On December 6, local time, the "China Corner" of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, held a side meeting on "Strategies and Practices for Urban adaptation to climate change". Zhang Xuefan, Party Secretary of Shenzhen Ecological Environment Bureau, shared Shenzhen's strategies and actions to adapt to climate change with the world at the side meeting.
Zhang Xuefan introduced that Shenzhen is a coastal city located in southern China, with typical characteristics of a vulnerable climate zone, facing greater pressure on resources and the environment and the threat of multiple natural disasters. In the face of these challenges, Shenzhen has taken the initiative to enhance its ability to adapt to climate change, and continued to take adaptation actions to make the city safer and more sustainable.
In terms of development planning, Shenzhen regards climate adaptation as a long-term development concept of the city, integrates the concept of climate adaptation into laws and regulations and urban planning, promulgates a number of innovative local legislation such as regulations on ecological environmental protection and regulations on natural disaster prevention, and incorporates urban climate risk prevention into the overall planning of national space. At present, Shenzhen is preparing an action plan to adapt to climate change and plans to draw a new strategic blueprint for the next step.
In terms of implementation actions, Shenzhen actively practices "nature-based solutions" to make the city safer and more resilient. On the one hand, as early as 2015, Shenzhen delineated the basic ecological control line, including nearly 50% of the city's land area into the scope of prohibited development and construction, so that the ecosystem can maintain diversity, stability and sustainability in natural restoration. On the other hand, Shenzhen continues to promote the construction of green infrastructure based on nature, the proportion of sponge city construction in built-up areas has reached 46%, the proportion of green livable communities has exceeded 80%, the service coverage rate of 500 meters of green parks has exceeded 90%, and the quality of urban ecosystem and climate regulation ability have achieved a qualitative leap.
In the construction of facilities, Shenzhen pays special attention to the construction of natural disaster resistance. In terms of monitoring and early warning, Shenzhen has built a multi-level monitoring framework of "greenhouse gas concentration - ecosystem flux - emissions of key enterprises", built a new generation of dual-polarization weather radar, 356 meters of meteorological observation gradient tower and other monitoring devices, and the precision level of intelligent grid weather forecast has initially reached 100 meters and 5 minutes. In October this year, Shenzhen's megacity smart weather service experience was also included in the United Nations' Joint Scientific Report 2023 as a typical case. In terms of emergency rescue, Shenzhen has built 1,183 emergency shelters, covering 100 percent of the community in emergency shelters. At present, Shenzhen is accelerating the construction of emergency evacuation and rescue space, and it is expected to build an international first-class safe development city example in more than ten years. (Source: Shenzhen Special Zone Daily)
