Urban Climate Change Research Network’s (UCCRN) Second Assessment Report on Cities and Climate Change (ARC 3-2) was released at the IPCC Cities Science Conference in Edmonton, Canada. More than 300 scientists, including CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer, contributed to this important book that explored the implications of changing climatic conditions on critical urban physical and social infrastructure sectors and intersectoral concerns.
Please read the Summary for Policy Makers at:
CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer was a panelist at IPCC Cities Science Conference in Edmonton, Canada that took place between March 5-7, 2018.
Along with other panelists from UN-Habitat, GZI, World Resources Institute, and the UN Secretary General’s office, Ebru Gencer presented the interlinkages of global frameworks and how they can translate into action for climate resilient development.
For a list of all speakers and panels, please see:
CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer was invited to join the Advisory Board of EU Horizon 2020 CLARITY Project. The objective of the European Commission funded CLARITY Project is to develop Integrated Climate Adaptation Service tools for Improving Resilience Measure Efficiency, and to demonstrate the benefit of climate services for climate proofing of vulnerable large-scale investments such as urban infrastructure.
For more information on the CLARITY Project, please visit http://www.clarity-h2020.eu
CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer was a panelist at the UN Youth Assembly 2018.
Over the course of three days, February 14-16, 2018, the Youth Assembly brought together 1,200 delegates from nearly 100 different countries around the world in a meaningful dialogue with key players in various industries and sectors. Delegates learned practical skills and gained fresh insights into the global challenges of the 21st century. The conference became a rich platform to highlight the importance of innovation, civic engagement, and collaborative partnerships to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Ebru Gencer spoke to the youth delegates on the current challenges of disasters, climate change, and rapid urbanization and how civil society, including youth organizations can engage to reduce risk and help increase resilience in urban areas.
For more information on the activities of the Youth Assembly, please follow @YouthAssembly
The Handbook for Local Government Leaders: How to Make Cities More Resilient was launched at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Handbook is a contribution of the Making Cities Resilient Campaign to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Handbook, which was a collaboration between UNISDR, CUDRR+R and UPAG provides tools, resources, and case studies for local governments that are part of the Making Cities Resilient Campaign to reduce disaster risk and increase their resilience. Over 4000 cities have joined the Campaign since its launch in 2010.
For more information on the Making Cities Resilient Campaign and its tools, please visit:https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/
To download the book free:
https://www.unisdr.org/campaign/resilientcities/assets/documents/guidelines/Handbook%20for%20local%20government%20leaders%20[2017%20Edition].pdf
CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer and Wesley Rhodes have just published a new article titled “Toward Climate Resilient Development in the USA: From Federal to Local Level Initiatives and Practices since the 2000s,” as part of the publication Urban Disaster Resilience and Security (Springer 2017). You can access the document at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-68606-6_4
The article explores the evolving concept of disaster risk management and climate resilience building in the United States of America (USA) within the last two decades. The chapter starts by examining federal-level actions towards disaster risk management and climate adaptation and resilience and then delves into local-level actions through the case studies of Nashville, Tennessee, and Hoboken, New Jersey. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the future of climate resilience in the USA. The chapter illustrates that the availability of multiple layers of government has been an effective safety guard against any individual layer’s potential unwillingness to undertake protective risk management or climate resilience building. At state and regional levels, where political will was lacking, federal-level support, particularly in the Obama era, and the initiatives of private foundations have been very valuable. Nowhere, though, have climate resilience building actions in the USA been proven more effective than at the city administrative level. As everywhere else, local-level governments in the USA are at the forefront of disasters and the impacts of climate change and try to take the initiatives of preparing their cities for protection.
On January 26, 2018, CUDRR+R’s Ebru Gencer and Simone Buechler attended the Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum Workshop on Prevention.
Gencer and Buechler were among the experts who discussed the different aspects of prevention and how they relate to the overarching goals of the United Nations, as a kick-off to SSRC’s research project on Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Prevention.
For more on SSRC and their activities, please see:
During 6-7 December, 2017, CUDRR+R and partners IIED-AL and ALTERRA brought together the 3 project cities (Santa Ana, El Salvador; Dosquebradas, Colombia; and Santa Tome, Argentina), city authorities and their local partners together at a workshop in Panama City, Panama. Organized in partnership with UNISDR Americas office, the workshop aimed to develop a conversation on project process, challenges and lessons learned, while providing a city-to-city exchange and discussing next steps for implementation.
The workshop also provided the city authorities with an array of resilience options, including those that are applied in the City of Panama with partnership with RC100 (100 Resilient Cities) and globally and throughout the Americas via the Making Cities Resilient Campaign. The 3 Cities used the tools of the Campaign to assess their resilience and officially joined it as a sign of their commitment to resilience.
Thank you to all other partners that joined the workshop and to our funding organizations CDKN, FFLA and IDRC as part of the Climate Resilient Cities Initiative.
To learn more about the workshop, please see the opinion piece published by CDKN:https://cdkn.org/2017/12/opinion-reflections-achieving-climate-resilience-latin-american-cities/?loclang=en_gb
CUDRR+R, along with partner organizations IIED-Latin America and Alterra, presented Mayor Fernando Muñoz of Dosquebras, Colombia with a portfolio of options for a more resilient and inclusive city on October, 4th. This portfolio of options was derived from the validation process following a successful workshop held in March, 2017.
Read more about the portfolio of options (en español) here and here.
CUDRR+R participated at the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) at Columbia University in New York, on September 18-19, 2017. At ICSD, Wesley Rhodes made a poster presentation on CUDRR+R and partners’ project “Participatory Planning for Climate Resilient Development in Latin America” as part of the Climate Resilient Cities Initiative.
For full list of presentations and abstracts, please see ICSD website:
