Rio+20: The challenges and opportunities for the world's cities

Rio+20: The challenges and opportunities for the world’s cities

Rio+20 (17/06/2012) – Thomas Elmqvist, Stockholm Resilience Centre talks about the centre’s work with ICLEI to do a global assessment of how urbanisation is affecting biodiversity and ecosystems.

He says we need to be aware of the challenges but at the same time the opportunities that could lie in cities and municipalities when looking at biodiversity and ecosystem services which are set to be an asset to address some of the most worrying challenges that lie ahead – such as those facing cities from climate change, drought and flooding.

He says that the key to sustainable development of the planet would be for all municipalities to come together and begin to build a strategy for all of the challenges and opportunities they have – particularly the cost-effective benefits from ecosystem adaptation.