About this Discussion

Urban centres provide opportunities for a range of social and cultural activities, as well as being critical for innovations in science, technology and education. They are also of critical importance for social and economic development. However, with approximately 40% of global energy use taking place within city buildings, this sector is also the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions.

As a result, the design and use of energy and resource-efficient buildings has a key role in climate change mitigation to accelerate the global green economy transition. Although vast savings are possible by constructing new green buildings and retrofitting existing buildings, even greater gains can be achieved by adopting a long-term life-cycle approach involving stakeholders at different stages – from environmentally-minded investors and architects, to sustainable extraction, construction and usage, and the eventual demolition and the recycling or disposal of the building materials.

Cities are well-placed to play a major role in decoupling economic development from resource use and environmental impacts, while finding a better balance between social, environmental and economic objectives. Resource-efficient cities combine greater productivity and innovation with lower costs and reduced environmental impacts, offering at the same time financial savings and increased sustainability.

Cities and Urban Development

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"What’s good for the city is good for the country," said Claudia López, mayor of Bogota making the case for electrifying mass transit to achieve climate goals. Together with Bogota, several other cities are rethinking their urban transport, from reviving electric tram lines to building cable cars. How do these cities make mass transit more attractive?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/climate/cities-public-transit-electric-tram-ferry-bus-cable-car.h...
Green Growth Knowledge Partnership(GGKP), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit(GIZ) GmbH, United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative

On 30 September (2pm CEST) join us for the webinar How Green Bonds Are Financing Sustainable Development. We will hear from municipal and national leaders from Argentina, Indonesia and South Africa on how green are being accessed and utilized; the purpose and function of green finance taxonomies; why tailor-made sustainability frameworks are key to success; and the importance of South-South Cooperation for exchange of best practice and lessons learned. Read More

Investments of about $280 billion will be needed to cope with the effects of climate change in 35 cities in South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia by 2050, new report by the Coalition for Urban Transitions shows. As the fastest urbanizing continent and the hardest hit by global warming, trillions of dollars of investment will be needed as a further 950 million people are expected to live in African cities by 2050.

The report concludes that the regulatory and financial framework and policy reforms are highly required to mobilize finance at scale and unlock investment in cities. Is it achievable?

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https://urbantransitions.global/en/publication/financing-africas-urban-opportunity/

The AIPH World Green City Awards are designed to champion ambitious nature-orientated approaches to city design and operation. Specifically, they seek to recognise public initiatives relying on a greater use of plants and nature to create better city environments – helping to fulfil local aspirations for improved economic, social and environmental resilience. The awards celebrate innovation, achievement, and commitment to the globally recognised imperative to embrace nature-orientated solutions that harvest the power of plants and associated ecosystems services to help address the major challenges facing cities today – or tomorrow.

AIPH initiated these awards to bring wide recognition to the value of plants in providing solutions for common city problems and create an enabling environment to shape and nurture a strategic shift in city governance and planning.

Entries are now open to cities for the inaugural 2022 edition of the AIPH World Green City Awards. AIPH and partners invite all cities, large and small, to showcase their ambitious actions for nature and enter today!

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https://aiph.org/green-city/green-city-awards/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3xv0eXVuXw&t=2s

EIT Climate-KIC partner Dark Matter Labs is exploring the role ‘dark matter’—the invisible structures and infrastructures that shape our systems, like regulation, procurement, contracting and financing mechanisms—must play in driving city transitions

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https://www.climate-kic.org/opinion/accelerating-city-transitions/
Dario Martin commented on Stephani Widorini's Opportunity in Cities and Urban Development
Closing:
UN Habitat

Submission period Friday 27 August, 2021 - Sunday 12 September, 2021   Description Climate Smart Cities Challenge: Technical support to challenge definition, innovation competition, communications and provision of an innovation management platform. Size of Grant: … Read More

In the near future, Kinshasa, like many other cities, is expected to experience higher temperatures, more extreme precipitation and flooding, and more frequent droughts— all of which could make business and industry less productive. These changing conditions are likely to damage infrastructure with potentially catastrophic effects, especially for small-scale farmers and poor city-dwellers, with damage magnified by rapid, poorly planned urbanization.

As populations rise in DRC’s urban areas, especially Kinshasa, and climate change intensifies, the need for practical solutions is clear. By addressing these challenges, Kinshasa can be in the vanguard of the movement toward more sustainable cities.

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https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/08/19/why-kinshasa-could-be-in-the-vanguard-of-megaci...

“People can feed their own families, even if they don't have money to buy food in the market. In their own back yards or on land in their local communities, they can get the nutritious greens they need for their families.”

Food has become a serious need to the Philippines as COVID-19 hit the country. Their government and communities have started a “community gardening" project to recover from the situation.

One of the founding mothers of the Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines, Ofelia Bagotlo, describes how community gardens on vacant city plots are providing vital nutrition for the urban poor.

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https://www.iied.org/we-also-want-greens-our-meals-community-gardens-philippines