"The Addressing Urban and Human Settlement Issues in National Adaptation Plans Supplementary Guide aims to comprehensively address urban and human settlement issues in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) at the formulation and implementation stage.
The guide primarily targets decision-makers at the national level working on NAPs, both within and outside UNFCCC focal point ministries, while it also targets a broader set of stakeholders at the national and sub-national levels who are interested in NAPs or who may be involved in their implementation."
Category: Good Urban Governance
Gender-inclusive climate action in cities
"In recent years, a small number of extraordinary women have emerged as key leaders on global action to tackle climate change. However, more generally, women are grossly under-represented in high-level climate negotiations; tend to be disproportionately vulnerable to climate impacts; and climate solutions tend to ignore gender-specific issues, perpetuating a general bias of infrastructure and services designed predominantly for men. This report sets out proposals for how to correct these imbalances and, through focusing on an inclusive climate action approach, to ensure that investment to cut emissions and improve resilience will benefit the full diversity of urban citizens, rich and poor, men and women."
Upward and Outward Growth
“New analysis of the upward and outward growth of 499 cities over time confirms that the challenges of rapid outward expansion are greatest in lower-income cities that have weak planning and land governance and less mature financial markets. Unmanaged urban expansion increases the costs of service provision, deepens spatial inequities, and imposes heavy economic and environmental burdens. This paper highlights three key equity challenges linked to rapid outward expansion in cities of the global South: distorted land markets, deficient services in growing areas, and disjointed informal expansion. […]”
What the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C means for Cities
"Climate science must be accessible to urban policymakers, because without them, there will be no limiting global warming to 1.5°C. In cities and urban areas, there are actions that policymakers—along with residents and stakeholders, such as civil society, the academic community, and those in business and finance—can take to help limit warming and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The effects of a city’s actions are not limited to its own borders or region, and, likewise, lessons learned in some cities and urban areas can serve as inspiration and resources for solutions in other urban areas. This Summary for Urban Policymakers is synthesised from SR1.5, the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and relevant supporting research […]. It translates the key scientific
findings and policy observations of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C for officials and policymakers of the world’s cities and urban areas."
Festivals as Integrative Sites Valuing Tangible and Intangible Heritage for Sustainable Development
The city is always suspended as a case of ‘heres’ and ‘elsewheres’, connected … and that is why artists may be doing a better job than southern, or northern, theorists in ‘painting’, ‘composing’, ‘dancing’ and ‘writing’ cities into being.
Festivals provide a window onto practices which integrate tangible and intangible heritage in the context of wider sustainable development challenges.
This report presents an anthology of festivals, collated by researchers and practitioners, which reveals the possibilities, promise and pitfalls of planning for culture and sustainable development.
Solutions for gender fair cities
"This report is the product of the Womanability research-action project. It reveals the numerous, and sometimes unexpected, obstacles to the equal access and enjoyment of public spaces by women, from a lack of green spaces, accessible public transportation, and public toilets, to persistent harassment and outright violence. Building on these experiences and observations, the report offers a series of recommendations and best practices, many developed by women themselves, for creating the gender equal cities of the future. […]"