29 June 2023

South American cities learn about new climate resilience tools developed by UNDRR and CAF during Mercociudades workshop

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean

South American cities met in Montevideo on 22-23 June for a workshop to identify their strengths and weaknesses in climate action planning (mitigation and adaptation), as part of the Mercociudades project: "Measuring and planning for climate change".

“Measuring and Planning for Climate Change” is a regional initiative of Mercociudades, co-financed by the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities (UCCI) and Mercociudades, with technical support from ICLEI and UNDRR – under the MCR2030 initiative. Buenos Aires, Esteban Echeverría (Argentina), Montevideo, Canelones (Uruguay), Lima (Peru), São Paulo (Brazil) and Peñalolén (Chile) are the partner cities to the project.

Adriana Campelo, MCR2030 Regional Coordinator in the Americas and the Caribbean, and Clément Da Cruz, MCR2030 Junior Programme Officer, presented the tools for DRR-CCA integration recently developed by UNDRR and CAF, with the technical support of Global Factor.

The tools include: i) an integrated assessment of climate and non-climate risks under updated international climate scenarios; ii) an Addendum to the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities focusing on local governments’ capacities to integrate the disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation agenda in their planning and implementation processes.

“The latest IPCC report states that for any given level of future warming, climate and non-climate risks will increasingly interact, creating compound and cascading risks that are more complex and difficult to manage. Through these tools, UNDRR and CAF recognise the need to integrate the disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation agendas and seek to contribute to the local-level operationalisation of such integration. “
Adriana Campelo, MCR2030 Regional Coordinator in the Americas and the Caribbean, UNDRR

Partner international organisations of MCR2030 also contributed to the workshop, such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM).