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Marc Torres / Œil du Sud

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WORKSHOP IN MARSEILLE (JUNE 2009) Climate, Cities and the Mediterranean www.urbanisme.fr

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1/ French long term investor.

2/ ISTED, Institut des sciences et des techniques de l’équipement et de l’environnement pour le développement.

Held on June 27th and 28th, 2009 in Marseille by the Caisse des Dépôts /1 in partnership with the World Bank, the City of Marseille, the Euroméditerranée public development agency and the ISTED /2, the “Climate, Cities and the Mediterranean” research and discussion workshop took place just before the World Bank’s 5th Symposium on urban research (June 28th, 29th and 30th) focusing on the issue of “Cities and Climate Change”. It was also part of the process engaged by the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM), for which sustainable urban development is another new working focus. Antoine Loubière and Olivier Réal prepared a summary.

Given that the “climate battle is played out in cities,” as the World Bank claims, the “Climate, Cities and the Mediterranean” workshop was at the heart of one of the fundamental issues affecting the development of the Mediterranean. It showed a determination to involve decision-makers and operators in addition to researchers, as well as a concern to ensure a balance among speakers from the North and South coasts of the Mediterranean, as was mentioned by Xavier Crépin, Executive Officer for ISTED. For Jacques Rocca-Serra, Deputy Mayor of Marseille, it is high time to take on this “major concern, and the underlying theme behind the policies we are implementing.” The City of Marseille, involved in a growing number of initiatives for decentralised cooperation, feels parti-

cularly involved. Especially since it hosts within its boundaries a number of institutions that are highly mobilised regarding sustainable development, starting with the World Bank and the Blue Plan.

European Capital of Culture in 2013, the City will also be hosting the 6th World Water Forum in 2012.

For Mats Karlsson, Regional Manager within the World Bank’s MENA Vice-Presidency, interdependence inside the Mediterranean Basin is crucial, and the process of integration should be sped up. Indeed, he has announced the strengthening of World Bank presence in Marseille and the launching of the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration, the result of a unique partnership between bilateral and multilateral agencies. He thus called for widespread

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WORKSHOP IN MARSEILLE (JUNE 2009) CLIMATE, CITIES AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

mobilisation in view of the risks relating to population growth and ongoing urbanisation, encouraging all to “invest now for the sake of future generations,” particularly in terms of public transport and renewable energy. Mats Karlsson also insisted on “opportunities for businesses to create green-focused jobs” and added that the World Bank was collaborating with the European Investment Bank (EIB), among others, to foster know-how and best practice worldwide, thus leading to all “collective learning.”

For his part, Philippe de Fontaine Vive, EIB VicePresident, emphasised that “the mobilisation was not yet up to the stakes,” since 22 million jobs had to be created by 2020 in Mediterranean countries, despite the economic crisis. He was however pleased to see financial institutions like the EIB, the French Caisse des Dépôts and the Moroccan Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion getting together within a long-term Investors’ Club (www.ltic.org) which will “help us at last to network and to invest in green growth.”

Speaking on behalf of the French Ecology Ministry /2, Yves-Laurent Sapoval expressed satisfaction at this workshop being organised, two days after the first ministers’ meeting about sustainable development, held in Paris on June 25th and chaired jointly by France and Egypt as part of the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). For the first time, the meeting succeeded in including cities within the UPM political agenda.

Vulnerable cities The first round table on “The vulnerability of cities to climate change”, chaired by Benoît Leguet, Climate Mission Manager at the Caisse des Dépôts, who highlighted the fact that the Mediterranean was not only a climate change hotspot, but that it featured specific areas of vulnerability relating in particular to significant urban growth, especially on the coasts. As mentioned by Pierre Icard (Blue Plan), “If over half the world population now lives in cities, in countries around the Mediterranean two out of three people are already city-dwellers.” There are thus about thirty cities exceeding one million inhabitants. On the Mediterranean coasts is experiencing an overall increase in air temperature and a rising of the sea level, and will thus be confronted to a probable escalation of exceptional events such as flooding, mudslides, heat waves, etc., which are still “hard to quantify” according to Pierre Icard. Not to forget the transformation of agricultural land and the depletion of some natural resources. In that regard, cities are in the front line for developing appropriate solutions.

And that is precisely what the following presentations would confirm. Beirut, a booming capital city with 850,000 inhabitants at night time and

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1,350,000 in daytime, is becoming increasingly concerned about air quality. On that issue, Deputy Mayor Rachid Jalkh mentioned the creation of an automated measurement network and the setting up of forecasting tools, pointing at a number of critical issues: the worsening of local pollution due to climate change, the difficulties of modelling… and the problems of raising public awareness to “move from measuring to action”.

Professor Mikdat Kadioglu (Istanbul Technical University) focused his presentation on risk and hazard management in Istanbul, a giant conurbation (with 16 million inhabitants), that is particularly vulnerable to climate change and to earthquakes.

Past disasters have in effect contributed in changing the outlook of decision makers and in the setting up of a coordination centre for elected officials and municipal services in order to face emergencies.

“Prevention is better than cure”, says Mikdat Kadioglu.

Professor Mohamed El Raey (Alexandria University) also presented a particularly vulnerable city, namely Alexandria, with its 4 million inhabitants (5 million in summer), which stretches along the Mediterranean coast for 90 km. Mainly threatened by the rising sea level and tsunamis, Alexandria does not yet have an early-warning system, even though it hosts 40% of Egyptian oil industry.

Mohamed El Raey emphasised the need for an integrated approach, supported by his view of the city which, by 2050, would have taken stock of its climatic vulnerability in order to manage the negative impacts.

Efficient energy strategies Devoted to city strategies for energy efficiency, the second round table opened with a series of questions from Chairman Blaise Desbordes, Sustainable Development Manager at the Caisse des Dépôts: the problem with standards of knowledge, the existence or not of a Mediterranean model for a city, issues of scale and thus of governance, the use of agency-type tools at the national and local levels, etc. All this was expressed with a view to evoking cities that are mobilising, especially in Europe, taking hold of their carbon footprint in expectation of Copenhagen Summit in December 2009 .

As was explained by Klaus Wenzel, team leader for GTZ’s MED-ENEC Project /3, the programme helped highlight the potential for limiting energy use in buildings. Yet even if pilot projects work well, ultimately it all depends on consumer involvement in the sustainable use of domestic energy. On the whole, construction continues generating excessive consumption. Thus a mixed policy is required, wielding both the stick (rules, standards, public procurement contracts, etc.) and the carrot (tax cuts

2/ The French Ministry of Ecology changed its name in June 2009: it is now the Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea, in charge of Green Technology and Climate-related Negotiations. It is headed by a State Minister (Jean-Louis Borloo) and four State Secretaries.

3/ The MED-ENEC Project was set up by the European Union and it has helped achieve pilot projects involving 10 low-energy-use buildings in the 10 MED countries located south of the Mediterranean.

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4/ CODATU, Coopération pour le développement et l’amélioration des transports urbains et périurbains (Cooperation for the development and improvement of urban and suburban Transport).

and exemptions), in favor of mainstreaming innovation in responding to climate change challenges at the urban scale. All that remains is moving to spread of such practices throughout the cities.

Speaking along the same lines, Murat Daoudov of the Union of Municipalities of the Marmara Region indicated that Turkey had passed new legislation, which significantly supported the use of renewable energy. He then insisted on the crucial role played by local authorities, and the need for them to implement their own energy management systems.

Mounir Bahri, Director of the Tunisian National Agency for Energy Conservation, presented the National Scheme for 2008-2010, which aims at a 20% energy demand reduction by 2011 and an increase in the renewable energy share. The scheme, personally monitored by the President of the Republic – and enshrined through contracts with the various ministries –, particularly targets the construction sector, by enforcing periodic energy audits. As was emphasised by the French expert Bernard Laponche, the existence of a national agency founded in 1986 represents a vital asset to Tunisia’s energy demand management.

Professor Ali Huzayyin (Cairo University), VicePresident of CODATU /4, presented the strategic approaches essential to urban policy in terms of land use, infrastructures, transport, housing, and energy use. He concluded with the necessity of favouring solutions that work (rather than ideal solutions) and of organising an international South/North/South dialogue (and not just North/ South).

Closing the first day, Anthony Bigio, Senior Urban Specialist at the World Bank, noted that the issue of climate change had been linked to that of the quality of urban living, and that the debates had highlighted the leading role of effective public policies, whether centralised or resulting from local authority initiative. He also announced that a special session had been programmed within the context of the 5th Urban Research Symposium, in the form of a “Mayor’s panel on the challenges of adapting to climate change in Mediterranean cities.”

What financial incentives to bridge the gap?

Whatever the choice of funding assigned to the

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mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and to the fight against climate change consequences, a considerable gap between the needs and the funds available appears evident. Opening the 3rd round table on “Incentive policies, economic and financial mechanisms”, Thierry Paulais (Cities Alliance) went straight to the point. Thus, the main funding tools towards mitigation barely manage to muster €15 to 20b per year through market mechanisms like Carbon Funding, and little over €4b via the more conventionnal Climate Investment Fund. This is far, very far from the hundreds of billion Euros required… Add to this the uncertainty surrounding those instruments, their deployment on small projects, operational management decentralisation, or even the defining of a new international agreement to take over from the Kyoto Protocol as of 2012. As for adaptation, the situation is even harder, due to “enormous, poorly estimated needs”. Even if much is expected of the Adaptation Fund, which would supply subsidies from industrialised nations to fund climate vulnerability reduction projects in developing countries, there is a risk that public aid towards development could tend to be replaced by the fight against climate change.

Laurent Vigier, European and International Affairs Manager for the Caisse des Dépôts, emphasised the difficulties in transposing investment schemes from the North into the South, given, among other things, urban demographic growth in developing countries, which will inevitably worsen energy-use problems.

In addition, the issue of illegal construction proliferation in the South makes urban land use control even harder. Nevertheless, although the financial crisis is complicating matters, we must “get involved” right away. Such involvement is illustrated by a contribution of “in-house” engineering but also by the InfraMed Fund, the Union for the Mediterranean’s leading funding instrument, recently launched by the Caisse des Dépôts, the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Italy), EFG Hermes (Egypt) and the Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion (Morocco), whose aim is to group international partners to invest in urban development, energy and transport infrastructures in North-African and Near-Eastern countries as well as in Turkey. “€400m have been released, and one billion is expected by late 2009,” explained Laurent Vigier.

An exhibition on major urban projects Participants were invited to visit an exhibition devoted to major urban renewal projects around the Mediterranean. The exhibition was organised by the Euroméditerranée public development agency, which has been heading the vast urban development operation in Marseille since 1995. According to its Managing Director François Jalinot, this exhibition has helped identify a number of projects being prepared or in progress, and it could serve as a basis for a best practice exchange network.

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The session highlighted two important initiatives, one in Tunisia and one in Morocco. Confronted with a quickening rise in sea level, Tunisian authorities have been working on an adaptation strategy for several years, taking into account the impact on port infrastructures, rainwater drainage in major cities, aeras that are liable to flooding in the low-lying coastal areas, coastal erosion and its consequences on the tourist industry, the salinization of the water table, etc. According to Habib Ben Moussa, Manager at APAL /5, technical and risk-assessment steps will have to be taken regarding all those issues, which should generate a detailed plan to fight climate change consequences, to be funded at 75% by international concessionary credits. Habib Ben Moussa clearly demonstrated that Tunisia’s approach, going beyond plain technical observations, helped develop a costs/benefits analysis, comparing the costs of climate-related degradation to the national economy with those of implementing adaptation measures: this is a scientific approach that merits recommended investments.

“One should also bear in mind that cities in developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change, because of their social, economic and environmental fragility,” said Hassan Rahmani, Communication Manager for Morocco’s Municipal Equipment Fund (FEC). In this country where decentralisation gives local officials a certain responsibility, the Government has implemented incentive mechanisms, particularly for the degree of treatment of solid waste and waste water, energy, the fight against natural disasters, urban transport, all of which are to be increasingly handled by local authorities. Incentives, financial aid and support are key words to a Government acting as “a strategist and a coach”, advocating efficient urban governance.

Holding the course To Morched Chabbi, Manager of UrbaConsult (Tunisia), the definition of urbanisation South of the Mediterranean, (in Casablanca, Tunis or Algiers), looks like a prerequisite for discussions on “Policies and governance systems,” the theme of the last round table. Urban growth changes city boundaries and inevitably makes problems worse. In fact, the most vulnerable areas (often coastal) are those that get developed the fastest, with direct consequences on the issue of mitigation, according to a study presented by Heike Schroeder (Oxford University) that looks at ten megalopolis /6. Aleppo, the second city in Syria, listed on the World Heritage, suffers many instances of imbalance, in particular a rate of 35% of informal housing (involving 1 million inhabitants out of 3), explained Mayor Maan Chibli. An initial 4-year plan launched in 2003 helped

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set up a new decentralised structure into districts, as well as a programme based on objectives. The image changed, so did resident involvement, right up to decision making. Following an assessment, a second plan for the 2007/2011 period was implemented, but the vision behind it has been found wanting. And so Aleppo Project 2025 was launched, from strategic option to district-by-district implementation, helping provide full clarity and helping marshal financial and human resources.

To Lemghari Essakl, Managing Director of the Bouregreg Valley Development Agency, who heads this major project in the Rabat-Salé conurbation, the stakes of governance are essential. Pursuing sustainable development, this project enjoys an exceptional operational structure, with a local planning authority endowed with many prerogatives, allowing financial balance and the vital partnerships needed in giving value to land and real-estate assets.

Moving on to the next stage Concluding the debates, Abha Joshi-Ghani, Urban Development Sector Manager at the World Bank, expressed her satisfaction at the workshop’s relevance and success, representing as it did the first initiative to be organized jointly with the Caisse des Dépôts on this issue, and which provides the foundation for a future partnership between both institutions in implementing the Marseille Centre’s urban programmes. Gilles Pennequin (UPM Mission before the Presidency of the French Republic) was pleased that the workshop had taken place a few days after the UPM revival in Paris, where it set sustainable development among its priorities. The workshop’s efforts match the idea of a territorial vision for the Mediterranean. While time is not linear when faced with looming climate and energy breakdowns, a sustainable Mediterranean city is something to be designed from scratch. To Gilles Pennequin, “it’s a fantastic project we have before us.” On the basis of this outlook, Laurent Vigier emphasised the decisive role of cooperation between cities, which should foster closerties between citizens on both sides of the Mediterranean.

Antoine Loubière and Olivier Réal

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Reference websites

Caisse des Dépôts: www.caissedesdepots.fr World Bank: www.worldbank.org City of Marseille: www.mairie-marseille.fr Euroméditerranée: www.euromediterranee.fr ISTED: www.isted.com

5/ Agence de protection et d’aménagement du littoral tunisien (Agency for the Protection and management of the Tunisian Coast) 6/ Study conducted by the Tyndall Centre (Oxford University) for Research on Climate Change, focusing on Beijing, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Mumbai, New Delhi, Mexico City, Cape Town, Sao Paulo and Seoul.