Cooperation between Union of the Baltic Cities and CDP for the last four years has been able to engage more than 25 of our member cities to consistently disclose their environmental data, demonstrate actions in climate change adaptation and mitigation in our region.
Today over 850 cities around the world chose CDP to disclose their climate data and actions. Disclosing environmental data through CDP gives cities a number of advantages, from improved engagement of stakeholders within the city to centralizing data and tracking own progress. Furthermore, CDP provides cities with all publicly available data and finds areas of opportunity for your city. The CDP reporting platform offers cities simple and clear way to disclose their environmental plans and data and we would like to encourage more UBC member cities to join the disclosure.
CDP scores the data of the disclosing cities yearly and provides detailed feedback to them on how to improve their results, this gives the cities ability to benchmark their performance and completeness of their responses. Scores are not available publicly except for those who receive highest – A score. In 2019 out of 105 cities worldwide, six UBC cities were granted A score and were praised for their excellence in climate adaptation, thus, placing members of the UBC among leading climate actors in the world. (Find more information on scoring methodology via: Cities 2020 Scoring methodology and full A list 2019 cities via: Cities A List 2019)
Facing challenges together
The new decade brought our community an unforeseen global challenge. The everyday life routine has been rethought rapidly, changing the whole way of thinking and planning the future. Nevertheless, we must stay on track with our action towards another challenge, climate change and keep on building a sustainable and resilient future for our region.
In these challenging times we would also like to embrace the sense of community in the Baltic Sea Region in our path to climate adaptation and express our solidarity and understanding towards our cities. This year’s disclosure period begun in the middle of April and will stay open until August 26th to provide cities with more time to complete the questionnaire. We are more than happy to offer all possible support for our members in 2020 disclosure round.
There have been slight changes to the Cities Questionnaire this year, you can find detailed information on changes through the CDP Question Changes and Map: 2019 to 2020. The 2020 Cities questionnaire covers the following topics among others: Climate Hazards and Vulnerability, Adaptation, Emissions Reduction, Energy and Water Security. You can find out more information on all possible questions via: Cities 2020 Questionnaire.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay updated and see the best practices in climate adaptation and mitigation from fellow member cities. You can find out more about why and how to report from our CDP reporting information package for UBC cities. You can also check out more best practices in CDP reporting from fellow member cities via: Key tips for CDP reporting from Lahti, Riga and Tartu.
UBC-CDP Report from 2019
UBC publishes every year a UBC-CDP cooperation report based on the data member cities disclose to CDP. The 2019 cooperation report “UBC cities' adaptation actions to extreme weather events” highlights nature-based solutions as well as adaptation planning activities from the cities. Read more about the findings and the concrete actions. Download your copy of the report.
Author: Adham Maharramli