Our strategic partners Resilience First, and the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure, that we co-founded, are both announced today as Race to Resilience Partner Initiatives.
The Race to Resilience – the UN backed global campaign to build the resilience of vulnerable communities to the impact of climate change – has today announced four new Partners have joined the global campaign, building momentum ahead of COP26 for a raise in ambition from state and non-state actors on climate resilience.
They include Resilience First, the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI), The Climate Heritage Network, and The Urban Sustainability Directors Network.
The announcement comes as part of the UN High Level Climate Action Champions’ Opening Session for Climate Week NYC on Race to Zero and Race to Resilience – ‘Delivering on the Promise of Paris: every fraction counts’.
The four new initiatives bring the total number of Partners in the Race to Resilience to twenty four, representing over 2,500 non-state actor organisations from across society advancing the campaign’s goal of making 4 billion people from vulnerable communities resilient to the impact of climate change by 2030.
Welcoming the new initiatives, COP 26 High Level Climate Action Champion Nigel Topping said: “I am delighted to welcome four new Partners to the Race to Resilience. They represent the diverse coalition of non-state actors which is essential to delivering the campaign’s goal of making 4 billion people resilient to climate change by 2030”.
The cross-society group of initiatives will join other Partners in publicly pledging the action they will be taking as part of the Race to Resilience at COP 26, using the campaign’s metrics framework to quantify their impact.
Official Partner Initiative: International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure (ICSI)
ICSI is the biggest coalition of engineers in the world, influencing the work of over 200,000 engineers in 175+ countries. Because of this, ICSI offers an unparalleled opportunity to act as a catalyst for engaging with the engineering community on the global agenda for climate action and resilience building via the Climate Champions Team and the broader UN climate agreement implementation process.
Savina Carluccio, Programme Director, the International Coalition for Sustainable infrastructure, and Head of Guidance, Tools and Standards, for The Resilience Shift, said: “Bold action is needed to solve the urgent systemic challenges that exist at the intersection of climate change, ageing infrastructure, and underinvestment. Through the Race to Resilience campaign, we want to give the engineering community a platform to be at the forefront of climate action, harnessing their ability to provide sustainable and resilient solutions for infrastructure, and delivering impact ‘on the ground’ where it’s most needed.”
Find out more: https://sustainability-coalition.org/race-to-resilience/
Official Partner Initiative: Resilience First
Resilience First members come from over 600 corporates operating in over 150 countries. As such, it is well-placed to drive the business community towards climate action.
As a Partner Initiative to the Race to Resilience campaign, Resilience First is calling for 22 global CEOs to join its campaign and pledge climate action on behalf of their organisation in 2022.
These pledges will commit businesses to creating climate-resilient solutions and sharing knowledge on climate adaptation. Businesses will appoint a climate advocate, set quantitative targets for 2030, and track and report progress on an annual basis, among other commitments.
Simon Collins, Chair of Resilience First, said: “The business community cannot afford to ignore the pressing need for climate action. The Resilience First Race to Resilience campaign will encourage businesses to acknowledge their responsibility to step up, to promote a climate-resilience agenda, and to set an example for the private sector that champions people and planet, alongside profit.”
Find out more: https://www.resiliencefirst.org/Race-To-Resilience
Looking to CoP
In addition to new Partner initiatives The Race to Resilience also launched its Transformations programme for non-state actors delivering action to advance the campaign’s 2030 goal.
These actions include increasing the quantity and quality of finance and investment, capacity building, governance systems, infrastructure and technological innovations. The campaign will announce the first group of Partners delivering on Transformations at COP26.
At COP 26 the campaign will bring these Partners together to share best practices and collectively mass mobilize actors to raise their level of ambition and action on resilience.
This includes at the Resilience Hub, the first dedicated physical and virtual space for resilience at a COP which will be running programming across the two weeks and act as the home for the Race to Resilience.
Speaking at Climate Week New York City’s opening session, UN High Level Climate Action Champion, Gonzalo Muñoz said: “Today we have more reasons to be hopeful ahead of COP26. This groundswell of momentum in building resilience of the most vulnerable is crucial to us adapting to the future ahead, and for placing the world in a stronger position to decarbonise at pace.”
