Page 583 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

1) Setting the basis: Observation and understanding: city planners should consider the role
of ICTs in climate change adaptation as a new alternative in their local adaptation plans.
They should take stock of existing measures, opportunities and challenges on the
integration of ICTs in climate change adaptation.
2) Assessing climate change risks and vulnerabilities: this should involve an assessment of
how ICTs can support cities during this step to identify adaptation options, as well as to
carry out an assessment of the specific risks and vulnerabilities on ICT infrastructure.
3) Planning of adaptation options: during this step is important to define the role of ICTs in
identifying adaptation options for cities, as well as those options that would ICTs adaptation
from the impacts of climate change. Once the potential adaptation options are identified,
an assessment should be carried out to determine which of them suit the cities specific
context. The approach consists on prioritizing those ICTs that would best support
adaptation options in a given city context, including the evaluation of social, environmental
and economic variables. This step also involves the prioritization of adaptation options for
the ICT infrastructure.
4) Implementation of adaptation actions: this step relates to the development of an
implementation plan to convert adaptation options into actions. It involves the integration
of ICTs in the design of implementation strategies for identified/prioritized adaptation
options, together with the implementation of specific adaptation options for the ICT
infrastructure.
5) Monitoring and evaluating adaptation actions: this step consists on a monitoring system
and evaluation of the role on ICTs in climate change adaptation, in order to ensure the focus
and effectiveness of adaptive actions. ICTs can support this process, for example through
software tools to enable modelling, monitoring and analysis of climate change impact in
cities.

This Technical Report strongly encourages the collaboration of all stakeholders involved in the
implementation of adaptation strategies at city level. The collaboration among cities can also
contribute to the creation of platforms to share good practices and lessons learned. This requires
the participation of all stakeholders, and the active involvement of the civil society. This wide set of
stakeholders is explored in further detail in the following sub‐section.

4.1 Engaging stakeholders for the integration of ICTs in climate change

adaptation plans in cities

Cities in their journey to become smart and sustainable could be the first responders to the effects
of climate change and the use of ICTs to improve their climate change adaptation policies and
strategies. Cities are complex systems where a variety of stakeholder coexist. Key stakeholders
range from local government to civil society and business, international organizations, ICT Industry,
non‐governmental organizations and citizens, among others. They span across multiple disciplines
and areas of expertise.

In such complex systems, collaboration between stakeholders is needed to develop urban resilience
strategies including ICTs. It is hence crucial to identify the players relevant to issues of climate
change adaptation in cities in order to strengthen coherent adaptive response capability.

The Technical Report on "Setting the stage for stakeholders’ engagement in smart sustainable
cities", developed by the ITU Focus Group on SSC, suggests that cities in the process of becoming
smart and sustainable must identify all the stakeholders that could contribute to achieve cities goals.

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 573