EIT Climate-KIC and Glasgow City Region join forces to help the region innovate to flourish in a future climate
Glasgow, 9 October 2020. The citizens of the Glasgow City Region face the risk of more frequent floods and other bad weather events, resulting in damage to homes, roads and railways, and stresses to hospitals and emergency services as global temperatures rise due to climate change. Clyde Rebuilt is a ground-breaking project in which representatives from across the region jointly develop interconnected projects for adapting to these climate change challenges by 2030.
Clyde Rebuilt will bring together community groups, local councils, universities, businesses, government agencies and other bodies. They will collaborate to identify a range of joined-up actions that can change the way the region’s society, economy and environment operate together, making them stronger as the effects of climate change become ever more apparent.
The new collective is based on the idea that climate change can best be tackled if different groups from one city or region join forces to find solutions to their specific problems. Clyde Rebuilt was formed by Climate Ready Clyde, an existing group of 15 local organisations, and EIT Climate-KIC, the EU’s climate innovation agency, that specializes, among other things, in identifying innovations to help regions both slow down climate change and deal with it.
“Clyde Rebuilt will give organisations across the Glasgow City Region a process in which they can voice their ideas, test those ideas and see whether they will work at a scale that can make a big difference,” said James Curran, Chair of Climate Ready Clyde. “We intend to move from gradually improving our climate resilience to making larger shifts more quickly.”
“That means switching focus from stand-alone projects like concrete flood walls to more systemic solutions that might couple river restoration with wetland creation, flood forecasting and warning systems, and new insurance mechanisms,” said Ellie Tonks, Project Lead at EIT Climate-KIC. “Regions are a bridge between the local and national, so let’s start here.”
Clyde Rebuilt is the latest stage of Climate Ready Clyde’s initiative to enable people and businesses in the Glasgow City Region to continue to thrive as the area’s climate becomes more extreme. Two years ago, it published an eye-opening report about the growing threat of climate change to the region’s citizens and physical infrastructure. Clyde Rebuilt is supporting Climate Ready Clyde to complete the final stages of the region’s adaptation strategy (or action plan) to enable citizens to make their lives and livelihoods “climate ready”. At the same time, it is laying the groundwork to implement these innovative actions as a key strand of delivering the strategy.
The project is co-funded by Climate Ready Clyde and EIT Climate-KIC, and managed by Sniffer, a Scottish sustainability charity, with climate-and-culture experts at Creative Carbon Scotland and climate-change finance experts at Paul Watkiss Associates. Clyde Rebuilt is part of EIT Climate-KIC’s “Resilient Regions”, a programme that aims to help representatives from affected regions in Europe come up with concrete and connected projects to prepare for, recover from, and adapt to the impacts of climate change. In Glasgow City Region, Climate Ready Clyde and EIT Climate-KIC are now identifying a first set of projects, scheduled between 2021 and 2023, and are planning to use the success of this approach to attract support to extend the programme to 2030.
The next decade of innovative projects will help support a “green recovery” by building a more resilient economy and society, creating a flourishing Glasgow City Region with benefits in increased health, equality and income for its citizens. Clyde Rebuilt will have the potential to make a significant contribution to the Scottish Government’s Second Climate Change Adaptation Programme – even more crucial now the world is aiming for a green recovery after COVID-19.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented global crisis which has fundamentally changed every aspect of our lives, but the climate emergency has not gone away and must be central to our recovery from this difficult time,” said Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish Government’s Secretary for Climate Change. “We will only meet our climate goals by bringing together the talent that we have and by working together, and this exciting development by Climate Ready Clyde puts the Glasgow City Region in a great position to help lead Scotland’s fight against climate change, and will contribute to our wider ambitions for the Clyde corridor, reflected in the ‘Clyde Mission’ approach being developed across Scottish Government and partners.”
For further press information, please contact:
Anne-Sophie Garrigou
EIT Climate-KIC Corporate Communications Manager, Media Relations
E: Anne-sophie.garrigou@climate-kic.org
T: +49 151 6764 5074
Notes to editors
EIT Climate-KIC is the EU’s climate innovation initiative, working to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon and resilient world by enabling systems transformation. Headquartered in Amsterdam, it operates from 13 hubs across Europe and is active in 39 countries. EIT Climate-KIC was established in 2010 and is predominately funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. As a Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC), it brings together more than 400 partners from business, academia, the public and non-profit sectors to create networks of expertise, through which innovative products, services and systems are developed, brought to market and scaled-up for impact.
In 2019 EIT Climate-KIC launched eight Deep Demonstration projects to act as (1) a test bed environment for tackling climate change through systems innovation to build a net-zero-emissions economy, and (2) sources of innovation and learning that can accelerate change and provide policy inputs. The aim of the projects is to achieve rapid systemic change, working with whole countries, regions, cities, landscapes and sectors. EIT Cimate-KIC is working with partners and funders to expand and progress the Deep Demonstration initiative, for a rapid and inclusive green recovery across Europe. Visit: https://www.climate-kic.org/programmes/deep-demonstrations/
Clyde Rebuilt has a long-term vision: a Glasgow City Region that flourishes in a future climate. The great River Clyde provides a central flow to our vision, taking in the rich diversity of urban and rural contexts across the region. Clyde Rebuilt will explore how its projects can deliver deep-rooted change that allows the City Region to adapt to climate change and bring lasting benefits for communities by understanding and overcoming political, cultural and economic barriers. It will seek out adaptation ideas that can help create new jobs, bring about nature-based solutions and promote green/blue space because these improvements can bring wider health and well-being benefits, in addition to helping Scotland meet its net-zero commitments. Clyde Rebuilt is co-funded by Climate Ready Clyde and EIT Climate-KIC, and managed by Sniffer, a Scottish sustainability charity, with climate-and-culture experts at Creative Carbon Scotland and climate-change finance experts at Paul Watkiss Associates.
Climate Ready Clyde is a cross-sector initiative funded by the Scottish Government and 15 member organisations to create a shared vision, strategy and action plan for an adapting the Glasgow City Region. It includes eight local authorities, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Transport Scotland, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, SGN and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. It is managed by Sniffer, a climate resilience charity and knowledge broker, who will use their technical, cultural, economic and governance expertise to deliver the project.
Clyde Mission was announced in January 2020 and is a developing approach to reposition the Clyde corridor as an engine of inclusive economic growth for the region and for Scotland – whilst contributing to climate resilience around the Clyde, and our wider net-zero emissions targets. This will take a partnership approach across a range of themes and a number of partners in the public, private and third sectors, led by the Scottish Government.
Sniffer is a Scottish sustainability charity. Our mission is to be change makers and knowledge brokers for a society with greater resilience to environmental change and in particular, climate change. We understand resilience as the capacity to understand, anticipate and deal successfully with change, bouncing forward towards a flourishing society We believe that taking a collaborative approach to understanding and responding to environmental change will have the greatest benefit for people and places. Our work focuses on building capacity, stakeholder engagement and place-based approaches to adaptation and resilience.
About Creative Carbon Scotland
Creative Carbon Scotland believes in the essential role of the arts, screen, cultural and creative industries in contributing to the transformational change to a more environmentally sustainable Scotland. We work directly with individuals, organisations and strategic bodies engaged across cultural and sustainability sectors to harness the role of culture in achieving this change. Through year-round work and one-off projects, we combine strategic expertise and consultancy; bespoke carbon management training and guidance; and a range of programmes supporting the development of artistic practices in Scotland which address sustainability and climate change.
Paul Watkiss Associates Limited (PWA) is an independent research and consultancy group specialising in climate change adaptation. It was established in 2006 and has a particular focus on policy support including climate change risk assessment, co-design, adaptation planning, appraisal, decision making under uncertainty, and the economic costs and benefits of adaptation. The organisation works with a number of organisations, and has led European, national and local studies on adaptation, including support for resource mobilisation and climate finance. PWA has also been involved in a number of major pan-European research studies on climate change impacts and adaptation.
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