Building the Foundation for Heat Resilient Communities

31 Jul 23
Conference Room 5,
New York, United States

Building the Foundation for Heat Resilient Communities

The roundtable discussion aims to foster a collective understanding of the needs, opportunities, and challenges involved in developing a technical service to inform policies, plans, and investments related to building urban resilience to heat. The discussion will focus on the Global Heat Resilience Service, a pioneering initiative being co-designed by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and various stakeholders.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this event is to provide a platform for sharing insights, fostering collaboration, and explore the potential of a proposed Global Heat Resilience Service as a decision-support tool for enhancing urban resilience to heat worldwide.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The target audience of the roundtable is policy makers, geospatial information management experts, statisticians, development organizations, researchers, and practitioners.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

The proposed event will contribute to a collective understanding of the Global Heat Resilience Service, its potential impact on urban resilience to heat, and the necessary steps for its successful implementation. Although various formats for this event are proposed below, each has the same intended outcomes:

1. Raise awareness of the need and urgency for a Global Heat Resilience Service – particularly amongst statistical and mapping agencies, and more broadly with the UN-system.
2. Explore potential partnerships and collaborations among international organizations, practitioners, academia, civil society and the private-sector to support the implementation of the service. This would also include strengthened partnerships and collaborations among participants for future initiatives and projects.
3. Identification of key challenges and opportunities for developing and deploying the Global Heat Resilience Service globally. This to include generating recommendations for integrating the Global Heat Resilience Service into policy frameworks, strategies, and decision-making processes at national and local levels; and, to identify suitable resources to design, implement and maintain the service.
4. To agree on next steps to realise the Global Heat Resilience Service – agree with participants what steps need to be taken in order to advance the project concept, agree appropriate partnerships, and identify relevant resources.