Resilient Cities-Experiences from
ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond
© The Energy and Resources Institute, 2013
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The topic on cities and climate change is gaining momentum all over the world as the cities increasingly start experiencing the impacts of climate variability and change. Many cities in the western world have started adopting policies and programs that address impacts of climate change. More and more cities in the developing world are looking for expertise, hand holding and capacity building to prepare them to the uncertainties involved with climate change. Every city is a unique entity with different dominant function, topography, governance systems and institutions at place and different priorities for development. Every city would also be impacted differently by the impacts of climate change. This will depend on the climatic-geographic conditions of the city, the city’s financial and institutional capacity, its structural capacity to withstand climate related hazards and calamities, its socio-economic standing in terms of degree of urban poverty and access to basic services and quality of infrastructure.
Several initiatives have been forged recently across the globe to initiate discussion, research and action towards building climate proof cities and resilient cities. The World Mayors Council on Climate Change , the C40 Cities Climate Leadership program , few individual city climate change plans like New York, cape town, are widely known initiatives the world over. One such initiative has been the Asian cities climate change resilience network(ACCCRN) - part of a US$59 million, 7-year climate change resilience initiative supported by the Rockefeller Foundation which was launched in 2008 to create climate resilience strategies and action models in 10 cities across four countries in Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and India).
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
towns to build a consensus and demand for bringing in climate resilience actions into development planning practice.
It is under this background that the International Workshop on “Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia” was organized on the 29th January 2013.The event was organized under the aegis of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS)-TERI’s flagship international annual event wherein TERI engages global partners to build bold visions for a development paradigm that calls for sustainability across the present and future generations. The objective of the workshop was to bring together the experiences from ACCCRN cities across Asia and carve out a future path for taking forward the agenda for sustainable and climate resilient cities.
The proceedings of the conference gives an overview of the presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop and presents range of experiences and ideas that would prove instrumental in aligning cities to a climate resilient path. I do hope that this document proves to be beneficial for those who were part of the workshop and also to those who could not be a part of the workshop. This is indeed an ongoing process and I do hope that this workshop is just a beginning of new partnerships and associations towards climate resilient cities.
Mili Majumdar
Director
Welcome Address: Dr. R.K Pachauri,
Director General, TERI
Dr. Pachauri recognised the topic of the event as having global importance and went on to say that it is a reality that more than 50% of the world population lives in cities and this reality will get more serious in the coming times. Thus, we need to focus on building resilience both in terms of the infrastructure we establish and more importantly in terms of human
capacity and capability that we must build for future across the globe.
He cited IPCC’s 2011 report, which highlights that extreme heat wave events are on the rise; both in terms of frequency and intensity. As of present, they occur once in twenty years, at the end of the century they are expected to occur once in two years under the business as usual (BAU) scenario.
He also cited a major heat wave event in Europe in 2003 which witnessed the death of an estimated 40,000 people. In the same year there was a similar heat wave event in Andhra Pradesh, India. He shared that during that time he was asked to chair a committee to look into what can be done. Identified actions by the committee included the need to establish proper early warning systems and communication channels from Centre to other locations and vice versa. He opined that these are low hanging fruits, but can make an enormous difference to resilience building in cities.
He congratulated The Rockefeller Foundation for taking the extremely important initiative of ACCCRN in Asia. He said that much of the action will have to take place in a decentralised manner. Therefore to equip cities with the knowledge, institutional capability and resilience that will enable them to deal with climate change effectively is a wise strategy. He expressed hope that the dialogue emerging from this workshop will be meaningful for all.
To equip cities with the
knowledge, institutional
capability and resilience that will
enable them to deal with climate
change effectively is a wise strategy.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
Introductory Remarks: Dr. Ligia
Noronha, Executive Director (Research
Coordination), TERI
Dr. Ligia said that the workshop was important in light of the issues surrounding us including vulnerability of Asian cities. She cited that 42% of world population lives in Asia and half of the world’s slum population also resides in Asian cities.
She focused her remarks on the growing inequality in Asian cities. She observed that while newer part of cities house wealthy neighbourhoods, on the other hand older parts house slum settlements. She gave examples of development projects that disrupted the livelihoods of people and dislocated them. She mentioned that often, this relocation is to hazardous parts of cities, where environmental and health conditions are poor.
She observed that inequality also gives rise to social alienation and a growing mistrust and discontent in society which ultimately leads to lack of social cohesion. She cited examples of rioting in New Orleans where Hurricane Katrina hit. She pointed out that investment in building social capital is extremely important for resilience.
She opined that planning for extreme events and natural disasters is one area of policy planning that requires decentralisation. Early warning systems need to take into account local specificity and responsiveness. She noted that though mayors and local authorities are important agents leading this
preparedness, yet when an event occurs, we need intergovernmental coordinated responses as we saw in the case of Sandy when it hit New York and New Jersey.
She shared from experience that intergovernmental
fiscal transfers was not enough but we also need intergovernmental knowledge transfers. She noted that if building resilience requires us to enable greater diversity, participation and accountability, then growth in inequality in Asian cities will undermine the ability to respond to shocks and stresses. She opined that key aspect therefore should be on making cities more equitable, especially in terms of the opportunities they create, resource endowments they result in and the services they command which enable better adaptation. She concluded by saying that ‘Just cities will result in more robust resilient cities’.
Background Presentation on ‘Climate
Resilient Cities’- Dr. Divya Sharma, Fellow,
Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
Dr. Divya Sharma gave background details on the current scenario of urbanisation and climate change. She highlighted that by 2030, nearly 60% of global population will be urban and more than 55% of the asian population will be urban. 90% of this urbanisation is taking place in developing countries which add 70 million new urban residents each year. In India, 377 million people stay in urban areas (31.16% of population).
She highlighted the climate change risks faced by cities: increase in sea level, increase in temperature, more intense storms etc. There is a high probability that these changes will affect water supply, physical infrastructure, energy provision, ecosystem goods and services, transport, industrial production in cities. She noted that local economies will be disrupted and impacts will be particularly severe in low coastal zones.
Just cities will
result in more robust
resilient cities.
Dr. Divya noted that climate uncertainties and dynamic urbanisation trends present developing cities with new and unfamiliar planning challenges. She observed that decision makers face a dilemma on how to guide investment to meet the diverse need of residents in urban economy in unforeseen climate conditions and unexpected indirect impacts of climate change. She shared that the probable responses, range from reactive to proactive actions. Reactive driven by actual
perceived climate variability; proactive driven by climate forecasting in future scenarios.
She emphasised that the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by what is done or not done in urban centres with regards to adapting to climate change over the next decade. Action is urgently needed, both to address current risks and to begin building resilience into urban fabric and systems, to likely future risks. She explained that resilience building means identifying the fragile systems within an urban system and strengthening them in order to reduce their vulnerability to climate impacts.
She opined that in developing world the immediate priorities, lack of infrastructure and finances to manage growing demands on cities, high pace of urbanisation and population exposure in cities are some of the reasons that dominate inaction towards climate change which is considered a distant target. But cities like New York, Cape Town, Singapore, London, Tokyo;
Climate uncertainties
and dynamic
urbanisation trends present
developing cities with new
and unfamiliar planning
challenges.
Dr. Divya Sharma, Fellow Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
and Surat, Gorakhpur and Indore in India have already started to think and act towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. There is a strong need to scale up these activities, learn from each other and mainstream policies because climate change impacts can wipe out development gains and significantly reduce quality of life.
She concluded by summarising the key steps which could be a starting point to enable climate resilience in cities: understanding risk and vulnerability at a city level or region level; planning for resilience; steering governance process, regulations and institutions. While highlighting the importance of multi-level and coordinated actions, she opined that international community can enable access to information, finance and support, while central governments may call for new and improved policies to bring in climate action. She stressed that it is essential to include community at every step for a participatory process.
Special Address: Dr. Cristina Rumbaitis del
Rio, Associate Director, The Rockefeller
Foundation
Dr. Cristina in her special address focussed on what has been learnt through the ACCCRN initiative so far. ACCCRN was launched in 2008 with a 60 million USD
commitment. It is working in 10 core cities which are second tier cities and are in their high growth stage. So there is still an opportunity to develop in a much more resilient trajectory. climate change, vulnerability and urbanisation is a big challenge.
Explaining the ACCCRN process, she shared that an iterative approach is being followed, which involves: stakeholder engagement; collaboration; understanding what is climate change and what it means for cities, what it means to specific sectors and people, who is vulnerable and why. The key feature of the process is that a participatory approach to vulnerability analysis is being followed with the aid of local stakeholders. It is this ‘Shared learning dialogue’ that culminates in a city resilience strategy.
She shared that 32 city projects are now underway in these 10 ACCCRN cities of which 12 projects are based in India. A total of 80 million USD has been reserved for implementation which includes both soft and hard interventions. Most of these projects are cross-sectoral and display institutional coordination mechanism.
She opined that one of the key outcomes from the ACCCRN initiative was that ownership values have been inculcated among city stakeholders by co-production of knowledge. These stakeholders range from private sector, chambers of commerce to municipal corporations, universities and local communities among others. The initiative has led to context specific solutions and a critical learning has been the opening up of space for communities to generate solutions. Delving on what still needs to be explored, she shared various second order questions like the debate between
There is a need to build
the right capacity and
leadership, social resilience, cohesion
and trust that is needed for coping
with the crisis presented by rapidly
changing climates.
mainstreaming and sector specific approaches. While mainstreaming offers comprehensive and efficient solutions recognising the interconnectedness of urban system actors, sector specific approach offers other benefits. She cited the views of Debra Roberts, a leading practitioner on climate change adaptation from the city
of Durban who feels that it might be better to follow a sectoral approach as governments work in departments, the mandates and budgets work out on a sectoral basis. Dr. Cristina noted that it was not an ‘either or’ issue. She emphasized that there is a need to build the right capacity and leadership, social resilience, cohesion and trust that is needed for coping with the crisis presented by rapidly changing climates. She also stressed on the need for rewards and incentives to build a culture of pride around resilience. She noted the challenge of attracting more finance and resources in this area for cities.
The session focused on the emerging approaches to address responses to climate change in urban areas. It brought together the available knowledge on climate resilience as it applies to urban areas and discussed various concepts and approaches that are being tested and applied in various parts of the world to build cities’ resilience to climate change.
Systems approach to meeting the
challenges of urban climate change
Ms. Jo da Silva, Director (International Development) ARUP
Ms. Jo da Silva gave a presentation on ‘A Systems Approach to Building Urban Resilience’. She said that the basic premise of this approach is to
unpack vulnerability into three factors – Exposure, Susceptibility and Poverty. She highlighted that in rural areas the impacts of climate change are mostly direct but cities face the complications of direct as well as indirect impacts which impairs the urban
Session Chair: Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, Earth Science and Climate Change Division, TERI
Since cities are complex,
traditional spatial analysis
followed by urban planners and
engineers is insufficient to predict
risks.
Ms. Jo da Silva, Director (International Development) ARUP
system. For instance, flooding affects the railway system in Semarang, Indonesia. Conceptualizing cities as dynamic systems there are a number of layers of dependencies and interdependencies. Cities function
for the well-being of its population and much of its resources come from the ecosystem (the blue and green infrastructure). Since cities are complex, traditional spatial analysis followed by urban planners and engineers is insufficient to predict risks. She gave an example of Surat city, India which is facing situation of floods. Although there were systems in place to mitigate floods but still flood incidents took place. A systems approach to build urban resilience in this context would involve analysis of different factors involving different stakeholders to understand a larger perspective of probable solutions for the city.
Developing Approaches to ACCCRN process
Mr. Kenneth McClune, Institute for Social and Environmental Transition (ISET), USA
Mr. McClune gave a presentation on ‘Climate Science for Urban Resilience’. He spoke about the typical
linear approach which is adopted in the resilience planning framework; starting from climate projections, climate impacts, vulnerability assessment and finally adaptation actions. He spoke about the challenges in adaptation planning including uncertainties in climate projections, and the problem of inter related impacts. He opined that at present adaptation planning perpetuates a paradigm of ‘predict and prevent’ instead of accommodating inevitable changes and is more project focused rather than strategic, analysis focuses on direct impacts rather than on system weaknesses. He highlighted that ACCCRN adopted a more context-centric approach involving shared learning dialogues and has been able to contextualize climate science in climate resilience strategies at the local level. He also highlighted the climate thresholds for increased contextual relevance.
Importance of Governance and
Capacity Building for Resilient Cities’ -
Global experiences
Mr. Sunil Dubey, Country Director, Metropolis (India) and Lecturer, The University of Sydney, Australia
Mr. Dubey informed the audience about the Metropolis network and its approach towards making cities resilient. A number of cities are members of Metropolis across the continents of Europe, America,
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
Africa, Asia and Middle East. He shared the findings from one of the Metropolis studies, which identified the challenges faced by cities in achieving resilience: Leadership; Partnership; Information Technology. He emphasized that resilient cities are based on social equity and economics that lead to preparedness and sustainability. Mr. Dubey opined that cities in Asia are growing very fast but developing slowly.
He highlighted the Metropolis approach for resilient cities which focuses on six key areas or ‘commissions’ including integrated urban governance and partnership for urban innovation. He also emphasized on connecting cities in terms of knowledge sharing. He observed that in resilient cities, rapid economic growth; social equity; governance and technology has a common link. He shared that Metropolis by means of workshops created ‘circles of sustainability’, an open forum to share problems of cities and derive connections. As an outcome, indicators and benchmarks were developed. He gave the examples of
Tehran, Sao Paulo, Melbourne and Delhi and how these can connect and learn from each other. For instance, Melbourne has good urban infrastructure, addresses social equity within boundaries of cities but is lacking in terms of environment because of thermal power plants. So, it can learn from Sao Paulo and other cities.
Financing resilience in cities
Mr. Paul Schuttenbelt, South Asia Coordinator, Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA), Asian Development Bank
In the subsequent presentation on “Financing resilience in cites”, Mr. Paul Schuttenbelt, South Asia Coordinator, Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA), Asian Development Bank, discussed the challenges of climate financing. He said that today
the cities faced a number of climate adaptation and mitigation issues and to solve these problems
financing was a key requirement. He further described the three broad sources of climate financing: public
finance, private finance and international climate funds. He mentioned that in spite of the presence of large number of funding sources, a key challenge for the cities was to access the funds. Many a times it has been observed that the procedure of obtaining allocated financial resources is extremely complicated, discouraging cities from utilizing the available funds.
Cities in Asia are growing
very fast but developing
slowly.
Besides these, limited capacity of city administration, lack of knowledge and coordination and inadequate integration of plans with the budget cycle, also pose as barriers towards building urban climate resilience. Mr. Schuttenbelt stated that partners could play an important role in helping cities access climate funds by providing technical assistance, facilitating coordination between different levels of governments, enhancing capacity in monitoring, reporting and verification of emission levels and supporting investments in low-carbon infrastructure. He indicated the critical role played by CDIA in assisting cities to set priorities, develop bankable projects and linking projects to
financing. CDIA follows a demand driven approach to assist cities to implement climate resilient strategies. Mr. Schuttenbelt concluded by giving an overview of some of the important work undertaken by CDIA in India.
Multilevel urban governance for building
climate resilience
Mr. Eric Chu, Post-Doctoral Boren Fellow, MIT, USA
In his presentation on “Multilevel urban governance for building climate resilience”, Mr. Eric Chu, Post-Doctoral Boren Fellow, MIT, USA, discussed the importance of governance in building climate resilience in cities and
Though multi-level
governance facilitates
learning, such a system also has
inherent problems like: issues
related with communication and
differing objectives and priorities
across different levels
of government
Mr. Eric Chu, Post-Doctoral Boren Fellow, MIT, USA
emphasized that, cities don’t exist in a political vacuum. He pointed out that planning for urban climate resilience involved complex procedures. Further,
he observed that though multi-level governance facilitated learning, at the same time such a system also has inherent problems like: issues related with communication across different levels of government, differing objectives and priorities of governments at different levels and departments, etc. He concluded his presentation by stressing on the need for addressing the failures of multi-level governance in order to mainstream climate resilience in the cities.
Discussion
One of the participants posed a question to Mr. Paul: What are the variants between combination of
financial methods observed in different countries?
Mr. Paul responded by saying that majority of funding comes from the countries itself (government funds), very small portion comes from outside-donors and international funding. He advised that local plans should include climate change actions, so budget can be sought from available sources.
Another question posed to speakers: What role could media play in making cities resilient?
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
awareness programmes and those who do work in this area neglect urban issues. He cited the recent incident in Delhi and lamented how the media did not pick up the very obvious issue of urban infrastructure and technology. He also recognized that media has the power and ability to deliver the message far more effectively than polity and administrators.
Dr. Ghosh added by saying that once a public policy issue has sufficient resonance with public and media focuses on it, then it quickly gets into the political agenda and regime. This was observed in the case of the Anna Hazaare movement and the recent Delhi gang rape incident. He emphasized that media has a role in raising public awareness and stimulating public action, till a point when government has to take action. Unfortunately, this has not yet been observed for urban resilience issue. He observed that campaigns were undertaken for certain urban infrastructure like water, power but in all the efforts were sporadic and same level of attention was not paid to climate resilience.
Another question raised by a participant was: Should there be different techniques and intervention approaches for cities at different levels of development?
Mr. Sunil responded by saying, that cities face similar problems and resilience does not differentiate between developed cities and cities in transition. He went on to say that, if disaster happens, it does not recognize whether the city is livable or not. So rather than adopting different approaches it would be more relevant to understand how cities could prepare and become resilient within their limited resources and these resources would vary widely from city to city. It is important for the policies to address the issue of resilience. There can be no simple solution but we need to simplify complexity as professionals and practitioners, through following an integrated approach.
Mr. Schuttenbelt added by saying that there is a need to prioritise issues and projects in cities, since there is not enough money to do everything. He advised to listen to those who face problem; have expertise; have information and for that it is important to prioritise the ‘who’ and ‘how’ issues.
How can private sector be convinced to invest in the climate resilience sector?
Mr. Paul responded by saying that there is a potential in mitigation area for private sector to invest if it foresees profit in green projects, like: manufacturing of green cars, waste to energy projects, etc. He gave the example of green washing powders that were accepted by the people who as consumers demanded more, which led to all the producers switching to produce environmentally friendly washing powder. He highlighted the role of awareness and the accompanying role of media as the key factor.
Mr. Sunil Dubey added that private sector is willing to invest more, but the challenges faced by them in India are- lack of data and enough research which prevents investors to make informed decisions in long term projects. He said that Institutes like TERI, ADB etc. can play an instrumental role by providing the required information.
Ms. Jo Da Silva observed that major businesses are now discussing urban issues as these businesses are also getting affected by the urban climate change issues. One of the recent examples being flooding in Bangkok, forcing businesses in the city center to shut down. Today, risk posed to businesses is a big driver for them to work in climate resilience sector. They are keenly seeking opportunities in this sector. Survival of business is also dependent on resilient cities. She gave the examples of business giants like Siemens and CISCO who are already beginning to invest in urban resilience research.
A participant posed a question: What is the role of the end user in being part of the solution of building resilient cities?
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
tackle the menace of Australian forest fires, one of the priorities was to educate the people residing in the
fire prone belt who will face it, well in advance about the precautions to be taken in case of an adversity. This has led to lesser fatalities and now the public is aware about the actions required to tackle fire mishaps. He observed that policies have to include education and training.
One of the participants asked: How can we do more with less? (Less funding, less resources)
Mr. Paul responded by emphasizing on his previous point of prioritising activities that will have an impact. Mr. Sunil added that in a limited resource scenario, sharing is important.
It was observed that in case of India, external investments have not been transformational. It was discussed that it is important to develop sources of internal investment and at the same time it is equally essential to look at both sustainable development and resilience building as parallel activities.
A final question was posed to Mr. Eric Chu, regarding the rampant development of new institutions rather than revitalization of old institutions, especially in light of high levels of resource deficit. To which he commented that different cities have chosen different pathways, while some cities have dedicated climate change offices others invest and place their mandate in existing ministries and environment departments. It would totally depend on the city-context and the model that the city choses for itself.
The session focused on understanding the ACCCRN experience in Indian and Asian Cities. The experiences and approaches adopted to assess climate risk and vulnerability and components of resilience strategies prepared during the process in selected cities were discussed. The focus was on understanding the methodology adopted and lessons learnt during the process.
Presentation on Experiences from
Gorakhpur, India
Dr. Shiraz Wajih, Director, Gorakhpur Environment Action Group (GEAG), Flagging Resilience through community participation – Gorakhpur City
The session started with a presentation by Dr. Shiraz Wajih. The presentation mainly discussed the process and methodology followed in the city of Gorakhpur for resilience planning through community participation and bottoms up approach. He highlighted that the vulnerability assessment of the selected 14 wards (on
and beyond
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
the basis of risks) was done at three levels- community, ward and city level; which led to the identification of nine most vulnerable sectors along with the actions which were shared with the government. The main 9 sectors included housing; industries and commerce; basic services; transportation; energy and electricity; health; household based livelihood; ecosystems and urban planning. He brought forward the sixteen main causes of the city’s vulnerability including high pace of population growth, inadequate sewerage, improper drainage, unplanned development, etc. Water logging was identified as the main issue in the city as 70% of the city area is in a low lying region. He emphasised that the city is expected to face the problems of more intense rainfall, increased maximum and minimum temperatures and increased humidity in the coming years. These issues were further expected to exacerbate in light of climate change impacts in future. To deal with these issues, a resilience strategy plan was developed which included sector wise strategies and immediate
actions were chalked out for the same. TERI identified the actions that could be mainstreamed at policy level. He suggested that to address bad governance, it is important to motivate citizens to take action. At the community level- thematic activities and capacity building should be undertaken. He opined that the micro resilience plan as a model for city level planning was in tune with the spirit of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. He gave the example of Mahewa
ward where there was no water logging this year. For this he gave credit to the citizens who advocated action from government.
To address bad governance, it is
important to motivate citizens
to take action.
ACCCRN experience in Gorakhpur city, India
Dr. Hina Zia, Fellow, Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
The next presentation was made by Dr. Hina Zia. She discussed the role of policy initiatives and regulations in mainstreaming resilience planning and implementation especially in context to the Gorakhpur case. She discussed the process adopted at TERI; comprising of an analytical review of secondary literature (resilience strategies, vulnerability reports; state and city level regulations, institutional assessment, etc.) and preparation of an action plan to help implement the resilience strategy. She highlighted that water logging is the prime risk for the city and the other three risks related to drinking water, solid waste, sewer and sanitation either had a causal relationship with water logging or are severely impacted by it. They become essential components while addressing the overall problem of water logging in the city. She further discussed various strategies that can be adopted in order to mitigate the risks attached to various vulnerable sectors. Some examples were quoted from various cities, like: using low cost decentralized waste water systems (DEWATS), amendments in building regulations/byelaws, ground water recharging, etc.
Presentation on Experiences from
Guwahati, India
Fostering Climate Resilience for Cities: A case study of Guwahati
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
risks identified were: unplanned urbanisation, climate variability, among others. Key factors which increase the vulnerability of the city include inefficient infrastructure, unauthorised construction and ecosystem degradation. She observed that, population has doubled in the last 20 years, and highlighted that more impermeable areas makes the city susceptible to water logging. Decreased forest cover, encroachment of natural drains and degradation of wetlands has further affected the urban system.
Following this, Ms. Raina highlighted the key elements of vulnerability and the major challenges which require attention. She emphasized that inadequate and inefficient urban infrastructure and services (in terms of water supply, drainage, solid waste management, transport, health etc.) add on to the vulnerability of the city. She informed that only one-third of city was covered by piped water supply and the city lacked proper sewerage system. Lack of a planned storm water drainage system was identified as the most critical issue, which needs immediate attention. Most of the urban poor settlements are prone to
flooding and landslide events. Moreover, most of the urban infrastructure- water treatment plants, waste management systems, etc. also are located in these areas. Ms. Raina highlighted the lack of sector wise data, lack of awareness, capacity and funds at the city level as the major limitations for the government in addressing the city’s vulnerabilities. She briefly touched upon the key components of the resilience strategy proposed by TERI to tackle these issues which included structural adaptation measures and institutional & regulatory support for implementing the same.
Mr. G K Bhat, Director, TARU
Urban Climate Change resilience, Lessons from ACCCRN India: Surat and Indore.
Mr. Bhat shared his experience on two ACCCRN cities of Surat and Indore. He said the cities were chosen as they represented varied environment along with
diverse governance contexts. He emphasized that a thorough understanding of the city context in terms of geo physical, social, economic and environmental conditions is important before designing resilience strategies for any city. He then discussed the analysis of the cities in context to the growing risks and the proposed city specific actions to strengthen their resilience to climate change. He shared the approach followed by his organisation which identified community level action equally important as compared to municipal action. He stressed that continued engagement with multiple stakeholders was essential. He shared from TARU’s experience in Surat and Indore that the project team generated a basket of innovative ideas and asked the people to pick up solutions. Vision sheets were created which imagined a scenario 20 years hence and series of sector studies were undertaken. This visualisation process was undertaken by people of city (Administration, professionals working in water supply, transportation) instead of outside consultants. Accordingly, issues were identified and solutions were proposed like end to end warning systems, urban health and climate resilience centre.
He informed that state government is now taking ownership and debate is shifting to multiple scales; non-conventional projects are now being devised.
He opined that key lessons from ACCCRN included identifying windows of opportunities and learning from past disasters and past mistakes. He advised for a paradigm shift from land use based planning to network based planning (e.g. transport, water, energy) in order to provide services efficiently in cities. He concluded with a saying: ‘We cannot simply think about survival, each generation is responsible for the next seven generations.’
ICLEI – ACCCRN Process: Learning from 3
Indian Cities
Mr. Sunandan Tiwari, Program Coordinator – Sustainability Management, ICLEI South Asia
Mr. Tiwari presented the approach followed by ICLEI in building climate resilience strategies for three different cities in India namely: Shimla, Bhubaneswar and Mysore. He said that the project aimed to develop a guide and toolkit to help cities develop and implement resilience strategies without the need for much external support. It also included testing of the toolkit in the three geographically distinct cities. The
aim was to streamline the process and combine all existing approaches, to develop a replicable process that cities could implement on their own.
The selection process involved sending Expression of interests (EoIs) to around 35-40 cities, of which 50% responded. The pre-requisite for selection of city was provision of resources- manpower and basic funds from the city’s side. Based on this, the three cities were selected. Mr. Tiwari opined that a ‘step by step’ approach works well with city governments. The urban climate resilience planning framework adopted in the project included 6 phases or stages contributed by ACCCRN partners - city selection and engagement, climate research and impact assessment, vulnerability assessment, building resilience strategy, implementation and monitoring. ICLEI developed the toolkits, tested them in 3 cities and reviewed with ACCCRN partners like ARUP for improvements.
He highlighted that presently, only first four phases have been looked at and discussed their status. ICLEI has future plans to take forward phases 5 and 6.
Mr. Tiwari explained the approach and learning from various phases. Phase 1 pointed towards the importance of political commitment, he discussed that taking the council and mayors’ commitment was a key factor for success. He observed that scoping exercises and communication is important in order to get the stakeholder groups involved. Phase 2 focused on climate trends and urban analysis. Mr. Tiwari shared that though we do not have down-scale models for cities, we can work with regional projections instead. He said that it was important to understand the climate trend for the region.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
systems on the basis of their likelihood, consequence and assessment of risks attached to it. Next, wards susceptible to the identified impacts were listed. Vulnerability hotspots were located, which included all wards in which the identified fragile systems were to be impacted. Later, he discussed the sector wise resilience actions proposed in the three cities.
Mr. Tiwari shared that ICLEI was trying to make the process more interactive and further discussed the way forward in the project where the focus was on streamlining and refining the toolkit, up scaling it to approximately 40 cities in 4 countries and exploring opportunities to move up to ‘project preparation’ and ‘financing’.
Discussion
This marked the end of the presentations and the chair thanked all the speakers for bringing forward a diversity of approaches and experiences in building city resilience strategies for various cities. She then opened the floor for discussions. The discussion revolved around the following points:
x Mr. Tiwari spoke about developing a dissemination plan in collaboration with the cities.
He spoke on further strengthening the communication plan of cities, with feedback loops to feed back into the process as key messages keep coming up.
x One of the participants asked: What is the roadmap from identification to implementation and how do the actions link to national policies?
Mr. Tiwari replied that adaptation plans at state level need to take into account urban areas as well. ICLEI is lobbying at national, regional, international level to try and understand what is happening at local level which can feed into national and sub national plans. He shared that the pre-feasibility project preparation, mechanisms for fund flow to cities needs to be worked out.
x Another question raised was: When will cities start enumerating the good practices themselves? Why hasn’t it happened till now?
Dr. Shiraz replied by saying that while climate action plans at national level are ready state level plans are yet to be formulated. He said, development and climate change adaptation goes hand in hand. Nesting of adaptation into existing development plans needs to be taken into account, he shared that it is emerging gradually and will take some time. He mentioned that disaster and climate change linkage is already recognised.
Ms. Raina added by sharing that as of now, government departments feel climate resilience is not on their mandate and they cannot take action on their own, she said that acceptability and ownership at city level is required.
Mr. GK Bhat responded by saying that no clear funds for climate change or disaster management are in place. The municipalities need to clearly allocate funds for sustainability and climate change issues, until they initiate a separate funding line, nothing will change.
Mr. Sunandan responded by saying that cities will have to meet standards and identify opportunities through national level schemes- like sustainable habitat mission. He also observed that community action should be encouraged as it entails minimum investment. He cited the example of Gorakhpur city. He advised to start with lower hanging fruits for bringing change and then take it forward with available funds.
x The speakers highlighted that lack of political will at state level is a major challenge in building resilient cities and being able to mitigate climate change effects.
Session Chair
Dr. Vinod Tewari, Professor, TERI University and Advisor, Centre for Research for Sustainable Urban Development and Transport Systems, Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
Distinguished members of the Panel
Prof Om Mathur, Distinguished Professor, Urban Economics, NIUA , Delhi
Mr. Emani Kumar, Executive Director, ICLEI South Asia
Mr. N Prasad, Manager, World Bank Institute, Climate Change Division
Mr. K. Ravindra Naik, Divisional Commissioner, Gorakhpur Division, Gorakhpur, UP
Mr. Kamlesh Yagnik, Hon. Secretary, The Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Advisor, Surat City Climate Change Group
The session began with a welcome note & introductory remarks from the chair- Dr. Tewari. After which, the chair invited the panellists to share their experiences and viewpoints on the topic- How do we take the urban resilience agenda forward and mainstream it into the formal urban planning framework?
Observations from Prof Om Mathur,
there will be macro-economic implications of not doing enough to address climate change issues in terms of poverty and economic growth. He commented that though we do not have much experience of working on climate change issues, experiences can be drawn from management of disasters like droughts; which were a frequent phenomenon in the past and the Planning commission had successfully initiated large scale management measures in the late 60s and 70s.He suggested that focussed action areas should be identified for taking the urban climate resilience agenda forward. He opined that the biggest issue is the lack of clarity on whether climate change issues should be tackled sector-wise- land, water, waste, mobility and energy or in an integrated cross-sectoral manner. He said that this confusion prevails even in Ministry of Urban Development. The inter dependence between the sectors is not yet recognised.
He came to the second issue of institutional arrangement and raised the question whether climate change is a public good or a private/semi-private good? He said that the perspective of looking at the issue will differ accordingly.
The third issue raised by him was the lack of understanding on level of government which should be involved (national/state/local)? He observed that the challenge was that local governments are not adequately aware and do not have the capacity at present to deal with climate change related issues.
Another issue highlighted by him was financing of mitigation and adaptation measures to tackle climate change vulnerabilities. He opined that we need to
ponder whether tax based public financing would be enough for the purpose or financing measures which are priced need to be explored. Also, the financial architecture to invest this money would need to be put in place.
He concluded by raising the issue whether one should work on city resilience strategy independent of national programme or not? He suggested that instead of looking at the issues of climate change sectorally, it is important to move towards an integrated plan.
Observations from Mr. N Prasad, Manager,
World Bank Institute, Climate Change
Division
Mr. N. Prasad discussed on the elements for successful engagement for urban resilience building. He highlighted the case of Rio city which was the first city to establish a low carbon development plan. Rio hosted the Rio plus summit last year and will be holding Olympics in 2014 and FIFA in 2016. Due to this, a lot of investment is being done in the city to prepare for all these mega events. As a result, it is expected that Rio will benefit in terms of the growth of industry, generation of green jobs and improvement in the general quality of life.
According to Mr. Prasad, the will of the local leaders is essential for the process of building resilience. He opined thatthere is no such thing as climate change
There is no such thing as
climate change expertise;
it is merely that the development
process has to take into account these
changes and issues.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
expertise; it is merely that the development process has to take into account these changes and issues.
He shared World Bank’s experience of working with WRI, C40 cities network and ICLEI when they created a Global Protocol for Communities (GPC) to make sense of the multiple choices a city administrator may find in terms of the many protocols that exist. He also said that while there needs to be a global protocol for cities, at the same time it is important that it integrates with the national plans and responses must be customised to the economy of the city. He suggested that if cities set national plans for reducing emissions, then they can target for mobilising the funding by availing opportunities like the Green Climate Fund and other international funding sources whenever they are released.
He also opined that municipal bodies should get the share of the reward and incentives in form of funding for the climate change action that they undertake at local levels. It is observed that usually funding goes through the central government through a long route and hardly reaches the city level. He concluded by saying that it might take another 4-5 years till financing issues become clearer, till then it is time to work on capacity building at all levels.
Observations from Mr. K. Ravindra Naik,
Divisional Commissioner, Gorakhpur
Division, Gorakhpur, UP
The chair invited Mr. Naik to speak on the challenges faced in incorporating the changes in urban governance framework for mainstreaming climate resilience in cities.
Mr. Naik observed that almost all cities were facing similar problems like- public health issues, solid waste management and sewerage management, storm water management issues etc. In order to tackle these problems, intensive investments are required for infrastructure development and maintenance in urban
areas. Although, the state governments are gradually focusing on urban issues; when it comes to financing for climate resilience there is still a long way to go in absence of required funds for basic urban services.
He observed on the lack of funds for development the ULBs are hardly in a position to make any financial commitment. Thus, there is no felt difference in the status of development at the city level. He warned that present scenario will continue unless there is political will to mobilize resources at the city level. He shared his experience where Gorakhpur city had submitted a project report to the Centre asking for funds to the tune of 400 crore for development of sewerage network in the city but the proposal was rejected as there was no
financial commitment from the Gorakhpur ULB.
He opined, political will is required to invest in developmental activities and advocacy is needed at all levels of governance and for all stakeholders. At present, local bodies are not empowered for sustained effects. He brought the drainage problem in Gorakhpur
Sustained maintenance
of infrastructure does not
take place as the ULBs are hardly
in a position to make any financial
commitment.
city to light and stressed on the need for efficient solid waste, drainage and sewerage management.
He concluded by saying that unless we come up with civil society pressure groups, unless we educate the citizens and there is a sense of identity amongst the citizens for their city; city development will be a long and time taking process.
Observations from Mr. Kamlesh Yagnik,
Hon. Secretary, The Southern Gujarat
Chamber of Commerce & Industry and
Advisor, Surat City Climate Change Group
Commenting on the earlier discussions, Mr. Yagnik said that Gujarat is placed well in terms of political will.
He cited the renowned ‘Inconvenient Truth’ and then cited ‘Convenient Action’, a book written by Shri Narendra Modi, the Hon. Chief Minister of Gujarat which is a guiding document for the state for climate change planning.
He highlighted the challenge of taking resilience forward beyond ACCCRN when it ends in 2014. He opined that ‘resilient city’ is an ongoing process and not an end product. For this, he highly appreciated the work of Rockefeller Foundation and ACCCRN partner TARU for their sustained engagement with stakeholders in Surat city.
Mr. Yagnik described the city of Surat with a population of 4.5mn (highest migrant population in Asia) as the city with largest textile and diamond manufacturing industry. But, Surat is also a flood prone area. Mr. Yagnik shared that back in 2008-09 an issue came up in one of the stakeholder meeting on how to sustain the growth of the city? The initial dialogue at chamber of commerce took place during that time, which pointed out towards a major challenge of Climate Change, which was given a priority by the chamber subsequently. Other city stakeholders later united to work on the agenda, namely: Surat Municipal
Corporation, Surat Citizen Council, Centre for Social Sciences, Universities and NGOs.
A need for a separate entity was felt, following which, The Surat Climate Change Trust, a first of its kind in India was established as an independent agency with a special budget allocation for climate resilience measures. Mr. Yagnik said that the city of Surat was already gearing up to live without ACCCRN. He highlighted the many independent initiatives being carried out. For instance, Surat is moving towards becoming a solar city, a Master Draft plan for the same has been submitted to MNRE. Mr. Yagnik shared that it has been approved, and funding will be allocated soon.
Mr. Yagnik informed the congregation that currently the city meets 84% of energy need through renewable energy sources including biogas. Another initiative highlighted by him was the setting up of a Command and Control Centre for a city-wide surveillance, made possible without government funding, through funds pooled in by citizens. He informed that an online air analyser to monitor air quality will be set up and precipitation pattern monitoring will also take place in the near future.
Observations from Mr. Emani Kumar,
Executive Director, ICLEI South Asia
Mr. Emani Kumar informed the audience that ICLEI is currently working in 40 cities in India, scaling up activities on knowledge sharing and extending initiative of Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Kumar opined that, many cities have a lot of funds but they don’t have
Many cities have a lot of
funds but they don’t have
agendas for its utilisation.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond |29 January, 2013
agendas for its utilisation. To help the cities, ICLEI has come up with a climate protocol at both global and India level. He opined that a lot of progress has taken place in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives in the cities. He gave an example that 10 years back energy efficiency did not feature in street lighting tender documents; today it’s a different case altogether. He shared his experience from workshops on educating public about mitigation and adaptation, World Mayors group on climate change and other initiatives. Mr. Kumar urged that now is the time to come up with action plans, so that whenever international funding is available it can be availed through national and state governments. He informed that ICLEI works with various financial institutions linking city action plans with funding opportunities. He believes that once action plans are in place, they can be linked to funding agencies, for this ICLEI has been working
with state governments and UNFCCC for upscaling these linking activities. At this point, he mentioned about the ‘Cities climate registry’, a platform for local governments to put their action plans online to enable linkages.
He advised local authorities not to wait for funds but utilise the funds that were currently available. He said that, there may not be a specific climate change fund but an infrastructure fund can be utilised which may have a climate component under it. He informed that Indian cities were already devising second generation City Development Plans with a climate angle so that when second phase of JNNURM funding comes, then through National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH) funds can be linked and money can be routed to local governments for climate resilience measures/ initiatives.
Discussion
The Chair observed that the panellists had successfully highlighted the issues, challenges and opportunities in working on resilience. He then opened the floor for discussions.
The following observations/ comments were made:
x Mr. Sunil Dubey, Director, Metropolis directed a question towards Mr. Prasad and Prof Om Mathur: What should be the financial architecture with regards to climate change, should it be priced or tax based. Rio has already implemented and has policies in place. Which way should India go? One of the participant asked whether there was a scope for private sector financing?
x Mr. N. Prasad observed that the scenario in Rio and other world cities is different and difficult to replicate in India because of different political set-ups. He instead suggested disseminating the lessons of Gujarat to other less developed states in India.
x Mr. Naik asked Mr. Yagnik the source of funding for the renewable energy and biomass initiative in Gujarat. To which he replied that there is 28MW installed capacity in Surat, and majority of the funding was local and through JNNURM. For the city surveillance system, 12 crore was invested in Phase I which came from citizens. It is expected that at later stages, government and private players will step in to invest further.
x Mr. Emani Kumar mentioned that Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan are coming up with state level low carbon policies. Later, other states can replicate the same. He opined that context specific and sector specific guidelines are needed. He informed that ICLEI has made a financing guide for mitigation and low carbon action projects. With support from Rockefeller Foundation, they are currently working on preparing financing mechanism for urban climate mitigation projects which will be shared in future.
The workshop also witnessed the very first screening of TERI’s film showcasing the work of TERI and other ACCCRN partners in the ACCCRN city of Gorakhpur.
‘Tales of Gorakhpur – Path Towards a Climate-Resilient Future’ tells the story of a city grappling with the dual pressures of urbanization and climate change. Located in the foothills of the Himalayas, Gorakhpur is the second largest-city in the
mid-Gangetic plains of India. Given its topography, the city is naturally flood-prone. People have suffered here for generations. Unmanaged solid waste, negligible sewage infrastructure, polluted water-bodies, unplanned housing, flooding, water-logging, and a range of water and vector borne diseases- it all comes together in Gorakhpur. As it does in many of India’s rapidly urbanizing cities.
Film Screening- Tales of Gorakhpur
Poster Exhibit
The film brings out the current vulnerability of Gorakhpur and questions whether the city is prepared for a future that is predicted to have even more rainfall and floods.
Amidst what seems to be a grim situation, the film builds hope through the efforts of a range of people and partners, scientists and local communities, who for the past few years have been working under the aegis of ACCCRN (Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network), to make Gorakhpur a climate-resilient city.
In particular, it highlights the work of GEAG (Gorakhpur Environment Action Group) in preparing a climate-resilience strategy for the city and the efforts of TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) towards mainstreaming this strategy in the overall framework of laws and policies related to urban development.
Mili Majumdar, Director, Sustainable
Habitat Division, TERI
Ms. Mili thanked all the participants, speakers, chairs, panellists for the interesting deliberations throughout the day. She also thanked Dr Cristina for all the support extended from The Rockefeller Foundation not only for the workshop but also for the long term initiative. She said that the message was loud and clear- ‘Cities are impacted by Climate change and rising vulnerabilities should be addressed through climate resilience planning.’ She appreciated the national and international experience sharing through the workshop.
She highlighted the key learnings from the day:
The need to adopt the integrated cross sectoral approach; Importance of political will and engagement; Key issue of financing of projects and initiatives (both development and maintenance); Discussion on various approaches of modelling; On-ground implementation challenges; the importance of requisite expertise.
She said that everyone present had benefitted from the dialogue and now there is a need to continue this dialogue and welcomed new collaborations in this direction.
The conference offered many messages and positive observations were made during the course of the discussions while also emphasizing on the challenges and barriers to climate resilience.
x One positive observation was the understanding and consensus among all stakeholders on climate resilience issue in urban context.
x The workshop discussed various approaches, theories and practices related to the theme of urban resilience. It was recognised that there is a need to apply these well developed and tested approaches to urban resilience planning in Indian cities.
x However, there are some challenges which need to be addressed:
t Lack of infrastructure and finances to manage high pace of urbanisation and population exposure in cities in Asia and India prove to be a deterrent and city managers find it difficult to push the climate resilience agenda onto the on-going programs and priorities
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in the absence of any guiding policy and regulation, particularly those related to climate resilience in the urban context, is one of the foremost challenge.
x It was felt that the time is ripe for setting local and national action plans to build climate resilience within urban centres and help them get access to international funding.
x The workshop pointed out that there is a need to learn from the existing experiences in the area of urban climate resilience, with a strong focus to be placed on intra-state learning as well. For instance, the ACCCRN cities of Surat, Gorakhpur and Indore must share their learning and success stories with other cities within their state. This was recognised as the appropriate starting point for ensuring scalability.
x It was also observed that when such activities are scaled up in other parts of the region, they need to contextualise the solutions at the local level as per the needs of the city.
