Cities should provide key services for all, writes the World Economic Forum (WEF) in a statement. However, many cities are failing city-dwellers, as well as the natural environment that urban life depends on, with urbanisation still largely dependent on the exploitation of nature. As a result, over 70 per cent of the largest urban centres in the world are deemed to be at high or extreme risk of environmental harm, says the WEF.
To address these challenges and reposition cities as engines for positive change, the government of Colombia has collaborated with the World Economic Forum on the BiodiverCities by 2030 initiative. The aim is to support city governments, businesses and citizens around the world to create cities that are in harmony with nature.
One of the initiative’s goals is to advance carbon neutrality, biodiversity conservation and social justice by reconnecting the built environment to nature, giving equal access to nature to all city dwellers, and fostering an economy based on the sustainable use of nature.
Action should be taken through so-called nature-based solutions (NbS), says the WEF. NbS leverage natural ecosystems to, among others, sustain water security and resilience, improve the aesthetics of neighbourhoods, reduce urban heat islands, offset carbon emissions and support species richness through increased green areas. According to the WEF, NbS for infrastructure could cost 50 per cent less than grey infrastructure alternatives.
“It is time to embrace the opportunities offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, build new platforms of collaboration and share experiences on how to reconcile safeguarding biodiversity with responding to pressing urban challenges such as food security, poverty, mobility and sanitation,” writes the WEF.
