October 28, 2021- The Secretary of State for the Environment of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), Hugo Morán, has inaugurated the conference “Biodiversity, resilience and quality of life in cities”, organized by the Biodiversity Foundation and the United Nations Programme
for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat). The day also served to commemorate World Cities Day, which is celebrated next Sunday, October 31, and which this year focuses on the adaptation of urban environments to the climate crisis.
The meeting served to discuss the importance of integrating nature into urban environments to achieve healthier, more resilient, comfortable and sustainable cities. To this end, it has had the participation of Carmen Sánchez-Miranda, head of the UN-Habitat Office in Spain, Esteban León, head of the Resilient Cities Programme of UN-Habitat; Elena Pita, director of the Biodiversity Foundation; Leire Pajín, Director of Global Development at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal); Santiago Saura, head of the Area of Internationalization and Cooperation of the Madrid City Council; Francisco Javier Sigüenza, Secretary General of the Association of Green Infrastructure Management Companies (ASEJA), and Celia Ojeda, leader of the strategic global project of Greenpeace International.
A PRIORITY AGENDA FOR ADMINISTRATIONS
The Secretary of State for the Environment began his speech by stressing that “we are facing a problem of global scope that concerns all citizens, that occupies the entire scientific community and that must become the priority agenda of all Administrations”. During his speech, he stressed the value of cities as ideal spaces to reverse the loss of biodiversity and the climate crisis.
In addition, he stressed the importance of “putting in place coordination mechanisms so that cities, as a whole, address intervention plans within a model of renaturation and rescue of nature”. In this context, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan was created as an opportunity “for cities to obtain support to implement response measures that have financial backing and that can be carried out jointly to build a country plan for the renaturalisation of cities”.
During the day, some of the existing mechanisms at community and national level to face this challenge were highlighted, such as the EU Green Deal, the European Biodiversity Strategy 2030, or the National Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration, the second National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, or the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition, at the national level, all of them tools that support the development of this type of action to achieve sustainable mobility and the creation of low emission zones.
In addition, the Biodiversity Foundation has launched a series of calls for grants that aim to support transformative projects, based on science and the solutions provided by nature to promote green recovery. Specifically, in order to respond to objectives such as the renaturalisation and resilience of cities, a call for grants has been launched to promote projects that promote the development of green infrastructures and the connectivity of green and blue spaces, through direct interventions. The main objective is to strengthen the role of nature in urban environments to increase their biodiversity and improve people’s quality of life and health. This call will have an endowment of 58 million euros and provincial capitals and municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants will be eligible for it, which may be grouped with other entities and bordering municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants.
COOPERATION BETWEEN SECTORS
The event also included contributions from Víctor Viñuales, executive director of ECODES; Valentín Alfaya, president of Grupo Español Crecimiento Verde; Alicia Torrego, director of the CONAMA Foundation; Jaume Alagarda, president of the Spanish Federation of Gardening Companies (FEEJ), and Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, director of the UNESCO Chair in Gender at the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (ETSAM-UPM) and president of the Association of Women Architects of Spain (AMAE). All of them have agreed on the need for urban transformation to be equitable, inclusive and fair so that all its inhabitants can benefit from the positive effects of renaturation.
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
Nature-based solutions and the promotion of ecosystem-based approaches can deliver significant economic, social and environmental benefits to cities in a changing and urbanising world. The current situation offers a unique opportunity to promote a green transition and strengthen the role of nature and the ecosystem services it provides to improve the quality of life and health of citizens, as well as urban resilience, climate action and the fight against biodiversity loss.
Cities account for about 75% of global energy consumption and are responsible for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions
greenhouse. For this reason, the way they are planned, built and managed is key to reducing carbon emissions and keeping global warming within the limits set by the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
