About the session

UN-Habitat and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) invite you to be part of the upcoming virtual Innovate4Cities 2021 conference, happening on October 11 to 15, 2021.
Building on the 2018 Edmonton Cities and Climate Change Science Conference and the resulting Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science (GRAA), the Innovate4Cities 2021 Conference, co-sponsored by the IPCC, will focus on the nexus between science, practice and innovation — vital to realizing ambitious climate action. The conference will also closely examine local challenges and priority needs as well as cross-sectoral pathways to raising climate ambition and delivering action. This year’s conference will feature a much stronger focus on regional voices.
This event comes at a crucial time ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, and will provide an opportunity for you to highlight work underway locally, showcasing the importance of urban action in meeting national and international climate commitments, focusing on how science and innovation partnerships are driving inclusive, resilient, and climate-neutral cities.
The I4C Conference’s Global Plenary Sessions have been programmed to ensure outreach to at least 3 world time zones. They are set up to frame and underline the conference aims: building on climate change science to allow for knowledge gathering and bridging science, innovation and implementation for urban climate action demonstrate the importance of having the voices of all relevant actors in this field to drive the right dialogue, as well as have a good balance in regions, gender, generation, representation, etc.
address the fundamental questions that lie at the core of many thematic or cross-cutting challenges.
A good reference document to look at before the session is the outcome of the 2018 Edmonton conference on Cities and Climate Change Science: the Global Research and Action Agenda, This has been used to form the thematic framework for this conference. You can find the text on informality mainly on pages 11-12. We have expanded the focus at Innovate4Cities to recognise the growing popularity and application of wider concepts of the just transition and climate justice, that, while related, go beyond purely the topic of informality and informal settlements, and to incorporate more inputs on practice and innovation, as well as research. However, the three research gaps identified in the GRAA are copied below as we would appreciate your reflections in the plenary on the Progress made in meeting these gaps since 2018 Their continued relevance New and emerging gaps and topics of focus for the climate change research and practice community from the perspective of both research and practice/innovation; whichever or both you feel more comfortable in discussing.
Further understanding and research is needed on how inhabitants of both informal settlements and slums are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Research is needed to understand the extent and nature of the challenges posed by, and to provide evidence for policy interventions on informality that simultaneously respond to climate change and vice versa. Further research could investigate the relationship between climate change and the informal economy to understand how to increase adaptive capacity of informal sectors and how to scale-up low-carbon and climate resilient solutions from and for the informal sector.

For optimal participation in the plenary that includes translation channels and the option to contribute via chat, please navigate to the Plenary tab at the top of the page

Rohini Nilekani

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