Tag: ciudades

Since 2017, combating climate change in Mexican cities has been a priority issue for GIZ. Today, the outcome of this work is published in Lessons Learned from the Climate Protection in Mexican Urban Policy (CiClim) Project 2017-2020, which gathers experiences and shares creative solutions with other cities, the Mexican state and other actors.

The success stories presented in this document address climate change from the perspective of urban planning and sustainable mobility, as well as the integration and valuation of ecosystem services in urban planning. Below are some examples of the success stories promoted by GIZ through the CiClim project.

Foto: Intervención en zona peatonal, Hermosillo ©Colectivo Ciclista Bukis a la Calle
Photo: Intervention in the pedestrian zone, Hermosillo © Colectivo Ciclista Bukis a la Calle

In order to provide higher quality water and air as well as a decent quality of life for future generations, the economic and social value of ecosystem services has been integrated into city planning. This has allowed cities such as León and Morelia to promote and regulate the protection of natural areas and their biodiversity in the peripheries within their urban planning instruments.

In terms of prioritising actions for non-motorised mobility, in Hermosillo, the Vision Zero strategy was implemented working closely with cycling groups and the municipality. The project aims to increase road safety and promote pedestrian and cyclist mobility, thus contributing to the reduction of GHG emissions.

Elements of green infrastructure were incorporated into one of the branches of the CAFFENIO cafeteria in Hermosillo, including: a green wall, a rain garden, and an interior tree. Among the main benefits are savings of 57% in water and 40% in energy. This test project was successful thanks to the coordination between the private and public sectors and is expected to be replicated in other branches.

With this document, cities are invited to share success stories and lessons learned in order to stimulate existing potential and design resilient, inclusive and healthy cities.

The current coronavirus pandemic can be used as an opportunity to adapt and better prepare our cities to deal with current and future climate and health challenges. The app Árbol IoT helps cities to better plan and manage urban trees. This can help to avoid high temperatures, to buffer the impacts of flood events, and to mitigate socioeconomic-related health inequalities, among others.

Árbol IoT or Internet de los Árboles (IoTrees or the Internet of Trees in English) is a platform to engage citizens in urban tree mapping and environmental monitoring. Ideated and developed in the City of Guadalajara, Mexico, it aims to empower citizen advocacy and support municipal urban tree management to improve the greenery in the city. Thus contributing to ameliorate high temperatures and to buffer the impacts of flood events. The platform seeks to crowdsource an easy-to-update urban tree inventory, visualize and quantify the ecological benefits of trees and assist in public decision-making based on data and evidence.

Árbol IoT is a cross-platform composed of a mobile and web app, and a network of low-cost sensors that allows citizens to monitor the pollutants suspended in the environment, weather and noise on a street scale. The platform encourages engagement with green gamification and enables participation of a wide range of the population, including the elderly. It fosters inclusion through a mobile interactive table that can be placed in public spaces and used on-site by citizens who don’t have access to digital technology. A light feature within the mobile app allows citizens with limited or no mobile data on their devices to map and capture information offline and to upload it later when WiFi is available.

MuCitySavior, AylluDamos and Árbol IoT, the open-source digital solutions of the Global Program “ICT-based Adaptation to Climate Change in Cities” are developed, in use and have already been transferred and scaled up in India, Peru and Mexico, respectively. The three digital solutions have been applied to the #SmartDevelopmentHack in order to remark the critical importance of a green recovery. The current coronavirus pandemic is a good opportunity to adapt and better prepare our cities to deal with current and future health challenges

Thus, Árbol IoT joined the #SmartDevelopmentHack as a digital solution to help cities plan and manage an evenly spatial distribution of urban trees to mitigate socioeconomic-related health inequalities. Urban trees can help clean the air, and air pollution is closely associated to health problems such as asthma, high blood pressure, and diabetes, all of which are believed to pose a high risk to COVID-19 patients. Previous pandemics such as the plague, tuberculosis and cholera proved to transform cities by putting pressure into increasing greenery. For example, the design and construction of Central Park and many other parks in the 1800s was justified by the need of green areas to clean the air.

After a multi-stakeholder participatory process, the CiClim program supported the development of the conceptual and methodological structure to put payment models for environmental services in two cities into operation.

The inhabitants of León (Guanajuato) suffer from water supply service problems (90% of which is overexploited) and poor air quality (in 2017, 173 days were outside the norm). In this context, 75% of the population surveyed through social networks showed that they were willing to voluntarily contribute between $2 and $15 more when paying for their water bill or vehicle verification. This financing will be administered by the already existing Municipal Environmental Fund and will be destined towards activities that help to recover urban green areas and subsequently the Sierra de Lobos natural protected area, as projects subject to the Fund’s operating rules are approved.

 

Sierra de Lobos, ANP de León Guanajuato Credit: GIZ CiClim © 2019

 

In Morelia (Michoacán), the overexploitation of the aquifer that supplies the city – and affects the current condition of the main state and municipal protected natural areas – was considered serious. In this city, surveys (with direct population sampling) reported that 80% of the interviewees are willing to make a voluntary contribution of money – between $2 and $12 fortnightly – going towards financing projects related to the conservation of protected areas. The municipal government is in the process of approving the Environmental Fund, to manage the resources and coordinate the proposed programs.

 

Río Chiquito, ANP Morelia Mich. Credit: GIZ CiClim © 2019

 

As of the writing of this text, work is still in progress on a forest compensation mechanism for the municipality of Mérida (Yucatán).

This project is implemented by the Cities and Climate Change (CiClim) program and is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).

The project Financing Energy for Low-Carbon Investment – Cities Advisory Facility (FELICITY) completed an identification and selection round of projects that would receive technical accompaniment in 2019-2020. In this context, the team put together a report that evaluated the results of the process and extracted the lessons learned to improve the following rounds of project identification and inform the work of other preparative project platforms in Mexico, Brazil and China.

The report “FELICITY Identification and Selection Process: General Vision and Lessons Learned” has the following aims:

  • To understand and evaluate the FELICITY identification and selection process, as well as the associated achievements and challenges.
  • To consolidate and evaluate the results of the identification and selection process of FELICITY projects, taking into account the main characteristics of the requests and chosen projects.
  • To determine the lessons learned and formulate recommendations, not only to improve the selection of FELICITY projects themselves but also how FELICITY can adapt itself to reflect the necessities of cities.
  • To provide information that can aid the work of other platforms in the preparation of projects and associated initiatives.

 

Credits: FELICITY, 2019. FELICITY Lines of Work.

 

In the same way, recommendations were formulated in several areas such as improvement of communication, standardization of the application process, identification of local collaborators, and scheduling of the selection process.

Finally, a more comprehensive range of initiatives was recommended in terms of scope, sectors, and geographic coverage. Thus, the sector that prepares projects could be developed to include a broader range of initiatives that need assistance, which would allow an acceleration of support to scale in cities.

 

Credits: FELICITY, 2019. Sectorial Distribution of Projects Received in 2019.

 

Felicity is the initiative implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH; with the support of European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), which offers technical assistance and the project preparation focused on low-carbon infrastructure in cities.

For more available information, consult the website GIZ-FELICITY.

 

Credits: FELICITY, 2019. Publication’s cover