Resurgence Showcase of events from COP26
Unpacking the 8 COP26 events from the Resurgence Team in Glasgow.
Track the highlights of our two week programme delivered from the dynamic heart of the official Blue Zone of COP26 – the Resilience Hub – and powered by the Race to Resilience Campaign.
Under our DARAJA Service and Partnership, our team brought together negotiators, meteorologists, risk experts and community leaders to discuss issues central to the Glasgow agenda. They covered key aspects of Locally Led Adaptation, inclusive early warning systems design and the guiding principles behind scaling climate information services such as DARAJA.
Find out more from the text, image and video links below.
Friday 5 November 2021
Premiering DARAJA – bridging weather and climate services for local adaptation with the true owners of climate risk.
Host: Locally Led Adaptation Hub (LLA), Blue Zone.
Summary of event: How do we make the vital concept and important principles of Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) concrete, viscerally resonant and demonstrable? This session premiered, in Glasgow at COP26, with a short film on the award-winning DARAJA Weather and Climate Service. Screened to a select panel of community and climate leaders, an audience in the LLA Pavilion and virtually around the world, the film teased out panellists’ interpretations of the 8 Principles for LLA in the light of a real world example from Nairobi. The event connected audiences to James Kirika, an informal settlement resident, who co-led the design of a city wide weather service, and close with a panel vote on the LLA Principles that were best embodied by DARAJA.
Speakers: Mark Harvey, Founder & CEO, Resurgence; Prisca Okila, Community Coordinator, Kounkuey Design initiative (KDI), Kenya; James Kirika, Weather Mtaani Leader, Kenya; Dr David Gikungu, The Deputy Director Climate Services, Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD); Patricia Nying’uro, Climate Scientist and Chief Meteorologist at the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD); Dr. Aditya Bahadur, Principal Researcher, Adaptation Research Alliance, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK; Ondivow, Filmmaker and Photographer.
Re-watch: here
Monday 8 November 2021
What does climate resilience mean in practice? Showcasing risk management actions across and within sectors.
Host: Climate Action Hub, Blue Zone.
Summary of event: Adaptation and mitigation go hand in hand to build resilience so we – and the ecosystems we depend on – not only survive but thrive in a 1.5 degree resilient world. This event brought together the Marrakech Partnership and Race to Resilience partners to show what adaptation and resilience means in practice for different sectors and how – by working together – we can achieve the Race to Resilience Goal of making 4 billion people resilient to climate shocks and stresses by 2030. As a Race to Resilience partner, Mark Harvey (Founder & CEO, Resurgence) was part of a panel discussion to showcase how the deployment of technology and finance for resilience could be scaled up, demonstrating through actions, with the award-winning DARAJA Weather and Climate Service.
Speakers: Maisa Rojas, Director, Center for Climate and Resilience Research, University of Chile, R2R Technical Secretariat; David Howlett – R2R Champion; Thiago Pampolha, Secretary of Environment and Sustainability of Rio de Janeiro State; Savina Carluccio, Head of Guidance and Standards; Claudia Veronica Moreno Recalde, Microfinance Institution Espoir; Elizabeth Hausler, Founder & CEO Build Change; Mark Harvey, Founder & CEO Resurgence.
Re-watch: here
Monday 8 November 2021
Welcome to 2025; Where Early Action is the Default.
Host: UK Pavilion, Blue Zone.
Summary of event: The presidency programme for COP26 showcased momentum from the whole of society, and focused on key issues to drive ambition and action. On the 8th November this focus was on: Adaptation, Loss and Damage – delivering the practical solutions needed to adapt to climate impacts and address loss and damage, as well as Adaptation & Resilience. This event was an urgent call for ambitious commitments to avert and minimise loss and damage of climate change. This session introduced the reach/scale that Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) can make if its full potential is realised; it tells the story of local leadership on early action, and brings the focus on target countries leading early warning early action (EWEA). A newly created video of DARAJA: The Inclusive City-Community Forecasting and Early Warning Service, will showcase how it is possible to make climate resilience concrete, resonant with communities, measurable and, over time, scalable.
Re-watch: here
Tuesday 9 November 2021
ROAR: Science & Innovation for Climate Adaptation.
Host: ROAR, Blue Zone.
Summary of event: Effective climate adaptation requires a paradigm shift that harnesses the full potential of science and innovation. Science needs to be more action-oriented and user-centred; action needs to be evidence-driven and fuelled by innovation; investment needs to be scaled up. We need Results-Oriented Adaptation Research (ROAR). To realise this systemic shift, climate adaptation researchers, practitioners, community-based organisations, and action and research funders from across the globe have formulated the Adaptation Research for Impact Principles as guiding tenets for all stakeholders engaged in climate adaptation, and co-developed the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA), an innovative initiative that co-creates adaptation solutions with those on the frontline of risk and catalyses investment in support of results-oriented adaptation research. Sunayana Sen (Programme Manager, Resurgence) joined fellow Panel members from organisations representing adaptation action and research at different scales articulate the transformative impact of ROAR.
Re-watch: here
Wednesday 10 November 2021
5D:What role does ‘radical collaboration’ play in the development of resilient cities?
Host: Development and Climate Days 2021, Virtual.
Summary of event: Development and Climate Days 2021 took place on 9 and 10 November, and saw grassroots representatives, researchers, development practitioners and policymakers from all over the world discuss how to build a climate-resilient future for all. This event, on establishing resilient cities and infrastructure (led by IIED), discussed how for the first time in the history of the planet most of the world is urban and cities are at high risk of experiencing the impacts of climate change. The session speakers showcased ways of forging novel partnerships and collaborations for enhancing resilience, and demonstrate innovative approaches for supporting adaptation to extreme heat – a major hazard increasingly impacting our cities.
Wednesday 10 November 2021
DARAJA: The Weather Bridge for Early Action.
Host: The Resilience Hub, Virtual.
Summary of event: How did a novel city and community forecasting service manage to attain a 98% early action rate from some of the most vulnerable residents of Nairobi, Kenya? And how did it achieve similar results in parallel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where 75% of residents surveyed said the DARAJA service saved them money and protected their assets? This event brought together the award-winning pioneers of DARAJA, along with international organisations – to tell the story of DARAJA, explain how you can join the DARAJA community and to announce a set of new scale-up partnerships that will contribute to the targets of REAP and the Race to Resilience.
Speakers: Dr Aditya V. Bahadur, Principal Researcher, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) UK; Dr Ladislaus Chang’a, Principal Meteorologist, Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA); Stella Stephen, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) Tanzania; Regina Opondo, Community Director, Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) Kenya; Evan Thompson, Director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica (MSJ); Abdulai Sesay (representing the Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone), FCC DRM Coordinator and a member of the newly appointed HEAT team in the Mayor’s office; Dr Bapon Fakhruddin, Technical Director, DRR and Resilience, Tonkin + Taylor; Beth Chitekwe-Biti – Acting Managing Director at Slum Dwellers International (SDI); Mark Harvey, CEO, Resurgence.
Re-watch: here or through the COP Resilience Hub website here
Thursday 11 November 2021
Transformation Announcements.
Host: Race To Resilience, Blue Zone.
Summary of event: As one of the biggest climate conferences came to an end, Race to Resilience partners (Resurgence included) aimed to make significant and innovative changes to the systems we currently operate in, and shared details on the impact they will create through their solutions by 2030. Learn how Resurgence is implementing and scaling Transformations that will support the campaign’s overall goal of reaching 4 billion people in the most vulnerable communities. In particular, to scale DARAJA to provide actionable climate information and early warning services to 250 million urban residents, prioritising the most vulnerable, and ultimately to all 1 billion people living in urban informality.
Speakers: Race to Resilience Campaign together with High Level Champions and Mark Harvey, CEO, Resurgence.
Re-watch: here (Resurgence, Race to Resilience partner announcement video) or the full event here
Thursday 11 November 2021
How can we decarbonise our built world? Lessons from experiments across the world.
Host: Icebreaker One, Green Zone.
Summary of event: Icebreaker One Founder and CEO Gavin Starks lead a panel of global experts discussing how we can decarbonise our built world. They shared hard-won lessons and advice for policymakers from the frontline of building decarbonisation innovation. Dr Nuha Eltinay brought to the panel her interactions with city and country level governments that aims to bridge the gap between national adaptation plans and climate mitigation actions at the local level.
Speakers: Gavin Starks, CEO & Founder, Icebreaker One; Volker Buscher, Chief Data Officer, Arup;
Linet Kwamboka, Africa Program Manager, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data;
Nuha Eltinay, Board Advisor and representative in MENA for Resurgence;
Anacláudia Rossbach, Regional Manager – Latin America and the Caribbean, Cities Alliance (UNOP)
Re-watch: here
For all media enquiries please contact, Marketing and Communications Lead: dilupa@resurgence.io