Climate Change Study Tours in full swing
Day 1 of Study Tour #2, wrapped!!
Our study tour on Urban Adaptation and Resilience, started today (15 September). Second in the series of five Climate Change (virtual) Study Tours for the EU delegation in South Africa and the German government, this programme is designed to benefit municipalities/local arms of government in their strategic and critical work on Urban Climate Change Resilience (UCCR).
The concept of UCCR embraces climate change adaptation, mitigation actions, and disaster risk reduction while recognizing the complexity of rapidly growing urban areas and the uncertainty associated with climate change. With the world’s population expected to be over two-thirds urban-dwelling by 2050, climate action in cities holds a growing urgency in the inter-disciplines of development policy, disaster mitigation and environmental governance. Resilient cities must have social, environmental, and economic systems that can withstand the impact of climate change but creating resilient cities requires all stakeholders to strengthen the urban fabric.
Adaptation plans are largely state-driven and top-down in their approach, but by building from the ground-up at the same time, civil society can be immensely helpful. Particularly by raising awareness of climate change and its likely impacts as well as by influencing adaptive behaviour in communities. This is increasingly important given the realities of the city landscape in South Africa which have a massive “informal” growth and an increasing lack of trust in government to contend with. Urban governance structures should therefore be supported and informed through broad collaborations that can provide constructive feedback to government and municipalities from the very communities they are striving to help.
We are proud to present these commendable experts as speakers, giving participants the opportunity to get into conversation with them and learn from the pool of experience gathered “in the room”:
Belynda Petrie of OneWorld
Dr. Shaun O’Donoghue of eThekwini (Durban Metro)
Dr. Kevin Winter of UCT
Dieter Brandt of Advanced Environmental Design Initiatives (AEDI)
Amy Pieterse of CSIR
McKenna Davis of Naturvation Urban Nature Atlas
Mikateko of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment (DFFE)
Valeria Barbi Ambassador of the EU Climate Pact
