Residential Training Programme on The New Urban Agenda

The world is witnessing unprecedented levels of warming. A United Nations report warns that at 1.5°C warming, 2.3 billion people could suffer severe heat waves, and if emissions persist, cities could experience an alarming 4°C temperature rise by the end of the century. This challenge of rising heat aggravates locally in cities due to Urban Heat Island effect which arises due to rapid urbanization, increasing concretization and shrinking green cover and water bodies. This has a hefty impact on public health and the environment with excessive cooling energy demand and growing related emissions.

The recently announced Urban Challenge Fund in the Union Budget 2025-26 brings tremendous opportunity to address the problem of growing heat and linked emissions.This initiative aims to dedicate 1 lakh crore for sustainable and inclusive urban transformation. Incorporating blue-green infrastructure, optimizing urban layouts, recycling, using climate-appropriate materials and use of solar rooftop are some of the strategies that need to be integrated with this initiative.These strategies will also require appropriate fiscal instruments for implementation.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is offering a four-day training programme that equips participants with practical strategies that lead to solutions for climate-resilient and resource efficient cities including heat assessment and mapping, use of passive design and thermally-efficient materials, developing heat mitigation scenarios through simulations, transitioning to renewable energy, adopting circularity (C&D waste management) and climate finance concepts among others to create heat resilient and liveable cities that also address India's nationally determined contributions to reduce emissions.

WHAT THIS COURSE CONTAINS

• Cities and climate change: Policу levers and opportunities
• Understanding the drivers of heat gains, reductions, sources and sinks in an urban context
• Map heat-stressed areas and heat sinks using remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Exploring measures to reduce heat and quantifying their efficiency using simulations
• Conducting vulnerability assessments
• Introduction to low embodied carbon materials, design and construction: traditional, hybrid and emerging technologies.
• Enabling thermal comfort to reduce operational energy in buildings: passive design techniques, ECSBC 2024,
• Eco Niwas Samhita 2024. Exploring the potential of renewable energy in urban settings.
• Integration of cooling strategies with master plans.
• Introduction to climate finance - sources and instruments.
• Recycling of construction & demolition waste to curb emissions.

COURSE COORDINATOR

Gargi Dwivedi
Senior Research Associate
Sustainable Habitat Programme, CSE
+91 8840349824
gargi.dwivedi@cseindia.org

COURSE DIRECTOR

Rajneesh Sareen
Programme Director
Sustainable Habitat Programme, CSE,
rajneesh.sareen@cseindia.org