The celebration of World Cities Day comes 24 hours before world leaders gather at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 1.
The United Nations said that the convening of World Cities Day ahead of the Glasgow conference, “is an opportunity to unite the messages, successes and concerns of the urban community, to move forward to the COP-26 summit.”.
Cities Day Messages
The United Nations chose “Adaptation of Cities for Climate Resilience” as a theme for the celebration of World Cities Day 2021, and called on the countries of the world to take into account climate changes in the construction of cities, or to transform existing cities to adapt to those changes..
In her speech during the launch of the Luxor celebration, the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program, Maymouna Al-Sharif, called for working for “zero-emissions” cities, as about 70 percent of the total emissions around the world come from cities..
“We are at an inflection point in history, and we have to understand that we are now dealing with a climate crisis,” she warned.
In his message to the celebration, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, linked the challenges of confronting the climate and combating Corona in cities, and said: “Cities are more resilient than ever before, as they have been hotbeds of the pandemic and are on the front lines of the climate crisis.“.
Guterres called for more funding for cities in developing countries for resilience to climate change.
The importance of urban development
Professor of Local Administration at the Faculty of Administration at the International University of Science and Technology, and an expert on international municipalities, Hamdi Arafa, explained that adapting cities for climate resilience is “a national and humanitarian duty that the international community and relevant international organizations must deal with seriously and firmly.”.
In an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, Arafa added, “Cities around the world are increasingly suffering from the dangers of climate change and others, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, landslides and storms.”.
He explained that “the concept of urbanization discussed in the celebration of World Cities Day allows new forms of social inclusion, including increased equality, access to services and new opportunities.”.
Arafa recommended the importance of re-planning, managing and housing cities, to ensure that new slum areas do not arise that exacerbate environmental problems and climate change..
Internationally, the expert emphasized “the need to enhance the international community’s desire to spread urbanism worldwide, and to support cooperation between countries to contribute to urban development.”.
“The challenge of managing the necessary resources for urban areas should become a policy concern of the international community, in addition to concerns related to carbon emissions,” he added.
Objectives of the celebration
In its major report on World Cities Day, the United Nations set 3 goals for this year’s celebration, noting that the first goal is to “raise awareness about adaptation to climate change and urban resilience.”
The second goal is to “inspire effective climate action at the local level, through knowledge sharing on solutions for the resilience of effective urban systems.”.
The third goal, according to the international organization, is “to contribute to the implementation of the new urban plan for disaster risk reduction, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, to achieve sustainable development goals.”
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