SESSION 1A – Fostering collaboration for green infrastructure within and beyond municipal departments
10.00 - 11.30
Urban green has traditionally been the domain of a single, often environmental, department, with other areas being cut off into other parts – social cohesion with social affairs, water with water management, and so on. Reconceptualizing urban green as nature-based solutions highlights the cross-departmental and cross-domain nature of these spaces and interventions, due to their many co-benefits. However, working across boundaries remains challenging, whether for political, technical or financial reasons. In recent years, however, a number of European cities have led successful experiments in the transversal implementation nature-based solutions. These early-adopters have shown the added value of these approaches by mainstreaming nature-based solutions in municipal planning processes, generating stable budgets by linking resources, and raising awareness of and pursuing shared interests.
Confirmed Speakers:
- Helen Hinds, City of Newcastle
- Magnus Rothman, City of Stockholm
- Duarte d´Araújo Mata, City of Lisbon
- Bernadett Kiss, Lund University
Facilitated by: Matthew Bach and Alice Reil, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
SESSION 2A - Choosing a nature-based intervention that fits: inspiration and logic
12.00 - 13.15
It is no news that green and blue infrastructures can support multiple functions and provide several benefits and co-benefits in contrast to or when combined with conventional concrete and steel built spaces. The multifunctional networks of green and blue are being designed for different spatial scales, linking neighborhoods, promoting social activities and positively impacting social cohesion. It also has the ecological function of restoring ecosystems with greening and improving the biodiversity in cities. Cities increasingly are aiming for more and quality urban greens and blues. But how do we come about it? There are many enablers and barriers towards such transformative actions- technical being one. This session will look at the green and blue interventions from the angle of technical challenges, such as difficulties in green-grey integration, lack of expertise in the field and/or little investment or ownership for implementing and sustaining nature based interventions. Thus, rather than showcasing ‘best practices’ or technical solutions by cities and SMEs respectively, responses to real-life challenges and potential solutions to bring back nature into cities will be sought in the session.
Confirmed speakers
- Terje Laskemoen, City of Oslo
- Teresa Ribeiro, City of Cascais
- Joanna Kiernicka-Allavena, City of Wroclaw
Respondents
- Doris Schnepf, Green4Cities
- Jonathan Müller, Helix Pflanzen
- Emma Haliday, Greenspace Scotland
Session 3A: How to make your case: create your own nature-based solution business canvas
14.30 - 16.30
In this session, participants will share future planned nature-based interventions in European cities and will receive training in the use of the Business Model Canvas technique. In an interactive activity, participants will complete a business model canvas for specific nature-based interventions, taking into account the different types of value and resources relevant to the funding, cooperations and commitments required to put NBS planning into practice.
Speakers:
- Valeria Stacchini, Metropolitan City of Bologna
- Matija Vuger and Nikola Petkovic, City of Zagreb
- Jonathan Moxon, City of Leeds
- Marcia Toledo, The Nature Conservancy
Trainers: Isobel Fletcher (Horizon Nua)
Facilitated by Clara Grimes, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and Svenja Schuchmann, Climate Alliance
SESSION 1B – Whose resilient city?
10.00 - 11.30
Making room for social justice in climate action Whereas cities are increasingly investing in building urban resilience in response to the effects of the climate change, there has been less attention paid to how to make sure these efforts equitably address the needs of all those affected. This session will unpack the concept of social justice in the context of adapting to climate change at the city level, recognising it as a wide-ranging endeavour that warrants consideration throughout the cycle of planning, implementation and monitoring. A wide spectrum of strategies will be explored here, from mapping the social distribution of climate impacts, to empowering vulnerable and/or minority groups to influence adaptation planning, to making the benefits of adaptation planning (e.g. public parks and gardens) accessible to all.
Confirmed speakers
- Aleksandra Kazmierczak, European Environment Agency
- Ib Jespersgaard, City of Vejle
- Tonet Font Ferrer, City of Barcelona
- Christiane Lütgert, City of Halle
Respondents
- Johannes Langemeyer, Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability
- Mikael Schultz, Vejle Water and Sewage, Spildevand
- Stephanie Haury, Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR)
Facilitated by: Eleanor Chapman and Veronica Rebollo, ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability
SESSION 2B - Challenges and solutions for smaller municipalities
12.00 - 13.15
The EU has around 800 cities above 50,000 inhabitants but ten thousands of towns and smaller municipalities, many of them still of urban character. Capacities, resources and governance is however different from bigger cities. Many supporting adaptation tools are developed with having the bigger cities in mind. A full adaptation planning cycle can therefore feel overwhelmingly and the tools not applicable for smaller municipalities. The session will explore the challenges of adaptation planning in smaller municipalities, their specific needs for support and possible solutions.
Confirmed speakers:
- Maria Gruner and Olaf Lier, Municipality of Coswig
- Barbara Kulmer, Municipality of Weiz
- Bettina Fischer, Regional Government of Styria
- Andrea Carosi, Municipality of Urbino - Sviluppo Marche S.r.l.
- Lorenzo Bono, Ambiente Italia, MASTER Adapt project
Facilitated by: Birgit Georgi, Strong cities in a changing climate, and Majana Heidenreich, TU Dresden
SESSION 3B - Strategic narratives for urban heat and health
14.30 - 16.30
It is highly likely that climate change is going to exacerbate health issues related to extreme heat waves and long-term droughts. Urban areas – agglomerations of people, businesses and infrastructure – are at particular risk due to the so-called urban heat island effect that best illustrates the local dimension of the global climate change. Without any doubt, reliable risk assessments, early warning systems, spatial planning and risk communication play an important role in building response capacity and preparedness. But behind these assessments, systems and policies are decisions made by people. Narratives can be a strategic tool to support better decision-making, by influencing perceptions and behaviour in different contexts. In this session, participants will learn how to build effective narratives, focussing on 3 different cases: (1) Prioritisation and allocation of available resources – how to convince a local policymaker to allocate funds to prevent health risks of citizens in the perspective of urban heat stress? (2) Scope and design of measures to address urban heat: how to convince city officers from different departments to work jointly on the design and implementation of needed measures? (3) Exposure to risk and increasing adaptive capacity: how to encourage urban citizens to take protective and preventative measures before and during extreme heat events?
Trainer: Gabriela Michalek, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Speakers:
- Maria Nikolaidou and Georgios Soultis, City of Larissa
- Alenka Loose, City of Ljubljiana
- Sylvia Berndorfer, City of Vienna
- Marcos Quijal, City of Barcelona
Respondents:
- Virginia Murray, Head of Global Disaster Risk Reduction, Public Health England
SESSION 1C – Innovative schemes for financing resilient cities
10.00 - 11.30
According to the official data, cities are responsible for almost 70% of global energy-related GHG (IEA, 2016). Moreover, around 66% of the world’s population will be living in the cities by 2050 (UN, 2018). Hence, the urban areas could be affected by the climate change the most and should respond to this challenge – mobilize climate finance both, for mitigation and adaptation projects. But in fact, there is a lack of financial resources needed to conduct the projects in this area because of various obstacles on the way: context barriers; business model barriers; internal capacity barriers (CPI, 2018). As indicated by the UNEP, the costs of adaptation could range between 140 billion USD and 300 billion USD in 2020-2030 on the annual basis (UNEP, 2018). That is why cities are looking for new opportunities to finance their adaptation projects – adapt to climate change and meet their sustainable development goals. There are numerous schemes, which have been already implemented in different cities all around the world in order to finance climate change adaptation measures: (i) subsidies; (ii) direct private financing and a loan; (iii) direct funding; (iv) climate bonds; (v) direct funding and co-funding (EEA, 2017). First, Linda Romanovska (Fresh Thoughts) will try to summarize existing good particles and best cases in mobilizing adaptation finance in the urban areas. Subsequently, 2-3 city representatives will share their experiences with the other participants. Afterwards, the participants will try to elaborate a short guidance on financing the resilient cities and present financing schemes for their own cases.
Confirmed speakers:
- Stefanie Lindenberg, European Investment Bank/NCFF
- Eleni Myrivili, City of Athens
- John Stevens, City of Bristol
- Marjorie Breyton, Unipolsai
- Maria Telhado, City of Lisbon
Respondents:
- Linda Romanovska, Fresh Thoughts Consulting
- Peter B. Meyer, EP Systems
- Eric Schellekens, Arcadis
- Reimund Schwarze, UFZ
Facilitated by: Oleksandr Sushchenko (UFZ)
SESSION 2C - Building urban resilience through integrated mitigation and adaptation practices
12.00 - 13.15
The integration of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change can provide considerable value for urban resilience, as both approaches often share common drivers. Not only can synergies be exploited to reduce climate risks and carbon emissions simultaneously – lock-in into counterproductive infrastructure and policies can also be avoided. Taking advantage of planned adaptation measures, it is often possible to “piggyback” and to add mitigation measures at only a small cost and vice-versa. In this session, Covenant of Mayors signatory cities will share their experiences with regard to an integrated and cross-departmental planning approach to climate mitigation and adaptation in general, and with regard to incorporating integrated measures into Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) more specifically. Challenges and potential ways to overcome them will be discussed with the audience.
Confirmed speakers:
- Paolo Bertoldi, European Commission Joint Research Centre
- Edgars Augustins, Municipality of Saldus
- Catarina Freitas, City of Almada
- Malake Muñoz, Basque Country
- Alberto Maria Rigon, City of Vicenza
- Jorg Pieneman, City of Rotterdam
Facilitated by: Giorgia Rambelli (Covenant of Mayors Office)
SESSION 3C - Evaluation and monitoring as effective mechanisms to improve local adaptation policies
14.30 - 16.30
Monitoring of adaptation and resilience policies is a task which often is tackled only once the policy has started, and is implemented in response to financial and or legal obligations. Yet, regular assessment is essential to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the actions and activities implemented and evaluation of the observed performance could be used to inform adjustment and tailoring of measures to respond to the city’s changing needs. A monitoring strategy designed according to this needs could become an integrated part of a long term living adaptation strategy under regular review, which engages with stakeholders and citizens for assessing the success of policies and the needs for adjusting goals and strategies. A monitoring strategy responding to these needs for periodic assessment will take into account both qualitative and quantitative data indicating the measure to which results achieved and goals set out have been reached, will use a variety of a variety of different sources for data, including local knowledge and perceptions and will use the communication of results for dissemination and awareness raising.
Trainers: Bernd Decker, EASME/LIFE programme and Adina Dumitru, University of A Coruna
Speakers:
- Zuzana Hudekova, City of Bratislava-Karlova
- Susana Kankaanpaa, City of Helsinki
- Piero Pelizzaro, City of Milan
- Sjoerd de Vreng, City of Nijmegen
- Lucie Blondel, Climate Alliance/Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy
Facilitated by: Margaretha Breil, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici