Laurel Hunt, CURes Director of Strategic Partnerships and Secretary of the Mediterranean City Climate Change Consortium (MC-4) Secretariat, was featured in the following article published by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability: “The Paris Climate Talks: What Should Emerge?”
Emphasizing local adaptation and the power of networking, she provided the following comments: “I think the real story at COP lies within the concept of adaptation. Regions all over the world have been taking unprecedented steps to adapt to climate change and the work is impressive. One of the best outcomes of COP 21 would be drawing attention to and securing funding for these efforts in the long term. I mean not just funding for pilot projects, but providing security for adaptation as a viable response to climate change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost authority on climate change science, stated in its most recent report in 2014 that adaptation and mitigation strategies are the key to preparedness. Even though we’re talking about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and coming towards a legally binding agreement to do so, adaptation is critical. COP 21 is an opportunity to showcase adaptation work that is already being done and get people talking about adaptation networks. Cities, organizations, individuals, even entire sectors (like energy) can leverage networks to interact and collaborate. Being part of a network has numerous benefits related to knowledge creation, standards, financing, technical skills, best practices – there’s a lot of other ones. IPCC has made it very clear that adaptation responses will involve co-benefits and synergies but also trade-offs. At the end of the day climate change adaptation is an opportunity to make our society more just, equitable, and resilient.”
MC-4 is a city-to-city climate change response network focused on the five Mediterranean regions of the world (California, central Chile, the Western Cape of South Africa, southwestern and southern Australia and region bordering the Mediterranean Sea). The network is housed at CURes in Los Angeles.
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E-mail us at: CityAdapt@gmail.com