|Refurbishment covered<br>to date by support|0.10%|0.60%|0.32%|0.92%|69.77%|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|programs||||||

Source: BEEN Project Results, Practical Manual, 2007 On the investment front, the needs for climate-proofing new infrastructure and major existing infrastructure and buildings in ECA cities are enormous. Given the limited availability of resources, priority should be given to key infrastructure in cities located in high risk subregions, retrofitting critical municipal facilities that are critical, such as public hospitals and schools, and remediating brownfields in high risk sub-areas as identified by climate-risk mapping. MDBs can help client cities tap into the newly established Climate Investment Funds, in addition to the existing GEF and Carbon Finance facilities.

MDBs can explore operations for retrofitting buildings to become energy efficient and climate-resilient. Table 3 provides an overview of the financial needs for refurbishing housing in select countries. Compared to the vast investment needs for housing refurbishment, the support programs available to achieve this goal are minuscule, signaling both challenges and opportunities for financial institutions. Although traditional projects aimed at climate mitigation in the building sector have been limited in scale and have not been highly successful in attracting demand from client countries, supporting retrofitting for climate adaptation may be viable for MDBs for number of reasons. First, compared to mitigationfocused pleas for energy efficiency, adaptation has local benefits and hence, may better motivate local politicians to upgrade panel-style apartment buildings to cope with climateevents. Second, given the number of panel-style multi-story buildings economies of scale could be achieved and solutions widely applied widely. Third, despite large scale privatization, many of these apartment blocks are still owned by local or national governments. This makes publicly funded retrofit programs possible. Fourth there is a need for EU accession countries to enhance energy performance of buildings to meet the European Performance Buildings Directive (EPBD). Fifth, there is added urgency due to the prevalence of district heating systems in larger cities in the region, which can be carried out in parallel with the building retrofits to achieve full benefits. These systems presently consume high levels of energy, but have the potential to be converted so that they can provide efficient heating and cooling in the future to become climate-resilient.

# **Implications for Future Research**

Even though it is essential for cities in ECA to initiate efforts at climate adaptation, our knowledge of the critical factors associated with ways to facilitate this process and achieve desired outcomes is limited. Therefore, it is important to initiate research on activities that have taken place to date as well as to assess both the capacity and desire to initiate adaptation planning in the short and long term.

One of the most critical questions that needs to be addressed is which cities in ECA are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Climate data should be downscaled and used to assess which cities are most at risk. This effort should address uncertainty through the development of alternative climate scenarios. In addition, it is important for cities to assess the types and quality of data that they have available to guide their planning efforts. For 23