2nd UNEA Cities and Regions Summit - "Flip the Script: Cities and Nature"

Name: 2nd UNEA Cities and Regions Summit - "Flip the Script: Cities and Nature"
Start: 2022-02-23
End: 2022-02-23

23 February 2022

Overview

Agenda

Outcomes and Reports

Date: 23 February 2022 Time: 12:30-18:30 EAT

Context

Cities are hubs of innovation and opportunity that connect people and ideas. While we may currently see cities as centers of biodiversity loss and pollution, characterized by areas vulnerable to negative climate change impacts, it does not always have to be so. It is in cities that humanity can start to truly ‘make peace with nature’, where we can come together to design and redesign the way we live and manage our urban infrastructure with nature in mind.

The second UNEA Cities Summit challenges us to ‘flip the script’ and see cities as champions of nature, and accelerators of a sustainable future. Experts and city practitioners spoke about a range of topics to help us rethink our cities through strategies such as early integration of biodiversity considerations in city planning and management, adapting to changing geoclimatic and cultural conditions, and making a strong financial case that quantifies multiple benefits of nature-based solutions in cities.

Objectives

The second UNEA Cities Summit showcased the multiple benefits of nature for cities, for tackling the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and zoomed in on key levers from local to global actions, from policy to finance measures to accelerate implementation.

It was hosted under the umbrella of the Fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”, the framework of the UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration, and the Edinburgh Process under the CBD.

Organizing Partners

Contribution to:

Date: 23 February 2022 Time: 12:30-18:30 EAT

The Summit was organized in a virtual format, with four core sessions:

High Level Opening Segment (30 minutes) to outline objectives and ambition of the Summit, define the relevance of NbS in Cities for UNEA, link with other 2022 milestones.
Thematic Session 1 (90 minutes): Urban Nature-Based Solutions to Counter Climate Risks and Limit Global Warming
Thematic Session 2 (90 minutes): Leveraging Sustainable Food Systems for Nature-Positive Cities
High-Level Closing Segment (60 minutes): looking into how to scale up solutions to harness the power of nature in cities and close the Summit, with approval of Outcome Document.

You can find the full Summit agenda at this link.

Organizing Partners

Contribution to:

The official outcome document of the Summit is now available at this link.

You can access the summary report of the Summit at this link, and the full report here.

The press release is available on this page.

The event's recordings will be available soon.

On March 2, Mayor of Stockholm Anna König Jerlmyr reported back on the outcomes of the Summit at the Closing Plenary of the Fifth Session of the UN Environment Assembly.

You can watch the recording of her intervention at this link.