Local Governments Confront the Dual Challenges of COVID and Climate
As local governments adapt to life under lockdown many face disruptions to their climate plans. The severe impact of the pandemic has meant councils are focusing on delivering essential services and financial support to meet the immediate needs of local residents and businesses. This is necessary, but creates another risk by placing many critically important sustainability priorities on the back-burner.
Not to be forgotten, the climate emergency remains a serious threat with the potential for even deeper systemic environmental, social and economic upheaval (see COVID-19 Climate Lessons). Confronting the dual challenges of coronavirus and climate change will require municipal governments to get creative and draw on non-monetary reserves: their community’s compassion and social capital to help them navigate these turbulent times.
Here we highlight some key issues at the intersection of cities, climate and COVID-19.
COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate; its impact does
COVID-19 can have disproportionate impacts on marginalised and vulnerable groups. This brief developed by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, highlights the differential impacts of COVID-19 due to a combination of underlying epidemiological and socio-economic factors, such as gender, age, employment type, location, and access to health care services.
For example, women are more likely to have limited access to economic and social services compounding their vulnerability; they are also more likely to do unpaid work. Around 65 percent of women working in the Asia-Pacific region are in the informal employment sector, and along with other daily wage earners, are less able to take preventative measures such as self-isolation or physical distancing. There are also other risks of stigma, discrimination, gender-based violence, social exclusion and unintended health and economic knock-on effects from lockdown rules. This brief reflects the interventions and feedback of speakers and participants in the April 4, 2020 webinar on COVID-19: Leave No One Behind, co-organised with Help Age International and UN Women.
A City’s Focus on Functionality
Helsinki has been consistently rated as one of the most functional global cities. Seamless service delivery, well resourced health and education and a focus on social equity are all measures that have improved the city’s preparedness for COVID-19. According to the World Bank’s sustainable cities blog: “Helsinki has been especially proactive in managing its response to the pandemic and has drawn on its local and international networks for city-to-city collaboration”. A focus on smart technology and activating digital solutions has allowed the city to quickly adapt its service delivery and reduce social isolation.
Access to nature during pandemics
Under lockdown, with almost half of humankind having their access to nature restricted, many are realising just how longed-for that connection is once we are separated from it. CitiesWithNature provides cities and their partners with a shared platform to connect and unite in their commitment to a world in which urban sustainability is valued first and foremost. With our lives fundamentally altered by the global pandemic the need to protect our urban parks and green spaces has never been higher. This recording of World Parks Week 2020 Webinar: CitiesWithNature - Access to nature during pandemics, explores how nature will be a critical part of cities of the future.
City Resilience Stories Webinar - COVID-19
ICLEI hosted a webinar featuring the cities of Quito, Ecuador and Milan, Italy, hearing from their respective Chief Resilience Officers on how their municipal governments are adapting to life under COVID-19 restrictions. In both cities, identifying and reaching vulnerable residents is a major priority. Existing risk and disaster management plans have been adapted to assist those affected by COVID-19. There are also important parallels with the climate emergency. In both cases, vulnerable people such as those with a disability, the elderly and people in poverty will be hit hardest. The Mayor of Milan has also been appointed the chair of the Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force organised by C40 Cities, and as reported by the Guardian, Milan is also set to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious reallocations of street space to reduce car use after the lockdown.
ICLEI’s Daring Cities 2020 Forum, to be held in October 2020, will be a virtual global event with the potential to boost attendance, reduce emissions and save costs for local governments. The forum will build on the success of the Resilient Cities Congresses over the past ten years, at which important progress was made in driving participation of international climate agreements. Immediate large-scale action is needed and it will require a shift towards new, agile ways of thinking across our city networks if we are to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change while also dealing with the recovery from the pandemic. The virtual event is free and those interested are encouraged to subscribe for further information.
C40 Cities: How city governments can mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19
“This article sets out approaches that city governments are taking to monitor and mitigate the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, based largely on discussions and information sharing between C40 member cities. It looks at five priority issues, namely: cash flow support to SMEs and marginalised groups; guidance for affected businesses and marginalised groups; monitoring local economic impacts; working with local industries, trade unions and NGOs; and supporting job opportunities, particularly for green jobs.”
C40 Cities: How cities can safely ease out of lockdown and live with the virus
“Life as we knew it cannot fully return until we have a viable vaccine… This second phase, between the initial outbreaks and a vaccine, will be about how to live with the virus. It means that cities in full or partial lockdown need to find more than a safe lockdown exit strategy – they need a sustainable continuation strategy, too.”
Business challenges for local governments
KPMG has outlined a COVID-19: Local Government Response Plan, and looks at how local governments, as complex medium-sized businesses, face many of the same challenges as other businesses while juggling their workforce, financial resilience, service delivery, customer and community engagement, technology continuity, mobility deployment, and local economic support.
Democracy remains essential in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Local municipalities are the closest level of government to communities and can play an essential role in maintaining, fostering and leveraging the compassion of those communities. “Care and compassion are vital in this crisis. They are essential to Australians acting in a cohesive and concerted way…”
Coronavirus and Climate Action: A different generational politics
Local governments can help frame the pandemic and climate change as distinct issues that require different responses... “But confronting climate change will require a completely different generational politics than confronting coronavirus. Rather than young people changing their lifestyles to protect the elderly, the large and growing proportion of older citizens in industrialised countries will have to change their lifestyles in order to protect children and those not yet born.”
Written by Timothy Shue, Ewan Richmond and Phani Harsha Yeggina