29 May

Communication and Integration: The keys to Sustainability

Reality Check Workshop Participants (from left to right) : Piero Pelizzaro (Head of the International Cooperation Unit, Kyoto Club, Rome), Lorenzo Bono (Climate Change and Urban Sustainability Manager, Ambiente Italia, Milan), Giovanni Fini (Coordinator of the Environmental Quality Unit, Bologna) The city of Bologna adopted the Bologna Local Urban Environment Adaptation Plan (BLUE AP) without having experienced a severe natural hazard. Based on the climate projections that were generated for the Local Climate Profile, the public stakeholders decided to develop and to implement the adaption plan in a preventive approach. The absence of catalyst, however, demands a different communication strategy to: 1) increase people awareness, and 2) get them involved Read more

Can moving closer to nature promote behavior change?

Sometimes the sound of birds cheer me up. Sometimes I just feel calmer listening to water flowing in the stream near our backyard. Believe it or not, moving closer to nature has done me a great deal of good. I found simple joys in tending my garden, in watching my vegetables grow, and in feeding my fishes in the pond. I became less stressed and more productive in my work. This is the impact of nature on me. There is a wealth of studies that assessed how nature affects our personal well-being. Recently, an article on The Guardian spelled out Read more

Integrating urban biodiversity into eco-systems based adaptation

The lecture began with Shela Patrickson giving basic introductions of the facilitator, panelists and speakers describing about the interesting concept of integrating urban biodiversity into ecosystem based adaptation. Resilient cities have the capability to absorb disturbances, and the maintenance of healthy ecosystem services can mitigate those impacts such as global climate change. Maintaining water quality, soil, agricultures, etc., climate change will be one of the main reasons for biodiversity loss. The session will explore about some of the links that strengthen and weaken biodiversity. Ecosystems are one of the essential things for climate change adaptation. The empowerment of local governments Read more

By

Removing the Bottleneck for Infrastructure Investments

The presentation initially began with basic introductions of the facilitator and panelists leading into focusing around a probable idea of strengthening infrastructure systems. The first speech focused on promoting a project relating to a sustainable infrastructure bankability study fund. This fund would essentially create a market mechanism to fund bankability studies, project sourcing through the proven GIB deal flow, and de-risking through GIB Sustainable Infrastructure Grading which should provide risk capital supporting the completion of bankability studies. According to Katarina Schneider Roos, during the early stages of the project development cycle, risk remains relatively high, but with more time the Read more

By

Rising Seas and Temperatures Raises the Need for Streamlining

To streamline something is to design for easy movement; to make more efficient and effective through faster working methods. Even though resilience is sometimes contrasted with efficiency, the pressing issues we face means that the two must go hand in hand in the implementation of the former, was the common denominator between presentations on climate vulnerability and risk assessment by panelists from India, Indonesia, Portugal and New Zealand.

Making space for the birds and the bees improves quality of life

City planners need practical tools to incorporate the different types of knowledge required to plan for urban biodiversity and ecosystem services. Just as important is the need to understand how urban biodiversity shapes, and is shaped, by quality of life aspects. The importance and role of biodiversity in cities suffers from an image problem explained graduate student Jennifer Rae Pierce from Cornell Univesity, USA, at a practitioners workshop showcasing two new planning tools for ecosystem services in urban areas. “We need to start thinking of biodiversity and ecosystem services as infrastructure for urban areas just like other types of infrastructure,” Read more

By

Desarrollo local y Cambio Climático, casos Latinoamérica

Latinoamérica estuvo presente en la tarde de hoy a través de dos grandes proyectos que actualmente se llevan a cabo entre ciudades asociadas. La medición de las huellas hídricas  y de Carbono adelantado por las ciudades de Quito ( Ecuador), La Paz ( Bolivia) y Lima ( Perú)  y la Agenda de Cambio Climático conjunta que suscribieron  Ciudad de México ( México) , Sao Paulo ( Brasil) y Buenos Aires  ( Argentina) fueron dos de los ejemplos expuestos dentro de la sesión “Haciendo el Cambio Climático Compatible con el Desarrollo”. El  primero de los proyectos,  que nació como respuesta a Read more