This Toolkit is a companion document for Planning for Climate Change: A strategic values-based approach for urban planners, a resource and planning guide developed for city planners and other professionals to better understand, assess and take action on climate change at the local level.
This guide was developed for city planners to better understand, assess and take action on climate change at the local level. Specifically targeted to the needs of planners and allied professionals in low and middle-income countries where the challenges of planning for climate change are particularly high.
The guide’s strategic, values based planning framework:
We live in an urban world: more than 55 per cent of the world population lives in urban areas today and this number will grow to 68 per cent by 2050. Cities are particularly vulnerable to Climate Change as the concentrate large populations and a centres for the national economy and social-economic development. In order to build the climate resilience of the national population and economy, building resilient cities and human settlements is essential.
One of the greatest challenges for climate change adaptation is how to build resilience for the billion urban dwellers who are estimated to live in what are termed informal settlements . These settlements have been built outside the ‘formal’ system of laws and regulations that are meant to ensure safe, resilient structures, settlements and systems. But how is it possible to build resilience for those living outside the formal systems and usually working within the informal economy?
Global greenhouse gas emissions from human activity have increased significantly since the preindustrial era, driven by socio-economic progress and population growth. This has led to unprecedented atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) recorded over the last 800,000 years (IPCC 2014a). The increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations leads to global warming and climate change. Climate change is increasingly felt around the world, with negative impacts affecting more and more people worldwide.
The UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2014-2019 identifies four Cross-Cutting Issues to be mainstreamed: Climate Change, Gender Equality, Human Rights and Youth. The aim of mainstreaming these issues is to support country, regional and thematic offices, in order to ensure that all UN-Habitat work is targeting those furthest behind and promoting socially and environmentally sustainable cities.
Edmonton, 8 March 2018 – A conference convened by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and co-organised by UN-Habitat has, for the first time, put the science behind climate change in cities at the centre of the debate around action.
Cities IPCC, hosted by the Canadian city of Edmonton, culminated with the establishment of a global blueprint to better understand climate change, its impacts on cities, and the critical role localities play in solving this challenge.
Sustainable Urbanization in the Paris Agreement’ – a comparative review of Nationally Determined Contributions for Urban Content”, a UN-Habitat publication coming on the heels of Habitat III, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and COP22. The adoption of the New Urban Agenda (NUA) on 20 October 2016, and the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change two weeks later, on 4 November 2016, are a strong first step toward the immediate implementation of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, in urban- and climate change related matters.
