Taking cognizance of Andhra Pradesh’s recently announced visionary goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2047, the cities of Kakinada, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam have been implementing the “Mainstreaming Climate Actions in Andhra Pradesh” project. This initiative aims to support cities in embedding climate considerations into urban planning, financing, and service delivery. With support from ICLEI South Asia and C40 Cities, the three cities are developing Climate-Resilient City Action Plans, which include ward-level climate risk vulnerability assessments, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories, and emissions reduction scenario planning.

As part of this project, a workshop titled ‘Building Climate-Resilient Cities: From Planning to Implementation’ was convened in Visakhapatnam on 20 November 2024. The workshop was designed to equip city officials with the tools and knowledge essential for developing city-level climate-resilient and net-zero action plans and for enabling long-term climate-resilient planning in the three cities.

The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Emani Kumar, Deputy Secretary General of ICLEI and Executive Director of ICLEI South Asia, who spoke about the focus on resilient urban development within the Swarna Andhra Pradesh 2047 development plan. He also highlighted the support provided by ICLEI South Asia and C40 to the three cities for net-zero planning and for reporting their progress on global platforms.

With 40 participants from academia, municipal governments, NGOs, and research think tanks, the workshop saw participation from several key government officials, including Smt. Golagani Hari Venkata Kumari, Mayor of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), who emphasized that climate change has costly consequences for urban services, housing, livelihoods, and health. She stated that Visakhapatnam, being a coastal industrial city, remains vulnerable to several climate hazards, which requires coordinated, multisectoral efforts across local, regional, and national governments. Senior municipal officials from Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Srikakulam, and Vizianagaram, along with the Regional Director of Municipal Administration, Visakhapatnam, attended the workshop, alongside representatives from NITI Aayog, Andhra University, and TERI.

Technical Session on Climate-Resilient City Action Plans

Mr. Nikhil Kolsepatil, Program Coordinator – Energy & Climate at ICLEI South Asia, presented the climate resilience action planning process for the cities of Vijayawada and Kakinada. He highlighted that the climate-resilient plans developed by ICLEI SA include ward-level risk assessments for heatwaves, urban flooding, cyclones, and landslides, to help cities implement targeted ward-level actions. He also presented the targets, sectoral strategies, and actions for sectors including wastewater, water supply, stormwater, solid waste, transport, energy and buildings, health, and urban greening and biodiversity. Each action is accompanied by monitoring indicators, estimated implementation scales until 2047, investment estimates, and potential funding sources. In addition to the action plan, he emphasized that C40 and ICLEI South Asia are supporting the three cities with technical assessment studies, including investment-grade energy audits for water supply systems in Kakinada and Visakhapatnam, and designing guidelines for sustainably cooled and heat-resilient buildings in Vijayawada, which also include detailed recommendations for improving sustainable design in school buildings.

Dr. K. Swapna, Programme Officer, Sustainability and Resilience Unit (SRU), GVMC, highlighted the city’s climate action initiatives, including the Eco-Vizag initiative, maintaining 30% green cover in the city limits, deployment of floating solar PV plants, adoption of disaster- and climate-resilient infrastructure for stormwater drainage and electricity supply, Visakhapatnam’s Green City Action Plan, and promoting participatory and data-driven decision-making through the Transformative Climate Action project.

The workshop also featured a presentation by the Climate & Development Knowledge Network Asia on Gender and Social Inclusion in Climate Action.

City-to-City Best Practice Knowledge Sharing

City officials from the cities of Udaipur, Tirunelveli, and Ahmedabad shared their best practice case studies in areas such as urban forestry, early warning systems for floods, and solar power-based opportunity charging stations for electric buses, respectively. These best practices were supported under ICLEI South Asia’s CapaCITIES project.

Mr. Vishal Khanama, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, presented on the lessons learned from the implementation of solar-powered on-route charging stations for electric buses in Ahmedabad. The project enabled AMC to reduce up to 120 hours of daytime non-productive time from its e-bus fleet, and provided an annual mitigation of 470 tCO2e. He emphasized that convincing operators, fostering stakeholder collaboration, and re-evaluating the operating modalities of gross-cost model-based PPP contracts were crucial for the success of the e-bus and on-route charging pilots.

Ms. Sashi Bala Singh, Executive Engineer of Udaipur Municipal Corporation, shared insights from the Mohta Park Urban Forest (Miyawaki method) pilot, which is proposed to be scaled up to 100 urban forests in the city. The project focuses on restoring small urban green pockets, including community gardens and parks, with native plantings.

Daniel Robinson, State Project Lead, ICLEI South Asia, presented on various initiatives implemented in Tamil Nadu, supported by the CapaCITIES project, including a floating solar pilot in Coimbatore, early warning systems for floods in Tirunelveli, and the restoration of the Chettikulam lake in Trichy.

The workshop served as an important platform for knowledge dissemination, feedback, and capacity building for stakeholders on the climate-resilient action planning process. Moving forward, ICLEI South Asia and C40 Cities will continue providing additional technical support, peer-to-peer learning, and capacity-building programs to help cities achieve their resilience targets and make them the first three cities to align their ambitions with the state’s 2047 net-zero goal.