Hosted by Resilience First in partnership with Arup
Overview:
Cities are hotspots of global climate emissions and risk, but they are also hubs for innovation, action and resilience. Home to over half the world’s population, cities generate two-thirds of its economic output, and emit three-fourths of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Cities are also a pivotal opportunity for a rapid transition into a sustainable, low-energy intensity development.
Regardless of the success of global efforts to reduce emissions, certain climate impacts are already locked into the system, as evidenced by the increasing severity and frequency of acute climate events around the world. The effects of these are particularly pronounced in urban areas – meeting these challenges effectively to protect lives and livelihoods will require deep collaboration between actors in the value chain, and a focus on both mitigating future emissions while enhancing resilience to existing impacts.
The opportunity for effective, efficient and rapid action in cities depends on accessible, actionable science at city scale. In 2022, Resilience First, with the Resilience Rising Consortium, convened regional and global stakeholders to develop the Summary for Urban Policymakers, a companion series of three reports and a derivative action agenda to scale science based urban resilience solutions.
This discussion, led by Resilience First’s Executive Director Martyn Link, will explore the key findings and recommendations from the SUP initiative to enhance urban climate resilience, and will draw on Arup’s international dataset of whole life carbon emissions for buildings, which together support the ambition to achieve the UN High Level Climate Champions’ 2030 Breakthrough Outcome for the Built Environment.
With inputs from both private and public sector stakeholders, the session will explore the vital role of a resilient built environment sector in accelerating climate adaptation across global cities.
Confirmed speakers:
- Yann Françoise, Deputy Director and Head of Climate Department, Climate & Ecological transition directorate, City of Paris
- Cristina Gamboa, Chief Executive Officer, World Green Building Council
- Becci Taylor Director, Building Engineering, Arup
- Richard de Cani, Director, and Global Cities, Planning and Design Leader, Arup
- Martyn Link, Executive Director, Resilience First
For more information or to register, please contact Beena Chester on contact@resiliencefirst.org.
About Arup
Arup is a global collective of designers, planners, engineers, architects, consultants, and technical specialists dedicated to sustainable development, and to using imagination, technology and rigor to shape a better world. Since its founding in 1946, Arup has grown into an international group of multidisciplinary practices with more than 17,000 staff in 89 offices across 33 countries.
Sustainability shapes the way Arup operates as a company. Arup’s sustainable development policy is organised around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The organisation has made a commitment to contribute meaningfully to them, creating shared value for their clients and communities while safeguarding our planet. Arup aims to apply their expertise and diversity of thinking to the pursuit of a safe, sustainable, and resilient future — for all. The opportunity for effective, efficient and rapid action in cities depends on accessible, actionable science at the city scale. The IPCC Summary for Policymakers initiative responds to this need to distill urban centric messages from the IPCC reports through an unprecedented dialogue, providing scientific evidence to inform climate action at city and regional scales.
Arup is proud to have assisted Resilience Rising in partnership with GCoM, IIHS, Resilience First, GIZ, and BMWK with the project delivery and contribution from the practitioner perspective across our global climate experts.
About the IPCC Summary for Urban Policymakers (SUP) Reports
The SUP initiative develops a companion series to the official IPCC sixth assessment reports, distilling the latest climate change science for the urban context, through a co-creation process with IPCC authors, city officials and business leaders from across the globe.
Launched at COP27, in partnership with Resilience Rising, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy’s networks of cities, Resilience First, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) in collaboration with GIZ, the three-volume series of scientific reports provide an unprecedented presentation of science as targeted and accessible messages to increase and accelerate action on the climate crisis in urban areas.
The 3 reports are accompanied by a 9-step action agenda which captures the key findings from the SUP volumes, and go beyond the SUP Series and the foundational IPCC reports, to include inputs from city and business leaders gathered through a series of regional convenings. These inputs are informed by knowledge derived from the SUP process, with the goal of establishing a platform to inspire and scale urban solutions based on science.
