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Bettesworth Construction
climate adaptation

Medellín’s Green Corridors: What the Cooling Results Actually Show

Medellín’s Green Corridors are local cooling infrastructure, not a reversal of global warming. Reported site temperatures fell between 2016 and 2019, but the figures do not isolate the corridors’ causal effect.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 3 min read

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Medellín’s Green Corridors did not turn back global warming. They are an urban green-infrastructure program intended to cool local streets and public spaces, and reports describe lower temperatures at corridor locations after the work. Those before-and-after figures are not a controlled test proving how much cooling the corridors alone caused.

What are Medellín’s Green Corridors?

They are a connected network of trees and other vegetation planted along roads, waterways and public spaces. The aim is to link existing green areas while bringing shade and other environmental benefits into heavily used parts of the city. UN Environment described the project as transforming the verges of 18 roads and 12 waterways in 2019 (UN Environment).

The World Bank’s cool-cities primer says Medellín developed 30 corridors to connect existing green park areas, prioritizing locations with high traffic and pedestrian use. The work combined large and medium trees with smaller vegetation; the municipality handled installation and maintenance and trained volunteer urban gardeners (World Bank).

How much did the corridors cool the city?

There is no single temperature figure that captures the project, because sources report different measures and scopes. Medellín’s environment department describes the microclimate benefit as “up to 2°C” (Medellín Environment Department). “Up to” matters: this is a stated local microclimate benefit, not a 2°C fall in the city’s global climate contribution or in global average temperature.

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Sustainable Energy for All reports project-site comparisons between 2016 and 2019: average air temperature at Green Corridor locations fell from 31.6°C to 27.1°C, while average surface temperature fell from 40.5°C to 30.2°C (Sustainable Energy for All). These are reported before-and-after values at corridor locations; the account does not establish a controlled comparison that isolates the corridors’ effect from other influences.

A 2024 UN Sustainable Development Goals thematic report, citing C40 Cities’ 2019 account, says the 30 corridors were associated with a 2°C reduction in average city temperature and anticipates a further 4–5°C decrease over two decades (UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024). The reported reduction and the longer-term expectation should not be treated as equivalent: the latter is a projection, not a measured outcome. The materials cited here do not provide an independent controlled evaluation confirming either figure as cooling caused solely by the corridors.

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For context, the World Bank describes Medellín’s urban heat island as nearly 6°C in its case-study framing. That figure describes the heat-island context, not the project’s measured impact.

What else did the project deliver?

The corridors were designed as more than a temperature intervention. Medellín lists particulate capture, noise buffering, biodiversity, ecological connectivity, recreation and water-resource protection among their benefits (Medellín Environment Department).

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Sustainable Energy for All reports that between 2016 and 2019, PM2.5 concentrations declined from 21.81 to 20.26 µg/m³ and PM10 from 46.04 to 40.4 µg/m³. The account does not establish that the corridors alone caused those changes across the city (Sustainable Energy for All).

Reported project figures also describe planting, public-space coverage and participation, but sources use different measures and periods:

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  • Cities100 (2019): 8,800 trees and palms planted, 65 hectares covered, a $16.3 million initiative, and 75 citizens trained as city gardeners and planting technicians (Cities100).
  • Sustainable Energy for All: 107 people from disadvantaged communities trained as gardeners and 2,600 workers employed from 2016 to 2019 (Sustainable Energy for All).
  • UN Environment (2019): the network’s stated scope included the verges of 18 roads and 12 waterways (UN Environment).

These figures come from separate reports and should not be combined as if they were one consistently defined project count.

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Why the “turned back global warming” claim is misleading

Global warming refers to a long-term rise in global temperatures. A city planting trees and vegetation can help reduce heat exposure in specific places, but a local change in street-level air or surface temperature is not evidence that global warming has been reversed. Medellín’s program is better understood as local heat adaptation and green infrastructure.

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The project’s broader planning logic is captured by Juan Bello, then Head of UN Environment in Colombia: “The Green Corridor project is an excellent example of how city planners and governments can use nature for smart urban design” (UN Environment). Medellín Secretary of Environment Sergio Orozco described its motivation as “the need to connect people to nature – recovering spaces that were occupied by concrete” (Sustainable Energy for All).

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