Urban transformations represent forms of adaptation that challenge the principles in which a society is established  and can be deployed to go beyond the existing limits of development justice and climate change adaptation capacity. While not all adaptation will be transformative, transformative capacities support both ongoing adaptation efforts and the broader systemic change processes that align adaptation efforts with decarbonisation requirements and the delivery of SDGs. 'Urban transformative capacity' focuses on understanding what elements of a system to respond to external changing conditions in a manner that transforms the system toward a more sustainable state . The capacities required to deliver adaptation action in cities and settlements are 'transformative capacities', because they move away from thinking of adaptation as an adjustment to a changing external environment to think instead of it as a reconfiguration of infrastructures and institutions to build resilience in the surrounding environment . Reflective and iterative learning is integral to fostering transformative capacity . Transformative capacity extends across multiple agency levels or geographical locations, as well as various domains . The components of transformative capacity in cities and settlements can be grouped into three categories :  agency and forms of interaction,  development processes and  relational dimensions . Alongside different forms of technical expertise, there is a need to broaden the interventions of disadvantaged populations in urban sustainability .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report