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Urban

Resilient cities

The Climate Centre provides guidance and resources for inclusive urban climate action at scale. The team engage in policy dialogue, leading research efforts and supporting action on the ground.

We partner with Red Cross Red Crescent components, cities, universities, and various urban networks to reduce climate impacts on vulnerable city-dwellers.

The urban team also has a special focus on the urban heat-risk, coastal cities, and small and medium enterprises. 

Can’t take the heat podcasts by Roop Singh have run for three seasons from June 2020 and were ending this year.

Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, told the 2022 World Urban Forum that the “climate emergency, pandemics, the housing crisis, violence and conflict all converge in cities”.

With the Global Disaster Preparedness Center and the Global Heat Health Information Network, we have launched a research programme for 12 low- and middle-income countries looking at impacts, thresholds, and the public perception of risk.

Key links

Heatwave Guide for Cities
City Heatwave Guide for Red Cross Red Crescent Branches
Can’t take the heat podcasts
Future resilience for African cities and lands
Feeling the heat (British Red Cross report)
C40-IFRC 2022 press release
World Urban Forum 2022 declared actions

Heat toolkit
Resources

Heat toolkit

A new and wide-ranging set of resources developed by the Red Cross Red Crescent network will help communities prepare for the heatwaves that will intensify with climate change. Available through the IFRC’s Global Disaster Preparedness Centre and the Climate Centre, they include campaign material, case studies, policy briefs, research and reports, and practical advice on staying safe.

Access the toolkit

Action on heat in cities

Two cities in Nepal and Bangladesh were chosen for a study by the Climate Centre, with support from the Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate programme.

Nepalgunj in southern Nepal is a major business hub, but extreme heat is a growing concern there, with temperatures reaching 40°C nearly every year.

Rajshahi (photo), in north-west Bangladesh, sees humidity peak at around 65 per cent and an average maximum temperature touching 43°C. Until recently, there was no systematic assessment of heat risk or coordinated action in either.

With the Nepal Red Cross branch, we also developed a plan for action on heat in Nepalgunj – to our knowledge the first of its kind in Nepal, providing training for officials, and supporting a month-long public awareness campaign on extreme heat.

Read more

Preparing for the heatwaves of the future

Climate change is already having severe impacts across our planet, bringing new and previously unimaginable challenges to the people least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.

A 2022 joint report by the IFRC, UN OCHA and the Climate Centre provides a sobering review of how just one of those challenges – the increase in deadly heatwaves – threatens to drive needs in emergencies of the not-so-distant future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read the report
Guidance

Toward urban resilience

As the world becomes increasingly urban, our cities are more stressed than ever with climate change exacerbating existing inequalities and straining infrastructure. Supporting local actors to undertake urban resilience activities in their urban communities can be a powerful way to build social cohesion, improve livelihoods, and make cities more liveable. The Climate Centre and partners have developed an Urban Action Kit to do just this.

Access the kit
Toward urban resilience
Video

Flashmobs for heat awareness

The Climate Centre has been staging flashmobs on Heat Action Day in cities around the world (like here in New York) to raise awareness about the heat risk in cities.