Resilient Cities Congress Review

08/07/10

I recently had the privilege of attending the first ever world congress on cities and adaptation to climate change. The Resilient Cities congress, organised by ICLEI, took place in Bonn and was timed to coincide with the Bonn Climate Change Talks.

The congress was attended by over 500 delegates from 5 continents and was truly inspirational. The conference showed time and time again that much excellent work is taking place across the world’s major cities to tackle the challenges presented by climate change.

Presenters from New York, Calgary, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands provided an overview of the sophisticated tools that they are utilising to assess risks, plan and implement adaptation action and strategy. Speakers from low and medium income countries provided fascinating insights into the challenges that they face to developing resilience in the face of devastating changes in climate combined with existing vulnerabilities to natural disasters and in many cases an existing lack of basic infrastructure systems.

There were many highlights across the three days of the congress; below are links and information about three of the presentations that I found most useful:

A review of climate change strategies and the inclusion of climate change adaptation considerations.

LucVrolijks of Urban Progress Design presented an analysis of the way in which ten city climate change plans have addressed climate proofing, his presentation and congress paper make an interesting read exploring the extent to which Environmental, Infrastructure, Spatial, Social and Economic considerations have been factored in to the development of climate change adaptation strategies. The presentation and full congress paper can be downloaded from the urban progress website. 

Climate Change Adaptation in New York City: Building a risk management response. 

Cynthia Rosenzweig co chair of the Urban climate change research network Columbia University and NASA, provided an overview of New York City’s work to date on climate change adaptation. The formation and structure of the NYC Panel on Climate change has been critical to the success of the city’s work to date much of which has focussed on assessing the risks to infrastructure. Download the presentation here.  

A resilient region through resilient communities.

Larry Quick from Resilient Futures provided an excellent insight into work being carried out into the resilience of cities along the North East Corridor of the United States. Larry highlighted the interconnectivity of cities and in particular discussed the need for work to develop economic resilience. For more information visit the Resilient Futures website.

So, what made the congress so inspiring? On a personal note I was moved by the courage and commitment shown by so may people to tacking the very real impacts and consequences of climate change. Positive solutions, innovate thinking and local action came to the fore in the face of what could so easily be perceived as overwhelming challenges

The programme section of the Resilient Cities Congress website includes links to a wide range of other presentations and includes further information about the areas covered during the congress.

Anna Beswick

anna@sniffer.org.uk

SCCIP Public Sector Officer