From 2019 to 2021, ICLEi East Asia co-delivered a series of in-depth training to 4 selected cities/districts in China – namely Ningbo, Chengdu, Shanghai Changning, and Beijing – with UNDRR ONEA-GETI,  to strengthen their capacities on disaster risk reduction, as well as on designing and implementing urban resilience in the context of climate change.

Through the training, the participants were able to apply UNDRR’s Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient Scorecard and conduct preliminary assessments of the jurisdictions’ current status in disaster risk reduction and resilient development with the support of leading experts from multi-disciplinary backgrounds.

Relevant reports:

• Ningbo gears up to strengthen capacities for disaster risk reduction and resilient cities
• Chengdu accelerates resilience development to combat climate change
• Chinese cities exploring resilience approaches to navigate sustainable development

WRI, C40, and ICLEI have partnered to create a GHG Protocol standard for cities formally known as Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC). 

The GPC provides a robust framework for accounting and reporting city-wide greenhouse gas emissions. It seeks to:

• help cities develop a comprehensive and robust greenhouse gas inventory in order to support climate action planning;
• help cities establish a base year emissions inventory, set reduction targets, and track their performance;
• ensure consistent and transparent measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions between cities, following internationally recognized greenhouse gas accounting and reporting principles;
• enable city inventories to be aggregated at subnational and national levels; and
• demonstrate the important role that cities play in tackling climate change, and facilitate insight through benchmarking – and aggregation – of comparable data.

Find out more about GHG Protocol for Cities 

The project aims to support the integration of climate change and air pollution at the city level through capacity building. It contains four consequential activities:

1. convene focus group discussions with city policymakers and experts (health, transport, infrastructure) for needs assessment regarding the knowledge and tools cities should obtain in integrating SLCP reductions into policies and practices;
2. develop a training curriculum drawing from existing materials to support the integration of SLCP reduction into policies and practices for cities in Asia;
3. work with 3 cities to integrate SLCPs reduction into relevant policies and practices;
4. gather inputs to report on the CCAC DI indicators and associated data collection questionnaire/initiative reporting template.

As one of the project deliverables, the Training Curriculum: Integrating Air Pollution and Climate Change Planning in Cities in Asia was released in 2021, aiming to familiarize urban policymakers in the region with the knowledge and tools needed to strengthen the integration between air pollution and climate change planning.

The Resilience Cities Congress convened annually from 2010 to 2019 by ICLEI and the Federal City of Bonn, providing a global and open space for urban practitioners, policymakers, and researchers working in urban resilience and climate change adaptation. It built an active, informed, and committed community and played a key role in mainstreaming urban resilience in global agreements and processes.

During the 10 years of the Congress, thousands of experts from over 80 countries actively participated in and collaborated on hundreds of capacity-building sessions. Building on the experience and network established during the Congress, the newly launched Daring Cities provides a virtual, action-oriented forum to recognize and empower courageous urban leaders to disrupt business-as-usual and shift towards business-as-possible.

The report Resilient Cities, Thriving Cities: The Evolution of Urban Resilience provides an appraisal of the state of resilient cities from the last decade, as well as the actions of the main players in respective fields.