City’s climate change win

View to making a difference: George Town is taking steps in meeting the challenges of climate change.

PETALING JAYA: Penang’s George Town was announced as the city winner at the inaugural Climathon Global Awards at the ChangeNOW summit.

Handed out at the sidelines of the summit that took place in Paris over the weekend, the Climathon Global Awards recognises creativity and solutions-thinking in response to local climate challenges.

George Town was among the five city finalists along with 10 citizens in the event organised by EIT Climate-KIC in partnership with the Crowther Lab, ETH Zurich.

EIT Climate-KIC is Europe’s largest public-private partnership to address climate change through innovative measures to build a net-zero carbon economy.

With over 380 partners from 26 countries, the coalition aims to catalyse systemic change for climate action through innovation in activities that generate a significant amount of greenhouse gases, be they from cities, lands, materials and finance, while creating climate-resilient communities by fostering creative thinking among the grassroots.

Several projects proposed for George Town were collectively deemed able to improve social resilience, while several “nature-based solutions” were judged to be effective in reducing the heat island effect.

The solution for Penang in terms of its nature-based climate adaptation plan was co-presented by the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) and Think City, an urban regeneration outfit that is a subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional Berhad.

The team competed against solutions from Khartoum (Sudan), Salvador (Brazil), Dublin (Ireland) and Miami (United States) as they vied for the honour of demonstrating climate leadership.

The actual Global Climathon Day took place in October last year with a staggering 6,500 participants in 56 countries in 24-hour hackathons to find workable solutions to combat climate change.

This year’s Climathon will be held in November during COP26, offering citizens from all over the world an avenue to channel their creative energies for a better world.

In an immediate response, Sofia Castelo, senior manager of Think City, said: “It’s incredibly exciting and an honour for Penang to be the first city winner of the Global Climathon Awards.

“There are places in the world where the climate in 2050 will be vastly different from what it is today and George Town is one of these cities – this is the challenge.”

“We believe that our nature-based approach can make a real difference to the lives of Penangites, who are already regularly suffering the impacts of extreme weather, including flooding, heat stroke and heat stress.

“Our research will begin with climate-resilient species of trees that can help cool our communities and prevent flooding, and we also hope to raise awareness and increase understanding that climate change impacts have to be tackled in the hearts of our cities, ” she said.

Other than technical support from the Climate-KIC network, Think City and MBPP will receive a cash prize to invest in their projects.

More information can be found at climate-kic.org.