Shimla among 6 world cities for climate adaptation plan

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 10

Shimla is among the six cities selected for the prestigious CityLinks Climate Adaptation Partnership Programme (CAAP), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The programme will be managed by the International City Managers Association.

The programme will prepare long-term strategies to meet the emerging challenge of climate change and its impact on other sectors in Shimla which has grown phenomenally and facing problems of rise in temperatures, shrinking of green cover, lesser snowfalls and rain and scorching heat during the peak summer season.

The programme will pair Shimla with the “City of Boulder”, Colorado (the USA), while other two partnerships are Townscille (Australia) - Portmore (Jamaica) and Someverille (Massachusetts)-La Ceiba (Honduras). A series of partnership activities, including exchange trips, has been designed to find a sustainable solution tailored to real needs of cities.

Colorado will be the resource city for Shimla and a series of exchange visits and collaborative initiatives have been planned between the patterned cities and to begin with, a team comprising Project Manager of ICMA Policy Adviser, City of Boulders and Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCN) experts will visit Shimla for one week from tomorrow, Mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation, Sanjay Chauhan said.

The team will hold consultations with stakeholders comprising different line departments and civil society organisations to identity some areas of collaboration to address the climate change threats and the challenges Shimla may face.

Further, the collaboration will build on Colorado’s experience in designing and implementing many climate change initiatives and the team will look into the key areas of municipality, water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and slum development.

The Disaster Management Cell of the Municipal Corporation has been designated as “focal point” to facilitate this partnership and further support relevant actions in due course and the technical support will be provided by the UCCRN, which is a consortium of 500 individuals dedicated to the analysis of climate change mitigation and adaptations from urban perspective, Chauhan added.

The CityLinks programme is based on the premise that well-managed cities are the key to efficient service delivery, economic growth, sound management of resources, community health, political stability and that cities learn best from the experience of other cities.

The ICMA announced the 2015 Climate Adaptation Partnership Program in January this year and the last date for submitting the applications was February 25. The selection of towns and pairing of city was done by March end and future programme was chalked out for implementation of the programme.