Building flood resilience – together

In 2014, the city of Malmö experienced extreme precipitation, causing widespread damage and big financial losses. Now, the city is rethinking its approach to flood resilience and how this can be achieved together. A cloudburst is known as an extreme amount of rainfall in a short period of time. These occurrences may lead to massive 

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Global commitments, local opportunities: What will 2022 bring for cities?

As local governments assess their agendas for 2022 onwards, including understanding their territories’ contributions to national climate commitments, climate action remains one of the top priorities. More frequent and extreme weather events, growing trends of urbanization, rising energy demand, and an increase in global temperatures, require an urgent response. What can they do to reduce 

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You can’t manage what you don’t measure. How climate reporting tracks progress and secures investment.

This blog was written by Braoin MacLauchlan and Matteo Bizzotto, with contributions by Einav Grinberg, Laura Noriega, Carla Marino, Maryke van Staden (ICEI World Secretariat) and George Bush (CDP).  A growing sense of urgency, propelled by the IPCC reports, COP26 discussions, and the need for real impact by 2030 mean climate policies have never been 

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Partnership during a pandemic: Insights from a resilience recovery guide

This article is written by Anina Hartung and Dr. Nazmul Huq from the ICLEI Global Resilient Development Team. It should come to no surprise for anyone that COVID-19 has brought about unprecedented disparity to the fragile interconnected systems that make up our urban spaces, rendering them vulnerable to a host of challenges.  Additionally, while cities 

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Strengthening synergies between culture and climate change science

The first-ever International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate (ICSM CHC) brought together scientists and experts to explore linkages between culture and heritage, climate science and climate action this past December. The event was jointly organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and 

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Mussels Farming: The path to cleaner water in Öresund

In Öresund, beneath the surface of the sea, hides northern Europe’s largest mussel bed. This 75 square kilometer area is covered with millions of mussels. However, the most impressive part isn’t the size of the bed, it’s the fact that the mussels act as natural filtering organisms, keeping the Öresund sea clean. Mussels provide us 

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LFM30: a climate-neutral construction sector in Malmö by 2030

The construction sector accounts for more than 20% of Sweden’s total environmental impact. With the goal of being climate-neutral by 2030, Malmö is the first city in Sweden to have developed a local roadmap for a climate-neutral building and construction sector –LFM30.   Over the next 10–15 years, the City of Malmö plans to build 

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Urban shade and mangroves: Nature’s secret weapons against climate change

This blog was originally written for the UrbanShift project by Braoin MacLauchlan and Matteo Bizzotto. For most of us, most days, thinking about the benefits we get from nature is not on the top of our to-do list. We eat our food, grown from nature’s soil. We drink water that’s at least in part naturally 

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Mainstreaming climate action into urban development: Learnings from India’s innovative ClimateSmart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) initiative

This post has been written as part of the UrbanShift project by Bhaskar Padigala, Karishma Asarpota, and Matteo Bizzotto. Among several critical themes discussed and negotiated by the world leaders at the recently concluded COP26, was the role of local and regional governments. This emerged as one of the main enabling factors required to keep 

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Decarbonizing transport: Powering vehicles with renewable energy is the way forward

This blog was written by Karishma Asarpota, Jr. Officer, Climate & Energy Action, and Himanshu Raj, Officer, Sustainable Mobility  Global energy demand in the transport sector is on the rise due to the growing population and increased movement of people and goods. In 2018, the transport sector was responsible for 25 percent of direct CO2 

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