Relevance and Quality of Climate Planning for Large and Medium-Sized Cities of the Tropics

Abstract

In the last seven years, the number of plans with climate measures for tropical cities has increased 2.3 times compared to the previous seven years as a result of the initiatives of central and local governments, multi-bilateral development aid and development banks. The plans matter in achieving the 11th United Nations' Sustainable development goal. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to ascertain the relevance and quality of climate planning in large and medium-sized cities in the Tropics. The chapter proposes and applies the QCPI-Quality of Climate Plans Index, consisting of 10 indicators (characterization of climate, number, quantification, relevance, potential impact, cost, funding sources, timetable and responsibility of measures, implementation monitoring and reporting). It is revealed that 338 tropical cities currently have a local development, emergency, master, mitigation, adaptation, risk reduction plan or a resilience or smart city strategy. These tools were unquestionably more common in large cities, especially in OCDE and BRICS countries, while they were rare in Developing Countries. Local development plans (Municipal development, general, comprehensive) were the most common in medium-sized cities, along with those with the lowest quality, while stand-alone strategies and plans (resilience, mitigation, sustainable, adaptation), applied mostly in big cities, present much higher quality.

Renewing Climate Planning Locally to Attend the 11th Sustainable Development Goal in the Tropics

“…The relevance of local climate planning and of the relative climate measures is obtained from two previous surveys Tiepolo 2017) on climate plans in the large and medium size cities of the Tropics. The database used contains 364 plans related to 322 tropical cities in 41 countries, updated to December 2016.…”

“…Tsunami, V Vulnerability of measures according to a time table (Tiepolo 2017). Large cities on the other hand, have sufficient resources to be able to implement a stand-alone plan (mitigation, adaptation, sustainable plan) with a zoning map and admitted land uses for every area.…”

Multihazard Risk Assessment for Planning with Climate in the Dosso Region, Niger

“…During the 2011-2017 period, there was a reduction in rainfall of 20-40 mm/year throughout the region compared to the 1981-2010 period (Figure 4). Nevertheless, in the municipalities of BirniN'Gaoure, Dan Kassari, Dogon Kirya, Loga, Matankari, N'Gonga, and Soucoucoutane (3,4,6,29,30,32, and 35 at Figure 5), despite the reduction in annual accumulated rainfall, the number of extremely heavy precipitation days (>20 mm) increased. The increase in the frequency of extremely heavy precipitation days increases the probability of creating conditions that can lead to pluvial flooding.…”

“…In this article, with the term "risk", we mean "the combination of the probability of an event and its negative consequence" [5]. In the Global South, the multihazard approach is increasingly included in risk reduction plans [6] and in publications addressing risk on a local [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and regional [14][15][16][17][18] scale. Nevertheless, the cases in which this approach has been used up to now reveal the difficulty of applying multihazard risk assessment methods and techniques that have been fine-tuned for countries boasting all the information and local expertise necessary [19][20][21][22][23] to areas that lack these characteristics.…”