Local Governments for Sustainability and partners have unveiled an initiative to catapult urban resilience action worldwide at the Rio+20 Global Town Hall.
The Global Initiative on Urban Resilience (GIUR) bolsters disaster resilience – one of the hallmark themes of the historic UN Conference on Sustainable Development, better known as Rio +20.
Urban resilience is an indispensable precondition to the attainment of sustainable development and will drive agendas, investment opportunities, and building and infrastructure development.
Building urban resilience involves reducing exposure to risk and vulnerability while increasing resistance and robustness and ensuring emergency preparedness.
ICLEIL – Local Governments for Sustainability, secretary general Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, said urban resilience must apply not only to climate change, but to all other shocks and stresses that affect community systems.
ICLEIL – Local Governments for Sustainability, secretary general Konrad Otto-Zimmermann, said urban resilience must apply not only to climate change, but to all other shocks and stresses that affect community systems.
The Report of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, outlined a vision, including 56 specific recommendations as well as a call to action.
United States Green Building Vice President Dr Jason Hartke said the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel makes clear that the protean concept of resilience cuts across all issues and sectors, and provides a new and vital dimension to the cause of sustainable development.
Acting as a leadership group on this important dimension of the challenge, ICLEI; the US Green Building Council; the Eye on Earth Summit; the World Bank Group; the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group; the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Program on Energy, Resources; and the Environment, and the Earth Council Alliance Rio de Janeiro Office are raising the flag on the urban resiliency movement around the world.
The GIUR will focus on eight key areas, but will refine its reach as innovative ideas emerge:
United States Green Building Vice President Dr Jason Hartke said the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel makes clear that the protean concept of resilience cuts across all issues and sectors, and provides a new and vital dimension to the cause of sustainable development.
Acting as a leadership group on this important dimension of the challenge, ICLEI; the US Green Building Council; the Eye on Earth Summit; the World Bank Group; the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group; the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Program on Energy, Resources; and the Environment, and the Earth Council Alliance Rio de Janeiro Office are raising the flag on the urban resiliency movement around the world.
The GIUR will focus on eight key areas, but will refine its reach as innovative ideas emerge:
- Convene a core group of organizations that will coordinate the stakeholders to provide global reach and dimension to the initiative
- Encourage a resiliency dimension to the green building movement
- Take a whole-of-urban government approach
- Develop new incentives for budget action on resilience by local governments around the world
- Build awareness of resilience as an indispensable precondition to sustainable development
- Develop harmonized metrics for success to better achieve milestones and outcomes
- Integrate geographic information systems and geospatial infrastructure into planning and budget decisions
- Integrate systems for natural capital accounting, avoiding losses and reducing costs associated with shocks and disasters
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