Event details
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Key take-aways
- Climate change risks must become part of every investment of municipal governments.
- Risk informed budgeting and disaster risk finances is key to address upcoming challenges.
- Data platforms play a vital role for public authorities and political stakeholders to support decision making regarding resilient infrastructure.
The coalition for disaster resilient infrastructure (CDRI) is an inclusive multi-stakeholder platform led and managed by national governments, launched at the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September 2019. The CDRI serves as a global, regional and local knowledge platform for disaster and climate resilient infrastructure.
In his talk, Dr Rajasekar stressed the need for resilient infrastructure, backing his arguments with figures. For example, by 2050, 570 cities and a total of 800 million people will be impacted by sea level rise and storm surge. He urged for investment in resilience for several reasons: climate risks effect health, life quality as well as socio-economic stability.
Today, most of the urban infrastructure is not designed for resilience, but the problems are usually not well-documented. Dealing with resilient infrastructure, most governments face adaptation and knowledge gaps, such as inconsistencies in methods or metrics, or a lack of data. To address this challenge, CDRI started an open-data global risk assessment platform across several hazards and infrastructure types. However, a challenge remains to scale the platform down to an urban level.
Moreover, Dr Rajasekar advocated for risk-based land use planning and the integration of resilience as well as blue and green infrastructure in urban planning. He stressed that climate change has to become part of every investment in a city. Another important aspect for resilient infrastructure planning is data informed decision making – or, as Dr Rajasekar put it “a smart city is a risk-informed city”.
