2017 Seoul Mayors Forum on Climate Change - Adapting to the changing climate: increasing cities resilience

Background

Local authorities play an instrumental role in preventing new, and reducing existing risk, as well as increasing resilience. Disasters trends in the 2005-2015 decade had a complex and devastating impact on people and economies in Asia. More than 150 million people were affected by floods while economic losses amounted to more than 250 billion US dollars.

How can we reduce the impact of disasters and make disaster risk reduction and adaptation strategies in cities a greater priority for governments and the people they serve? Clearly, local governments are required to regularly assess and review existing strategies, actions and investments in line with the pace of social and economic development.

Achieving the local actions set out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda will depend to a significant extent on how well risk management is integrated into decision making. By investing in risk reduction, new hospitals, schools and critical infrastructure can be built to withstand natural hazards and climate related risk, so that they continue providing critical services in times of disaster, when they are most needed.

The session aims to increase understanding of the local implementation of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement.

Objective

Participants will have a better understanding on the linkages between disaster risk reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Furthermore, participants will learn about the latest tools to assess their city’s disaster resilience and discuss ways to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related risks.