GCP Seminar 2019 #03 “East Asian cities’ climate change adaptation action and policy”

Global Carbon Project, Tsukuba office and Center for Climate Change Adaptation (CCCA) of NIES are co-organising a lecture by Dr. Chao REN on East Asian cities' climate change adaptation action at the National Institute for Environmental Studies

Dr. Chao REN is an Associate Professor in The Faculty of Architecture at The University of Hong Kong. Her research interest is Sustainable Urban and Environmental Design and Urban Climatic Application in Urban Planning. She serves as an associate editor for Urban Climate. She is a board member of the International Association for Urban Climate. She serves as a contributing author for the IPCC AR6 report.

The attendant is free of charge, and the lecture will be held in English.

Date: Thursday 19th December 2019 (10:30-12:00) Door open 10:15

Address:
National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)
Koryu Kaigishitsu (交流会議室).
16-2 Onogawa,
Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506

You can register here:
https://peeratop.typeform.com/to/WID9o8

Abstract

The frequency and scale of damage inflicted by climate-related disasters, such as floods, drought, heat waves and hurricanes, has been increasing at an alarming rate. According to the projected future climate change in East Asia, it shows there is very likely an increase in mean annual surface temperature which further causes changing climate conditions in terms of both climatic extremes and variabilities(Wamsler, 2014). And these changing climate conditions can aggravate both the existing hazards and the present vulnerable conditions, thus considerably increasing risk and disaster occurrence. ). Because of these changing climates, a series of impacts on cities, settlements and infrastructures may likely occur, such as cooling energy demand increase(Morakinyo et al., 2019), declining air quality, extra pressures on urban infrastructure and urban fabrics (e.g. costal bank infrastructure, urban drainage system).

The speaker will introduce and review the climate change city action and related policy development in China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. It is found that the information and data of the nature, scale and distribution of potential urban risks, examining relationships between every day and disaster risks across scales are needed. The more that we are aware of climate – related hazards and their corresponding urban risks, the better we can work on not only mitigation but also adaptation. These actions would increase the city’s overall resilience and ability to cope with climate change, improve our people’s living conditions and safe their lives, as well as respond and recover from climate change related emergencies and hazard.