Climate change is happening now. The impacts are immediate and devastating to social, economic, and environmental systems, exacerbating already entrenched challenges disproportionately faced by lower income communities and communities of color. There is an urgent need to take action in all sectors, regions, and levels of government. Local and regional governments throughout world are on the front line and, working with community partners, are making significant and measurable progress in creating more resilient and equitable communities.
The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) is a ‘backbone’ organization in North America that connects and coordinates local governments, researchers, private partners and organizations on accelerating climate action. USDN engages cities directly and helps them to identify and act on opportunities to implement resilience solutions. The organization also works closely with cities and partners to build coalitions and services to support resilience projects and accelerate the implementation of transformative and equity-focused solutions to the increasingly critical challenges associated with climate change.
This session will focus on local and regional level approaches that demonstrate effective resilience-building and collaborative efforts ceneted on high-impact practices and transformational change. It will highlight projects working at the nexus of mitigation, adaptation and equity and provide concrete examples of both short and long-term resilience building strategies.