“Modern urban infrastructure and their systems of operation are highly interdependent. They are formed of multiple connections, feedback and feedforward paths, and intricate branching where services or information are transferred across city sectors. This means that if one system fails, it can have cascading impacts on other systems. Climate change can compound these impacts significantly. Some systems may be directly affected by climate change events – such as roads during flooding. Other systems may be affected indirectly, such as the health sector and the financial sector if there are power outages. The interdependencies of city systems combined with climate impacts can lead to a ripple effect of disruptions. Understanding infrastructure interdependencies and critical failure points is therefore vital to achieving long- term climate resilience across a whole city.”
Category: Cities and climate change
The Future of Asian & Pacific Cities
A sustainable future occurs when planning lays a foundation; resilience guards against future risk; smart cities deploy the best technology for the job; and financing tools help pay for it all.
The report focuses on four essentials that cities must get right. Urban and territorial planning, strengthening resilience to future risks, supporting the effective interplay between people and technology, and financing tools, all of which are essential to deliver sustainable smart cities in our region. With three to five future policy pathways per chapter, the report offers ways to seize these opportunities and realize sustainable urban development by 2030. Regional cooperation and strong partnerships among all interested parties will be essential to pool expertise, accelerate progress and deliver the integrated approach needed.
Cities leading the way
Cities are already leading the way with ambitious plans to accelerate action on climate change. With more political will, community support and collaboration, cities can make an even greater contribution to securing a climate safe future.
The seven cities showcased here report that the planning process is an opportunity to engage internal and external stakeholders on the level of ambition needed and the roles different players can take. Co-creating the vision for the city and collaborating on the development of solutions ensures stakeholders have ownership of the process, support the long-term vision and take action themselves.
While each city has taken a different approach to the style and structure of their climate action plan/s, all of them demonstrate ambition and accelerated delivery as core objectives. The approaches highlighted in this report are intended to inspire other cities across the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and beyond to follow suit and play their part in delivering the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Rather than attempt to summarise each city’s plan, the case studies presented in this report highlight a particular aspect that could be of interest to other cities.
Localising the 2030 Agenda through Integrated Urban Development
Action-oriented studies show that the 2030 Agenda will only be successful if implemented at the urban level and together with urban actors. In fact, cities – as actors and places – are crucial to achieve two thirds of all SDG targets. This insight and the principle of interconnectedness underpin the urgency to follow integrated approaches for sustainable urban development to break down barriers between sectors and stakeholders, and between institutions and levels of government. […] The publication describes five development projects implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ). These projects applied an integrated urban development approach that led to comprehensive and sustainable results in urban areas thereby contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Unlocking the Potential for Transformative Climate Adaptation in Cities
"Cities are increasingly integrating climate adaptation priorities into development policies and plans. However, there remains a gap in understanding how incremental urban adaptation solutions can lead to more transformative change over the long term. Transformative adaptation reorients urban climate actions around addressing entrenched equity and climate justice challenges. It focuses on systemic changes to development processes that improve people’s quality of life, enhance the social and economic vibrancy of cities, and ensure sustainable, resilient, and inclusive urban futures. This paper systematically reviews literature and case studies across the global North and South to assess the barriers and enablers to transformative climate adaptation, focusing on examples and evidence from a wide range of cities."
Integration of shared mobility approaches in Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning
This document provides guidance on a specific topic related to Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP). It is based on the concept of SUMP, as outlined by the European Commission’s Urban Mobility Package1 and described in detail in the European SUMP Guidelines (second edition).
Numerous sharing concepts have emerged in recent years, which have been developing dynamically ever since. Some sharing concepts – esp. station-based car sharing – address alternatives to car ownership in order to reduce the space consumption, but others serve rather as an additional mobility option to get around: free floating car sharing and public bike rental systems, newer phenomena in the form of e-Scooter sharing and e-Moped sharing, on-demand mobility concepts (ride hailing and ride sharing) as well as the shared transport of goods (freight transport). The following brochure concentrates in particular on sharing services and the starting points for municipalities within a SUMP. It shows the steps in sustainable urban mobility planning when particular planning aspects must be taken into account while integrating sharing modes.
The Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development,
In 2016, Member States decided that the report should be produced once every four years, to inform the quadrennial SDG review deliberations at the General Assembly, and that it should be written by an Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General. They mandated that the Group would consist of 15 experts representing a variety of backgrounds, scientific disciplines and institutions, ensuring geographical and gender balance.
The Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development, is the first Global Sustainable Development Report prepared by the Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General. It does not produce new evidence; rather it capitalizes on existing knowledge across disciplines, through an “assessment of assessments”. It highlights state-of-the-art knowledge for transformations towards sustainable development and identifies concrete areas where rapid, transformational change is possible. The Report is not only a product but also a process for advancing collaboration among actors in science, Government, the private sector and civil society in all regions of the world towards identifying and realizing concrete pathways for transformation driven by evidence.
Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience
The report puts forward a bold vision for how to transform key economics systems, making them more resilient and productive. The Commission finds that climate adaptation can produce significant economic returns: the overall rate of return on investments in improved resilience is high, with benefit-cost ratios ranging from 2:1 to 10:1, and in some cases even higher.
The analysis specifically finds that investing $1.8 trillion globally in five areas from 2020 to 2030 could generate $7.1 trillion in total net benefits. The five areas of climate adaptation the report considers are: early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, improved dryland agriculture, mangrove protection, and investments in making water resources more resilient. These represent just a portion of the total investments needed and total benefits available.
Recent events have shown that climate change affects people everywhere. Furthermore, without action, millions of people will be pushed further into poverty, leading to increased conflict and instability.
Climate Proofing Urban Development
Almost 30 local practitioners from 12 cities, 10 countries and four continents accepted the invitation of Connective Cities and the city of Dortmund to a dialogue event on the topic of “Climate proofing urban development”, which took place from 3 to 5 September 2019 in Dortmund, Germany.
Climate change and the effects of more frequent climate impacts and extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, severe thunderstorms, storms, prolonged droughts and heat waves are posing major challenges for cities around the world. In addition, climate change is a cross-cutting issue that affects all areas and departments of a city administration and therefore requires a cross-departmental approach.
Starting with an exchange of experiences on good practices and projects in the cities, implementation challenges were identified and eventually the participants developed six project ideas for six cities, which could lead to an improvement of the respective strategies and implementation plans.
The event concluded with an excursion to Lake Phoenix – a mega-project of the city of Dortmund to transform an industrial wasteland into a new vibrant area providing new housing, workplaces and recreation opportunities around an artificial lake. The transformation of the area also had positive effects on the climate of the area contributing to local climate adaptation.
Climate Protection and Air Pollution Control
Many air pollution control measures also help to protect the climate and vice versa. It is essential to use the synergies for environment and health.
The publication presents examples of various strategies and measures for clean air in municipalities and provides ideas on how these two areas can be interlinked.