Tackling climate change and building resilient cities
In today’s society, all cities in the world face various urbanisation issues, especially those affected by climate, and therefore, it is particularly important to focus on the various issues in the urbanisation process and promote sustainable urban development worldwide.
And after learning the basic knowledge, I recognised that under the Paris Agreement, governments have committed to limiting temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Achieving this objective will require global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2020, reduce by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and be reduced to net zero around 2070, with carbon emissions reaching net zero around mid-century, with negative emissions thereafter. And there exists a standard rule called “The Climate Action Tracker (CAT)”, which aims to tracking the progress of countries towards achieving the climate targets they have set for themselves under the Paris Agreement and what the combined effect of these commitments and policies mean for global temperature levels at the end of this century. Thus, different countries have their own behaviors and action to face the climate change.
China’s behavior—The World Cities Day
The World Cities Day proposed by China has been widely recognised both at home and abroad, and has become an important platform for the international community to promote and exchange ideas and practices on sustainable urban development and to address the challenges posed by urbanization, which aims to tackling climate change and building resilient cities. The new coming World Cities Day 2021 China’s main event kicks off in Shanghai on 30 October.
World Cities Day is the first international day promoted by our government at the United Nations, and an important spiritual legacy of the Shanghai World Expo. At the closing of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the Expo Organizing Committee, the United Nations and the Bureau of International Exhibitions jointly issued “the Shanghai Declaration”, in which they proposed to designate 31 October, the closing date of the Shanghai World Expo, as World Cities Day, as an inspiration for humanity to pursue and strive for urban innovation and harmonious development. In December 2013, the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to designate 31 October as World Cities Day from 2014 onwards.
With the theme of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, “Better City, Better Life” as its overall theme, World Cities Day has always carried on this concept, focusing on various issues in the process of urbanisation and promoting the sustainable development of cities around the world. Co-organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and UN-Habitat, the China host event for World Cities Day 2021 and the first Global Conference on Sustainable Urban Development will be held in Shanghai from 30 October to 1 November 2021.
The theme of this year’s World Cities Day is “Tackling Climate Change, Building Resilient Cities”, which aims to raise public awareness on climate change adaptation and urban resilience; promote the implementation of the United Nations “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” and “the New Urban Agenda” by sharing solutions to improve urban resilience and encouraging effective climate action at national and local levels, promote sustainable urban development globally. The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the issue of climate change, placing the building of an ecological civilisation at the forefront of its governance and adhering to the path of green, low-carbon and sustainable development. The housing and urban-rural construction sector has comprehensively implemented the new development concept, practised Xi Jinping’s thought on ecological civilisation, and led high-quality urban development with green and low-carbon development; co-ordinated development and security, actively responded to, prevented and resolved the risks as well as challenges brought about by climate change, strengthened the construction of resilient cities, and ensured the safe operation of cities.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Party, and Shanghai is the birthplace of the Party, as well as the origin of World Cities Day. It is of great significance that the main event of World Cities Day in China will be held in Shanghai again. In recent years, Shanghai has earnestly practiced the important concept of people’s city building, continuously explored the major practical proposition of mega-city governance, and formed a number of replicable and extendable experiences in comprehensively improving city building and governance, and providing a model for promoting high-quality urban development in China, as well as providing Chinese experience and Chinese solutions for mega-city building and governance in the world. In 2020, the Ministry of Housing and Ministry of Urban and Rural Development signed a cooperation framework agreement with Shanghai to jointly build a Chinese model for the refined construction and governance of mega cities, proposing to use World Cities Day as a platform to tell the story of China’s urban development. The China main event of World Cities Day 2021 in Shanghai will be an important platform to showcase the achievements of China’s new urbanisation construction and to tell the Chinese story of urban construction and governance.
The World Cities Day 2021 China main event will be held in conjunction with the first Global Conference on Sustainable Urban Development. The event will include the opening and closing plenary sessions, five topic forums on low-carbon economy, urban history and culture preservation and heritage, urban governance, ecological resilience and new city construction, and three other thematic forums on high-quality urban development in China, the International Urban and Construction Industry Forum and the Real Estate Valuation Forum, an exhibition of China’s urban development cases, and a series of supporting activities such as the Shanghai International Urban and Construction Expo. During this period, a series of important achievements in urban construction and governance will be showcased and sustainable development experiences of Shanghai, China and other provinces and cities will be exchanged. The preparatory work is currently in progress.
Argentina’s current situation
According to the CAT report by experts, Argentina has shown explicit political commitment towards climate mitigation. Leadership from the head of state and leading institutions is evident but is not facilitating scaling up climate mitigation policy domestically. Top-level cabinet ministers and secretaries regularly consider climate mitigation policies, while still allowing for autonomy from climate change agencies.
The institutional framework regulating Argentina’s governmental and ministerial processes is robust. The National Climate Change Cabinet (GNCC) effectively coordinates high-level government climate policy and facilitates inter-ministerial and inter-secretarial cooperation as well as public engagement. The Secretariat of Climate Change and Sustainable Development has adequate human and fiscal resources to undertake its mandated tasks and there is a suitable breadth of decarbonisation analyses to aid government decision makers.
Much of Argentina’s processes for policy development, implementation and review around climate change mitigation are still under development. While medium-term policy planning in Argentina is comprehensive and detailed, and sectoral plans are developed in a systematic and coordinated way, long-term policy planning of national climate strategies is not fully developed, there is no quantifiable emissions reduction target for 2050 yet, and there is no institutionalised ratchet up mechanism.
The Argentinian government has shown a positive approach to stakeholder engagement as there are structures in place to consult non-state actors for planned policy actions. However, the Government does not have a formalised strategy in place to address negative externalities, thus transparency and consistency could be increased in actively addressing non-state actor interests.
All in all, the country needs to adopt more effective activities on climate and urbanisation, in particular by taking into account the analysis of indicator data by experts and professional teams, followed by large-scale practices.
By Sherry Song Dhu
