Mr. Miltiadis Makrygiannis, PABSEC Deputy Secretary General participated in the 9th European Urban Resilience Forum (EURESFO) that took place on 14 – 15 September 2022 in Athens.

The event, organized jointly by the ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) and the European Environment Agency and supported by the European Investment Bank and the European Committee of the Regions, offered a unique exchange platform where city representatives, politicians, academicians, and stakeholders from various local and regional institutions came together and discussed strategies and actions for adapting to climate change, building urban resilience and manage disasters.

During the two-day conference, several panels and workshops took place, focusing on and highlighting issues like coastal resilience and tackling heat waves and wildfires; mainstreaming climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction; the importance of data availability and accessibility; financing for resilient cities; nature-based solutions for equitable development; regional pathways towards resilience transformation; innovations to address the challenge of urban heat, etc.

As many speakers pointed out, European cities and regions have recently experienced extreme climate events and natural disasters, occurring simultaneously in various countries. The summer of 2022 especially has proved to be quite unpredictable when it comes to climate events and their cascading effects. This is happening, while in parallel, the European Union is putting the Mission for Adaptation and Societal Transformation into practice, aiming to prepare European cities, regions, and communities to face climate change impacts by indicating strategies to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce their vulnerability.

A significant part of the conference was dedicated to the recent EU policy developments and in particular, the Mission for Climate Adaptation and Societal Transformation, and the speakers, inter alia, presented insights from European cities that have been pioneers in adaptation and resilience planning and shared on their plans to contribute in making Europe climate resilient by 2030.

Mr. Miltiadis Makrygiannis had a short intervention during the workshop titled “Transformative Pathways for a More Resilient, Regional Development in Europe and Beyond” presenting the PABSEC work and the special attention that is paid by the Assembly and its members on issues like Climate Change, Blue Economy and Renewable Sources.