Leadership for sustainability

Fasten our green belts toward a resilient and sustainable future (p.4) Wanjira MathaiA more resilient future requires urgent actions to establish harmony between human development and nature, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate change adaptation requires investing in green belts as nature-based solutions, where innovative grassroots action, local and indigenous knowledge, and gender equality are key. Mathai discusses the question, what does it mean to tighten our green belts? Food systems, the protection of the “earth’s lungs,” the reduction of waste, and the restoration of landscapes are mainly addressed. The Green Belt Movement, led by women in Africa, showed how grassroots action scales up and impacts through long-term sustainable solutions. Restoration movements and initiatives worldwide represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore landscapes for productivity, fight carbon emissions, and recover the ecosystem services to sustain human lives.Percepciones locales para la restauración ecológica (p.12) Ma. del Socorro Aguilar CucurachiA partir de las experiencias sobre el Movimiento Cinturones Verdes, presentadas por Wanjira Mathai en el marco de las Kapuscinski Development Lectures (en febrero 2021), destaco la importancia de la di-mensión social en los procesos de restauración y delineo cuatro formas posibles en las que las percepciones locales se vinculan con la restaura-ción ecológica: (1) las percepciones como impulso para la restauración; (2) la restauración ecológica como objeto de percepción; (3) las percepciones sobre la participación local en la restauración ecológica; y (4) la importancia de las sinergias epistémicas, multiactorales y multidimensio nales. La restauración ecológica implica una base científi ca, que considera entre sus principios la dimensión social, con benefi cios signifi cativos para el bienestar humano.<jats:p /

Findings from Innovate4Cities 2021 and Update to the Global Research and Action Agenda

   The Findings from Innovate4Cities 2021 and Update to the Global Research and Action Agenda details the research, policy, and public discussions key to advancing climate research and action in cities.  This report documents key outcomes of the Innovate4Cities 2021 Conference (October 2021) and highlights current objectives and motivations, research gaps and priorities. Furthermore, this document presents a regional analysis of research and innovation needs falling under the original GRAA topical research areas and cross cutting issues (Edmonton 2018) and expanding to issues which emerged between the 2018 and 2021 conferences.   This report has been developed by Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) and UN-Habitat based on the outcomes of 2021 Innovate4Cities Conference co-hosted by UN-Habitat, GCoM and co-sponsored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is intended to inform research, policy and public discussions on the global research and action agenda for cities and climate change science. The authors have sought to ensure the accuracy of the material in this document, but they will not be liable for any ramifications incurred through the use of this report.</p