European cities named as ‘Resilience Hubs’ for climate risk reduction

Barcelona, Greater Manchester, Helsingborg and Milan have been awarded the title of Global Making Cities Resilient 2030 for their work in climate and disaster risk reduction.

The cities will serve three-year terms, working to enhance city-to-city collaboration and inspiring other communities to become more resilient to disasters.

Each city has developed local solutions to improve their ability to withstand and recover from various disasters and support shared learning.

The Resilience Hubs are part of the Making Cities Resilient 2030 initiative, which launched in January.

Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and Head of UNDRR, said: ‘As disaster and climate risk grows, prevention on a global and local level will be critical. These Resilience Hubs exemplify the potential of cities to lead the way in disaster risk reduction and help build a more resilient world.’

The chosen cities have already demonstrated leadership in risk reduction, for example Greater Manchester has revamped its resilience strategy this year with particular attention to local flooding risks.

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, added: ‘Greater Manchester is a place that always works in partnership and always wants to forge strong bonds with our fellow cities across the world. We know that the world is changing – including the impact of climate change, we know that we can’t just stand still, and we have to work hard to boost our resilience.

‘We have established a cross-sector partnership here in our city-region – the Greater Manchester Resilience Forum. We have appointed a Chief Resilience Officer and we’ve also brought forward our own Greater Manchester Resilience Strategy. We are doing lots of good things, and want to share our experiences, but we are sure that we can also learn from other cities around the world as we face these big challenges together.’

In related news, a new £27.5m UK Urban Climate Action Programme has been launched to help developing cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America tackle the climate emergency.

Photo by Dimitry Anikin