses caused or/and worsened by heatwaves, the medical leaves engendered by these conditions, etc.). The city of Bucharest was ranked fourth globally in terms of traffic congestion for the year 2024 by TomTom 1. As regards urban planning, former mayor general Nicușor Dan stated that prior to his term urban regulations were largely ignored, therefore, many of the issues related to traffic congestion and the lack of green spaces are connected to a form of urbanism that did not take these aspects into account 2 . Besides global climate change, the city of Bucharest has had, over the years, public policies that rather contributed to the effects of the phenomenon(widening boulevards at the expense of green areas, proposals for underground pedestrian passages meant to ease car traffic). Environmental concern has been rather limited to the development of parks and has included little to no attention paid to reducing emissions. The mere fact that over the past 15 years, several citizen initiative groups have been set up in order to save various green areas or stop real estate projects from going ahead demonstrates that local communities understand the need to preserve green spaces. Only in recent years have local public authorities in Bucharest taken action to draft strategic documents aimed at managing pollution and only very recently have the public documents included a response to the climate crisis. In parallel, non-governmental organisations have come together and either advocated for or implemented small­scale solutions by funding pilot projects for responsible environmental policies at local level. Bucharest, alongside other major cities in Romania, holds the advantage of 1  K%2CTR%2CCZ%2CLT%2CPT%2CLV%2CNL%2CEE%2CMT%2CSE%2CIS%2CNO%2CSI%2CSK%2CLU 2  Previously, before Nicușor Dan took office, the Bucharest City Hall extensively used the option to build through Zonal Urban Plans, which are urban planning documents that allow for exceptions to the provisions of the General Urban Plan 4 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.