Moving towards climate-resilient cities

Globally, cities account for more than half of the world's population and 80% of economic activity. And cities have a key role to play in tackling climate change: they are responsible for generating a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions, but they are also disproportionately exposed to its impacts. These factors highlight the need to prioritize urban development within IKI over the past ten years, contributing to the climate-resilient, biodiverse, smart and low-emission cities of tomorrow. 

The CitiesAdapt project is an important initiative in the context of these efforts, supporting medium-sized cities in Mexico and South Africa in moving towards a climate-resilient urban development. Its activities include capacity building, strengthening of planning processes, the implementation of concrete adaptation measures, peer-to-peer learning and vertical integration. The event highlighted three “ready to transfer” tools and instruments from the project:

1. A ‘Remote Sensing Tool’, using open-source data to map urban heat islands,
2. ‘idea competitions’ as an instrument to ensure youth participation in the process to plan adaptation measures and
3. a ‘Sustainable Urban Financing Instruments Training’ capacitating local governments.

Thank you to all participants!