CDP, the international non-profit organisation that operates the global environmental disclosure system, has launched the CDP Adaptation & Action Explorer. The artificial intelligence-powered platform is designed to assist cities, states, and regional governments in assessing climate risks, determining adaptation priorities, and identifying potential financing pipelines.
The open-source tool was developed with pro-bono technical support from a six-month Google.org Fellowship, which provided a dedicated team of AI specialists, software engineers, and user experience designers. The platform aggregates disclosure data from more than 1,000 subnational governments across 80 countries, representing approximately 16 per cent of the global population.
The platform’s release comes amid rising urban exposure to environmental hazards. In 2025, over 94 per cent of subnational governments disclosing data through CDP reported direct impacts from climate hazards, including flooding, extreme heat, drought, and wildfires. With the United Nations projecting that the global urban population will rise to nearly 70 per cent by 2050, infrastructure resilience has become a focal point for regional planners.
Historically, corporate and municipal climate risk data has remained highly technical and fragmented, making it difficult to interpret without specialised expertise. Furthermore, local authorities have faced challenges in consistently communicating their project pipelines to institutional investors.
The new explorer addresses this by integrating historical CDP disclosures with spatial climate hazard data from Google Earth Engine and AI-driven analysis running on Google Cloud.
The digital infrastructure allows municipal authorities and investors to interact with climate data across several core categories:
- Location-based risk assessment: Users can analyse disclosed climate hazards, identify vulnerable socioeconomic sectors, and evaluate local barriers to adaptation. The system integrates map-based indicators covering eight major climate hazards to pinpoint acute geographical risks.
- Pipeline analysis: The interface provides a visible registry of corporate and municipal adaptation goals, ongoing initiatives, and pending projects requiring capital.
- Peer-to-peer benchmarking: Local governments can review adaptation measures implemented by peer cities facing similar environmental exposures to foster cross-border collaboration and structural alignment.
- Interactive AI assistant: An integrated natural language processing assistant allows users to query complex environmental datasets to support evidence-based municipal planning.
Access to long-term capital remains a primary barrier to local climate adaptation. According to CDP data from 2025, disclosing cities, states, and regions identified 2,871 distinct infrastructure projects requiring a collective investment of £76.4 billion ($114.3 billion).
Sherry Madera, CEO of CDP, stated that the tool aims to provide subnational governments with the practical clarity needed to translate complex risk metrics into structured action. She noted that combining risk data with visible opportunity pipelines allows local authorities to plan and communicate their capital requirements with greater confidence.
Katie Walsh, Global Director of Cities, States & Regions at CDP, added that the tool is designed to bring the global project pipeline into focus. She emphasised that making it simpler to surface investable projects will help connect municipal funding needs with the financial partners required to deliver on-the-ground infrastructure.
Maggie Johnson, Global Head at Google.org, concluded that the project demonstrates how cloud technology and machine learning can transform abstract environmental datasets into operational insights for subnational leaders managing climate resilience.
