This year, 15 new participants from all around the world including one faculty member from the College of Architecture, completed a three-week post-graduate course on climate change. Ar. Claudia Isabelle Montero was granted a partial fellowship to undertake the post-graduate diploma course, which ran from June 12 until July 13 2016 at the Erasmus University Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The program was in collaboration with UNHABITAT and EP-NUFFIC.
The Urban Management Tools for Climate Change (UMTCC) is a course created to offer opportunities to national and local urban policy makers, municipality officials, planners and lecturers in the field of climate and environmental management to gain knowledge of cities’ vulnerability and its linkages with other human factors exacerbating climate stresses, such as land use management and spatial planning decisions.
The course introduced climate change as an integral part of sustainability and resilience, its impacts and main responses for mitigation and adaptation. The course consisted of three modules: 1) Climate Vulnerability, Adaptation and Resilience, 2) Climate Mitigation and Low Carbon Urban Development, 3) Climate Change Action Planning. From the onset, participants have applied theory and best practices to actual group work. Local Climate Change Action Plans for specific case study cities were formulated in the form of a presentation emphasizing adaptation and mitigation actions in line with the findings from vulnerability assessments and GHG emissions inventories.
Montero, who holds a Master of Architecture in Architectural Heritage Conservation degree, is actively involved in some projects of the National Commission on the Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
