Press Conference: New UN-Habitat report on urban content of national climate plans (Urban Content in NDC 3.0: Cities at the Centre) (WUF13)

We're just waiting for two speakers, but we will start as we will have a presentation today.
Thank you everyone for joining us at this press conference on the UN Habitat Report on Urban content of the National Climate plans.
We have just launched a report this week at the World Urban Forum.
I'm here to present to you the findings with my colleague Lea Renala'll also be joined in a few moments by two more speakers.
Um, but I'm very excited because the report looks at the latest rounds of national climate plans that country have been working on.
We still have 50 to come.
So there is opportunities for them to be worked on and submitted.
But I will give the floor very briefly to Leah in just a moment, but I wanted to highlight that the findings of the report are really exciting.
This report is the most in depth data on the national climate plans and it really looks at what is happening on the ground in cities.
I will leave the exact details of the top finding layer, but I just want to give a taste.
I'm so excited because I've been working on this topic for a few years now, along with my colleague Layer Enala.
But this year, 80% of all the climate plans that have been submitted before April 15th have really good content relating to cities.
This is up from 49%, a very big increase from the latest round.
We've had some really exciting comments from people around the world.
I just want to read out a few quotes that we've got.
More Karam, who is the Cop 31 president designate and the Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in the Republic of Turkea said that cities are a critical arena of climate action.
At Cop 31, we want to share this experience with the world and help everyone scale up solutions in cities to make them more resilient and sustainable.
Of course, we will be convening shortly in November in Turka.
It's a really powerful statement from the Cop 31 president designate.
Another quote is from Simon Steele, the Executive Director of the UNF TAC, also a coordinator or a host, I should say, sorry, of the CP 31 that's happening this year.
He says, it's time to move from words on paper to projects on the ground all over the world.
Without local action, global climate goals would be impossible to achieve.
And the last statement that I have to read is from the mayor of Chef Sawin in Morocco.
He says it is encouraging to see more countries strengthening the role of local government and national climate plans.
We have quite a few people high level who are very excited about this report.
I'm also excited to introduce to you Leo Renalda who is from UN Habitat and has been working on this data for many years and also the coordinator of this report.
With that, I hand over to Leo Renalda to take us through the findings.
Thank you so much, Jessica, and maybe just to say when I first started working on this topic a couple of years ago, I had a dream and my dream was that one day all the national climate plans would really be talking about cities and integrating cities at their center.
I think I got pretty close to my dream to achieving this dream.
As Jessica mentioned, there's been now over 140 national climate plans, the third iteration of them submitted.
The NDCs 3.0 and 80% of them include cities in a well developed way.
So what does that specifically even mean? So the national climate plans are, of course, a commitment that countries are doing to the UNF TAC, that's supposed to be updated every five years, and they are the roadmap when it comes to thinking about what are the commitments on mitigation and adaptation? What is the climate finance that we need in order to get there and what are the pathways? How? What are the specific actions that we need to take in order to make all of this happen? We all know that cities are at the heart of the climate crisis.
They're really affected by it, but they're also big contributors to it.
If cities are included in these national climate plans, that offers an opportunity to also think about what are the actions that we need to take in cities and with cities.
We looked at these national climate plans and we looked at how are risks being reflected in them? How are floods? How are we talking about how cities are being affected by floods, hurricanes, heat waves, landslides, by the way, all topics that we've been seeing discussed here quite heavily at Wolf.
What are the challenges that cities might have? Is it access to finance? Is it issues when it comes to implementing some of these actions? But then also what are the specific actions that are needed in cities with cities in order to turn off all of this into reality? Then most importantly, Are the National climate plans also talking about how to deliver all of this? How are we getting this done? Based on this, we've looked into the national climate plans, and this is where this big numbers coming from that 80% are thinking about cities in a well developed way and that's of course, a massive jump from just 49% in the NDCs in the second degeneration of the national climate plans.
Not only that, we are seeing that they're really becoming a priority.
One of the things that surprised me the most is looking into the national climate plans and seeing that cities are not just sprinkled there.
It's not just half a sentence in the National climate plans, they're being integrated as a core delivery mechanism.
What does that mean? So half of them are talking about what are the specific actions that need to happen in cities and with cities at at least three sectors.
We're seeing that they're talking about transport, in particularly public transport, electrification of public transport, talking about energy in cities, renewables in cities, but also energy efficiency of buildings.
We're seeing mentions of urban waste, talking about we need to recycle better in cities, we need to have a circular economy, and they're talking about water in specific about access to sanitation, but also drainage systems and infrastructure.
Infrastructure, the drainage systems, but also wastewater systems is something that's absolutely at the core of all of this.
If you look at this figure, it's a bit complicated, but what it's supposed to tell us is there's been a massive shift.
We've seen more actions.
That's what you see going this way, but also really more ways in how these national climate plans are talking about how to deliver.
And of course, housing is at the heart of this World Urban Forum, but housing is also emerging to be at the center of national climate plans.
What is interesting and fascinating is that we are seeing that it's emerging as a priority for improving people's lives.
About half of these national climate plans are talking about housing and informal settlements.
Interestingly, and I guess not surprisingly, mainly in least developed countries, where the pressures are, of course, acute.
What is great is these plans are talking about what do we need to do in order to make sure we don't have trade offs between houses being affordable and safe, but at the same time resilient to disasters.
There's, of course, lots of mentioning around how housing is being impacted by sea level rise, by floods, by landslides.
Bringing these conversations together, There's thinking around making sure that housing is sustainable and low carbon, which is of course critical because in many parts of the world, the housing stock will at least double in the next couple of years and housing is also seen as a center and connecting it with overall better infrastructure in cities.
Talking about it should not just be a building isolated somewhere, but there should be drainage, there should be energy access, we need transport networks that are connecting our neighborhoods, and we need waste management.
So really positive developments in thinking about housing as a way to improve people's lives and as an entry point for making action happening.
One thing that is not quite there yet is specific mentioning about informal settlements upgrading, but also tenure security as enablers to make all of this happening.
I'm almost coming to the end of my presentation, but how we are thinking about this, it's not just a document that we are putting on the table.
It's a beautiful document.
We have some hard copies, but also as really an entry way and a pathway to talk about what still needs to be done.
So there's around 50 national climate plans that are still to be submitted.
I've put some of them here, you see the map in the light gray.
That's the plans that are still to be submitted.
But at the same time, we also need to talk about now implementing this.
For me, the national climate plans are a way to open conversations.
It's critical to have cities in them because as we think about finance mechanisms, there is, of course, now that conversation that many banks are supposed to be climate Paris Agreement aligned.
And what is written in the NDCs is seen as a North Star when it comes to implementation and turning this into a reality.
What is not written in there might have a harder chance of getting access to finance.
I think that's probably my last call to say, the NDCs are not perfect, but they are a massive opportunity to think about turning some of the needs of people on the ground into a real reality and changing people's lives.
Back to you, Jessica.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Leah, for presenting some of the very high level findings.
I believe there is another slide with a QR code that talks about Obit, so you can actually download the report.
There we go.
It is, I think, quite a few pages of findings, but we wanted to open up the floor to questions from everyone in the room.
I have my colleague here, Leah, and of course, one more speaker who will be joining us very shortly.
But I hand the floor over to the audience to see if there are any questions that we can ask the report coordinator.
I believe we've got one question in the front.
Anastasia Luchenka, journalist, Monaco Press, thank you so much for these findings.
It's really important for us to hear, to learn about it and I will definitely download the report as I prefer to use the digital version.
And certainly, I have some questions.
Particularly, what does this report mean for ordinary residents? How it will change the life of the citizens.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Anastasia, over to you Lea.
Thanks so much.
I think you're pointing exactly to the topic that we need to be talking about.
For me, this is an opportunity to think about how national goals can be aligned with local action.
Because we all know that at the city level is where lots of these national targets need to be implemented and also where some of these global conversations really need to be grounded.
For me, this is an entry door to make this happen.
See that cities are really at the center, which again, I think I'm and hoping towards is that that also means that finance is coming to the local level, to cities to think about and work with their communities and in their communities.
Finance is the one topic.
The other topic that we're seeing is that there is more focus on how national governments can work with their local governments to make sure that all of this reaches people and communities.
Again, maybe in short, for me, this is a door opener to get more money into local governments and that means also in the end, more action to people and with people.
Are there any other questions from the floor? I've got one question at hand.
Yes.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
I just wanted to ask maybe if you could share an example of a country with particularly strong urban content or positive mentions of cities.
What are the opportunities now for these countries? What does it mean to then implement? What could that look like? Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Let me pick two examples.
One from Brazil and I'm hoping I still know that our speaker from the Brazilian government will be joining us.
What they have been chartering is climate federalism.
They've been talking specifically about the collaboration between the federal and the state and the local level, not only in the preparation of their national climate plan, but now also when it comes to their specific implementation on the ground.
That's, of course, a real example of what it means to prepare this, but then also to implement this together with the city level.
I think the second example that I'd like to take is from the Caribbean, where we've just worked with multiple of the Caribbean governments together looking into how to translate some of these commitments now into action.
For them, housing is the massive entry point.
I think you've all seen the pictures of hurricanes hitting these countries where the housing stock is wiped out.
In some cases, 30% of the buildings are destroyed and 60% are damage.
What does that mean for people? What does that mean for access to education, to food, to shelter, and just for people's lives? We've been discussing and working with them in identifying how can we now tackle this housing and climate crisis together to make sure that we're thinking about rebuilding building better communities, building better lives for people.
Thank you so much, for the questions.
Are there any other questions from the floor? We have someone at the back.
Thank you.
Hi.
Thank you so much.
I used to work for Gender Transformative Urban Resilience.
I'm really curious if you could show us the gender lens for the key findings of the National Climate plans from the report.
Thank you.
So just as a disclaimer, this report is specifically looking at cities.
We haven't looked at cities and gender yet.
I know that there's other organizations that are looking specifically into the gender lens and aspect of national climate plans.
From what I remember from the last iteration, gender was very strong aspect of these national climate plans.
From the city angle specifically, we're more looking into communities and community resilience, what it means for people, what it means for really participatory approaches, what it means to work in cities and with cities, and not specifically at the gender s.
But it's a really good idea and food for thought to think about this moving forward.
I definitely echo that statement.
It's a very important topic.
So thank you for asking the question.
Are there any other questions from the floor? Wonderful.
Well, I think I'll leave it there.
Thank you so much.
Please do make sure that you download the report.
There are lots and lots of findings, and feel free to contact either myself or Lea after the press release after the press conference.
Thank you so much, everyone, and I wish you all a wonderful day.