Integrate climate change measures with urban planning: TERI

With climate change leading to increase in extreme weather events affecting cities, a policy research body today recommended integrating climate resilience measures the with country's national and state urban planning including city development plans.
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) gave the recommendations after a two-year study of Goa and Uttarakhand titled 'state level policy research and engagement for mainstreaming urban resilience'.
It said while both urban and rural areas are vulnerable to climate change, its impacts on cities and towns are of particular concern due to high concentrations of people and infrastructure.
"TERI recommended the dovetailing of appropriate measures into the national and sub-national planning, such as the town planning schemes and city development plans.

"It also said that financial allocation for resilience building and adaptation projects should be made part of the larger urban framework," a statement said adding that the recommendations were given during a national conference.
Terming cities engines of growth, Director General TERI Ajay Mathur said they should be resilient engines, capable of adapting to and absorbing the impacts of extreme climate events.

Meanwhile, Additional Secretary in Environment Ministry R R Rashmi noted city systems are complex and underlined the need to focus on city-based emissions instead of sectoral emissions.
TERI said some of other key recommendations and insights from the study are institutionalising decision support systems which includes establishing a knowledge repository of climate data at the state level and vulnerability analysis for urban areas in the state.

It also recommended capacity building under which planned mechanism to ensure regular training and skill building programs are there, implementation and enforcement of existing plans and policies, inter-departmental coordination, itegrating urban resilience in the existing policies and regulations amongst others.