IB-Green was represented at this year’s Climate Alliance International Conference, which took place from October 18th to October 20th in Modena, Italy. Apart from Climate Alliance, the city network of Energy Cities was also present at the conference, with had more than 400 registered participants from over 40 countries.
The workshop „Rewriting the adaptation narrative”, organised within the scope of IB-Green, aimed at working together on the adaptation challenges that the city of Modena is currently facing. In May 2023, the Emilia Romagna region had to manage a tremendous flood, during which the amount of rain normally falling in six months fell in just one week, leading to flooding in 32 municipalities of the region. Only a few months later, the Emilia Region faced extreme heat waves, with temperature reaching 39,2° C in Bologna or 37,8° C in Modena. The city of Modena urgently needs to adapt to face those extreme weather events.
In small groups, participants developed ideas on which adaptation measures could help two neighbourhoods of Modena: one example neighbourhood, Villaggio Artigiano, was of particular interest for IB-Green. The district, built after World War II, was the first model for an industrial site in Italy. Extremely sealed, the district now faces a high risk of extreme heat, corresponding to the challenge for industrial business parks that IB-Green aims to address Suggestions for Villaggio Artigiano included nature-based solutions such as access to water and vegetation, reducing sealed surfaces, water reservoirs for trees as well as rainwater management. One main proposal was to enhance public-private dialogue by organising roundtables of business-owners, moderated by municipalities, where innovative ideas could be proposed and discussed directly between stakeholders. These ideas will be distributed to, and further discussed, among the IB project partners.
Further, the project coordinators of IB-Green, Alicia Göpner and Hélène Rizzotti, represented the project at a stand and established contacts to municipal climate change coordinators who are interested in the topic of adaptation. Interested participants were asked to put down their names for activities and news concerning Climate Alliance’s Working Group on Adaptation, for which a next event is scheduled next year.
The conference ended up with the presentation of the Modena Declaration. Find in this article more information about it.