Daring Cities 2020 Program

In response to climate emergency and other declarations, many cities have developed climate adaptation plans and are acting to build greater resilience to the impacts of climate change. But these plans are very often located in environment or climate change departments of the city structure and are not being applied to reduce climate risk across all city functions. But many managers of other core city functions are not yet aware of the risk climate change will create for the continued safe delivery of core services and governance of the city. This session will present a cost-effective method for assessing and disclosing the degree to which climate risk has been embedded in all city planning and operations.

This event aims at building and shaping the discussion on collaborative climate action (CCA), demonstrating good practice examples and identifying lessons learned with regard to national framework conditions, local implementation and supporting financial arrangements. The event offers insights of how collaborative action can be incorporated along the entire policy cycle, from planning processes to financing climate action thus aiding in the progressive development of more ambitious national targets.

Peer to peer exchange - offering space for direct exchange between procurers on how to leverage sustainable procurement for climate action and Covid-19 recovery across four GLCN priority sectors: construction, energy, transport and food. The sessions will take place throughout the day, with leadership from different regions of the world.

Moving from the commitment, the RE roadmap is defined as an implementation strategy that identifies actions and actors, prioritizes projects, outlines financing approaches and focuses on the most feasible, impactful and bankable RE projects. For many city officials the processes on how to develop bankable and transformative renewable energy projects are unclear and lead to many questions. This webinar will focus on crucial enablers, drivers and barriers that the LGs face at every step of project development.

Peer to peer exchange - offering space for direct exchange between procurers on how to leverage sustainable procurement for climate action and Covid-19 recovery across four GLCN priority sectors: construction, energy, transport and food. The sessions will take place throughout the day, with leadership from different regions of the world.

This interactive workshop building on insights from the Urban LEDS and Urban Pathways projects will highlight the importance of integrated low carbon emission development strategies to reduce emissions across sectors efficiently and economically. Participants will be invited to take part in a simulation that aims at make the benefit of adopting an integrated strategy tangible.

A high-level discussion with national and subnational governments on the successful implementation of Collaborative Climate Action and the role of subnational governments in building back better. The recently released CUT paper on Greening the global recovery through cities will provide insights, complemented by practical experiences from government representatives from different countries and tiers of government.

The 2020 COVID19 crisis has evidenced the need and showed the benefits of nature in cities and green spaces, since the contact with nature offers a way to deal with and counteract stressors of everyday life, while still allowing for social distancing. This session will showcase the benefits of resilience planning with nature for a healthier urban future by displaying successful city cases around the world, as well as ICLEI’s support to build resilient cities with nature.

We all know that in today’s modern society, forests are being degraded or destroyed at alarming rates. Scientists, politicians, activists, businesses and many other players gather together to tackle the issue of sustainable management of the world’s forests. It’s now time to listen formally and seriously to Indigenous Peoples, who are the people that understand the on the ground implications of forest use best because they’ve been doing it mostly successfully for centuries.

Various grassroots organizations across the globe have taken up a proactive role and adopted innovative ways to respond to Covid-19. Many have developed their own localized coping mechanisms, like sharing resources among communities lacking basic services, setting up hotlines for domestic abuse, and diversifying livelihoods. Even with limitations in their mobility and activities, the civil society groups have extended themselves to meet the needs of local communities during the crisis using their critical networks, experience and knowledge in building resilience. As we begin to move towards post-Covid society, our focus should be to ‘build back better’ with collective efforts from all sectors of society including decision-makers, policy-makers, practitioners, community-based and grassroots organizations, and citizens.

Many cities are looking for solutions to protect themselves from the impacts of disasters and climate change. Despite growing scientific evidence on their potential, the adoption of these nature-based solutions is still not widespread. This is particularly the case in cities. The session will explore barriers but also promising ways forward, including best practices from frontrunner cities in different ecosystems, research findings and capacity building activities. The session will also explore how the perception and use of urban green areas changed in the context of COVID-19 and what opportunities this change might present for the acceleration of nature-based solution uptake.

Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency represents local and regional governments at the negotiations and processes related to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement. The 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) is planned to be held in November 2021 in Glasgow, UK. It is expected that by COP26, national governments will present their second national plans (i.e. Nationally Determined Contributions –NDCs) towards 2025, with effective inputs of their local and regional governments , pursuant to the recognition of importance of engagement of all levels of governments on the Paris Agreement.

The need for transformational planning in the face of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic requires a discussion of cities and experts on the effective and just delivery of services and infrastructure. A whole-of-a society and human-rights approach along with permanent community engagement in the decision-making processes is essential to build inclusive urban resilience. This session will showcase city experiences from the global south and north facing disasters with a holistic, intersectional and radical approach.

2015 Paris Climate Agreement introduced the concept of High Level Climate Action Champions as part of the tasks of the governments who lead the annual Conference the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The event will include an overall presentation of the two leading initiatives of the Marrakech Partnership, Race-to-Zero Campaign and Climate Action Pathways, as well as enable a focused dialogue for more active engagement of Latin American cities and regions in these efforts.

The objective of this panel is to promote a broad discussion among Regional and Local Amazonian Governments, Civil Society and Private Sector about the sustainable development in the largest tropical forest in the world. How the diversities from Amazonia can support the governance model that guarantees sustainable development combined with the well-being of the population, creating opportunities to build a strong network focusing on the protection of the forest through a permanent dialogue among the stakeholders.

Led by the Ministry of the Environment Japan, supported by the UNFCCC, and managed by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the Redesign2020 Platform was launched on 3 September 2020 through a high level virtual event that gathered 50+ ministers across the world. The Platform for Redesign 2020 is an initiative to enhance international solidarity in addressing two crises at the same time: climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative introduces the concept of “redesign” as complementary to response and recovery efforts, defining it as, “paradigm shifts and measures in the long term - more than a few years to a few decades - toward redesigning current socioeconomic and sociocultural systems to be sustainable and resilient.“ The session aims to highlight details of the concept, share the outcomes of High Level Launch and focus on the options for collaboration with local and regional on the road to COP26.

With the global Coronavirus pandemic, every sector of society across the globe has been impacted. The work to address climate change is being reprioritized, interrupted or delayed. Local and regional governments have had to redeploy sustainability resources to ensure immediate safeguarding of their residents and employees. At the international level, we are experiencing major disruptions of the global climate process. COP26 has been delayed to 2021. Regional Climate Weeks have been canceled and the regular mid-year negotiations in Bonn, which usually take place in June, have been postponed. But climate science hasn’t changed. The climate emergency is still happening right now, in our cities, towns and regions around the world. High-level representatives from local, regional and national governments, as well as from the business and finance sector, will discuss the challenges and opportunities for putting integrated climate action at the core of local economic stimulus packages for aiding the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the criticality of making financial resources available to those cities, towns and regions working to tackle the climate emergency.

The Bonn Network International Civil Protection and Disaster Risk Reduction brings together a great diversity of actors in the field of international disaster prevention and risk management in Bonn and the Bonn region - from research and education to direct response, from UN to national to local. With three practical examples from capacity building to synergies through peer consulting and practitioners partnerships in disaster response, the network is demonstrating the potential of interdisciplinary, vertically integrated collaboration. The panel showcase different models of collaboration and partnerships evolved from or enhanced by the network.

As governments focus their attention on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in their countries, it will be of utmost importance that other priorities such as climate change or road safety are not scaled back. The fear is that the threat of COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on public transport and prompt more people to choose individual car-based transport. But the world cannot accept further delays and cancellation of planned legislation and infrastructure implementations that impact on sustainable urban mobility. Post-COVID-19, cities will have to promote more sustainable pathways, in which economic development is decoupled from private motorization – in order to enhance the cities’ resilience of future crises. Previous crises have shaped how cities are planned and how people move in them. We have a window of opportunity to learn from the current pandemic and to build back better by making our mobility systems more resilient and responsive to crises.

Over 150 Local governments who have declared Zero Carbon in Japan, are now in the process of formulating a plan or in the process of implementing the action on the ground to achieve zero carbon by 2050. While some of these local governments are well prepared, many of them are still struggling with the process of formulating effective plan.
In this session, we will ask cities to share their plans and strategies to achieve zero carbon with special focus on their efforts toward redesigning current socioeconomic and socio-cultural systems to be sustainable and resilient.

Through its Resilient Cities Action Track, the Global Commission on Adaptation is working with partners to deliver this coordinated leadership as part of its Year of Action. This work is led by the World Resources Institute, the Global Center on Adaptation, the Resilient Cities Network, UN-Habitat and C40, in collaboration with the Netherlands’ Ministry of... Read More

Research-policy-practice interfaces are critical in shaping environmental governance as they allow for exchanges, co-evolution and joint construction of knowledge and practices between various stakeholders. This session focuses on (1) effective research-policy-practice interface in nexus approaches toward promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation, (2) the linkage between city-led research and evidence-based decision making in the context of Food-Water-Energy-Waste nexus, and (3) the path from research-driven policy making to science-informed local action in cities as well as showcasing a success story in Global South.

Strong communication skills have always been important - we all know this. But right now, as we race to solve the climate crisis, effective communication skills are more important than ever. There are ways to hone your communication skills in order to become a more persuasive and charismatic speaker and leader. Briar Goldberg, TED’s Director of Speaker Coaching and public speaking and strategic communications expert, will guide attendees in this interactive and reflective training.

This event will take the form of a high-level political session, convened by ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center, and endorsed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to discuss the critical role of local and subnational governments in the implementation of the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which will be adopted at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) of the CBD in Kunming, China in 2021.
The event will challenge cities to be daring enough to not only making ambitious commitments to achieving the global climate agenda, but also to achieving the global biodiversity agenda.

Civil society wants to be involved in the implementation of local climate goals – not only by demanding action from politics, but rather through joint action together with the municipality - because ambitious climate goals on a local level cannot be achieved by administration or politics alone. All citizens are needed to do so. To raise acceptance for climate policy, the participation of civil society is crucial. In this session we want to discuss how civil society itself drives the process of local climate policy, and how civil society and local administration co-operate in participation projects to achieve the best result for their city.

Although the concept of Nature-Based Solutions is not disseminated in South America compared to other contexts, there are already some successful experiences of NBS implemented locally as a way of improving biodiversity and addressing critical issues that affect urban system functionality, mainly including basic social problems such as poor sanitation and building urban resilience to threats such as floods and landslides. This event aims to connect and provide a space for dialogue and exchange of experiences for the stakeholders involved with NBS implementation, monitoring and dissemination in South America in order to foster this agenda in the region. It is also an opportunity to discuss and showcase how Nature Based Solutions can contribute locally to the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

To achieve the goal of climate neutrality, many cities have declared climate neutrality goals, but too often such goals don’t translate into political support and action of all relevant stakeholders and impact on the necessary scale.
With this digital innovation workshop, speakers will showcase digital innovation tools in the fields of data collection, citizen science, resource mobilization (digital municipal bonds) and gamification.

Under the Sino-German Urban Partnership, this virtual exchange workshop aims to promote knowledge sharing, considerations on opportunities for further needed developments in policy and practice of Chinese and German cities and officials on sustainable urban renewal initiatives, particularly with respect to identifying and applying nature-based solutions in response to climate and ecological crises.

The session is organised by ICLEI South Asia and Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) and aims to deliberate on opportunities offered by circular economy measures and identify concrete actions to catalyse a transition to a circular economy and address the growing plastic waste menace. The session will also highlight the crucial role played by the private sector in driving the development of innovative business models, packaging design, materials and technologies in line with the circular economy. The outcomes envisaged from the session include:

• Establish the need for an effective waste management infrastructure to implement the waste hierarchy, upscale the cycling of plastics in the economy, and prevent leakage into the environment.
• Improve political and public awareness of the impacts of plastic pollution in the environment
• Explore opportunities for recovering the value of plastic as a resource through circular economy tools by engaging public and private sectors

On the occasion of 24 October the UN Day, the event is designed as a dialogue among urban leaders and UN officials to explore the innovative options to seize the opportunities of the urban world in order to deliver the prospects of an inclusive multilateralism towards 2030 with a specific focus on Voluntary Local Reviews as an innovative tool. The event will also host the official release of the Voluntary Local Review of City of Bonn which will be the basis of a discussion on options of multilevel collaboration in the preparation of Germany´s second Voluntary National Review to be submitted to the UN in 2021.