Seventh GEF Assembly Side-Event - Innovative solutions for nature in cities

UNEP SIDE EVENT: Innovative solutions for nature in cities

Date: Tuesday 22 August                          Time: 15:00-16:30 PDT                                      Location: Vancouver Convention Center, Room 6

City life is becoming the default human experience, with more than 70% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050. However, the rapid growth of cities can exacerbate environmental and socioeconomic challenges, posing a threat to the well-being of their inhabitants, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized. Issues like air pollution, inadequate green spaces, and a lack of biodiversity are common in urban contexts. To ensure the health and prosperity of all city dwellers, it is crucial to address these challenges and reimagine cities as vibrant, sustainable ecosystems.

Promoting nature in cities is key to building resilient, healthy, and equitable urban environments. Urban Nature-based Solutions (NbS) offer a pathway to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the well-documented benefits of incorporating nature into cities, significant obstacles hinder widespread implementation. Limited space, competing interests, insufficient funding, and the perception of nature as separate from urban life have impeded progress. This side-event will present avenues to overcome these barriers, to unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions.

Agenda:

• Welcoming remarks on the importance of nature in cities and the need for innovative solutions.
• Best Practices Showcase: short presentations from diverse stakeholders on their innovative solutions and approaches to harness the power of Nature in Cities, followed by a Q&A with the audience.
• Interactive Visioning Exercise: facilitators will guide groups through a discussion about what it means to develop cities with nature in mind, and will generate pictures of the groups' green city of the future with an AI image generator.
• Concluding remarks with key takeaways and call to action to implement nature-based solutions in cities.

Speakers: 

• Aloke Barnwal, Senior Climate Change Specialist and Coordinator - Sustainable Cities, GEF 
• Ana Di Pangracio, Biodiversity Director and Deputy Director, Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) 
• Andrea Fernandez, Managing Director, Climate Finance, Knowledge and Partnerships, C40 
• Asher Lessels, Task Manager, UNEP 
• Isabella de Roldao, Deputy Mayor of Recife, Brazil 
• Maryke van Staden,  Director of the carbonn Climate Center, ICLEI 
• Mia Callenberg, Sustainable Cities, GEF 
• Miriam Miranda, Project Coordinator, Organization for Tropical Studies 
• Sharon Gil, Head a.i., Cities Unit, UN Environment Programme
• Warren Evans, Climate Envoy, ADB