Building sustainability in an urbanizing world a partnership report

Cities are hubs of global change, and their global influence continues to grow. Cities contribute significantly to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, cities experience impacts like climate change first and with greatest intensity. Further, cities are becoming leaders worldwide in efforts to address global environ￾mental and social problems. Some of the most important smaller-scale agree￾ments and partnerships emerging from Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Devel￾opment) were initiated by or focused on cities. Even as the conference reinforced the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus on global challenges, it also saw smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerge. Some of the most important “microagreements” focused on cities. For example the host city of Rio de Janeiro unveiled its own low-carbon growth strategy.
The impacts of city-level agreements will not necessarily be smaller than those of national accords. Many of the concrete steps toward sustainable development can and must be enacted by municipal governments for example efficient and adaptive building standards, public transportation, “smart” power grids or flood protections. The Rio summit itself identified sustainable cities as one of seven critical issues in coming decades.
And the other six adequate jobs, energy, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans, and disaster readiness and resilience demand solutions that will be conceived, piloted, and mainstreamed mainly in cities. Developments in Rio showcased the pragmatism and enthusiasm associated with sustainable cities. Reviewing progress since the first UN Conference on Environment and Development 20 years before, Rio+20 found some remarkable improvements, notably in recognition of the role played by local governments, their willingness to cooperate and eagerness to share information, and the emerging
synergy between research, business and the public sector. The initiatives announced at Rio followed several regional partnerships on cities and climate change in places such as Germany, Australia and
Mexico (Newman and Jennings 2008).
Cities are increasingly recognized as a priority for inclusive green growth, particularly in rapidly growing cities where it is essential to avoid locking in inefficient urban forms. Moving forward, further solidifying relationships among partners and local governments is critical. The issue of cities and climate change has been explored by academics, policy makers and private sector entities (Hoornweg, Freire, et al. 2011).

source:

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/c0d12e38-d8cf-5981-a27b-9d9ba10039de