COP29 Buildings and Cooling Pavilion

Keeping Communities Cool – Effective Interventions for Neighbourhoods and Buildings

Event description

This 90-minute session will focus on urban overheating as an issue of urgency for national and sub-national governments, those involved in urban planning, building design, facilities management, and engagement with occupants. It will focus on the scale and severity of the overheating challenge and on identifying the most effective practical solutions for use from household to city scale.

The event will draw together representatives from organisations with expert knowledge in urban heat and it will seek to integrate discussions at risk of becoming increasingly separate – those about the technical approaches to addressing indoor heat (within buildings), outdoor heat (at neighbourhood scale), the role of humidity in intensifying the impacts of heat, and ways of embedding issues of equity within decision making. It will bring together those who focus on the design of urban environments and buildings with those who lead city operations and who engage with residents and building occupants.

Agenda 

13:00 – 13:15 | Intro + Audience Polling
What Cities Face Now and Tomorrow: Understanding the Scale and Intensification of Urban Overheating

• Speaker: Dr. Sameh Wahba, Regional Director, Sustainable Development, Europe and Central Asia, World Bank

13:15 – 13:30 | Framing Urban Heat and Setting Our Ambition
Confronting Overheating’s Disruptive Impact on Cities and Identifying Key Solutions at City and Building Scales

• Speaker: Jo da Silva, Global Sustainable Development Director, Arup

13:30 – 14:15 | Panel Discussion with Audience Polling
Exploring Interventions for Lasting and Equitable Mitigation of Urban Heat While Minimizing Negative Trade-Offs

• Chair: Peter Vangsbo, Climate and Sustainability Services, Arup
• Panel:
  • Yasemin Somuncu, Architect, MA, Passive House Designer and Trainer, SEPEV, Türkiye
  • Gilles Vermot-Desroches, Chief Corporate Citizenship Officer and SVP Institutional Affairs, Schneider Electric
  • Mr. Zhang Weijie, Divisional Director, Energy and Climate Policy, Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Singapore
  • Mirey Atallah, Head of Adaptation and Resilience, UNEP

14:15 – 14:30 | Wrap-Up with Audience Polling
Integrating Urban Heat into City Resilience Action Plans