Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities

September 17–19, 2013, NEW YORK — Shagun Mehrotra, Director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Center, co-Directs the Urban Climate Change Research network.  UCCRN is a multidisciplinary group of 500 researchers and leading practitioners around the world.  At a three-day workshop convened in New York City, over a 100 urban climate change experts, stakeholders, and practitioners from the Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas gathered to work on the substance, structure, and protocol, of the Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (Second ARC3).  During the opening plenary Professor Mehrotra presented the state-of-the-knowledge UCCRN overview, chaired a panel discussion that brought UNEP chief scientist, private sector, and local government representatives together.

Image Credit: Oisin O’Brien

Sustainable Development Solutions center Project Managers Susan Yoon and Lina Fiderko joined the workshop to participate in the urban transport working session.  During the workshop the Introduction, Risk, Adaptation, Mitigation and Policy options (I-RAMP) chapter structure proposed by Professor Mehrotra for the transport sector was adopted for the entire assessment report.  New School alumni and Sustainable Development Solutions Center affiliates Oisin O’Brien and Grace Yang, as well as volunteer Alice Obar attended the plenary sessions as media affiliates.

Co-Editors for this Second ARC3 are Cynthia Rosenzweig, NASA GISS, William Solecki of Hunter College of the City University of New York, Shagun Mehrotra of Milano at the New School, Shobhakar Dhakal of the Asian Institute of Technology, and Paty Romero-Lankao, of Urban Futures at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.  Cambridge University Press is the likely publisher with the final report expected in 2015.