Urban Natural Assets for Africa (UNA), implemented from 2014 to present, in eight cities and six countries, seeks to improve human well-being, contribute to poverty alleviation and build climate resilience through integrating nature-based solutions into land use planning. UNA has three flagship projects; Urban Natural Assets for Africa (UNA Africa), Urban Natural Assets for Africa: Rivers for Life (UNA Rivers) and Urban Natural Assets for Africa: Coasts for Life (UNA Coasts). UNA Coasts cities in Mozambique receive support with improved knowledge and understanding of challenges and opportunities within urban coastal zones; using natural assets to offset these challenges and maximise opportunities; the development of a tailor-made coastal natural asset management plan; and identifying opportunities to enhance sustainable livelihoods. UNA Rivers supports cities to mainstream biodiversity and nature-based solutions into land use planning and decision-making processes; increase awareness of ecosystem services; improve co-ordination between key stakeholders; connect with local communities to encourage appreciation of nature and enhance human well-being; and implement community-based projects for restoration and revitalisation along urban rivers.

Through CitiesWithNature (CWN), local and regional governments are able to enhance the potential of nature to provide essential ecosystem services and solutions for the overall health of human habitats and urban areas. Through this platform, cities can engage, connect, learn, share, act, and inspire each other in the way of biodiversity and urban nature. ICLEI enables its local and regional constituency to access and influence global biodiversity processes and provides a one-stop-shop, or “big tent” under which projects, initiatives, and programs aimed at enhancing nature can be celebrated, shared, and promoted. ICLEI develops strategic global partnerships and the ongoing and continuous development of the various components of the CWN platform. CWN is recognized by the SCBD as the official vehicle for local and subnational governments to report their commitments and ambitions for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

The project is developed and implemented in three major components: 1) Building evidence and enable the local uptake of public health tools; 2) City implementation of analyses of health benefits from SLCP mitigation strategies, as well as stakeholder engagement, using the local evidence of health benefits to support SLCP reduction measures at the local level and help overcome barriers for policy change; and 3) Communications targeting policymakers, and promoting health benefits from sector initiatives of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, as well as tools, experiences and lessons learned. ICLEI is leading on implementation, and supporting on evidence-builiding and communciations. This project addresses SLCPs on the urban level in one developing country pilot city to provide proof of concept.

ICLEI is developing a Green City Action Plan for the city of Kota Kinabalu following a multi-stakeholder consultative process, as a part of the Asian Development Bank’s (ABD) development of Green City Action Plans in the BIMP-EAGA region (comprised of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and East Timor). The City of Kota Kinabalu is committing to inclusive, ambitious climate action, mainstreaming climate actions and strategies in to its development agenda to contribute in achieving regional and national climate goals. A greenhouse gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory and climate vulnerability assessment was prepared through a series of face-to-face interactive workshops with representatives of all concerned departments and stakeholders. Priority sectors and solutions for low-carbon climate-resilient development in Kota Kinabalau was defined, addressing the scale of finance and viable implementation models.

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals Estimates (SEEG) is an initiative of the Climate Observatory that includes the production of annual estimates of GHG emissions in Brazil, analytical documents on the evolution of emissions and a web portal to provide simple and clear system methods and data. The SEEG methodology was published in the journal NATURE in 2018.ICLEI works on the estimation of GHG emissions related to the waste sector, in addition to providing data to subnational governments, so that they take ownership of the issue. Methodologies defined by the IPCC are applied. SEEG provides annual estimates and technical emission data for all Brazilian states.

ICLEI established a replicable framework that can be used by local governments throughout the country to attribute the observed changes in community GHG emissions inventories. Practitioners within cities and counties are now able to harness data to produce a more accurate depiction in changes to community-scale efficiency, communicate those trends more clearly, and use the data to evaluate the effectiveness of policies and programs. The project components are development of the Contribution Analysis methodology; application of the techniques of Contribution Analysis to a range of community types to illustrate the drivers of change in various communities; production of a “replication toolkit” which clearly describes the steps in the process, provides guidance and templates for additional communities to adopt and take forward; and distrbution of these new resources widely.

This workshop will provide an overview of global trends in environmental disclosure and reporting in 2019 in light of the recent announcement of CDP and ICLEI’s joint unified reporting system. Workshop participants will gain expanded knowledge of global city climate policy and new trends in reporting and measuring environmental impact, an overview of CDP and ICLEI’s unified reporting system, and a comprehensive briefing on the technical changes and guidance on the current questionnaires.

Through the project, ICLEI will support 20 cities, with emission inventories, targets and guidelines for mitigation. It includes preparation of an inventory of GHG emissions and atmospheric pollutants; future emission scenarios for 5, 10, 20 and 40 years, with reduction targets; institutional implementation strategies and inventory review mechanisms; and training of RMC technicians in the GPC methodology to allow the initiative to be internally replicated in the inventory review processes.

ICLEI provides capacity building to target cities in implementing low emission development strategies as well as mainstreaming science-based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in local development processes.

The project utilizes the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) Process toolkit, the Global Protocol for Community-scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) in formulating the cities’ climate action and management plans, and USAID Clean Energy Emission Reduction (CLEER) Tool in assessing the cities’ vulnerabilities, risks, and emissions. Through these analyses, target cities will be able to mainstream climate change adaptation and mitigation principles in their local development plans.

ICLEI is responsible for project implementation in all four partner cities, including preparation of Climate Resilient City Action Plan for four Indian partner cities – Coimbatore, Rajkot, Siliguri and Udaipur – that addresses both climate change adaptation and climate change mitigation using ClimateResilientCities methodology; strengthening the capacities of cities to identify, plan and implement measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for enhancing resilience to climate change; implementation of quick win projects to showcase reduction of GHG emissions; identification and planning for bankable projects based on requirements of the cities for large scale implementation of climate resilience building activities; and peer learning and exchange. Measures developed as a result of this project are being integrated in municipal budget to mainstream climate resilience in city development.