The latin american governments'role in facing climate change and urban development

Abstract

Socio-natural disasters are linked to the increase of weather events. This work analyses disaster risk transfer as well as clean technology production and transfer mechanisms in Latin American intermediate cities; our study case is the city Victoria of Durango, capital of the state by the same name in Mexico. In this regard, the theorizations on Climate Change (CC), Disaster Risk Transfer (DRT), Clean Technology Transfer (CTT), Sustainable Development (SD) and Resilience (Re) are reviewed. A mixed approach provided a complete understanding of the research, allowing the use of various tools for field work and the processing of the obtained data. The results reveal that Victoria de Durango, like the majority of Latin American's intermediate cities, shows potentialities for using its invaluable natural resources; but threats and weaknesses were also found: neither citizens nor institutions have a global understanding of risk for achieving sustainability, becoming resilient and being safe, whilst the capital of Durango must face two major risks such as floods and droughts. A Safe City Strategic Plan to face CC, incorporating DRT and CTT production strategies, would enable CC protection policies, as long as political will and active citizens exist.