Four new partners have joined the Race to Resilience, building momentum ahead of COP26 for raising ambition from state and non-state actors on climate resilience.
The new initiatives, announced at the opening session of Climate Week New York City, bring the total number of partners in the global campaign to twenty four. Together, the partners represent over 2,500 non-state actor organizations from across society advancing the campaign’s goal of making 4 billion people from vulnerable communities resilient to the impact of climate change by 2030.
Announced at the opening session were:
The Climate Heritage Network: A global network of civil society, government, business, and cultural institutions working to strengthen resilience and scale up arts, culture, heritage and traditional knowledge-based climate action.
The International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure: A global initiative bringing engineers together to act on sustainability, resilience and climate change impacts on infrastructure and the communities it serves.
Resilience First: A cross-sector business network to bridge gaps in infrastructure systems and address resilience holistically, to create a safe, resilient and sustainable future for all.
The Urban Sustainability Directors Network: a network of local government professionals across the United States and Canada creating Resilience Hubs that aid and educate residents, and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during or after a climate hazard event.
The cross-society group of initiatives will join other partners in publicly pledging the action they will be taking as part of the Race to Resilience at COP 26, using the campaign’s metrics framework to quantify their impact.
In addition to new partner initiatives The Race to Resilience also launched its Transformations programme for non-state actors delivering action to advance the campaign’s 2030 goal.
These actions include increasing the quantity and quality of finance and investment, capacity building, governance systems, infrastructure and technological innovations. The campaign will announce the first group of partners delivering on Transformations at COP26.
At COP 26 the campaign will bring these Partners together to share best practices and collectively mass mobilize actors to raise their level of ambition and action on resilience.
This includes at the Resilience Hub, the first dedicated physical and virtual space for resilience at a COP which will be running programming across the two weeks and act as the home for the Race to Resilience.
Speaking at Climate Week New York City’s opening session, UN High Level Climate Action Champion, Gonzalo Muñoz said: “Today we have more reasons to be hopeful ahead of COP26. This groundswell of momentum in building resilience of the most vulnerable is crucial to us adapting to the future ahead, and for placing the world in a stronger position to decarbonise at pace. ”
Welcoming the new initiatives, COP 26 High Level Climate Action Champion Nigel Topping said: “I am delighted to welcome four new Partners to the Race to Resilience. They represent the diverse coalition of non-state actors which is essential to delivering the campaign’s goal of making 4 billion people resilient to climate change by 2030”.
Simon Collins, Chair of Resilience First, said: “The business community cannot afford to ignore the pressing need for climate action. The Resilience First Race to Resilience campaign will encourage businesses to acknowledge their responsibility to step up, to promote a climate-resilience agenda, and to set an example for the private sector that champions people and planet, alongside profit.”
Richard Threlfall, Chair of the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure said: “Bold action is needed to solve the urgent systemic challenges that exist at the intersection of climate change, ageing infrastructure, and underinvestment. Through the Race to Resilience campaign, we want to give the engineering community a platform to be at the forefront of climate action, harnessing their ability to provide sustainable and resilient solutions for infrastructure, and delivering impact ‘on the ground’ where it’s most needed.”
In a statement, the Climate Heritage Network said: “Tackling climate change requires and all-of-society-effort but too often the cultural dimensions have been missed. The inclusion of the Climate Heritage Network in the Race to Resilience breaks new ground by providing a global platform for mobilising cultural actors – from arts to heritage – behind culture-based strategies for building the resilience of vulnerable groups and communities everywhere by 2030”.
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