Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Congress 2019

• 16 Apr 2019

The Vice President of India highlighted the need to make sustainable solutions such as harvesting solar energy, enhancing green cover and water conservation an essential part of town planning while addressing the 4th Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific (RCAP) Congress 2019.

• RCAP 2019 is the 4th in the series of Resilient Cities Asia Pacific Congresses. The first three being held in Bangkok, Thailand in February 2015; in Melaka, Malaysia in March 2016 and in Vietnam in December 2017.
• The 4th Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific 2019 Congress is being organised by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) – Local Governments for Sustainability and hosted by South Delhi Municipal Corporation on 15th to 17th of April 2019 in New Delhi.
• The proposed themes for RCAP 2019 are:
  • Integrated climate resilience planning to manage risks and vulnerabilities
  • Good governance and resilience
  • Nature-based solutions to adaptation
  • Climate knowledge brokering
  • Opportunities for regional networking and collaboration
  • Sustainable infrastructure development and green growth
  • Urban Nexus
  • Financing mechanisms for Asian cities

Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific

• Resilient Cities is the annual global platform for urban resilience and climate change adaptation where dialogues are conducted to forge partnerships, with the ultimate goal of identifying implementable solutions and creating lasting impacts for cities in the region.
• It was launched in 2010.

Need

• Current changes in climate, combined with rapid and often unplanned urbanisation, make Asia one of the regions of the world most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
  • Increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, intensification of extreme weather events and rising sea levels are already a reality in the region.
• At the same time, increasing population and spreading of human settlements in low lying, flood prone coastal areas magnify the risks coming from climate change related disasters, thus increasing the vulnerability of people, especially the urban poor, who live in hazardous areas.