Climate change impacts cities everywhere. The blazing wildfires, heavy rains that cause large-scale flooding and fluctuating temperatures are some examples of the climate-related risks that need to be anticipated and prepared for in order to reduce their impact on our cities.  As most of the cities of UBC are located in the somewhat close vicinity of the Baltic Sea or a lake/river, the issues regarding sea level rise and flooding are of uttermost importance. Our cities need to become more resilient to climate change to continue being lively hubs for the residents today and in the future. Climate resilience as a concept stands for the “ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to hazardous events, trends or disturbances related to climate”.

To take steps to cope with the climate risks, cities have done resilience planning by creating a resilience strategies as a standalone guidelines that take into account the impacts of climate change in building codes, change transit routes, upgrades roads and neighbourhood cohesion. Sometimes, the resilience strategy is integrated into masterplans or other strategic documents like hazard mitigation plans, climate adaptation plans or risk vulnerability assessments. It is good to keep in mind that the resilience strategy has to be implemented holistically to have the anticipatory impact. It is not a new concept, as it is an ongoing endeavour to connect city functions and resources in ways that would benefit all stakeholders as well as the environment both today and in the future. When it comes to cooperation and partnerships toward climate resilience in cities, our cooperation with CDP hopefully has an impact on increasing climate resilience through emphasizing the importance of environmental data disclosure and sharing challenges as well as related good practices.

Next Tuesday, on 26 March 2019 at 10.30-12.00 EET, we will be having UBC Climate Resilience Webinar. This webinar is a great opportunity for our UBC cities to both present their climate work as well as learn from what others are doing in their pursuit toward climate resilience. According to the results of the CDP Cities Questionnaire 2018, UBC cities are generally more action-oriented and already making a change when it comes to climate change adaptation and preparedness than cities elsewhere in the world. Thus, our cities have the motivation and good practices to share with others who have yet to prepare (or are in the process of preparing) their strategies and action plans for more climate resilient urban environment.

So, take this chance to learn and exchange good practices with your UBC member city colleagues!

Climate work in two UBC cities - Tartu (Estonia) and Turku (Finland) - will be presented during the webinar as we have Mr. Marek Muiste from Tartu Regional Energy Agency and Ms. Tiina Vikman from City of Turku as guest speakers.  We will also have Ms. Shirin Reuvers as a guest speaker from CDP to explain how measuring environmental data can help in the process of being prepared to the impacts of climate change . Read more about the webinar schedule here. 
 

The webinar will be recorded and distributed to our UBC network after the webinar.