Paris, a Generation Restoration role model city, demonstrates a model for transformation from a car-dominated to a nature-dominated city. It integrates nature into various aspects of urban life, including green corridors, walls, and streets, and its innovative governance models center nature-based solutions in urban design.

About the city

Paris is the capital of France and the most densely populated city in Europe. Its city population is approximately 2.1 million residents, while the Paris metropolitan area is home to approximately 13,000,000 residents. It is located in the center-north of France and is bisected by the River Seine. With an oceanic climate, Paris has warm summers, cold winters, and is generally rainy year-round. Paris is a major cultural center known for its art, fashion, and gastronomy, and is the largest contributor to the French economy, with a diversity of industries including services, finance, and tourism. Furthermore, Paris is an important diplomatic and climate policy hub, notably for its role in facilitating the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

Local challenges

Paris faces various climate challenges, including increasing temperatures, flooding, and droughts. Rising temperatures, coupled with increased intensity and frequency of heatwaves, are exacerbated in dense urban areas due to the urban heat island effect. Already experiencing a rainy climate, rainfall intensity has increased in Paris in recent years, leading to both urban flooding as well as flooding of the Seine. Conversely, Paris is also at risk of water scarcity and drought, particularly with urban expansion in the metropolis hindering groundwater recharge. At the same time, Paris struggles with biodiversity loss, and has seen a sharp erosion of biodiversity in recent decades, for example the decline of some of its bird populations. Furthermore, although air quality in Paris has improved over recent decades, air pollution remains a challenge in the city, with Parisians exposed to pollutants particularly from the building and transport sectors. 

How the city leads in restoration

Paris is proving itself to be a leader in building a vibrant and sustainable city characterized by extensive green spaces. Over one third of Paris’ area is composed of vegetation, including over 500 parks, two large wooded areas comprising more than 1,800 hectares, over 600,000 trees in the city resulting in 23.58% canopy cover (as of 2023), and over 150 hectares of green roofs and walls throughout the city. This greening transformation is part of its mission to become a “garden city” characterized by nature overflowing into the streets. To this end, Paris has converted formerly paved and car-dedicated areas into green corridors, boulevards, and public squares. This represents a major shift towards pedestrianization and away from a car-centric model of urban development, one that few cities have attempted at this scale. 

Paris’ extensive restoration work is guided by various policies and frameworks, including the Paris Climate Action Plan 2024-2030, which outlines a strategy for carbon neutrality by 2050 with a focus on widespread urban greening, the preservation and reinforcement of green and blue corridors, and the creation of biodiversity refuges, all of which support the city’s climate resilience while improving quality of life and enhancing biodiversity protection. Its 2025-2030 Biodiversity Plan provides key steps for biodiversity enhancement throughout the city, through major initiatives including preserving and planting hedgerows, enhancing the Seine ecosystem, preserving and renaturing its public parks, assessing the city’s biodiversity footprint, and developing biodiversity with Parisian districts. Other key policies and plans include a Rainwater plan to restore and increase soil permeability, manage and recover rainwater, and improve soil health. 

Notably, Paris has enacted major urban tree planting efforts to reduce temperatures and promote access to green space across the city. Guiding this effort is the Paris Tree Plan, to increase the number of trees throughout the city while promoting species diversity. This includes the target to plant an additional 170,000 trees across the city between 2020 and 2026.

A key component of Paris’ urban afforestation efforts are its urban forests, which are public spaces in the city with rich biodiversity and strong tree canopy presence, supporting the provision of various ecosystem services. A notable example is the Charonne Woods, a restoration project that transformed a former section of railway line into an urban forest, through the planting of over 8,000 trees on 3.5 hectares of land. This converted land is now rich with trees and provides space for recreation among Paris’ residents. Another Parisian urban forest initiative includes the transformation of the public square at the Hôtel de Ville, replacing 1,000 square meters of stone and pavement with approximately 150 trees and over 20,000 other plants. Other greening initiatives include the greening of over 100 municipal buildings, the creation of biodiverse green roofs, “green walls” containing vegetation, and the creation of “garden streets”, which are pedestrian areas that connect parks.

Paris also has extensive programs for greening in public schools. This includes its OASIS program, which aims to address extreme heat in Paris by creating green “oases”—vegetated green spaces within schoolyards—in over 130 schools throughout the city. This initiative, which featured participatory input from students, teachers, and school staff, also directly targets extreme heat mitigation among children, a population that is particularly vulnerable during extreme heat events. This program, developed as part of a European project, has been recognized for its success, and is being replicated by other cities in France and around the world. Furthermore, Paris’ “school streets” program closed streets to vehicular traffic during peak school pick-up and drop-off times in over 200 streets throughout the city, many of which have become permanent pedestrian areas through the addition of green infrastructure such as planters and trees. This initiative not only contributes to Paris’ urban greening but also increases children’s safety around schools, through lower exposure to vehicular traffic and associated air and noise pollution.

Paris is integrating its greening initiatives with innovative tools, for example its “BiodivScore”, a free online self-assessment tool for architects, developers, and landlords to integrate nature into developments throughout the city. At the same time, Paris has encouraged citizen engagement in greening projects, such as by providing greening permits to volunteers for gardening in public spaces, including tree planters, community gardens, or other small-scale green projects. Paris residents are also trained on the benefits and maintenance of urban nature, through collaborative activities such as flora inventories, biodiversity monitoring programs, and environmental activities with schools, engaging residents in city programs around urban greening and supporting citizen science. 

Paris supports its extensive greening initiatives with an innovative Green Spaces and Environment Department that guides its programming in biodiversity, urban agriculture, and nature restoration. The department has over 3,200 staff supporting the design and management of green spaces throughout the city. Paris is one of the few global cities with an urban nature department of this scale, signaling a long-term institutional commitment to ecological transformation.

Highlight impact metrics

  • 3,460 species observed in Paris between 2014 and 2024 (including fauna, flora, and fungi)
  • 130,407 trees planted between 2020 and 2025
  • 209,339 m² of added green spaces between 2020 and 2025
  • 1,565 km of bike lanes

Role Model City

City Map

Ecosystem Types

Forests, Freshwaters and Urban areas

Climate, Biodiversity, and Pollution Risks Addressed

  • Extreme temperatures
  • Droughts
  • Extreme precipitation / flooding
  • Habitat destruction
  • Species loss / extinction
  • Ecosystem degradation
  • Air pollution
  • Noise pollution

Restoration Techniques Applied

  • Ecological connectivity
  • Green infrastructure
  • Native species
  • Parks & green spaces
  • Pollinator support
  • Riverbank restoration
  • Soil restoration
  • Tree planting
  • Urban agriculture
  • Urban forests

Beyond restoration

In addition to its extensive urban greening and restoration work, Paris also stands out for other environmental actions serving to reduce carbon emissions, decrease pollution, and enhance the city’s livability. This includes numerous clean mobility initiatives through its Climate Action Plan. In addition to its efforts pedestrianizing the city, Paris is also transforming its vehicle fleet, modernizing its rail network, and extending various rail lines. Furthermore, it has numerous energy goals to meet climate actions, including improving the thermal efficiency of buildings, developing renewable energy technologies, and promoting cooling infrastructure to combat extreme heat, including passive cooling. These efforts collectively advance Paris’ goal of a healthier, low-carbon, and more resilient city where daily life is less impacted by traffic, pollution, and extreme heat.

Paris is a major hub for international climate action, and is the home to the Paris Agreement, in which Paris hosted the United Nations climate change conference (COP 21) in December 2015. From this event, the Paris Agreement was adopted by 195 member countries. Paris is also a leading member of the C40 Cities, a global network of mayors promoting cities at the forefront of climate action. This global leadership reinforces the ambition of Paris’ local policies, positioning the city as a model for climate-forward urban transformation.

What other cities can learn

As we face the sixth mass extinction crisis, the protection of biodiversity appears as an absolute necessity if we want to build a resilient city and a desirable future for Parisians. To meet this challenge and that of adapting to climate change, major cities around the world have a central role to play. And to succeed, mobilizing all stakeholders—public, private, associations, and citizens—across the territory is essential.

—Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo

Further resources