Making Cities Resilient 2030 at COP27: Urban Resilience and Climate Change Roadmap

Sharm El-Sheikh, 12 November 2022, The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office for Arab States, and the UN Resident Coordinator Office in the United Arab Emirates hosted a side event at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh under the title “Urban Resilience and Climate Change Roadmap” addressing climate parity between adaptation and mitigation, finance, and collaboration.

The event highlighted examples where there are co-benefits between climate mitigation and adaptation and examples of scalable mechanisms that channel finance to local governments for adaptation. It provided insights into bankable solutions so the path to implementation is clear.

The event came to demonstrate how collaboration works across sectors and highlight how weather, climate, and water extremes are becoming more frequent and intense in many parts of the world as a result of climate change. It explored the dynamics of Climate Change and Urban Resilience from multiple stakeholder perspectives, toward identifying hallmarks for a roadmap for resilient cities.

In recent years, losses associated with climate-related hazards have increased considerably. These trends are expected to become more pronounced with global population growth and rapid urbanization. People and assets in cities are increasingly exposed to hazards. We need to be prepared and get our cities resilient.

“We are getting into a spiral of disasters and responses. We need to make people strong enough to support themselves. The humanitarian support is dramatically increasing, we need to change this cycle, proactive planning is essential," said Sujit Kumar Mohanty, Chief of UNDRR ROAS.

The event saw the participation of Bernhard Barth, Human Settlements Specialist at UN-Habitat, Laila Mostafa Abdullatif, Director-General of Emirates Nature-WWF, Samira AlRais, Senior Director of Policy and Strategy, Sustainable Development at the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai, Sujit Kumar Mohanty, Chief of UNDRR ROAS, and moderated by Rania Hammad, External Relation Officer at UNDRR ROAS.