Urbanization and Climate Change: The Front-Line of Sustainability

Urbanization and climate change are transformative and defining issues of the 21^st century. The ever increasing numbers of people concentrating in urban areas reflects the unprecedented growth of cities in the past half century.

To this point, between 1950 and 2014 the world’s urban population grew by 422 percent. Current projections estimate that by 2050 70 percent of the world’s population will reside in cities. The surge in urban populations is expanding the footprint of cities, making them the major sites for production, consumption and waste. Consider the following:

• Cities account for approximately 70 percent of global GDP
• Approximately 70 to 75 percent of all natural resources are consumed by cities
• Cities consume about 75 percent of global primary energy
• Cities emit more than 70 percent of global green house gas emissions
• Cities account for 50 percent of global waste

In many cases the rapid growth of cities are challenging established approaches and notions within urban planning (e.g., car centric vs. people planning) as well as presenting more systemic concerns  regarding sustainability (e.g., pollution and waste, increasing development in hazard prone areas). Perhaps the biggest sustainability issue is climate change.

Available scientific evidence indicates that climate change that will continue to increase the frequency of extreme weather events (e.g., hurricanes/typhoons, tornados, winter storms, heat waves) and contribute to sea level rise (recent studies suggest that mean sea level rise could exceed 1 m by 2100). Moreover, new projections that estimate that disasters losses could top $300 billion per year in the coming decades.

Climate change is a risk multiplier. It is a game changer. As ground zero for mitigating and adapting to climate change, cities are well positioned to take action because of their unique mixture of political and financial clout, and disproportionate risk exposure.

While the imminent and growing risks of climate change may provide the impetus for ingenuity and innovation, urban sustainability cannot be achieved if we continue to conceive of, plan and build cities as we have.

In many respects, identifying and realizing the co-benefits of adaptation and mitigation must lead to the transformation of urban landscapes. Environmental destruction can be replaced with restoration. Cities do not have to be a burden on ecological systems. To this end, there are numerous opportunities to modernize food production, energy generation, waste management and transportation systems. For instance, decentralized energy generation by integrating solar and wind technologies into existing infrastructure (i.e. roads and buildings). Another example is the promotion of green spaces (e.g., expand and reclaiming park areas, green roofs, urban farms) to reduce heat island effects, increase porous surfaces for rainfall run-off and minimize flash flooding.

While the role of technology is unequivocal in the drive toward greater urban sustainability, it is important for city leaders and citizens alike to not be seduced by design. In other words, managing climate change and its related issues will require cities to be smarter. But smart cities cannot be limited to the incorporation of digital technologies, software and equipment into infrastructure. Cities must pursue a broad mix of structural and non-structural measures insofar as the policy choices effecting density, land use planning, building codes, mobility, poverty and social inclusion are equally important as the waste-to-energy plant or floating buildings.

The built form is not the end per se but a means to complement non-structural policies in achieving environmental, social and economic objectives related to climate change mitigation and adaptation. In turn both structural and non-structural measures must ultimately address the underlying dimensions (i.e. social, economic, environmental) of vulnerability and risk to climate change related impacts.

Cites are at the front-line of climate change and sustainable development.  A pivotal opportunity for change and future prosperity. Such an opportunity, however is also accompanied by great expectation and responsibility because if cities do not sufficiently mitigate and adapt to climate change, the consequences are perilous.

No hay comentarios / 15 Apr 2016 por dlarkin
IMSD /

Comentarios cerrados.