Mainstreaming Climate Action in Urban Areas - CSC 2022

On the 26th-27th of September 2023, GIZ India, Climate Smart Cities project organized a two-day event, ‘Mainstreaming Climate Actions in Urban Areas’, to facilitate knowledge exchange and project transition. The two-day conference – 'Mainstreaming Climate Actions in Urban Areas, Making Cities ClimateSmart’ brought together partners, stakeholders, academicians, and experts from international, national and partner cities.

The event was designed to include panel discussions, plenary sessions, open-house discussions, and networking opportunities to promote knowledge-sharing on the topic of "Climate Change and Cities." The event was conceived to provide a forum for discussion on various topics related to cities and climate change, and the implemented good practises and learnings from the Climate Smart Cities project's four years at the national, state, and city levels.

The two-day event comprised of eight different plenary sessions based on climate change action in urban areas. The discussion points ranged from, ‘Greening your Cities’, Urban Observatories, ‘Green Buildings’, ‘Climate and Waste Management’, to ‘Integrated urban Water Management’. ‘Climate Finances’ and ‘Building Local Capacities through Regional Institutes’.

The inaugural session featured notable addresses by dignitaries from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Federal Republic of Germany's Embassy in New Delhi, as well as representatives from GIZ's Sustainable Urban and Industrial Development Cluster and the Climate Smart Cities Project. The impact film and brochure for the Climate Smart Cities Project were also unveiled at the session. Through the course of two days, the sessions facilitated constructive discourse, knowledge exchange, dissemination of best practices and discussions on the way ahead for sustainable urban development.

The concluding of the event set tone for the introduction of the upcoming ‘Urban Act’ project, - a project to follow up on CSC. The names of the three smart cities chosen for further collaboration under the Urban Act Project were announced in this session, which included remarks from representatives of the Smart City Mission and the CSC project.