"Many popular city destinations around the world have made significant strides towards both preserving and manufacturing green spaces"
By Adela Suliman
LONDON, April 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Iceland's small, snowy capital, Reykjavik, has been crowned the greenest city for
Auckland in New Zealand came in second, followed by the Slovakian capital Bratislava and Sweden's Gothenburg, with Sydney in Australia taking fifth place in the Green Cities Index published by TravelBird, a Dutch online holiday provider.
"Many popular city destinations around the world have made significant strides towards both preserving and manufacturing green spaces," Fiona Vanderbroeck, chief
"We aim to inspire
The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than two-thirds of the world will live in urban areas and has called for a radical rethink of urban planning.
Green spaces cool down cities, encourage physical activity and can provide stress relief, increase social interaction and improve mental well-being, the World Health Organization says.
The index
It found that coastal Reykjavik, home to about 120,000 people, has some 410 square
Tokyo was the least green city, followed by Turkey's Istanbul, Athens in Greece, Lyon in France and Chile's Santiago, all with less than 8 square
Edinburgh ranked the greenest city in Britain and Washington D.C. and Los Angeles came top in the United States.
Cities are taking steps to improve their green credentials - banning diesel vehicles, using zero-emission buses and setting tougher air pollution limits - to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
(Reporting by Adela Suliman; editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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