ALLIANCE CITIES ALLIANCE CITIES ACTION IN ACTION IN 73749 A Partnership to Support Cities in Addressing Climate Change  Cities are already more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than at any other time in history Project: Supporting Cities in Addressing Climate Change Challenges: Enhancing Joint Work among  Fifteen of the world’s 20 megacities are at risk Cities Alliance Members from rising sea levels and coastal surges  The poor are more exposed to natural hazards Partners: United Nations Environment Programme than any other urban population group (UNEP), UN-Habitat and the World Bank, facilitated by the Cities Alliance Secretariat Climate change is increasingly affecting cities, and in a variety of ways. Impacts range from an increase in Duration: 2009 – 2011 the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events Cities Alliance Financing: USD 500,000 such as heatwaves, to landslides and flooding. The urban poor, often living in flimsy housing in precarious locations with little or no access to basic Through close and regular engagement, the JWP services, face the maximum risk. Heavy rains can turn concentrates its efforts on five areas: knowledge into disastrous floods, or a devastating mudslide, management, operational support, monitoring, especially in a crowded slum settlement with poor awareness raising and coordination. Seed funding of drainage. USD 500,000 from Cities Alliance has helped leverage the impact of the other partners’ Globally, we still lack a binding international climate contributions of approximately USD 5 million change framework to respond to these impacts. There through better coordination and the development of is, therefore, an urgent need for cities to take on the joint outputs such as tools to assess climate risk. responsibility of reducing the vulnerability and risk exposure of its residents, especially the poor - and Yielding Demonstrable Results increasingly, many cities are already taking action. With the Cities Alliance as convener and facilitator, Nurturing a Strong, Strategic Partnership the combined efforts of UNEP, UN-Habitat and the World Bank have contributed to substantial progress In 2009, an important collaboration among Cities in work on cities and climate change. Alliance members was born to address the challenges One of the important contributions of the JWP is posed by climate change. The Joint Work Programme consensus building on a protocol to measure (JWP) called Supporting Cities in Addressing Climate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the past, cities Change Challenge comprises the United Nations adopted different methods to measure emissions. The Environment Programme (UNEP), UN-Habitat and new protocol enables cities to follow a standardised the World Bank, and is facilitated by the Cities Alliance Secretariat. Its goal is to create a more coordinated, focused and long-term response to the “What worked for the JWP was that impact of climate change on cities, especially in coordination happened.� Soraya Smaoun, UNEP developing countries. Over the years, the JWP has progressed in a manner that directly shapes the climate change agenda for cities of all sizes, in all regions. approach, making analysis and learning across cities www.citiesalliance.org easier. In addition, a common, verifiable metric helps and indices. This also helps cities reduce their attract additional finance for cities grappling with operational transaction costs. limited funds for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Finally, there is a growing trend among cities and local government organisations to unite on global The JWP has also led to the creation of useful tools issues, making them crucial operational partners for better urban management in the context of climate internationally. These groups of Mayors - some of change. The Urban Risk Assessment provides cities whom oversee cities with budgets larger than those of with a common framework to assess disaster and many countries - hold significant power in climate risk for better decision making, urban environmental matters. They also contribute to the planning and risk management. A dynamic Mayors’ implementation of climate agreements and shape Task Force on Climate Change, Disaster Risk and the policies at the global, national and local level. If we Urban Poor has been created to support city leaders as are to achieve greater impact in the global and local they attempt to understand these issues, identify good response to climate change, there needs to be practice examples, and propose policy and investment enhanced alignment and coordination between the programmes to improve the resilience of the urban different existing partnerships and local government poor. An online Knowledge Centre on Cities and organisations. Climate Change (K4C) serves as a platform for sharing knowledge and best practices. Soraya Smaoun (UNEP) sums up the success of the JWP: “What works for the JWP is that coordination happened. All too often organisations agree to coordinate – but in practice it is difficult. It is the personal commitments that make a difference, and the JWP offers that opportunity.� The JWP on Climate Change contributes to the Lessons Learned from the JWP long-term objectives of the Cities Alliance by: The climate change agenda provides a powerful  Putting cities in the focus of a global action opportunity for an enhanced focus on improving coalition to respond to climate change urban governance, slum upgrading and municipal  Showcasing the positive effects of service delivery. The JWP has successfully promoted successful consensus building in a global this message in all its activities. Looking ahead, the partnership collaborating agencies must focus on the operationalisation and implementation of knowledge  Demonstrating the important role of generated as a result of its efforts, as well as coalition knowledge transfer for improving the quality building. It is essential to build coalitions among of urban development cooperation stakeholders to foster the mainstreaming of climate- sensitive planning and financing mechanisms in cities. Over the years a number of tools and climate indices have been developed, and consensus building is essential in order for those tools to become effective at the local level. Consensus needs to be built within the partnership, and among other relevant stakeholders, on the climate tools that can enable cities to adapt, implement and use standardised tools www.citiesalliance.org