The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework and the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration all highlight the pivotal role of local and sub-national governments in achieving European and global climate and biodiversity targets. The EU Biodiversity Strategy’s call on cities with over 20,000 inhabitants to develop Urban Greening Plans by the end of 2021 and the forthcoming legally binding nature restoration targets, which also include urban nature targets, echo the need for cities and regions to step up timely and cross-cutting actions to tackle the interlinked climate and biodiversity crises.

Nature-based solutions are a promising vehicle for ecosystem restoration and for strengthening resilience to climate change impacts. Yet, to achieve the desired impacts, coordinated action and planning across scales and sectors are required. They require a system-based design as part of a wider, strategically planned and managed network of green and blue areas, as well as the urban technical and social infrastructure. Also, collaboration across sectors (such as green space planning, water management, public utilities, land managers, etc.), private and public actors is imperative for large-scale implementation to be sustainable.

This session will focus on urban and regional approaches of successfully embedding biodiversity and climate action in policy and practice. It will shed light on cross-sectoral approaches towards nature-positive planning, challenges and solutions, to chart out ways to systematically integrate nature into planning.