Cities and Climate Change
Responding to an Urgent Agenda
Daniel Hoornweg, Mila Freire, Marcus J. Lee,
Perinaz Bhada-Tata, and Belinda Yuen, editors
© 2011 Th e International Bank for Reconstruction and Development /
The World Bank
1818
H Street NW
Washington DC
The Urban Development Series discusses the challenge of urbanization and what it will mean for developing countries in the decades ahead. The series delves substantively into the core issues framed by the World Bank’s 2009 Urban Strategy, Systems of Cities: Harnessing Urbanization for Growth and Poverty Alleviation. Across the fi ve domains of the Urban Strategy, the series provides a focal point for publications that seek to foster a better understanding of the core elements of the city system, pro-poor policies, city economies, urban land and housing markets, urban environments, and other issues germane to the agenda of sustainable urban development.
Cities and Climate Change: Responding to an Urgent Agenda is the fi rst title in the Urban Development Series
CONTENTS
Foreword iii
Acknowledgments xi
Contributors xiii
Abbreviations xv
Chapter 1. Introduction: Cities and the Urgent Challenges
of Climate Change 1
Chapter 2. Greenhouse Gas Emission Baselines
for Global Cities and Metropolitan Regions 15
Christopher A. Kennedy, Anu Ramaswami, Sebastian Carney,
and Shobhakar Dhakal
Chapter 3. Comparing Mitigation Policies in Five Large
Cities: London, New York City, Milan,
Mexico City, and Bangkok 55
Edoardo Croci, Sabrina Melandri, and Tania Molteni
Chapter 4. GHG emissions, Urban Mobility, and Morphology:
A Hypothesis 87
Alain Bertaud, Benoit Lefèvre, and Belinda Yuen
Chapter 5. The Role of Institutions, Governance, and
Urban Planning for Mitigation and Adaptation 125
Harriet Bulkeley, Heike Schroeder, Katy Janda,
Jimin Zhao, Andrea Armstrong, Shu Yi Chu,
and Shibani Ghosh
Chapter 6. Viral Governance and Mixed Motivations:
How and Why U.S. Cities Engaged
on the Climate Change Issue, 2005–2007 161
Toby Warden
Chapter 7. Urban Heat Islands: Sensitivity of Urban
Temperatures to Climate Change and
Heat Release in Four European Cities 175
Mark P. McCarthy and Michael G. Sanderson
Chapter 8. Adapting Cities to Climate Change:
Opportunities and Constraints 193
Dirk Heinrichs, Rimjhim Aggarwal, Jonathan Barton,
Erach Bharucha, Carsten Butsch, Michail Fragkias,
Peter Johnston, Frauke Kraas, Kerstin Krellenberg,
Andrea Lampis, Ooi Giok Ling, and Johanna Vogel
Chapter 9. A Conceptual and Operational Framework
for Pro-poor Asset Adaptation to Urban
Climate change 225
Caroline Moser
Chapter 10. Epilogue: Perspectives from the
5th Urban Research Symposium 255
Appendix. Titles and Abstracts of Papers Not Included
in Full in This Volume 271
Index. 289
Appendix: Titles and Abstracts of Papers Not Included in Full in This Volume
A Critical and Comparative Evaluation of CO2
Emissions from
National Building Stocks of Developed and Rapidly-Developing
Countries—Case Studies of UK, USA, and India
Rajat Gupta and Smita Chandiwala
The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation potential identifi ed buildings as a sector where the fastest and deepest cuts are likely to be made in the period up to 2030. Given such a context, this paper answers the questions: What can be done to achieve signifi cant reductions in CO2 emissions from the existing building stock of developed and rapidly developing countries to reduce the worst impacts of climate change? How can we measure, benchmark, reduce, and manage CO2 emissions from energy use in the existing building stock? What are the barriers in implementing appropriate CO2 reduction measures in buildings, and how can these barriers be reduced? A critical and comparative evaluation is undertaken of the approaches and policies to measure, benchmark, reduce, and manage energy consumption and CO2 emissions from the existing building stocks in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to share the lessons learned in implementing CO2 -reducing policies in each of these countries. A comparative analysis is also undertaken of environmental rating methods, BRE Environmental Assessment Method/Code for Sustainable Homes (BREEAM/CSH) in the United Kingdom, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in the United States, and the Energy and Resources Institute’s Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (TERI-GRIHA) and LEED-India in India. Robust performance-based standards (in terms of kWh/m2 /year or kg CO2 /m2 /year) are proposed for reducing the energy consumption in existing buildings, which could be adopted by any developed or developing country. It is realized that, although the United Kingdom is at the forefront of developing standards and methodologies for reducing the environmental impact of existing buildings, there is a lack of good-quality bottomup data sets of real energy consumption in buildings. However, in the United States, there are good building energy datasets available, but CO2 -reduction policies seem more fragmented in the absence of legal national-level targets for CO2 reduction. In India, work is ongoing on target setting, policy evaluation, and initial data collection to provide baseline energy consumption in buildings.
Framework for City Climate Risk Assessment
Shagun Mehrotra, Claudia E. Natenzon, Ademola Omojola, Regina
Folorunsho, Joseph Gilbride, and Cynthia Rosenzweig
Estimation of spatially and temporally disaggregated climate risks is a critical prerequisite for the assessment of eff ective and effi cient adaptation and mitigation climate change strategies and policies in complex urban areas. Th is interdisciplinary research reviews current literature and practices, identifi es knowledge gaps, and defi nes future research directions for creating a riskbased climate change adaptation framework for climate and cities programs. The focus is on cities in developing and emerging economies. Th e framework unpacks risk into three vectors—hazards, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity. Th ese vectors consist of a combination of physical science, geographical, and socioeconomic elements that can be used by municipal governments to create and carry out climate change action plans. Some of these elements include climate indicators, global climate change scenarios, downscaled regional scenarios, change anticipated in extreme events, qualitative assessment of highimpact and low-probability events, associated vulnerabilities, and the ability and willingness to respond. The gap between existing responses and the flexible mitigation and adaptation pathways needed is also explored. To enhance robustness, the framework components have been developed and tested in several case study cities: Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lagos, and New York City . The focus is on articulating diff erential impacts on poor and nonpoor urban residents as well as sectorally disaggregating implications for infrastructure and social wellbeing, including health. Finally, some practical lessons are drawn for successful policies and programs at the city level that aim to reduce systemic climate risks, especially for the most vulnerable populations. Additionally, a programmatic response is articulated with a four-track approach to risk assessment and craft - ing of adaptation mechanisms that leverages existing and planned investments in cities so that city governments can respond to climate change eff ectively and effi ciently
City Indicators on Climate Change: Implications for Policy Leverage
and Governance
Patricia McCarney
Risks associated with climate change are increasingly fi nding expression in cities. Issues of greenhouse gas emissions; sea temperature change; sea-level change; land and air temperature adjustments; air quality deterioration; shift ing rain, wind, and snow patterns; and other unstable climate shift s, while global in nature, fi nd particular expression in the world’s cities. These phenomena serve to introduce new layers in our interpretation of urban risk, new complexities in governing cities, and new research challenges to measure and monitor these risks in order to inform policy, planning, and management. How do we address this multiple layering and new complexity? The vulnerability of cities to climate change is largely underestimated. Th ere is no established or standardized set of city indicators that measures the eff ects of climate change on cities and assesses those risks, nor is there a comprehensive set of indicators with a common, accepted methodology designed to measure the impact that cities have on climate change and the role that cities play, for example, in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
Effective and long-term solutions must be anchored in an empowered city governance approach that acknowledges the respective roles and contributions of a wide array of actors. Addressing climate change risk in cities must also be considered in a broader framework of risks confronting cities. Cities in the 21st century are facing unprecedented challenges. The world’s urban population is likely to reach 4.2 billion by 2020, and the urban slum population is expected to increase to 1.4 billion by 2020, meaning one out of every three people living in cities will live in impoverished, overcrowded, and insecure living conditions. Social cohesion, safety, security, and stability are being tested by social exclusion, inequities, and shortfalls in basic services.
While the literature on urban governance is extensive and the research field of city indicators has grown and strengthened in very recent years, there is little work to date on how city indicators can be used for improved governance. It is the intersection of city indicators and city governance that this paper begins to address.
Detecting Carbon Signatures of Development Patterns across a
Gradient of Urbanization: Linking Observations, Models, and Scenarios
Marina Alberti and Lucy Hutyra
Urbanizing regions are major determinants of global- and continental-scale changes in carbon budgets through land transformation and modifi cation of biogeochemical processes. However, direct measurements of the eff ects of urbanization on carbon fl uxes are extremely limited. In this paper, we discuss a strategy to quantify urban carbon signatures (spatial and temporal changes in fluxes) through measurements that can more effectively aid urban carbon emissions reduction scenarios and predictive modeling. We start by articulating an integrated framework that identifi es the mechanisms and interactions that link urban patterns to carbon fl uxes along gradients of urbanization. Building on a synthesis of the current observational studies in major U.S. metropolitan areas, we develop formal hypotheses on how alternative development patterns (that is, centralized versus sprawling) produce diff erent carbon signatures and how these signatures may in turn infl uence patterns of urbanization. Finally, we discuss the fusion of observations, scenarios, and models for strategic carbon assessments.
Energy Consumption and CO2
Emissions in Urban Counties in the
United States with a Case Study of the New York Metropolitan Area
Lily Parshall, Stephen A. Hammer, and Kevin Gurney
Urban areas are setting quantitative, time-bound targets for emissions reductions within their territories; designing local policies to encourage shift s toward cleaner energy supply, higher energy effi ciency, and transit-oriented development; and exploring ways to participate in local carbon markets. Th ese eff orts require systematic estimates of energy consumption and emissions presented in a format and at a spatial resolution relevant for local governance. The Vulcan data product off ers the type of high-resolution, spatial data on energy consumption and CO2 emissions needed to create a consistent inventory for all localities in the continental United States. We use Vulcan to analyze patterns of direct fuel consumption for on-road transportation and in buildings and industry in urban counties. We include a case study of the New York City Metropolitan Area.
Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effect by Urban Design: Forms and
Materials
Julien Bouyer, Marjorie Musy, Yuan Huang, and Khaled Athamena
This paper provides a synthesis of three complementary research works that contribute to the same objective: proposing solutions to reduce building energy consumption by modifying local climate. The first work explores urban forms: It proposes methods to describe them and analyze the climatic performances of classified urban forms. The second work focuses on one parameter of direct relevance to urban heat island phenomenon: the surface albedo. The albedo of a city or a district depends on surfaces’ arrangement; materials used for roofs, paving, coatings, and the like; and solar position. The third work proposes a simulation tool that permits one to evaluate the impact of the outdoor urban environment on buildings’ energy consumption. This analysis permits us to propose morphology indicators to compare the relative effi ciencies of diff erent typologies. The conclusion discusses the relevance of using indicators (based on physics or morphology, related to site or to built form) in the urban design process and proposes a methodology to produce indicators.
Towards CO2 Neutral City Planning—The Rotterdam Energy
Approach and Planning (REAP)
Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Nico Tillie, Marc Joubert, Wim de Jager, and
Duzan Doepel
By the year 2025, the city of Rotterdam, with the largest port in Europe, aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by half, an ambitious plan that will require a revolutionary approach to urban areas. One proactive response to this challenge is an exploratory study of the Hart van Zuid district. An interdisciplinary team has investigated how to tackle CO2 issues in a structured way. Th is has resulted in the Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP) methodology. REAP supports initial demand for energy, propagates the use of waste flows, and advocates use of renewable energy sources to satisfy the remaining demand. REAP can be applied at all levels: individual buildings, clusters of buildings, and even whole neighborhoods. Applying REAP to the Hart van Zuid district has shown that this area can become CO2 neutral. Most important, REAP can be applied regardless of location.
An Investigation of Climate Strategies in the Buildings Sector in
Chinese Cities
Jun Li
About 60 percent of Chinese people will be living in cities by 2030. Energy consumption and GHG emissions could increase exponentially with unprecedented urban expansion and constant rise in living standards as a result of lifestyle change without drastic policies being undertaken immediately. Because of its long lifetime characteristics, the quality of large-scale urban infrastructure is critical to the achievement of long-term GHG emissions mitigation objectives in the next decades given the spectacular pace of urban development (for example, China will build the equivalent of the whole EU’s existing housing area of the European Union [EU] by 2020). Here we investigate the role of urban infrastructure in shaping the long-term trajectory of energy and climate securities protection and sustainable urban development prospects in China. Based on a quantitative analysis in a selected case city (Tianjin), we demonstrate how China can set its large cities on a sustainable energy supplyand-demand track by building climate-resilient-buildings infrastructure in cities, and we also discuss the implications for financing policy and institutional change.
A Comparative Study of Energy and Carbon Emissions Development
Pathways and Climate Policy in Southeast Asian Cities
Aumnad Phdungsilp
The United Nations has estimated that about half of the 6.5 billion world population currently lives in cities. Moreover, an additional 1.8 billion people will move to urban areas by the year 2030. Understanding the relationships between energy-use patterns and carbon emissions development is crucial for estimating future scenarios and can facilitate mitigation and adaptation of climate change. This paper investigates the development pathways on selected Southeast Asian cities, including Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, and Manila, which are major cities in the region in terms of energy consumption, carbon emissions, and climate policies. The paper investigates the development of energy and carbon emissions and climate change mitigation strategies of the selected case studies. In addition, the paper attempts to estimate the energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. Then, it compares overall patterns of selected cities and analysis of their climate policies.
Characterizing the Response of Buildings to Climate Change: The
Issue of Overheating
Tristan Kershaw and David Coley
Many buildings currently demonstrate levels of overheating close to the maximum allowed by the building regulations of the countries in which they are located. Therefore there is the potential that such buildings will clearly breach the regulations under the climatic conditions predicted as a result of climate change. To examine the problem, weather files indicative of possible future climate were created and applied to a variety of buildings. Using numerous combinations of buildings and weather scenarios, the modeling demonstrated that the projected levels of climate change engender a linear response in the internal temperature of the buildings. The resulting constant of proportionality that this implies has been termed the “climate change amplification coefficient.” This paper demonstrates that optimization of the climate change amplification coefficient during the design process of a new building will promote the adaptation of architectural design to the effects of climate change and thereby improve resilience.
Opportunities and Challenges to Electrical Energy Conservation and
CO2
Emissions Reduction in Nigeria’s Building Sector
John-Felix Akinbami and Akinloye Lawal
Using an energy demand model, MADE-II (Model for Analysis of Demand for Energy), the electrical energy demand for household, commercial, and industrial buildings over a long-term period was estimated for Nigeria based on the concept of useful energy demand. This analytical tool uses a combination of statistical, econometric, and engineering process techniques in arriving at the useful electrical energy demand projections. The associated CO2 emissions were also estimated. These projections reveal that the electrical energy growth is enormous, especially considering the associated financial cost, and the estimated CO2 emissions are also substantial. This study therefore discusses the potentials for efficient energy use in the buildings sector in Nigeria. In addition, obstacles to the full realization of energy-saving potentials in the nation’s building sector are discussed. Finally, a framework of strategies to overcome these obstacles, to promote energy conservation, and thereby to enhance sustainable development in the nation’s built environment is suggested.
Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of Building Construction
Processes
Luc Floissac, Alain Marcom, Anne-Sophie Colas, Quoc-Bao Bui, andJean-Claude Morel
This paper proposes a way to assess the sustainability of building construction processes. The impacts of building materials, energy and material consumption, waste and nuisance generation, management of materials at end of life, building construction organization, and social impacts are used to evaluate sustainability. Indicators are proposed for each of these areas, and the results from applying these indicators are assessed.
The case study presented here concerns the construction of three private houses in a developed country (France). These houses have the same architecture, but each one uses a different building process: local materials, standard industrial productions, or “fashionable” industrial materials. This paper shows that the proposed indicators can help to facilitate the choice of construction materials with respect to sustainability.
Transport Systems, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Mitigation
Measures: A Study in Argentina
Olga Ravella, Cristian Matti, Nora Giacobbe, Laura Aon, and
Julieta Frediani
This paper aims to present the results of the analysis of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation measures for different modes of land transport in Argentina. It traces efforts to analyze different transport patterns by applying a bottomup analysis from the study of interurban corridors and urban areas. This type of analysis as well as the collection and organization of disaggregated information is the first attempt of this type in the country. The methodology comprises two sets of activities: (1) the estimations of indicators on transport patterns and their related emissions and (2) the formulation of scenarios to analyze the potential impact of different mitigation measures. Information related to interurban corridors includes data on highways and geography recorded at intervals with different levels of activity, while several studies of urban areas relyncontrasting compact and dispersed areas of the baseline city and the extrapolation of data obtained to five cities in the country. The study analyzes four potential measures: mode transfer, lower speed, changes in cargo transportation schedule, and good practices. Finally, limitations and recommendations related to the study and application of the analyzed measures as well as further research required to improve this type of study are suggested.
The Role of Intelligent Transport Systems for Demand Responsive
Transport
Robert Clavel, Elodie Castex, and Didier Josselin
Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) is a public transport system that provides the user with the advantages of both public transport and taxi services. It was oft en considered as a marginal mode of transport reserved for areas with low population densities. Since the end of the 1990s, the number of DRT systems has been increasing consistently, with new investments in urban, suburban, and rural spaces and with varying degrees of operational flexibility. The flexibility and efficiency of DRT systems are influenced by several factors, the most important being technological. Most of these technological developments are in the fi eld of information and communication technologies (ICT). Th is paper illustrates the use of technology to improve DRT effi ciency with two case studies from France (Pays du Doubs Central and Toulouse). Th e type and level of ICT used is strongly dependent on the type of DRT service, its level of flexibility, and its specific optimization problem.
The examples of Doubs Central and Toulouse, two diff erent areas, show that technology can play a key role to optimize DRT trips and to bring quality service to the population in a large area or when the patronage is high. Technology off ers the potential for achieving real-time demand responsiveness in transport services, particularly in complex networks, to a level far in advance of manual systems.
Urban Sprawl and Climate Change: A Statistical Exploration of
Cause and Effect, with Policy Options for the EU
Istvan Laszlo Bart
The EU should get involved in regulating the growth of cities. The great impact of sprawling urban development on greenhouse gas emissions makes this inevitable. Governments cannot aff ord to watch idly as the hard-earned gains in reducing emissions elsewhere are obliterated by cities built to require evergreater car use.
The growing demand for urban, car-based transport is a main driver in the growth of transport emissions. As the ever greater demand for automobile use is rooted in the car-centric way cities are being built today, these emissions cannot be checked alone by technical solutions that reduce perkilometer CO2 emissions. Because people want maximum comfort, this can be achieved only by building cities where not having a car is an advantage, not an impediment.
Urban planning is no longer just a local or national issue; its impact on climate change makes it a matter for the EU to regulate. It is also clear that in most places local governments are unable to prevent an ever-greater sprawling of cities. The objective of regulation should be to make sure that new urban development is not exclusively car oriented, thus minimizing the increase of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions. EU-level regulation may be done through establishing minimum standards of certain indicators, but emissions trading with the participation of parking space providers is also a possible method of controlling transport emissions and at the same time ensuring that future urban development is not exclusively car oriented.
This study provides a brief evaluation of the relationship between trends in transport emissions and urban land use. It concludes that the growth of transport emissions is a result of specific urban planning and land-use policies (or their absence). These policies can cause an increase in transport emissions even if the population size remains the same and there is no economic growth. Th is implies that governments need to implement sensible land-use policies. Such policies may not be very visible, but they have a huge impact on transport emissions.
Finally, the study outlines a few possible measures that could control transport emissions by addressing land-use issues. It explores ideas related to benchmarks, mandatory plans, and the possibility of using the concept of emissions trading in connection with land-uses causing transport emissions.
Getting to Carbon Neutral: A Review of Best Practices in
Infrastructure Strategy
C. Kennedy, D. Bristow, S. Derrible, E. Mohareb, S. Saneinejad,
R. Stupka, L. Sugar, R. Zizzo, and B. McIntyre
Measures of cost eff ectiveness for reducing GHG emissions from cities are established for 22 case studies, mainly involving changes to infrastructure. GHG emissions from cities are primarily related to transportation, energy use in buildings, electricity supply, and waste. A variety of strategies for reducing emissions are examined through case studies ranging from $0.015 million to $460 million of capital investment (U.S. dollars). The case studies have been collected to support a Guide for Canadian Municipalities on Getting to Carbon Neutral (G2CN). The cost eff ectiveness, given by annual GHG emissions saved per dollar of capital investment, is found to vary between 3 and 2,780 tons eCO2 /year/$million for the G2CN database. Th e average cost eff ectiveness of the database of 550 tons eCO2 /year/$million is signifi cantly exceeded by solid waste projects in Canada (FCM) and by developing world projects under the Clean Development Mechanism. Five case studies in the G2CN database with GHG savings of over 100,000 tons eCO2 are highlighted. Yet, cities need to start planning projects with reductions on the order of more than 1 million tons eCO2 /year in order to substantially reduce emissions.
Climate Change and the Resilience of New Orleans: The Adaptation
of Deltaic Urban Form
Armando Carbonell and Douglas J. Meffert
Using New Orleans, Louisiana, as the departure point, this paper discusses emergent trends of climate change and hurricanes, along with policies and practice representing adaptive land use, mitigation, and governance. The role of urban form in adapting to and mitigating climate change will be addressed, including an emphasis on natural wetland and water “ecostructures.” The New Orleans case study offers information that can inform international sites, particularly historic, vulnerable port delta cities.
Vulnerability and Resilience of Urban Communities under Coastal
Hazard Conditions in Southeast Asia
Vilas Nitivattananon, Tran Thanh Tu, Amornrat Rattanapan, and Jack Asavanant
Most coastal cities are facing complex interrelated problems associated with greater intensity and frequency of climate extremes. Oft en times, these challenges require adaptation strategies that bring together comprehensive vulnerability assessments and implementation actions. The main objective of this paper is to apply the concept of vulnerability and resilience to coastal communities facing climate hazards in Southeast Asia. Southern Vietnam and Thailand are chosen as representative regions for the purpose of this study. The results show that fl ood risk has several consequences at different urbanization levels under increased climate variability. The main factors influencing the vulnerability of coastal communities are related to economics, institutional capacity, and the accessibility of knowledge for local community-based organizations.
Climate Change Adaptation Planning in Toronto: Progress and
Challenges
Jennifer Penney, Thea Dickinson, and Eva Ligeti
The city of Toronto is one of the first Canadian cities to establish a citywide process to respond to its vulnerability to climate change. In 2008, Toronto developed Ahead of the Storm, a climate change adaptation strategy. This case study describes past, current, and potential future impacts of climate change on Toronto, along with the steps taken to develop the adaptation strategy. These steps include the creation of an Adaptation Steering Group and the development of an initial framework document. The strategy was underpinned by existing programs that provide protection from current weather extremes and included short-term actions as well as a longer-term process for developing a comprehensive strategy. Th e city is in the early stages of implementing the strategy. This paper also reflects on some of the barriers to the integration and mainstreaming of adaptation into the city’s plans and programs.
Planning Climate Resilient Cities: Early Lessons from Early Adapters
JoAnn Carmin, Debra Roberts, and Isabelle Anguelovski
Climate change is expected to place increasing stress on the built and natural environments of cities as well as to create new challenges for the provision of urban services and management systems. Minimizing the impacts of climate change requires that cities develop and implement adaptation plans. Despite the imperative, only a small number of cities have initiated the adaptation planning process. Drawing on theories of diff usion and capacity and empirical assessments of initiatives in Durban, South Africa, and Quito, Ecuador, this paper examines two questions: What is driving cities to initiate climate adaptation planning? and What is enabling the eff orts of early adapters to take root? Scholars argue that incentives from external sources such as regulations and funder requirements, the diff usion of international knowledge and norms, and the presence of suffi cient capacity are critical drivers of subnational change in the policy and planning arenas. However, rather than being driven by external pressures, the early adapters examined in this study were motivated by internal incentives, ideas, and knowledge generated through local demonstration projects and local networks and the means to link adaptation to ongoing programs and to enlist the support of diverse stakeholders from within the city.
Governance and Climate Change: Assessing and Learning from
Canadian Cities
Christopher Gore, Pamela Robinson, and Richard Stren
Canada hosted one of the first international meetings to address climate change in 1988. Th e Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere helped focus the attention of national governments on the emerging international challenge presented by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But in Canada, this event did not translate into national leadership to address climate change. Many pragmatic reasons exist to explain why Canada has been ineff ective at reducing emissions, particularly the size of the country and the associated use of automobile and truck transportation to cover long distances, as well as its cold climate. Political and intergovernmental reasons are also significant.
Though national leadership on climate change action has been lacking, Canadian cities are national and international leaders in climate action. This paper examines and explains why Canadian cities have taken action to reduce GHG emissions, while also adapting to and mitigating climate change. The paper also inventories the activities of select medium to large Canadian cities (populations between 300,000 and 2.5 million). The paper off ers a simple yet unique approach to analyzing action. Action is classifi ed as an initiative, output, or outcome.
Using this approach to understand the climate action of Canadian cities provides an opportunity to draw lessons about the character of these early and ongoing leaders and to identify the specifi c actions of Canadian cities. The initiatives documented include shorter-term technical actions and medium- and longer-term actions that require more complex coordination with citizens and the private sector. The goal of the paper is to highlight how and why cities in a country with limited national leadership have chosen to act. This provides an opportunity for cities starting to initiate action, both in states that are actively engaged in national GHG emission reduction efforts and in those that are not, to understand how cities in Canada have independently taken action and how future collaborations with other cities and levels of government might evolve to better mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Understanding and Improving Urban Responses to Climate Change.
Refl ections for an Operational Approach to Adaptation in Low- and
Middle-Income Countries
Roberto Sanchez Rodriguez
This article reflects on the construction of an operational approach for adaptation to climate change in low- and middle-income countries. I depart from the assumption that climate change is a development challenge for urban areas and that adaptation to its impacts needs to be considered a learning process rather than a single product. I argue that an operational approach to climate change needs to address the formal and the informal process of urban growth in order to be efficient. This requires attention to the balance between structure and agency in the construction of the urban space and the combination of top-down and bottom-up actions. The article considers the role of urban institutions and the collaboration among scholars and local governments and stakeholders as part of an operational approach for adaptation
City Health System Preparedness to Changes in Dengue Fever
Attributable to Climate Change: An Exploratory Case Study
Jostacio M. Lapitan, Pauline Brocard, Rifat Atun, and
Chawalit Tantinimitkul
City health system preparedness to changes in dengue fever attributable to climate change was explored in this collaborative study by Imperial College London and World Health Organization Kobe Centre. A new toolkit was developed, and an exploratory case study in Bangkok, Thailand, was undertaken in 2008. This study found that there is a clear lack of research in this area, as most research looked at impacts and not at responses and preparedness for effective response. There is also a clear need to develop and scale up national capital city efforts to assess and address the implications of climate change for health systems. It recommends further case studies to validate the toolkit and generate guidelines on how to develop effective response plans.
Climate Change and Urban Planning in Southeast Asia
Belinda Yuen and Leon Kong
The challenge of climate change is real and urgent in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is one of the world’s fastest growing regions. This paper presents a desk review of the state of climate change research and policy in Southeast Asia. It highlights the challenges, knowledge gaps, and promising practices, with a specific focus on urban planning interventions to increase cities’ resilience to climate change. The discussion reflects on how urban form and planning can support people’s sustainable choices in terms of transportation, housing, and leisure activities and conveys the drivers and barriers to urban planning as a strategy of climate proofing. Issues that can be addressed through appropriate urban policy, planning, design, and governance are highlighted.
Social Aspects of Climate Change in Urban Areas in Low- and
Middle-Income Nations
Sheridan Bartlett, David Dodman, Jorgelina Hardoy, David Satterthwaite,
and Cecilia Tacoli
This paper discusses the implications of climate change for social welfare and development in urban areas in low- and middle-income nations, especially for those people with low incomes and those who are particularly vulnerable to climate-change impacts. Hundreds of millions of urban dwellers in these nations are at risk from the direct and indirect impacts of current and likely future climate change—for instance, more severe or frequent storms, floods and heat waves, constraints on fresh water and food supplies, and higher risks from a range of water and food-borne and vector-borne diseases. But these risks are distributed very unevenly between nations, between urban areas within nations, and between populations within urban areas. This is underpinned by differentials in the following:
• The scale and nature of hazards by site and location
• The quality of housing, infrastructure, and services
• The extent of measures taken for disaster risk reduction (including postdisaster response)
• The capacity and preparedness of local governments to address the needs of low-income groups and to work with them
• The social and political capital of those who face the greatest risks
Does Climate Change Make Industrialization an Obsolete
Development Strategy for Cities in the South?
Le-Yin Zhang
This paper attempts to explore the implications of climate change for economic development strategies in cities in the global South. In particular, it examines whether climate change makes industrialization an obsolete development strategy for these cities. It starts by examining the effects of climate change and the challenges posed for the cities concerned, followed by a discussion of the role of industrialization in economic development and climate change. It then investigates how these issues affect Southern cities by considering the experiences of Shanghai, Mumbai, and Mexico City. In conclusion, the paper hypothesizes that climate change will make industrialization a more, not less, important development strategy, even for those cities that are currently affected by premature deindustrialization.
The Price of Climate: French Consumer Preferences Reveal Spatial
and Individual Inequalities
Jean Cavailhès, Daniel Joly, Hervé Cardot, Mohamed Hilal,
Thierry Brossard, and Pierre Wavresky
We use the hedonic price method to study consumer preferences for climate (temperature, very hot or cold days, and rainfall) in France, a temperate country with varied climates. Data are for (1) individual attributes and prices of houses and workers and (2) climate attributes interpolated from weather stations. We show that French households value warmer temperatures while very hot days are a nuisance. Such climatic amenities are attributes of consumers’ utility function; nevertheless, global warming assessments by economists, such as the Stern Review Report (2006), ignore these climatic preferences. The social welfare assessment is changed when the direct consumption of climate is taken into account: from the estimated hedonic prices, we calculate that GDP rises by about 1 percent for a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature. Moreover, heterogeneity of housing and households is a source of major diff erences in the individual eff ects of climatic warming
Adaptation and Mitigation: What Financing Is Available for Local
Government Investments in Developing Countries?
Thierry Paulais and Juliana Pigey
This article reviews specific funding available for adaptation and mitigation investments of cities and discusses the mismatch between needs and financing tools. These funding sources are insufficient, highly fragmented, and not really tailored to local governments. They are narrowly sector based and risk being counterproductive in the urban context. Furthermore, they are complex and costly to access or else targeted to sovereign borrowers. The article makes proposals to adapt these finance tools, to reintroduce local authorities in mechanisms from which they are presently excluded, and to create incentives in their favor. Finally, it proposes an initiative for cities in fragile states, based on greater involvement of wealthy Northern cities and the recourse to a specific financing mechanism.
Mobilizing Private Sector Resources toward Climate Adaptation and
Mitigation Action in Asia
Jacob Park
This paper will explore the current state of and future outlook for mobilizing private sector resources in the Asian post-2012 climate policy context, with a special emphasis on the energy-poor and environmentally fragile urban population. Two issues and questions will be explored in this paper. First, what is the current state of and future outlook for public and private investments to address global and Asian climate change concerns? Second, what new triple bottom-line strategy of financing climate change action is required to respond more effectively to the urban climate change dilemma in Asia?
High-Cost Carbon and Local Government Finance
Patricia Clarke Annez and Thomas Zuelgaray
Global climate change has certain unique features in terms of optimal policy. Some of these have been discussed already at the global level and some at the national level. But what is the impact of these features on local government finance? This paper examines the impact of high-cost carbon on municipalities’ finances. We compare municipalities’ finances in India (State of Maharashtra) and in Spain. We conclude that raising energy prices will create an adverse fiscal shock for local governments, the magnitude of which will depend on the structure of spending. Smaller, less diversified governments currently operating at a low level of service and with a very small operating deficit will be harder hit, precisely because the most basic services tend to be energy intensive, and their energy bill is high in relation to their scope for borrowing to weather the shock. However, all municipalities would appear to be hard hit, and a system of compensation from national governments would be needed to avoid disruption to essential services.
Victims to Victors, Disasters to Opportunities: Community-Driven
Responses to Climate Change in the Philippines
David Dodman, Diana Mitlin, and Jason Christopher Rayos Co
Advocates of community-based adaptation claim that it helps to identify, assist, and implement community-based development activities, research, and policy in response to climate change. However, there has been little systematic examination of the ways in which existing experiences of dealing with hazard events can inform community-based adaptation. Th is paper analyzes the experience of the Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines Incorporated (HPFPI) in respect to community-led disaster responses, with the aim of informing future discussions on the role of planning for climate change adaptation in low- and middle-income countries.
The Urban Poor’s Vulnerability to Climate Change in Latin America
and the Caribbean
Lucy Winchester and Raquel Szalachman
Cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) currently face many environmental and sustainable development challenges, with signifi cant impacts on human health, resource productivity and incomes, ecological “public goods,” poverty, and inequity. In this context, climate change impacts in the region will exacerbate and create additional complexity, particularly in urban areas. For hundreds of millions of urban dwellers in LAC, most of the risks from the impacts of climate change are a result of development failures. For the urban poor, this fact is disproportionately true. Th is paper seeks to contribute to the limited body of knowledge regarding climate change, cities, and the urban poor in the region and to inform how institutions, governance, and urban planning are keys to understanding the opportunities and limitations to possible policy and program advances in the area of adaptation.
Built-in Resilience: Learning from Grassroots Coping Strategies to
Climate Variability
Huraera Jabeen, Adriana Allen, and Cassidy Johnson
It is now widely acknowledged that the effects of climate change will disproportionately increase the vulnerability of the urban poor in comparison to other groups of urban residents. While significant attention has been given to exploring and unpacking “traditional” coping strategies for climate change in the rural context—with a focus on agricultural responses and livelihoods diversification—with few exceptions, there is less work on understanding the ways the urban poor are adapting to climate variability. The central argument of this paper is that significant lessons can be drawn from examining how the urban poor are already coping with conditions of increased vulnerability, including how they respond to existing environmental hazards such as floods, heavy rains, landslides, heat, and drought. Knowledge of these existing coping capacities for disaster risk reduction can help to strengthen planning strategies for adaptation to climate change in cities because they draw on existing grassroots governance mechanisms and support the knowledge systems of the urban poor.
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