Kweku Koranteng represented the CST during March at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Cities (IPCC) held in Edmonton AB, Canada. The IPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference aims are to improve scientific knowledge and to stimulate research underpinning effective and efficient urban responses to climate change, as well as to provide input to the products of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This conference brought together representatives from academia, scientific bodies, other research organizations and agencies; member states of the United Nations; city and regional governments; and urban and climate change practitioners and policy-makers
Kweku was part of a four-member panel on climate change adaption finance. This panel provided a contemporary survey of the spectrum of financial products and delivery models that are shaping the emerging climate adaptation finance discourse.
Collectively, the presentations represent two distinct challenges: One challenge is defined by the mainstreaming of adaptation considerations into known units of risk-adjusted financial products. Whether it is through strategic leverage or the modification of underwriting criteria, mature financial service delivery models themselves are challenged to advance institutional adaptation that accounts for not only the uncertainty of climate change but also the opportunities. The second challenge and corresponding sub-theme reflects the desire to co-align financial and social capital at local scales that are arguably more appropriate for addressing local vulnerability and local determination as to the forms and timing of future adaptations. Through an exploration of empirical knowledge of ongoing adaptation in agriculture, energy and financial services, this sub-theme offers insight into not only alternative delivery models but a range of alternative criteria for underwriting the “upside” or “returns” of financial investments. Both sub-themes are united in advancing practices that identify trade-offs and substitutes that reflect an accounting of co-benefits or conflicts that may arise from such investments. This panel provided a critical evaluation of the challenges facing urban adaptation finance.
Kweku spoke about the potential of blended financing to address adaptation finance in resource poor context as a contribution to the latter. He presented his research in informal settlements in Ghana and South Africa as examples of self-organizing case studies that can inform bottom-up strategies and policies.
IPCC Cities focused Future Research in Informality
More research is needed to understand informality in the context of climate change given the scale of the issue. The population living in informal settlements was estimated between 881 million and one billion in 2014 (UN-Habitat, 2017b). An important increase of the informal population is foreseen in the coming years given the high rate of informality in Africa and Asia and that 90% of the urban population growth until 2050 is expected to happen in Asia and Africa (UN-DESA, Population Division, 2014)
The topical research areas were to be focused on evidence-based knowledge that would support practitioners and decision-makers in addressing city-level challenges in the face of climate change. Research is needed both to understand the extent and nature of the challenges posed by, and to provide evidence for policy interventions on informality that simultaneously respond to climate change and vice versa. Further research could be conducted on the relationship between climate change and the informal economy to better understand how to increase adaptive capacity of informal sectors and how to scale-up low-carbon and climate resilient solutions from and for the informal sector. Other focus areas included Urban Planning and Design, Built and Blue/Green, Infrastructure, Sustainable Consumption and Production, Finance, Uncertainty, Knowledge Co-Design and Co-Production, Empowering Cities to take Action, Fostering Long-Term Science-Policy-Practice Collaborations.