Genoa Smart Week is a week about events, meetings and initiatives dedicated to the Smart City, promoted by the Genoa Smart City Association, the Municipality of Genoa and the Liguria Region, with the organizational support of Clickutility Team. It intends to continue the debate at international, national and territorial level with the aim of developing an innovative and livable city. This is why it involves professionals and operators in the sector, but it also addresses citizens.
Representatives of the European countries, stakeholder groups and partners will gather in Italy, 21-23 November 2018, for the European Forum on Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR).
This year's EFDRR will build on the outcomes of the 2017 EFDRR held in Turkey, 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Mexico and aim to address key issues that can accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework in coherence with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. There will an opportunity to exchange and move forward on local level resilience, economic risks and reaching the Sendai Framework 2020 priority targets.
Nature-Based Solutions for Resilient and Biodiverse Cities
The City Resilience Department of the Municipality of Milan and 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), together with Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, are hosting a two-day 100RC Network Exchange to discuss nature and natural infrastructure as key drivers of urban resilience. In 2017, the Municipality of Milan established a City Resilience Department that, with the input of many and relevant stakeholders and cross-sectoral parties, developed Milan’s Preliminary Resilience Assessment (PRA) – a holistic scan of the city’s current state of resilience, including its key assets, risks, and opportunities for intervention. The Resilience Department is now working towards finalizing Milan’s Resilience Strategy, a plan where nature-based solutions, such as urban forestry, play a prominent role in the effort of strengthening the city’s overall resilience to key shocks and stresses.
This forum aims to improve understanding of what challenges cities face and what it means to be a climate resilient city. By assessing different resilience strategies from cities across Europe, participants will discuss, what aspects of these strategies can be transferred and replicated in other cities, as well as discussing possible barriers and solutions. Deep-dive session will explore risk assessment, reflections on how to make the whole community resilient and techniques to create stakeholder partnerships to build resilience at the city level. We will also have a session dedicated to the key issue of including preservation of cultural and natural heritage in cities resilience strategies.
The European urban context faces new issues related to Climate change such as record-breaking heatwaves, pollution peaks, waste management, etc. A number of solutions to fight against climate change and mitigate it in the best conditions are thought out locally, at municipal level. Issues and presentation of local solutions are the subject of this conference. From the integration of Nature-based solutions to Zero waste initiatives, or the end of car in town centres…What are the concrete schemes to make cities and urban areas more sustainable? How to ensure tomorrow’s climate stabilisation? What are the levers at metropolitan scale? How does Europe support cities to face these major issues in the best conditions?
While Lille Metropole is currently revising its local Climate and Energy Plan and is on the eve of becoming World Design Capital in 2020, this conference will be an opportunity to highlight initiatives co-designed with citizens and implemented with them.
The Forum is organised by ICLEI - Local Govenments for Sustainability in co-operation with the European Environment Agency, as well as the Horizon 2020 projects Connecting Nature, Naturvation, and Placard . It receives support from the European Commission, the Life Programme, and the Enable project.
Aiming to support productive exchange between representatives from cities and regions of all sizes (both with each other and with a range of interested parties, including EU institutions, researchers and consultants), the event has been praised for its informative, open and interactive character and ‘Powerpoint-free’ format. Participants are encouraged to share experiences and points of view on diverse topics, tackling existing challenges in local urban adaptation, while exploring potential solutions and opportunities for future collaboration.
The General Directorate for Climate and Energy of the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and the Sea (MATTM) has launched an institutional path aimed at spreading the culture of adaptation to climate change at regional and local level, and to overcome territorial disparities regarding the implementation of adaptation paths, in line with the contents of the National Strategy and the drafting of a National Plan for adapting to climate change. This path is the basis of the activities envisaged by the Intervention Line 5 "Strengthening of the administrative capacity for adaptation to climate change" of the CReIAMO PA Project aimed at defining and disseminating methodologies and developing skills in adaptation. The officials of the Municipality of Genoa were present as both coordinators of the Urban Agenda Partnership on Climate Adaptation, and as officials dedicated to Urban Resilience Strategies.
In July 2019, 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) will bring together our network of urban resilience practitioners from cities around the world in Rotterdam to celebrate the impact of the global movement we’re building together, share best-in-class practices and innovations in the field, build personal and professional relationships, and identify opportunities for partnerships and collective action. Our host city of Rotterdam at its core is an incubator of ideas, innovation and experimentation. As a post-industrial portside city in the process of rapid social, economic and physical transformation, Rotterdam provides an ideal setting in which to experience resilience in practice and demonstrates a spirit of openness to fostering critical cross-cultural conversations that create the ideal learning environment for our member cities and partners.
Promoted by the Foundation for Sustainable Development - in collaboration with the Municipality of Milan and the Polytechnic of Milan - Tuesday, July 16, in Milan from 9.30 to 18.30, at the headquarters of the Politecnico di Milano (Piazza Leonardo Da Vinci 32), will take place the 2nd National Green City Conference. On this occasion the Milan Declaration for climate adaptation in the cities will be presented. The central theme of the second Green City National Conference is the promotion and updating of the plans and measures for the climate adaptation of cities, integrated with those for mitigation. To this end, it is necessary to keep the risk assessments and the emergency measures, both medium and long term, updated, enhancing the positive effects, also promoting private investments and the cost accounting of the absence of such measures. Governance and adaptive capacities of cities need to be improved to reduce the vulnerability and risks of very intense precipitation and heat waves, focusing more on nature-based solutions.
Bioeconomy day, a day entirely dedicated to the Bioeconomy and Circular Economy, organized by the National Technology Cluster "SPRING". The Liguria region also participated with its own event, organized by TICASS (Innovative Technologies for Environmental Control and Sustainable Development), University of Genoa and INSTM (National Institute for Materials Science and Technology). Numerous regional European projects such as Bioplastic Europe, Prismamed and FORCE PROJECT were presented during the conference. In the context of Regional Development Strategies and Policies, Matteo Campora, Assessor for Transport, Integrated Mobility, Environment, Waste, Animals and Energy of the Municipality of Genoa, introduced the theme of Resilience as a systemic approach to sustainable economic development, the Strategy Lighthouse and the Genoa 2050 Action Plan, with a focus on the PLASTIC4BIO action.