In September 2014 Senior Fellow Jim Kostaras spoke on behalf of Lincoln Institute of Land Policy at the Sustainable Cities and Climate Change conference (Ciudades Sostenibles Y Cambio Climático) in Lima, Peru, on financing climate adaptation and mitigation in cities.
The Municipality of Lima, the Peruvian Ministry of Environment and Institute of Natural Sciences, Territory and Renewable Energy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (INTE-PUCP) organized the conference in preparation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Lima in December 2014. COP20 (the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties) will serve as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the latest round of international climate negotiations, which were launched at the end of 2011 in Durban and are scheduled to culminate in Paris in 2015.
Mr. Kostaras gave a presentation at the conference on Financing Urban Climate Adaptation through Land Value Capture in Latin America. The presentation addressed the limited financial and institutional capacity of cities in Latin America and the Caribbean to adapt to the impacts of climate change, including flooding, rising sea levels and landslides. The presentation considered the viability of land value capture as a strategy to finance urban climate adaption. While in Peru, Mr. Kostaras also lectured on urban planning in North America at UTEC, a recently established public university of engineering and technology in Lima.