A round-up of recent reports, video and debate on climate change highlighted by our partner, the Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN). For more news on sustainable development research and publications, join the network and receive regular SDRN mailings.
In this round-up:
- Going Green: How cities are leading the next economy (Local Governments for Sustainability and LSE Cities report)
- Measurement for Management: CDP Cities 2012 Global Report (Carbon Disclosure Project report)
- Urban Air Quality (Woodland Trust report)
- Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe (EEA report)
- Future Cities Demonstrator (Technology Strategy Board funding)
Read about more recent publications and research in the latest SDRN bulletin…
Going Green: How cities are leading the next economy
The LSE Cities/ICLEI survey on Cities and the Green Economy aims to provide an up-to-date overview on the experiences of cities around the world in the transition to the green economy.
The survey was conducted in the run-up to Rio+20 in order to increase awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of cities as key contributors to this global green transformation. The Report investigates the environmental challenges that cities face, along with the opportunities, progress and barriers to going green and fostering economic growth. The survey covers key aspects of green policies and the green economy, smart city technology, green policy assessment and urban governance.
This report provides preliminary results from an analysis of 53 cities that responded to the survey ahead of Rio+20. The Report’s findings are grouped across nine key areas:
- Going green: (1) City challenges, (2) Green aspirations and triggers, (3) Progress to date
- Building the green economy: (4) Green economic objectives, (5) Opportunities and barriers, (6) Technology
- Governance and the green economy: (7) Strategy and stakeholders, (8) Government co-ordination, (9) Skills and capacity
Measurement for Management: CDP Cities 2012 Global Report
A new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) analyses he carbon and water strategies of 73 cities across the world. The report’s authors highlighted that 82% of cities identified the potential for economic growth as a result of their climate change mitigation and adaptation activity. The report, Measurement for Management: CDP Cities 2012 Global Report, places a special focus on the C40 Cities group, a network of the world’s largest cities working to reduce urban carbon emissions and accelerate climate change adaptation.
Key messages from the report include:
- In terms of opportunities arising from taking action on climate change, 55% of cities anticipate the creation of green jobs, and 53% predict new business from clean tech industries or the development of new low-carbon economy technologies;
- With specific regard to the C40 cities, 84% of the C40 group expect economic benefits as a result of their climate change action;
- The Report suggests that financing climate change action remains problematic.
Cities are largely financing their climate change actions without significant external support, and less than 1% of city-wide emissions reduction activities reported by cities are financed by world development banks. All of the reporting C40 cities and 81% of the total 73 disclosing cities are responding to the urgency of climate change by implementing a range of carbon emissions reductions activities, from education programs to waste management.
Urban Air Quality
This 12 page Woodland Trust report argues that whilst air quality in the UK has improved in recent decades with concentrations of some pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen levelling off, there remain serious health issues relating to air pollution, particularly in towns and cities.
Air quality is often listed as one of the potential benefits of increasing tree cover in urban areas, but the Report suggests that few urban greening projects appear to take into account how air quality goals can best be achieved. According to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the economic cost from the impacts of air pollution in the UK is estimated at £9-19 billion every year. Amongst the worst affected are poorer urban areas, close to busy roads and inadequately served by green space. Estimates by the Environmental Audit Committee (2010) indicate that air pollution reduces life expectancy in the UK by seven to eight months.
Increasing tree cover in urban areas can help mitigate the ‘urban heat island effect’. The ‘urban heat island’ occurs in towns and cities because the buildings, concrete and other hard surfaces such as roads absorb heat during the day and release it at night. The resultant effects can be dramatic; on some days there is a difference of as much as 10oC between city centres and the surrounding areas. The Report concludes that air quality remains a persistent problem in many towns and cities, with consequent costs to public health and the environment. Careful planning of green infrastructure can ensure that trees and other vegetation are well suited to maximise the opportunities for improving air quality.
The Report suggests that careful selection of tree species can also help to ensure that the positive impacts are greatest and any negative impacts minimised. However the large scale planting of almost all tree species will have a positive effect on air quality (Donovan et al., 2005). The Report argues that careful, but not necessarily onerous, maintenance of tree cover in urban areas will ensure that trees thrive and continue to remove pollutants.
Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe
About three-quarters of Europe’s population live in urban areas, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as heatwaves (affecting the ageing population), water scarcity and flooding. Cities drive Europe’s economy and generate substantial wealth but this could be threatened by climate change. For instance, heavy rainfall (150 mm in two hours) in Copenhagen’s city centre resulted in insurance damages of EUR 650 – 700 million.
Since European cities and regions are heavily interconnected, and the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) new report argues the case for national and Eurpean policy frameworks for urban adaptation to climate change, provides advice on adapting cities and gives examples of good practice.
Future Cities Demonstrator
Cities across the UK have been invited by the government to compete for £24 million to demonstrate how they could integrate their transport, communications and other city infrastructure to improve the local economy, increase quality of life and reduce impact on the environment.
The funding, from the government’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, will be awarded to the city or urban area in the UK that submits the best proposal for a large scale ‘future cities demonstrator’, showing how the city’s multiple systems will be integrated and how challenges in the city will be addressed. The Future Cities Demonstrator programme invited local governments and local authorities to bid for one of twenty £50,000 grants to carry out a feasibility study to develop their demonstrator project proposal.
The cities that have completed the feasibility study will then be invited to submit a proposal for the large scale demonstrator – and one successful city will be awarded £24m funding to implement their proposal.
More from Technology Strategy Board…
The Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) is an initiative funded by Defra and coordinated by the Policy Studies Institute in London.
SDRN aims to facilitate and strengthen the links between providers of research and policymakers across government, in order to improve evidence-based policymaking to deliver the UK government’s objectives for sustainable development.