Cement, Energy and Environment

Table 1: Key Features Of Resilience Strategy: Selected Case St udies Cit:y/ Climate Action Urban Local 'hlcen/N~me of the ~s~~~----~s~~t~·u~-- London. The The City of London's UK Climate Adapr.~tion Str.~tegy in 2007 (The City of London Corpor.~tion. 2007) Halifax Regional Munitipality. ~ New Yorl<. The USA Cape Town. SouthAfrica A six·step strategy in response to the physiol and social impacts or extreme weather conditions (Hurricane juan in September 2003 and the 'Great Maritime Slinard' of February 2004) (Halifax Regional Municipality. 2007) New Yorl< City's Mtainabolity plan (PLaNYQ (The City of NewYorl<. 2007) The New Yorl< City Panel on cr.mate Change (NPCQ Framework '"' Adapt>tion to Climate Change in the City of Cape Town (FAC41) (Mul<heibir and Ziefvogel. 2006) Key Features • Systematic process of adaprntion planning in the city with assigned responsibilities to the institutions and proposed mechanisms for imptement:Jtion. • Prescribed the corpor.~tion to climate proof its policies and aligned itself with existing policies. guidelines. and regulations. In 2008. the Greater London Authority Bill (GLA Bill) 2007 was enacted which assigned the duty of climate protection for the city of London to its Mayor. • Adopts a systematic approach that undertakes climate impact assessments. identifies risks and vulnerabilities. and takes into account the governance profile of the city. • Assigns inStitutions various measures that each public department may rake to fad lit:ate adaptation within the sector concerned. Dynamic strategy targeting the year 2030. brings together about 40 agencies towork coherendy towards a 5ustlinable and green city. Came up in 2007 with an objective to: • Prepare the city for housing ever increasing number or residents, • Strengthen city's economy. • Adapt to climate ch:lnge. and • Enh:lnce the quality of J;le for the residentS of New York. Set up in 2008 to advire the city on climate change imparu. Talks about bringing in change5 in building and zoning regulations and integl'3ting climate change projections into emergency management and preparedness. • An overarching framework for a city-wide approach to redudng vulnerobility to climate impaas in response to the high likelihood of climate-induced wanming. rainfall change. and extreme events projected for the region. • Defines a mechanism for integration in national and provincial aru. Preparing For An Urban Climate Resilience Pol icy Data Making a case for c limate– related actions and inves tment An urban resilience policy must make a case for cities to conduct risk and vulnerability analyses to understand their specific requirements for resilience bui lding and develop city specific strategies for adaptation and mitigation. Climate projections Cl imate resilience is based on parameters related to climate, its variability, and change. Studying past climate trends and developing climate projections therefore are essential components of risk and vulnerability assessments. Climate modelling is a special ized field which requires capacity building and technical expertise, which could be achieved by forming a repository of institutions and experts at the state or national level to act as resource persons for cities obtaining climate projections. Action to address climate change in urban areas should be multi-level, involving national-, state-, and city-level governments , as well as multi-sectoral in its approach. Policies aiming at action should bring forth the importance of and the need to introduce urban climate resilience into the urban planning framework, draw out a structure of the institutions and regulations needed to implement the same, and identify windows for financing the actions. They should begin with facilitating the preparatory actions on which the cities would base their actions towards resilience. This includes a risk and vulnerability analysis of cities to potential climate impacts in the next 15- 30 years . This requires past climate data and future projections of climate and various other sectoral datasets, to help assess the vulnerability, and coping capacity of city systems to cl imate events. The second important milestone in this discourse is to provide for need-based area– specific training for officials at all levels to enable planning for climate resi lience and preparedness for dealing with any climate-induced emergency situation. There is also need for increased awareness among citizens on the matter. Most cities in India lack the proper information systems required for addressing the various aspects of climate change impacts; e.g., data on weather anomalies, frequency, and extent of urban floods. Integrating resilience planning in the urban planning process requires very specific data sets on various local and regional climate parameters. Hence, maintaining a repository of city and region specific data using Management Information Systems (MIS) would be an essential step, which could be used to develop time-series and spatial data bases in this regard. Capacit y bu ilding Climate resilience is a new concept in India, requiring specific technical know-how and data for cities to draw up their resilience plans. It also needs awareness generation to be built among civi l society to foster interest and support. The policy to facilitate action to climate-proofing cities must ensure capacity building, competence, and adaptability at various levels of urban governance that would eventually be dealing with mitigation and/or adaptive practices on ground . There 1s a 34 (