What kind of tool do cities and regions need to make urban resilience a reality?

What kind of tool do cities and regions need to make urban resilience a reality?

Together with a focus group of future users, the consortium partner Climate Media Factory (CMF) is developing the »LOCALISED Climate Action Strategiser« (formerly »Decarbonisation Profiler«), a state-of-the-art planning tool for European cities and regions. 

The first in a series of workshops took place in November 2023 and focused on the tool’s basic structure and features: Where does the tool accommodate the users’ intuitive way of using it? Where do they feel lost or blocked? How visually appealing do they find the tool on a scale of 1-10? Are all the features in the “right place”, and is something missing?

The results and impulses of this first workshop have been implemented in the tool development. Now, a minimum viable product version is being prepared. This version will be tested and evaluated in the second focus group workshop at the end of April.

For anyone already interested in the Climate Action Strategiser, the upcoming European Urban Resilience Forum in Valencia (26-28 June 2024) offers a great opportunity to test the tool and give feedback. There, the CMF will present and discuss the tool in a highly-interactive workshop session together with the participants and invited city representatives. Your feedback is explicitly wanted and will help to make this tool as useful as possible for cities & regions!

If you’re generally interested in discussing and/or testing the tool development with us, you’re always more than welcome to get in touch with Tobias Gralke

 

Strategic partnership and contribution at the Climate Congress of Poland

Strategic partnership and contribution at the Climate Congress of Poland

The Polish partner of LOCALISED, the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences (IMP PAN) was a strategic partner of the Climate Congress of Poland, which took place on 19-20th March 2024 in Warsaw, Poland.

The Climate Congress of Poland is an annual event that this year hosted 26 discussion panels, 150 speakers and panel members, and numerous exhibition stands from research institutes, industry as well as other organizations. This edition of the event attracted 1280 registered participants, with backgrounds in research, industry, politics and the general public.

The partner IMP had an exhibition stand where its involvement in different projects, including LOCALISED, was presented. In addition, IMP organized its own discussion panel on the decarbonisation of district heating while Weronika Radziszewska was an expert in the discussion panel on the future of energy. A video which included a presentation of LOCALISED was looped on the different screens in the exhibition hall.

 

LOCALISED is Co-organizing the European Urban Resilience Forum 2024 (#EURESFO)

LOCALISED is Co-organizing the European Urban Resilience Forum 2024 (#EURESFO)

On 26-28 June in Valencia, Spain, the 2024 edition of the European Urban Resilience Forum (EURESFO) will take place to address some crucial aspects of resilience, sustainable development and recovery. This year, the LOCALISED project is co-organising the event giving a particular contribution in regard to multilevel governance, cooperation, and the imperative of a just transition.

In 2023 EURESFO reached a significant milestone with the celebration of the event’s 10th anniversary. The commemorative edition reflected on progress made in the field of urban resilience over the past decade. On 26-28 June 2024, the 11th edition of EURESFO is set to be co-organized and hosted by the City of Valencia, distinguished as the European Green Capital for 2024.

EURESFO has served as a pivotal European initiative since 2013. Organised by ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability and the European Environment Agency (EEA), it has been acting as a unique exchange platform in the field of resilience. The event brings together city representatives, experts, and stakeholders from local and regional institutions to discuss strategies, initiatives, and actions affiliating to climate change adaptation, disaster management, and the cultivation of urban resilience. Participants are invited to share their experiences and perspectives on an array of topics that delve into the challenges inherent in urban resilience planning and implementation.

The 11th EURESFO will be built around three thematic streams and a specai focus stream:

  • Multilevel governance, cooperation and just transition: resilience leaves no one behind.
  • Water resilience and the Blue Economy in and beyond the Mediterranean region.
  • Enabling the transformation to resilient, adaptive, and climate-neutral cities and regions.
  • Special focus stream: Post-conflict Resilience and Recovery, focusing on Ukraine

LOCALISED will contribute to Thematic 1, particurarly looking at how to better integrate mitigation and adaptation measures, and how to ensure a collaborative environment in local administrations.

Consultation meetings IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities

Consultation meetings IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities

KIN Consultation meeting in Amsterdam; Photo credit: Diana Reckien

LOCALISED team members from the University of Twente took part in the consultation meeting KIN and will be joining the UCCRN webinar and the IPCC pre-scoping webinar in the next few days. 

From 16-19 April in Riga, Latvia, the IPCC Working Group II on Impact, Adaptation and Vulnerability will hold its scoping meeting for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. During this scoping meeting, the broad contours of the report will be decided. In the run-up to this event, various institutions organize so-called pre-scoping meetings to gather a wide array of voices, experiences, and perceptions on problems, knowledge gaps, and potential solutions with regard to climate change in cities. 

One such consultation meeting was organized by the Dutch KIN – Klimaatonderzoek Initiatief Nederland – Climate Research Initiative Netherlands, on 6th March 2024 in Amsterdam/ Netherlands. Other such meetings will follow, e.g., organized by Scientific Steering Committee for the Scoping of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities itself (three webinars from 18th – 19th March) as well as by urban research networks, such as the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) on 27th March in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

KIN Consultation meeting in Amsterdam; Photo credit: Cheryl de Boer.

Goals

The consultation sessions are planned to make the development of the Special Reports and related products of the IPCC more inclusive. In particular, the SR Cities, as it is called in short, invites broad stakeholder and practitioner involvement, as cities are much closer to the implementation realities on the ground. 

Hence, it is hoped that the consultation meetings will pave the way for a breakthrough Report, innovative thinking, on-the-ground collaboration, and subsequent actionable strategies that can be implemented in cities around the world. 

Key insights from urban researchers from the University of Twente, Faculty ITC, Department of Urban and regional Planning and Geo-Information Management 

Colleagues from the University of Twente took part in the KIN consultation and will also be joining the UCCRN webinar and the IPCC pre-scoping webinar. In order to prepare for these events, Diana Reckien, University of Twente sent around a short inquiry to some faculty members working on climate and urban issues. 

The topics below are a summarized collection of responses of urban experts (eight responses in total) from our UT-ITC colleagues for preparing  the KIN Scoping Meeting, plus some discussion aspects with participants at the KIN Scoping in Amsterdam itself: 

  • How could the IPCC SR help you in your work/ position?

New forms of products of the IPCC Report would help communicate targeted information to students, the Youth, Children, and also particular sector policymakers. This could help in our teaching, but also in our applied research programs. 

  • What research and knowledge do you seek to realize effective climate policy and action? How could these be addressed by the IPCC report?

A transition-focus is key and even more a solution-focus. In order to be relevant, let cities do a reality check: i.e., let them read the interim IPCC drafts and decide whether the gathered information is useful to their transition processes. Also, a strong focus on synergies and trade-offs would be useful in order to allow policy responses to counterbalance negative side-effects and mange trade-offs. 

  • What form/shape of scientific reporting would you find helpful for your own work, please think about examples of literature that was useful for you.

Communication/ outreach of reports may concentrate on infographics, media, partnership networks, global data platforms, etc.. These maybe speaking/ organised in a way that they can speak to different audiences, such as youth, teachers, sector policymakers, etc.

To do so, a narrative that centers on different development needs, actors, decision spaces, scenarios and solutions/ effectiveness might be most helpful: E.g., Start with urban development needs; Map actors and their influence space(s); Develop many positive scenarios for each actor’s decision space and their effectiveness, so that policy makers and other urban decision-makers can choose between a number of positive and effective solution pathways. 

Besides such a structural organisation of the report, it was recommended to use social media big times and very effectively to connect to parts of society that build an opinion through social media. 

  • What is particularly / urgently needed knowledge for urban policymakers?

UT-ITC colleagues particularly stressed the needed support to respond to climate impacts in cities of the Global South, as it is these cities that are most effected by climate change globally and have the least capacity to adapt. For example, could there be a free database developed with detailed climate change impacts on many African cities? Likewise for cities in low-income countries, not only the current state of development and climatic changes is already challenging, but also the population influx from surrounding rural areas. How can such growth and be accommodated? .

In other countries, nature-based solutions are currently a big topic. But not all nature-based solutions are equally suitable and effective in all regions. As they are applied so widely but are not suitable everywhere, which form of nature-based solution works well/ is effective?

Another topic regards finance: how can scare financial resources be spent most wisely? Can there be a priority list of climate responses for cities, e.g., how the L&D fund could be most effectively used in cities of the South?

Finally, a pressing issues was also voiced with regard to the management of land: a lot of our conflicts are conflicts over land. We need start discussing multi-functional land uses, best on multiple levels, e.g., below ground, on the ground, 2-30m above ground, 30+m above ground. What are suitable management and administration processes for multi-functional land use?

With that, the University of Twente has already gathered a number of challenging problems that cities around the world currently face. If solutions could be developed collaboratively with cities to assess feasibility, progress could be made in formulating and testing solutions. However, it is anticipated that many more issues and aspects will arise during the next consultation meetings, including insights from experts attending the Scoping meeting in Riga and input from national governments, who ultimately determine the content and format of the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. The collective effort should persist in working towards resilient and equitable solutions for both present and future urban landscapes.

Author: Dr. Diana Reckien.

Solar energy solutions in Expo City Dubai’s. Photo credit: Diana Reckien

Solar energy solutions in Expo City Dubai’s. Photo credit: Diana Reckien

Special thanks to: Lorraine Trento Olivera; Javier Martinez, Anton Vrieling, Han Yu, Cheryl de Boer, Karin Pfeffer, Jaap Zevenbergen. 

Risk assessment of the power systems, same circumstances to analyses, but different perspectives

Risk assessment of the power systems, same circumstances to analyses, but different perspectives

Climate change is a global issue that transversally affects the whole planet. Its impacts can be seen across the world, causing natural disasters, rising seas, and sometimes even reshaping habitats. As a part of this phenomenon, extreme climatic events are becoming more severe and frequent, affecting more and more infrastructures and services of the cities, such as transport, energy, or water distribution. Several infrastructure systems are considered critical since they are essential to ensure a given region’s security, economy, public health, or safety. One of these sectors is the power systems, which are becoming more and more vulnerable to climatic phenomena.  

Along that line, diverse European projects are working on planning, reducing, and adapting to the impact of the extreme events driven by climate change. In the framework of the LOCALISED Project, this is approached from the point of view of decarbonization, seeking as a solution the net zero energy transition as adaptation and mitigation. The analysis goes down to a regional level (or NUT 3), where the most appropriate measures and instruments are sought for each region, taking into account the climate impacts that can affect the power system on the one hand and considering the feasibility of implementing measures at the territorial level available on the other.

As another example, one of LOCALISED’s partners, IREC (Catalonia Energy Research Institute), is also working on another project named ICARIA, which also assesses the electrical network risks due to climate change. The focus of the project is understanding how the impacts on the electricity sector can affect assets in other infrastructures. For instance, efforts are made to calculate the direct and indirect damages that a vital asset in the water sector, such as a treatment plant, may incur due to damages suffered by one of the elements of the electrical network as a result of an extreme weather event, such as a strong wind. To this end, ICARIA is more granular, reaching down to the consumer level. In this context, ICARIA focuses its studies on three specific territories for validation, while in LOCALISED, the study ranges across the European Union.

In summary, regardless of where we put the focus on the results of the power system’s risk assessment, the impacts received from climate change will continue to occur. Such assessments are essential to identify risks but are also required at distinct levels depending on the perspective. Projects such as LOCALISED and ICARIA are necessary to analyze the different aspects involved in these phenomena and aid us in comprehending, anticipating, and strategizing for the tangible effects of climate change, thus strengthening the resilience of the power system.

Business Vulnerability Workshop against Climate Change

Business Vulnerability Workshop against Climate Change

ERCIM News 136

On February 21, the first session of the Business Vulnerability Workshop against #climatechange was held in Barcelona. The session was organized by the partners IREC in conjunction with the Barcelona City Council (Agenda 2030) within the framework of the LOCALISED project.

On the first day, attendees participated in an exercise to analyze business vulnerability, the risks of sustainable transition, and the adaptation capacity of each company.

Various leading companies from the transportation, building, and industry sectors actively participated in the event, including Mireia Cammany from EPI Industries, Judit Martínez from Transports Generals d’Olesa (TGO), José Luis Pérez from ABIAN Services, and Isidre Lorenzo from TERSA.

ERCIM News 136