TRACK 6: Changing environment and risks

congress team:  Juanee Cilliers, South Africa & Markus Appenzeller, The Netherlands

Continuing the conversation from last Congress in Bodø and the need to urgently address disaster prevention and adaptation to the consequences of climate change: Jakarta and other megacities are showing dangerous vulnerabilities to extreme pollution, sea level rise, salt-water intrusion and water shortages. This is, however, matched by steadily decreasing poverty that runs in parallel to the increasing urbanisation. If cities with their consumerist nature are part of the solution to poverty, what models can they use to minimize their impact on the environment and become leaders in the fight to respond to climate change? What is already being done and what are the outcomes?

Food, water, transport and energy systems need resilience to climate change to avert catastrophic events and to cope with a further increase of global and urban populations. Pollution and waste demand the urgent understanding of urban metabolism to achieve better social justice and to safeguard the balance of the planet. What are cities doing to transition their urban economies to achieve improved well-being and environmental justice and to transform dependence on non-renewable materials to resource-efficient and renewable flows and better management of ecosystems? What role should planning/planners play in developing resilient plans, designs, buildings and infrastructures?

Sessions:

Session 6.1 General Introduction: Climate Change – Globally

Climate change is probably the biggest man-made global threat we are currently facing. This comes in a time where our cities are growing in an unprecedented way – often in areas that are affected the most by climate change. This session wants to give a general introduction to the topic, outline its main fields of impact and evaluate what we can do to steer measures globally.

Session 6.2 The Currencies of Climate Change: Water

Water is the currency of climate change. It is the impact of too much or too little water that will have the biggest impact on human lives. This session will evaluate the scale of impact and how water can and ideally should be dealt with in different urban conditions.

Session 6.3 (Special Session) Planning for Climate Change

Session 6.4 The Currencies of Climate Change: Heat

One of the main consequences of climate change is global warming. In the future we will not only see higher overall temperatures but also more extreme heat. Without measures, this can very well lead to places, especially cities becoming uninhabitable. The session will look at planning tools and approaches that help mitigating the effects of heat, especially in those global regions that will be affected most.

Session 6.5 Climate Change and Operating Cities – Metabolism

The biggest indirect-and therefore a lot less directly mitigatable - impact climate change has on mankind is through the changes in the ecosystems. This puts our food base at risk, and it threatens other species. This session will investigate the order of challenge and identify possible ways forward.

Session 6.6 (Special Session) Planning for Liveability Building Unique Cities: An Imperative for Sustainability and Liveability in the Global South 

Session 6.7 Climate Change and Operating Cities – People

Climate change affects the lives of people. At the same time, its those very people that have to be the agents to limit climate change and to implement measures for its mitigation. Planning that involves local communities is imperative in achieving the goals set out. This session investigates means and processes to involve the local residents in climate change mitigation.

Session 6.8  Climate change and Urbanism: Planning Tools

Next to all other players, we as urban planners, designers and policy makers need to take responsibility for the effects of climate change. This session looks at our own tools, the tools of the planner and how they (can) accommodate this responsibility.

Session 6.9 Planning – Looking Forward

In this session we want to summarize the findings of the previous days and we want to define a set of planning measures, paradigms, policy proposals for planning for more resilient cities from now on.