UN-HABITAT.:. Events Calendar | Events | Workshop on Climate Change and Urban Planning

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Workshop on Climate Change and Urban Planning

	Start Date : 28 May 09
	End Date : 30 May 09
	Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

A workshop on Climate Change and Urban Planning was held in Rotterdam between 28 and 30 May. The workshop was organized by The Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and the Commonwealth Association of Planners in collaboration with UN-Habitat through its Sustainable Urban Development Network (SUD-Net).

The meeting brought together urban planning practitioners and their associations as well as representatives of tertiary planning schools.

During the first day the contribution of urban planning to climate change mitigation and adaptation was explored, giving the participants the opportunity to share their rich experiences from around the world. The second and third day were dedicated to plotting the way forward.

A strong partnership with the planning professionals emerged. The outcome of the discussion was a framework for a tool which would support the climate change related continuous professional development of planners. The tool would be more of a “tool-kit” rather than “guidelines” to allow decision-makers to think differently, apply certain values and develop localised and unique responses to climate change challenges. Furthermore, the planning associations would partner with UN-HABITAT in the roll-out of the tool.

Secondly, it was agreed to support planning teaching on Climate Change through the setup of a virtual Cities in Climate Change Academy. This web-platform would collect lectures (including power point presentations, supplementary lecture notes, reading lists, case studies, suggestions to studio/seminar work etc.) on Climate Change and Urban Planning. The modules could be combined to develop a complete semester course. The objective would be to mainstream climate change into existing syllabi. A road map (from the end of 2009 to 2011) towards the “Academy” was also prepared at the workshop. It was agreed that UN-HABITAT will prepare a work plan on how to implement these recommendations from the working groups.