WEF joins hands with NIUA for decarbonisation in cities

New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a jointly-designed ‘Sustainable Cities India Programme’, which will aim to create an enabling environment for cities to generate decarbonisation solutions across energy, transport, and environment sectors.

This initiative comes in the wake of India’s commitment to turn net zero by 2070 as a climate mitigation response at COP26.

The Sustainable Cities India Programme intends to enable cities to decarbonise in a systematic and sustainable way that will reduce emissions and deliver resilient and equitable urban ecosystems.

The WEF and NIUA will adapt the forum’s City Sprint process and Toolbox of Solutions for decarbonisation in the context of five to seven Indian cities across two years.

The City Sprint process is a series of multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder workshops involving business, government, and civil society leaders to enable decarbonisation, especially through clean electrification and circularity.

The outcome of the workshop series will be a shortlist of relevant policies and business models, which not only reduce emissions, but also maximise system value, such as improved air quality or job creation.

City Sprints will help jumpstart and/or accelerate net zero planning and action. The process uses the Toolbox of Solutions – a digital platform containing over 200 examples of clean electrification, efficiency and smart infrastructure best practices and case studies across buildings, energy systems and mobility from over 110 cities around the world.

The City Sprint process will also enable cities to run pilot solutions and, based on the findings, India will be able contribute 10 to 40 best practice case studies which will be integrated into the Toolbox of Solutions and showcased across the world.

–IANS

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