FOREWORD CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Nigel Topping UN High-Level Climate Action Champion for UK COP26 Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin UN High-Level Climate Action Champion for Egypt COP27 In the past 20 years, natural disasters have affected 4.4 billion people, claimed 1.3 million lives, and caused $2 trillion USD in economic losses ( World Bank , UN ). By 2050, over 970 cities could be subjected to extreme heat, with over 570 cities impacted by sea level rise, to name just two impacts of our changing climate ( C40 ). Far too few cities are prepared for these changes. The extreme heat, floods, droughts and wildfires seen in urban hubs around the world in recent years has shown how unbearable, and unliveable, our cities could become – unless we act to build resilience while mitigating further changes. Our built environment is continually growing to meet the demands of changing, urban-centric populations. Two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2060, yet half of the urban fabric to accommodate them has not yet been built. It is critical that design and investment decisions taken today consider the scale, scope and severity of climate change impacts that will affect these built assets. Coupled with ageing infrastructure and under-investment, these challenges are already having devastating consequences for communities around the globe. Regardless of where you live or where you do business, we all need to build resilience to climate change. The built environment sector has the opportunity to lead the resilience agenda, placing adaptation on par with mitigation through how we design, manage and occupy buildings and infrastructure for the worlds’ people. As part of the UN High Level Climate Champions’ Race To Resilience, initiatives are catalysing action by non-state actors to build the resilience of 4 billion people vulnerable to climate risks. Initiatives that train people with the skills to build homes resilient to extreme weather, design policies with governments at all levels to make the infrastructure systems we all rely on resilient to climate shocks and share best practices, so knowledge is available to all. In this guide, World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) collates effective and practical steps that can be taken on a building, community, and city scale in order to adapt and build resilience. We encourage the broad range of built environment stakeholders set out in this guide to engage with their role, to exert their influence and to implement change. Under the inevitable impacts of climate change, resilience action is essential to build community capacity to survive and thrive in our built environments. 2
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