About this session
As COP27 approaches, global attention focuses on the urgent commitments needed to address the unfolding challenges of climate change. Cities are at the front and center of the fight against the cascading climate crisis and have a critical role in the global discussion. Our 13th Cities on the Frontline session brought together leading urban institutions leveraging the active participation of cities at the COP27 in Egypt. Representatives from Resilient Cities Network, ICLEI and UCLG exchanged on how cities and their networks are preparing for the COP27 and shared how local governments and urban stakeholders that will be attending the conference can participate and engage in activities to promote cities leadership to advance resilient actions addressing global climate challenges.
ICLEI
Dania Petrik, Professional Officer for Climate Change, Energy & Resilience at ICLEI, shared ICLEI’s perspective on the road to COP27. ICLEI, as Dania explained, is a network of more than 2500 local and regional governments, who works on supporting local and national leaders to find locally relevant sustainable solutions to the complex interrelated challenges that climate change presents. More specifically to COP27, ICLEI, has also adopted an important role since the first COP in 1995, serving as the voice of cities and regions to achieve advocacy success throughout the years. 2022 will not been the exception as the Network is putting its whole weight on the Cities’ Race to Resilience and Race to Zero campaigns lead by the UNFCCC high-level climate champions, in partnership with other networks and institutions including UCLG, R-Cities, the World Bank, UNDRR, to ensure cities commitment to the fight against climate change.
Visit ICLEI’s website and social media pages, including LinkedIn and Twitter, for more information on specific sessions and events at the COP27 including the LGMA at the Multilevel Action Pavilion, Urban Africa in Action, Cities Race to Resilience activities, among others.
Find other shared resources here:
UCLG
Pablo Mariani, Policy Officer at UCLG, talked about the recent steps that UCLG has taken towards this year’s COP, sharing that they recently delivered on the UCLG World Congress, which happens every three years, with the objectives of renewing their presidency and discussing and adopting policy decisions that will guide future efforts to contribute to the global climate agenda. UCLG has worked on areas such as water resilience, food, nature-based solutions, with a specific focus on advocating and rethinking the role of regional governments, which are experiences they will be bringing to COP. UCLG, more specifically, will convene through the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments and, with ICLEI’s leadership, through the Cities and Regions in the UNFCCC Process.
Visit UCLG’s website and social media pages, including LinkedIn and Twitter, for more information on specific sessions and events at COP 27, including the OCLG High-Level Event at the Multilevel Pavilion, First Ministerial on Urbanization and Climate Change as well as other events under the Global Task Force umbrella.
Find other shared resources here:
R-Cities
Dana Omran, the Global Director, Strategy and Operations and Regional Director for Africa at Resilient Cities Network shared that the Network has been working on different fronts including energy resilience, food circularity and waste management, in the last years. Based on reflection on this work, some of the key objectives that R-Cities has at the COP is to showcase innovative and scalable solutions already being implemented by cities to address climate change, bring forward conversations around access to finance for cities and highlighting the vulnerabilities of urban dwellers in Africa and across the global South, making sure that when we are taking steps forward, we do it without leaving anyone behind.
Visit R-Cities’ website and social media pages, including LinkedIn and Twitter, for more information on specific sessions and events at COP 27, including spaces focused around circularity and food systems, water resilience, private sector engagement and finance, among others.
Find other shared resources here:
After every network and organization shared their different paths towards COP, one message resonated and was firmly confirmed by the speakers, and this is the importance of amplifying the voices and roles of cities, understanding that they are the first responders to the climate crisis which means that their leadership is key to reach international climate targets.
Dania Petrik
Professional Officer for Climate Change, Energy & Resilience at ICLE
“As we all know, climate change will undoubtably present one of the most significant risks to global development objectives over the next decade and we have already seen some of the impacts that affect both the Global North and the Global South.”
Pablo Mariani
Policy Officer at UCLG
“Currently on the climate file, what we are doing at UCLG is working with climate change, with water, with food resilience, with nature-based solutions, on advocating at the global scale, the role of local and regional governments.”
Dana Omran
Global Director, Strategy and Operations and Regional Director for Africa at Resilient Cities Network
“There is a very clear opportunity that we see, to really amplify the role of the cities as both engines of climate action, but also to highlight how vulnerable cities are to the impacts of climate change.”
