Nature-Based Solution for a City in Gujarat State, India

The funding for the project is part of a proposed three-year Danish contribution to support UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC) located in the UN City Copenhagen on the topic of Implementation of urban nature-based solutions (NbS) for mitigation and.

Nature-based solutions refer to actions that conserve, sustainably manage, or restore ecosystems to address societal challenges while providing environmental, social, and economic benefits. These solutions utilize the power of nature to mitigate climate change, enhance resilience, and promote sustainable development. NbS play a significant role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. NbS are increasingly recognised as important components of countries' NDCs. By integrating NbS into their NDCs, countries can achieve multiple benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and improved livelihoods for local communities.

However, despite many political pledges and overwhelmingly positive benefit-to-cost ratios in the longer term, NbS are often difficult to implement. This is due to a range of challenges, including high investment costs with delayed returns on investment, regulatory frameworks not designed to address natural solutions, the need to involve many stakeholders with potentially differing interests, as well as difficulties in monetizing all the benefits to overcome potentially higher up-front costs when compared to engineering solutions.

In addition, there is limited experience of urban NbS in the Global South. This justifies the application of Danida support to explore possibilities for a programmatic approach for scaling up NbS in urban contexts by developing replicable financing options, favourable governance, and regulatory frameworks, and identifying environmental, economic, and social benefits and costs in the short and long term.

Overcoming the challenges of scaling up NbS in urban settings requires identifying options for drawing in private-sector investment, despite the negative cash flow and high investment costs in the face of less easily quantifiable benefits. This may require the development of multiple-benefit assessments, i.e., the benefits of urban NbS need to be quantified and qualified spatially and over time to provide a better understanding of the enabling environment needed in their support. Moreover, assessing options for integrating NbS with other mitigation solutions (e.g., energy efficiency for cooling), innovative financing solutions, and other risk transfer and sharing solutions. In addition, regulatory and legal frameworks are often not designed to scale up NbS in urban areas where they may compete with space constraints, demand for financial resources, and other interests.

This project has the following specific objectives:

1)     Analysis of existing experiences on implementation models for NbS in the urban context;

2)      Synthesis and development of testable models in collaboration with local urban partners for tackling heat, flood, and coastal hazards.

3)      Experimentation on the ground and creation of off-the-shelf replicable implementation options, and

4)            Capacity building and training of local stakeholders

The funding for the project is part of a proposed three-year Danish contribution to support UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC) located in the UN City Copenhagen on the topic of Implementation of urban nature-based solutions (NbS) for mitigation and.

Nature-based solutions refer to actions that conserve, sustainably manage, or restore ecosystems to address societal challenges while providing environmental, social, and economic benefits. These solutions utilize the power of nature to mitigate climate change, enhance resilience, and promote sustainable development. NbS play a significant role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. NbS are increasingly recognised as important components of countries' NDCs. By integrating NbS into their NDCs, countries can achieve multiple benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and improved livelihoods for local communities.

However, despite many political pledges and overwhelmingly positive benefit-to-cost ratios in the longer term, NbS are often difficult to implement. This is due to a range of challenges, including high investment costs with delayed returns on investment, regulatory frameworks not designed to address natural solutions, the need to involve many stakeholders with potentially differing interests, as well as difficulties in monetizing all the benefits to overcome potentially higher up-front costs when compared to engineering solutions.

In addition, there is limited experience of urban NbS in the Global South. This justifies the application of Danida support to explore possibilities for a programmatic approach for scaling up NbS in urban contexts by developing replicable financing options, favourable governance, and regulatory frameworks, and identifying environmental, economic, and social benefits and costs in the short and long term.

Overcoming the challenges of scaling up NbS in urban settings requires identifying options for drawing in private-sector investment, despite the negative cash flow and high investment costs in the face of less easily quantifiable benefits. This may require the development of multiple-benefit assessments, i.e., the benefits of urban NbS need to be quantified and qualified spatially and over time to provide a better understanding of the enabling environment needed in their support. Moreover, assessing options for integrating NbS with other mitigation solutions (e.g., energy efficiency for cooling), innovative financing solutions, and other risk transfer and sharing solutions. In addition, regulatory and legal frameworks are often not designed to scale up NbS in urban areas where they may compete with space constraints, demand for financial resources, and other interests.

This project has the following specific objectives:

1)     Analysis of existing experiences on implementation models for NbS in the urban context;

2)      Synthesis and development of testable models in collaboration with local urban partners for tackling heat, flood, and coastal hazards.

3)      Experimentation on the ground and creation of off-the-shelf replicable implementation options, and

4)            Capacity building and training of local stakeholders