By Luigi Toda and Perlyn Pulhin

The OML Center participated on the first day of the Coastal Cities at Risk (CCaR) Conference with the theme Building Global Urban Climate Resilience and Its Challenges held last March 26, 2015 at Pathumwan Princess Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand as part of the Coastal Cities at Risk Annual Meeting hosted by Thammasat University Faculty of Architecture and Planning and Southeast Asia START Regional Centre.

The Conference graced a keynote address on disaster risk reduction and management to build urban climate resilience,  another keynote address on health and urban resilience, a presentation on building climate resilient communities and its challenges, and panel discussions on: 1) urban climate resilience and key findings of the CCaR City Report; 2) future perspectives of urban climate resilience building for all; and 3) educating and communicating climate change for building urban climate resilience.

The CCaR: Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Climate Change Project which is due to end in 2016 aims to develop the knowledge base and enhance the capacity of mega-cities to successfully adapt to and cope with climate change risks in the context of urban growth and development. This Project is supported by the International Research Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change (IRIACC) Program of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. IRIACC is the result of funding collaboration between IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Natural Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Participating cities for the 5 year-project are Bangkok, Manila, Lagos and Vancouver. The Manila study is spearheaded by the Manila Observatory. The OML Center will collaborate with the Philippine Project Team for potential inclusion of the data it gathered and knowledge it generated on the coastal cities affected by Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).