Building urban water resilience: from policy to grey and green infrastructure

The final session will look towards scalable solutions and the “COP of the Future” agenda by examining technological and institutional innovation across three interconnected urban water challenges:

The session will explore practical mechanisms for closing this gap, including grants and concessional finance, project preparation, blended finance, aggregation of projects, performance-based approaches, locally led adaptation finance and mechanisms for directing international climate finance towards subnational implementation. This closely aligns with COP31's emphasis on strengthening financial and institutional mechanisms that enable climate action

This session will examine how local governments, utilities and communities can reduce vulnerability before disasters occur and strengthen preparedness and response when they do, ensuring that the most exposed populations are not left outside formal planning and service systems.