47. TERI Rockefeller Workshop Proceedings Report
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on
Resilient Cities-Experiences from
ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond
29 January, 2013
© The Energy and Resources Institute, 2013
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Foreword
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).
Surat, Indore and Gorakhpur were the three pilot cities in India to have developed
their resilience strategies under the ACCCRN network. Multiple stakeholders joined
hands with the city governments to not only develop resilience strategies but also
identified pilot adaptation projects for implementation. A few more cities namely
Guwahati, Shimla, Mysore and Bhubaneswar have been included in the replication
and scaling up phase of the program. There is strong need as well as merit in sharing
experiences from these initiatives and joining hands with multiple stakeholders
to replicate and scale up these efforts. It is also beneficial to reach out to cities and
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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 CitiesExperiences 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
Sustainable Habitat Division
TERI
4
Inaugural Session
Welcome Address: Dr. R.K Pachauri,
Director General, TERI
capacity and capability that we must build for future
across the globe.
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
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.
To equip cities with the
knowledge, institutional
capability and resilience that will
enable them to deal with climate
change effectively is a wise strategy.
Dr. R.K Pachauri, Director General, TERI
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.
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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
Just cities will
result in more robust
resilient cities.
Dr. Ligia Noronha, Executive Director
(Research Coordination), TERI
6
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.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization
Prospects, the 2011 Revision. New York 2012
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
Climate uncertainties
and dynamic
urbanisation trends present
developing cities with new
and unfamiliar planning
challenges.
Dr. Divya Sharma, Fellow
Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
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;
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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
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.
Dr. Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Associate Director,
The Rockefeller Foundation
8
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.
ACCCRN strives for outcomes that are focused on
building capacity of cities and building skill sets that
are needed to cope with the challenge of climate
change. The initiative strives to build a knowledge
sharing network and scaling up beyond the 10
cities. She opined that working at the intersection of
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
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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.
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
She concluded by thanking the ACCCRN partners for
the various roles they play: IIED and ISET, as learning
partners who have documented and published the
learnings; NIUA for engaging in capacity building
and training of urban professionals in India; ICLEI
for pilot testing a shorter version of ACCCRN in 3540 cities; TERI, ICRIER and IRADe for policy support;
ARUP International and CDIA for their meaningful
contributions.
9
Session 1. Urban resilience: concepts
and approaches
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
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
Session Chair: Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, Earth Science and Climate Change Division, TERI
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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
Characteristics of elements of resilient systems (ARUP)
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 contextcentric 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,
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
Cities in Asia are growing
very fast but developing
slowly.
Mr. Sunil Dubey, Country Director, Metropolis (India)
and Lecturer, The University of Sydney, Australia
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
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
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.
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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 lowcarbon 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?
Mr. Sunil Dubey responded by giving his observation that media starts participating only after an event
has taken place. He commented that there are very few examples from media who collectively work on
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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.
Ken McClune added by giving an example of how American media organized campaigns for blocked drains
during his childhood; he opined that media campaigns are essential for building resilience to broadcast
knowledge to the general public. But at the same time media needs a framework to hang the narrative, and a
direction is required for a story.
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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?
Mr. Sunil responded by accepting that informing the end user is the best thing to do. He recognized that in
order to work towards building climate resilience, there is a need to develop a network system which can
disseminate information and learning to end users, for achieving effective results. For example, in order to
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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 Chair summarized the discussions and advised to look at the intersections and pick on actions needed for
climate resilience, prioritising them so long as they are consistent for Sustainable Development. He commented
that developing countries must realize that external resources were only useful and supplementary and not
transformational. He gave the example of India which received billions of investment from ADB and World
Bank. He advised that India needs to augment its own resources and in doing so it must focus on both
resilience and sustainable development.
16
Session 2. ACCCRN experience in India
and beyond
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
Session Chair: Dr. Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Associate Director, The Rockefeller Foundation
Session Co-Chair: Dr Shailaja Ammanraju, DFID
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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
To address bad governance, it is
important to motivate citizens
to take action.
Dr. Shiraz Wajih, Director, Gorakhpur Environment
Action Group (GEAG)
18
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.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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
Next, a presentation was made by Ms. Raina Singh and
Ms. Divya Mohan from TERI where they discussed TERI’s
experience in building a climate resilient plan for the
city of Guwahati. Ms. Divya highlighted the need for
a more sensitized planning along with an integrated
approach as vital for building city’s resilience. The
approach followed in the study included identification
of hazards, vulnerability assessment, preparation of
current and future risk profile of the city, institutional
analysis and preparation of a resilience plan. The Plan
thus proposed includes measures for integrating and
mainstreaming policies for urban resilience and risk
reduction in the existing policy framework. In Guwahati,
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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
20
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.
Mr. Bhat informed the audience that the outcome of
the continued efforts in the city was the formation of
a multi stakeholder group for pressurising city leaders
which was now developing a vision beyond ACCCRN.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
He informed that state government is now taking
ownership and debate is shifting to multiple scales;
non-conventional projects are now being devised.
aim was to streamline the process and combine all
existing approaches, to develop a replicable process
that cities could implement on their own.
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.’
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.
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
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.
Next, he discussed the approach followed by ICLEI,
which identifies the fragile systems of cities and then
studies future impacts of climate change on the same
systems. A priority exercise was conducted to prioritise
areas of vulnerability. It was followed by sector
wise vulnerability assessment of the various urban
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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.
x
22
Chair Shailaja asked that the work on resilience spanning many years has developed several
approaches but emerging issues of financing still exists. What factors do the speakers think,
that would promote budgeting aspects and encourage finance?
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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.
x
Also, a need was felt for the local governments to allocate some yearly funds for climate change
mitigation and adaptation. It is easier to get funds for disaster management; therefore, linking it with
climate change can prove beneficial in getting funds from upper levels of g
Resilient Cities-Experiences from
ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond
29 January, 2013
© The Energy and Resources Institute, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
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Unauthorized export is a violation of terms of sale and is subject to legal action.
Published by
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Foreword
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).
Surat, Indore and Gorakhpur were the three pilot cities in India to have developed
their resilience strategies under the ACCCRN network. Multiple stakeholders joined
hands with the city governments to not only develop resilience strategies but also
identified pilot adaptation projects for implementation. A few more cities namely
Guwahati, Shimla, Mysore and Bhubaneswar have been included in the replication
and scaling up phase of the program. There is strong need as well as merit in sharing
experiences from these initiatives and joining hands with multiple stakeholders
to replicate and scale up these efforts. It is also beneficial to reach out to cities and
3
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 CitiesExperiences 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
Sustainable Habitat Division
TERI
4
Inaugural Session
Welcome Address: Dr. R.K Pachauri,
Director General, TERI
capacity and capability that we must build for future
across the globe.
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
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.
To equip cities with the
knowledge, institutional
capability and resilience that will
enable them to deal with climate
change effectively is a wise strategy.
Dr. R.K Pachauri, Director General, TERI
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.
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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
Just cities will
result in more robust
resilient cities.
Dr. Ligia Noronha, Executive Director
(Research Coordination), TERI
6
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.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization
Prospects, the 2011 Revision. New York 2012
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
Climate uncertainties
and dynamic
urbanisation trends present
developing cities with new
and unfamiliar planning
challenges.
Dr. Divya Sharma, Fellow
Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI
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;
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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
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.
Dr. Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Associate Director,
The Rockefeller Foundation
8
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.
ACCCRN strives for outcomes that are focused on
building capacity of cities and building skill sets that
are needed to cope with the challenge of climate
change. The initiative strives to build a knowledge
sharing network and scaling up beyond the 10
cities. She opined that working at the intersection of
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
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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.
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
She concluded by thanking the ACCCRN partners for
the various roles they play: IIED and ISET, as learning
partners who have documented and published the
learnings; NIUA for engaging in capacity building
and training of urban professionals in India; ICLEI
for pilot testing a shorter version of ACCCRN in 3540 cities; TERI, ICRIER and IRADe for policy support;
ARUP International and CDIA for their meaningful
contributions.
9
Session 1. Urban resilience: concepts
and approaches
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
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
Session Chair: Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, Earth Science and Climate Change Division, TERI
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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
Characteristics of elements of resilient systems (ARUP)
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 contextcentric 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,
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
Cities in Asia are growing
very fast but developing
slowly.
Mr. Sunil Dubey, Country Director, Metropolis (India)
and Lecturer, The University of Sydney, Australia
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
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
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.
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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 lowcarbon 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?
Mr. Sunil Dubey responded by giving his observation that media starts participating only after an event
has taken place. He commented that there are very few examples from media who collectively work on
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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.
Ken McClune added by giving an example of how American media organized campaigns for blocked drains
during his childhood; he opined that media campaigns are essential for building resilience to broadcast
knowledge to the general public. But at the same time media needs a framework to hang the narrative, and a
direction is required for a story.
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TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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?
Mr. Sunil responded by accepting that informing the end user is the best thing to do. He recognized that in
order to work towards building climate resilience, there is a need to develop a network system which can
disseminate information and learning to end users, for achieving effective results. For example, in order to
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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 Chair summarized the discussions and advised to look at the intersections and pick on actions needed for
climate resilience, prioritising them so long as they are consistent for Sustainable Development. He commented
that developing countries must realize that external resources were only useful and supplementary and not
transformational. He gave the example of India which received billions of investment from ADB and World
Bank. He advised that India needs to augment its own resources and in doing so it must focus on both
resilience and sustainable development.
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Session 2. ACCCRN experience in India
and beyond
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
Session Chair: Dr. Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Associate Director, The Rockefeller Foundation
Session Co-Chair: Dr Shailaja Ammanraju, DFID
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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
To address bad governance, it is
important to motivate citizens
to take action.
Dr. Shiraz Wajih, Director, Gorakhpur Environment
Action Group (GEAG)
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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.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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
Next, a presentation was made by Ms. Raina Singh and
Ms. Divya Mohan from TERI where they discussed TERI’s
experience in building a climate resilient plan for the
city of Guwahati. Ms. Divya highlighted the need for
a more sensitized planning along with an integrated
approach as vital for building city’s resilience. The
approach followed in the study included identification
of hazards, vulnerability assessment, preparation of
current and future risk profile of the city, institutional
analysis and preparation of a resilience plan. The Plan
thus proposed includes measures for integrating and
mainstreaming policies for urban resilience and risk
reduction in the existing policy framework. In Guwahati,
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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
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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.
Mr. Bhat informed the audience that the outcome of
the continued efforts in the city was the formation of
a multi stakeholder group for pressurising city leaders
which was now developing a vision beyond ACCCRN.
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
He informed that state government is now taking
ownership and debate is shifting to multiple scales;
non-conventional projects are now being devised.
aim was to streamline the process and combine all
existing approaches, to develop a replicable process
that cities could implement on their own.
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.’
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.
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
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.
Next, he discussed the approach followed by ICLEI,
which identifies the fragile systems of cities and then
studies future impacts of climate change on the same
systems. A priority exercise was conducted to prioritise
areas of vulnerability. It was followed by sector
wise vulnerability assessment of the various urban
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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.
x
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Chair Shailaja asked that the work on resilience spanning many years has developed several
approaches but emerging issues of financing still exists. What factors do the speakers think,
that would promote budgeting aspects and encourage finance?
TERI-Rockefeller International Workshop on Resilient Cities- Experiences from ACCCRN in Asia and Beyond | 29 January, 2013
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.
x
Also, a need was felt for the local governments to allocate some yearly funds for climate change
mitigation and adaptation. It is easier to get funds for disaster management; therefore, linking it with
climate change can prove beneficial in getting funds from upper levels of g