Urban World: Climate Change: Are cities really to blame?

March 2009

Volume 1 Issue 2

u r b a n WORLD Climate Change Are cities really to blame?

Toronto’s Mayor leads global ďŹ ght against climate change India launches new sanitation programme Singapore: a model for sustainable development?

How Canada is leading the world in green building Colombian microentrepreneurs provide solution to low-income housing

FOR A BETTER URBAN FUTURE

u r b a n WORLD

CONTENTS OPINION

www.un-habitat.org © 2008 UN-HABITAT UN-HABITAT P.O.Box 30030, GPO Nairobi 00100, Kenya Tel. (254-20) 762 3120 Fax. (254-20) 762 3477 E-mail: urbanworld@unhabitat.org EDITOR: Roman Rollnick EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Tom Osanjo, Eric Orina EDITORIAL BOARD Oyebanji Oyeyinka (Chair) Daniel Biau Lucia Kiwala Anatha Krishnan Eduardo López Moreno Jane Nyakairu Edlam Yemeru Nicholas You Mariam Yunusa Raf Tuts PRESSGROUP HOLDINGS EUROPE S.A. San Vicente Martir 16-6-1 46002 Valencia, Spain Tel. (34) 96 303 1000 Fax. (34) 96 303 1234 E-mail: urbanworld@pressgroup.net PUBLISHER: Angus McGovern MANAGING EDITOR: Richard Forster STAFF WRITERS: Jonathan Andrews, Kirsty Tuxford ART DIRECTOR: Marisa Gorbe ADVERTISING: Fernando Ortiz, Clive Lawson, Kristine Riisbrich Christensen Urban World is published four times a year by UN-HABITAT and Pressgroup Holdings Europe S.A. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views and policies of UN-HABITAT. Use of the term “country” does not imply any judgment by the authors or UN-HABITAT as to the legal or other status of any territorial entity.

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2 Message from the Executive Director

5 A call for action

FEATURES 32 Water India’s Gwailor a leader in development Sahana Singh

David Cadman, ICLEI President

36 Housing Finance 7 The time to act is now UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

10 Why governments are wrong about climate change Bjørn Lomborg, professor, Copenhagen Business School

Where will the money come from now?

Daniel Biau

BEST PRACTICES 40 Construction

COVER STORY

Canada blazes a trail in green building Sarah Marks

Climate Change

INTERVIEW

12 Are cities really to blame?

David Dodman and David Satterthwaite

14 Our future is in your hands Hon. Apisai Ielemia, Prime Minister, Tuvalu

16 The challenge for Africa’s cities David Simon and Cheikh Guèye

49 A man for all seasons David Miller, Mayor of Toronto and chairman of the C40 Cities Group, talks exclusively to Urban World on why he has taken up the global challenge to combat climate change and his aims for the UN Copenhagen Meeting. By Kirsty Tuxford

19 How construction is vital to reducing emissions Mohamed El Sioufi

22 India launches youth programme to fight global warming Padma Prakash

REPRINTS Re Reprinted and translated art articles should be credited “Rep “Reprinted from Urban World”.

Rep Reprinted articles with bylines must have the author’s n name. Please send a copy of reprinted articles to the o editor at UN-HABITAT.

24 Why sustainable cities hold the key to climate change Daniel Hoornweg and Perinaz Bhada

27 Climate change is not gender neutral Lucia Kiwala, Ansa Masaud and Cecilia Njenga

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49 March 2009

FOR A BETTER URBAN FUTURE

IN FOCUS 53 Latin America and the Caribbean How female entrepreneurs are transforming Colombian housing Richard Forster

URBAN WATCH 79 People Obituaries: Peter Oberlander and Peter Swan Executive Director signs agreement with International Olympic Committee

58 Asia-Pacific Singapore: a model for sustainable development?

Vicente Carbona

66 Middle East and Africa Abu Dhabi to build the world’s first zero carbon city Jonathan Andrews

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81 Publications 82 Book Review Reshaping Economic Geography (World Bank)

83 Calendar 84 Conference Briefing

76 Central and Eastern Europe

World Urban Forum, Nanjing

UN Poznan conference provides stark warning to governments

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OPINION

Message from the Executive Director

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limate change is fast becoming the preeminent development challenge of the 21st century, and this is why we have made it the theme for the cover story of this second issue of our new flagship magazine, Urban World.

No-one today can really foresee the predicament in which a town or city will find itself 10, 20 or 30 years down the road. In this new urban era with most of humanity now living in towns and cities, we must bear in mind that the greatest impacts of disasters resulting from climate change begin and end in cities. Cities have the greatest influence on climate change.

Prevention can be greatly enhanced through better land-use planning and building codes so that cities keep their ecological footprint to the minimum, and make sure their residents, especially the poorest, are protected as best as possible against disaster.

With over one billion people languishing in slums, mostly in developing countries, global poverty is moving into cities in a process we call the urbanization of poverty.

In tackling urban poverty and climate change, we therefore have to think globally and locally at the same time. We need to understand that the fastest way to mitigate against climate change disaster is to reduce urban poverty.

It is also no coincidence that global climate change has become a leading international development issue precisely at the same time and at the same rate as the world has become urbanized.

We need to be conscious of the fact that some 40 percent of the world’s population lives less than 60 miles from the coast, mostly in big towns and cities. A further 100 million people live less than one metre above mean sea level. Coastal erosion, rising sea levels, saltwater contamination and potentially more powerful storms are expected – with ever growing human activity – to put these already threatened urban and natural environments under increasing stress.

All coastal cities face these threats, but the impact on cities with over 10 million people is potentially much more devastating. Water and sanitation systems placed under unbearable strain can leave millions of people at even greater risk of disease.

The role cities have to play in tackling the climate change scourge was very powerfully conveyed to us by delegates in November 2008 at the fourth session of UN-HABITAT’s World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China.

The Forum stressed that no successful city in the modern world can afford to ignore the effects of climate change. Harmonious urban growth has to go hand-in-hand with disaster mitigation and vulnerability reduction. And here early warning and better surveillance systems are of paramount importance. Cities must start by cutting their waste output and emissions, and consume less energy.

In many countries of the developing world, declining agricultural productivity due to climate change related weather patterns, and population pressures are pushing greater numbers of rural residents towards cities.

The Forum also told us that the nexus between rapid and chaotic urbanization and climate change has multiple impacts on highly vulnerable groups particularly women, youth and the very poor.

The need for coordinated and joint action here at the normative and implementation levels was emphasized.

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Numerous practices were presented and discussed at the World Urban Forum highlighting the actions taken and results cities have achieved in reducing their ecological footprints and carbon emissions.

The emerging groundswell of local initiatives underlines the need for international and national decision-making processes to integrate the cities and climate change agenda in post-Kyoto mechanisms and regime.

Indeed, the future of hundreds of millions of people around the world will be determined by the pace of adaptation and mitigation undertaken by our cities which are responsible for at least 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

How we thus manage and consume energy in our cities is the key driver behind the phenomenon of global warming. Seventy-five percent of global energy consumption occurs in cities and roughly half of this comes from burning fossil fuels in cities for urban transport. As such, every single dollar spent reducing this consumption is the single most cost-effective measure local governments can take in terms of climate change mitigation.

Local authorities must lead the way in finding real solutions to these global challenges. To date, there are few comprehensive examples of mitigation and adaptation at the local level, and there is clearly an urgent need to form a global platform to enable discussion, and exchange of good practices as well as practical action for local authorities to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The United Nations remains determined to provide coordinated support to the efforts of Member States at the local, national, regional and global levels in tackling climate change, now, up to, and beyond 2012. To achieve this, the United Nations system is bringing to bear, in a way perhaps never achieved before, the collective strengths of all its entities as an integral part of the international community’s response to this challenge.

UN-HABITAT has therefore designed a new project entitled SUDNet: Cities in Climate Change Initiative (CCCI) – thanks to generous financial support from the Government of Norway. The project has been designed fully in accordance with our Medium-term strategic institutional plan 2008-2013.

Through the SUD-Net climate change initiative we will seek to minimize impacts on human settlements and increase the adaptive capabilities of local governments by strengthening governance structures and engaging the private sector and civil society in finding practical solutions.

It will focus on improving urban governance, decentralization of powers and responsibilities to the appropriate levels, and enhancing environmental management. The initiative will seek to provide cities with integrated strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Municipalities cannot fight this battle alone. They must have the backing of government and the business sector, especially in these times of financial crisis.

Anna Tibaijuka

ICLEI

OPINION

World leaders: an urgent call for action The Vancouver City Councillor and International President of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability, David Cadman, makes a passionate call to action for a post-Kyoto Framework Convention in this message directed primarily at governments when they next discuss the climate change convention in Copenhagen in December 2009.

PHOTO © JOS BROWNING

Arctic ice is melting into the ocean

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he scientific community is unequivocal: climate change is upon us, concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide are at record levels and growing exponentially.

The Antarctic ice shelves are collapsing faster than scientific models had anticipated. In the north, the Arctic ice that is reflective of the sun’s heat is being replaced by ever larger expanses of dark blue ocean that absorb more heat in summer. This results in open passageways, as well as the

melting of the adjacent permafrost and the risk of a massive methane release that is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

From Greenland to the Himalayas, from Glacier National Park to the snows of Kilimanjaro and the peaks of the Andes, glaciers all over the planet are melting and beginning to disappear.

These changes will profoundly affect water flows that literally billions of people depend upon as sources of water and will initiate sea level rises. All over the world we see profound climatic alterations manifested in changing

weather patterns, stronger storms, more flash floods and much more damage.

Ploddingly slow progress But each year when the nations of the world gather at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, progress is ploddingly slow.

Like Nero they fiddle while the planet heats up and all life including our own is put in jeopardy. Very few nations, if any,

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OPINION

ICLEI Conflict C onflict in in Africa Africa taking taking the the Responsibility Responsibility to to Protect Protect

ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection is a powerful mechanism helping over 900 local governments globally reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The approach has been a combination of technical training, facilitation, reporting, best practice, policy case studies, and political support techniques. ICLEI directly helps local governments understand their role in addressing climate change and how to play that role effectively. As the debate on mitigation has moved to mechanisms and the post-Kyoto framework, the Cities for Climate Protection has broadened to include focus on the need for local governments to adapt to climate change already locked into the environment. Adaptation work has been developed in the United States and Australia through best practice approaches and manuals on tools and techniques and in Europe through case studies and conferences, and now in Indonesia. ICLEI’s approach builds on common risk management strategies and adds long term opportunity creation, a focus on hard and soft adaptation and the construction of networks of interest to build resilience and long-term capability.

will meet their Kyoto targets of reducing carbon dioxide emissions six percent below 1990 levels. And many signatories have allowed their emissions to balloon well beyond 1990 levels.

We only have the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December 2009 to negotiate a post-Kyoto framework with responsible scientific voices saying we have to reduce our emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

We know that if we fail the consequences for the global economy, to saying nothing of all life on our planet, will be catastrophic.

Cities are the key Are we a cognitive species that can plan our future capable of such profound change?

Can we do it? To borrow from President Obama: Yes we can!

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Today half of humanity lives in urban areas and very shortly two-thirds of us will be living in towns and cities – precisely the places responsible for 75 percent of global carbon dioxide with the vast majority coming from the wealthy nations of the north.

Clearly profound changes are necessary and growing urban areas are precisely the places where the most effective changes can be implemented fastest. Our cities must become much more efficient users of energy and we must make a shift from carbon based fuels to renewable energy.

We have to see buildings, new and old, not as draws on the power grid, the water sources and waste disposal systems, but as net contributors to the power grid, water supply and zero waste contributors. We have to reshape our transportation systems to favour walking, cycling and clean public transit. To those who say we cannot afford this shift I would remind them how quickly we found trillions of dollars for failing financial institutions and inflated military budgets.

We can do it if we set our mind to it and make it a priority. Humanity is faced with the challenge of the proverbial camel passing through the eye of the needle. There is very little room for error and yet we know we are capable of prodigious achievement.

We set out to put a man on the moon and did it. We set out to put a landing vehicle on Mars and did it. It is going to take that kind of resolve and commitment to meet the challenge of climate change.

Think of the next generation and use alternate energy sources Every step we take along this path will bring us closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals; every day we delay will mean a steeper more rigorous way forward.

Any oil, gas or coal we avoid using today, as we begin to approach Peak Oil, will be the very resources we need to transition to a renewable energy future. There is ample passive solar energy for our heating needs if combined with geothermal heating and ample capacity for the growth of solar paneled roofs and walls to meet smart energy efficient building needs with excess capacity to feed local grids.

Combine that with harnessing wind power to its full potential, run of the river hydro

power, tidal power, wave power and shifting to hydrogen power and systematically we can make the transition away from fossil fuel dependence while conserving our fossil fuel resources for tasks only they can perform.

And the best thing about this transition is that it will mostly occur locally where we live and will stimulate growth in local skilled employment that will remain in our communities. All that is missing is the political motivation to drive this agenda forward to see a bright future and commit ourselves as a society to reach out and grasp it, to commit ourselves to achieving it for future generations.

The 1,000 cities that are members of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability, the 136 national federations of municipalities that are members of United Cities and Local Governments, the 40-largest cities that are members of the C40, and all of the mayors who are members of the World Mayors Council on Climate Change, are committed to this vision and want to work with national governments and international institutions to make this transition.

A robust commitment We want a robust post-Kyoto commitment with strong participation by the one nonKyoto signatory, the United States of America, to a low carbon emitting future that will ensure life on earth for future generations. Is it too much to ask of the nations of the world that they take climate change seriously and commit to avoiding climatic catastrophe for future generations?

We simply cannot continue to “live like there is no tomorrow”. We must learn from native people to think how all of our actions will effect life seven generations into the future.

We must learn to live gently on the earth to make sure its bounty and abundance will be there for future generations. It is now, in this, 21st century, that national governments must step forward in December in Copenhagen and together with their urban agglomerates devise a way to avoid catastrophic climate change.

They must commit sufficient resources so that every nation and every urban community can be part of the solution. We must be the ones we have been waiting for. No task is too large if we set our mind too it. Simply put, we cannot countenance failure. u

UN Secretary–General

OPINION

The time to act is now The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has described climate change as the “defining challenge of our time”. In this message delivered to the Chief Executives’ Board of the United Nations at the November 2008 climate talks in Poznan, Poland, he argues that accelerated action is urgently needed on mitigation to avoid future catastrophic impacts, while at the same time stepping up efforts at adaptation to current and future impacts.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

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y intention has been to bring together all the diverse perspectives, expertise and strengths of the UN system so as to deliver as one in the critical area of climate change.

Since Bali [December, 2007] we have seen even more compelling evidence of why we must act now. Devastating recent climatic events like the tropical cyclones in Myanmar and the Caribbean, widespread flooding in India and China, and drought in Africa have highlighted the vulnerability that people all over the world face.

It is clear that those who suffer the most from the increasing signs of climate change are the poor. Those that have contributed the least to this planetary problem continue to be disproportionately at risk.

We are now witnessing the confluence of a series of events that threaten the very fabric of the international system and human and ecological security of individuals everywhere. The high and volatile food and energy prices have thrust at least 100 million people back into poverty. With the global financial crisis, and the recession that is following it, these numbers are likely to rise.

We risk that all the efforts that have been made by countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to alleviate poverty, hunger and ill health will be rolled back.

At such a time, risks also present opportunities. In the face of mounting threats, the

international community must demonstrate extraordinary will to come together and put in place the foundation for a better future.

An ambitious climate agreement must be an essential part of this. As we look forward to Copenhagen, we must seize the opportunities presented by the multiple global crises to vision a low-carbon economy; one which not only ensures a secure climate, but also spurs sustained economic growth.

In other words, greatly enhanced investment in renewable energy and energy efficient technologies can not only put the earth onto a sustainable track, it can generate employment and growth on an impressive scale.

Massively increased investment in forest conservation and afforestation can have climate, biodiversity and economic benefits that are mutually supportive and strengthen our ability to reduce disaster risk.

We must raise our collective level of ambition and commitment.

In delivering on agreements in the future, the world needs effective, efficient and well-coordinated international institutions.

This is particularly the case in the area of financing for climate change, both in terms of institutional arrangements and levels of funding.

The United Nations system is positioning itself as an effective conduit of international action on an unprecedented scale.

PHOTO © UN

Working as one UN A priority of the UNEP and UN-HABITAT collaboration framework is to support African cities so that they can develop and implement climate change adaptation and mitigation plans.

UNDP and UN-HABITAT are planning to work together on linking sub-national (state/provincial) plans with local climate change adapation and mitigation initiatives.

UN-HABITAT and the World Bank are planning to expand knowledge management and tool development activities on cities and climate change.

UN-HABITAT and UNITAR, the UN Institute for Training and Research are exploring the joint development of capacity building tools, including guidelines on climate change governance.

We must take a comprehensive approach to address the interconnected issues of economic growth and development, climate change, food and agriculture, and energy. The role of global markets and financial instruments

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OPINION

UN-HABITAT and UNEP

to deliver a low-carbon economy and green growth will be paramount. Stimulus packages being designed to kick-start economic activity should be invested in infrastructure projects that deliver dividends of economic growth, cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and new green jobs.

We must give real meaning to the concept of sustainable development, one that has inclusiveness, equity and environmental sustainability at its heart. An ambitious and fair climate agreement together with the political will to implement it will be a central component of global sustainable development.

On the way to the next Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen [Dec. 2009], the UN system will continue to intensify its efforts for a more coordinated and effective delivery in all areas related to climate change.

We hope that our determined efforts in bridging the current implementation gap will contribute to long-term cooperative action on climate change at all levels and thereby help to reach a successful outcome in the negotiations. The UN system stands ready to assist with the implementation of the new mandates that will result from such an agreement.

The whole world is watching and waiting.

We should not disappoint them. u

Flooding in Congo town in Liberia — a symptom of climate change?

PHOTO © UN-HABITAT

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UN-HABITAT and UNEP working as one For a number of years UN-HABITAT and its sister agency based in Nairobi, UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, have teamed up to ensure that environmental considerations are carefully woven into the very fabric of urban sustainability. Here, Karin Buhren, of UN-HABITAT explains.

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ogether the two agencies are ushering a new era of urban environmental planning and manage-

ment.

To today’s hard-pressed urban managers, urban development and environmental sustainability can seem like two opposing concepts. In successful cities, however, the two objectives merge as sustainable urban development, a concept underpinned by carefully thought out Environmental Planning and Management (EPM).

The deteriorating environment was recognized as a problem in the early 1990s and put at the centre stage during the Rio Earth Summit at the time. And while awareness, understanding and knowledge have grown over the last two decades, so have the problems multiplied by ever accelerating urbanization.

In the early 1990s, UN-HABITAT started the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) followed a little later by the Localizing Agenda 21 Programme (LA21). It was intended to help find answers and solutions to these problems.

It began with about 10 cities which started to systematically examine the linkages between their development activities and the environmental resources, getting institutions and people around the table to identify and negotiate solutions for the most pressing problems.

Soon UNEP joined in and, over the years, the number of partner cities increased. To-

day there are 120 cities in 33 countries.

Many regional and international partner institutions are also using the approach pioneered by SCP/LA21.

While the problems are as individual as the cities themselves, it was soon realized, that a common approach brought solutions applicable in different cities. Issues tackled by the cities started with the provision of basic urban services, road construction, and managing urban growth all the way to open spaces, coastal protection and other environmental objectives.

What have we learned nearly 20 years on?

That it is important to work at the local level as well as national level. SCP started working at city level. Soon it became obvious, however, that to scale up the results, the national government had to recognize and approve the approach. It is at the national level that valuable lessons learned can trickle down to other municipalities as experienced in Oyo State, Nigeria.

It takes time to change how a city is governed The aim of SCP/LA21 was to change the way things were done – to make urban governance more participatory, more transparent and more strategic. This was only possible after many little steps of trust-building and small successes.

Therefore most SCP/LA21 projects lasted longer then the anticipated three years as

UN-HABITAT and UNEP

OPINION

Collaborations Climate knowledge is the foundation for the development of an effective response to the climate change challenge. The UN system plays a central role in this area, bringing together global resources for observation and analysis of climate change trends.

It is committed to reinforcing its efforts to provide sound and unbiased scientific information and climate services to enable evidence-based policy and decision making at all levels.

UN-HABITAT works closely with its sister agencies in the following areas:

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

PHOTO © GEOF WILSON

illustrated by the Urban Authority Support Unit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Link the local and the global For a better implementation of international treaties, but also for better implementable treaties, the local and global levels in the field of urban environment need to be connected.

As the ICLEI Secretary-General, Konrad Otto-Zimmermann states: “National governments can get substantial support in reaching their GHG reduction targets if they empower municipalities to act on climate.

They are well advised to recognize local action in their national climate plans.”

UN-HABITAT’s long-standing experience in dealing with sustainable urban development, specifically through this experience, and the organization’s tried and tested capacity-building tools, will benefit the global Sustainable Urban Development Network (SUD-Net) and its component, the Cities in Climate Change Initiative (CCCI).

SUD-Net further develops an understanding and application of the principles of sustainable urbanization, at global, regional, national and city level. CCCI will more specifically develop, adapt and make available the necessary methodologies that will provide city managers and practitioners with guidelines on how to best cope with climate change. For further information, contact the UN-HABITAT Urban Environmental Planning Branch by sending an e-mail to uepb@unhabitat.org, or see the website, www.unhabitat.org/scp u

- Support for national planning for adaptation, particularly for the Least Developed Countries through the UN’s National Adaptation Programmes of Action.

- Capacity development for national and local policy makers in addressing climate change-related challenges through workshops and seminars at the local, national and regional levels. This includes raising awareness, and providing georeferenced demographic and socio-economic data, particularly for cities and about cities.

- Technology transfer through handbooks and training; providing policy support and technical assistance for climate-friendly urban infrastructure investment at the public and private levels.

At the fourth session of the World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China in November, UNEP and UN-HABITAT jointly arranged a seminar on Cities and Climate Change: the road from Bali to Copenhagen. Participants discussed a Local Government Climate Roadmap process from Bali to Copenhagen with the objective of strengthening the role of local governments in the post-2012 climate agreement. There were also lively discussions on practical measures to address climate change through urban environmental planning, and innovative ways of mobilizing finance and technological solutions.

“The world’s cities, which account for 80 percent of humanity’s production of greenhouse gases, recognize that inaction is not an option. Mayors of the world’s cities are the great pragmatists on the world’s stage.

Results, not ideology, are what matter to us.”

Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City.

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Climate change

OPINION

Why governments are wrong about climate change In this article reproduced with the kind permission of Project Syndicate 2009, Bjørn Lomborg, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, offers a contrarian view on the climate change debate. Prof. Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. He is the organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus.

Profesor Bjørn Lomborg

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resident Barack Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father reveals a lot about the way we view the world’s problems. Obama is in Kenya and wants to go on a safari. His Kenyan sister Auma chides him for behaving like a neocolonialist: “Why should all that land be set aside for tourists when it could be used for farming?

These wazungu [white people] care more about one dead elephant than they do for a hundred black children.” Although he

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PHOTO © EMIL JUPIN

Eradication of malaria should be a priority

ends up going on safari, Obama has no answer to her question.

That anecdote has parallels with the current preoccupation with global warming.

Many people – including America’s new president – believe that global warming is the preeminent issue of our time, and that cutting CO2 emissions is one of the most virtuous things we can do.

To stretch the metaphor a little, this seems like building ever-larger safari parks instead of creating more farms to feed the hungry.

PHOTO © JANICE BOVANKOVICH

Make no mistake: global warming is real, and it is caused by our CO2 emissions. The problem is that even global, draconian, and hugely costly CO2 reductions will have virtually no impact on the temperature by midcentury.

Instead of ineffective and costly cuts, we should focus much more on our good climate intentions of dramatic increases in zero-carbon energy, which would fix the climate towards mid-century at low cost. But, more importantly for most of the planet’s

Climate change

citizens, global warming simply exacerbates existing problems – problems that we do not take seriously today.

Consider malaria. Models show global warming will increase the incidence of malaria by about three percent by the end of the century, because mosquitoes are more likely to survive when the world gets hotter.

But malaria is much more strongly related to health infrastructure and general wealth than it is to temperature. Rich people rarely contract malaria or die from it; poor people do.

Tackling nearly 100 percent of today’s malaria problem would cost just one-sixtieth of the price of the Kyoto Protocol. Put another way, for each person saved from malaria by cutting CO2 emissions, direct malaria policies could have saved USD 36,000.

Of course, carbon cuts are not designed only to tackle malaria. But, for every problem that global warming will exacerbate – hurricanes, hunger, flooding – we could achieve tremendously more through cheaper, direct policies today.

The world is waiting to see Obama’s response to climate change

Strong carbon cuts could avert about 0.2 percent of the malaria incidence in a hundred years.

The cheerleaders for such action are loud and multitudinous, and mostly come from the rich world, unaffected by malaria.

The other option is simply to prioritize eradication of malaria today. It would be relatively cheap and simple, involving expanded distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, more preventive treatment for pregnant women, increased use of the maligned pesticide DDT, and support for poor nations that cannot afford the best new therapies.

PHOTO © STEVE JURVETSON

For example, adequately maintained levees and better evacuation services, not lower carbon emissions, would have minimized the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.

During the 2004 hurricane season, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, both occupying the same island, provided a powerful lesson.

In the Dominican Republic, which has invested in hurricane shelters and emergency evacuation networks, the death toll was fewer than 10. In Haiti, which lacks such policies,

OPINION

2,000 died. Haitians were a hundred times more likely to die in an equivalent storm than Dominicans.

Obama’s election has raised hopes for a massive commitment to carbon cuts and vast spending on renewable energy to save the world – especially developing nations.

As Obama’s Kenyan sister might attest, this could be an expensive indulgence. Some believe Obama should follow the lead of the European Union, which has committed itself to the ambitious goal of cutting carbon emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels within 12 years by using renewable energy.

This alone will probably cost more than one percent of GDP. Even if the entire world followed suit, the net effect would be to reduce global temperatures by one-20th of one degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The cost could be a staggering USD 10 trillion.

Germany has subsidized solar panels, as some hope Obama might. Thus, everybody, including the poor, pays taxes so that mostly wealthier beneficiaries can feel greener. But climate models demonstrate that Germany’s USD 156 billion expense will delay warming by just one hour at the end of the century. For one-50th of that cost, we could provide essential micronutrients for two to three billion people, thereby preventing perhaps a million deaths and making half the world’s population mentally and physically much stronger.

Again and again, we seem to choose the dubious luxury of another safari park over the prosaic benefits offered by an extra farm.

Most economic models show that the total damage imposed by global warming by the end of the century will be about three percent of GDP. This is not trivial, but nor is it the end of the world. By the end of the century, the United Nations expects the average person to be 1,400 percent richer than today.

An African safari trip once confronted America’s new president with a question he could not answer: why the rich world prized elephants over African children.

Today’s version of that question is: why will richer nations spend obscene amounts of money on climate change, achieving next to nothing in 100 years, when we could do so much good for mankind today for much less money?

The world will be watching to hear Obama’s answer. u

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COVER STORY

Climate change

Are cities really to blame?

The Clinton Climate Initiative says that cities produce 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) write David Dodman and David Satterthwaite. These two distinguished researchers of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) question whether we really do have an accurate picture.

Cities are said to consume 75 percent of the world’s energy

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ccording to our calculations, drawing on the most recent figures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), cities produce between 30 and 41 percent of these emissions. But actually, the data do not exist to provide an accurate figure which is probably why the IPCC made no estimates for the relative roles of cities, other urban centres and rural areas.

To arrive at any figure for the contribution of cities to GHGs from human activities, some heroic assumptions have to be made. We are clear about the assumptions we made to arrive at the figure of between 30 and 40 percent.

To claim that 80 percent of such emissions come from cities is always a puzzling statistic when 30 percent of emissions come from agriculture and deforestation (almost all of which is outside cities). So perhaps cities account for all other emissions and so contribute to 70 percent of total emissions. But this cannot be correct as there are all the other sources of emissions that are not in cities but in rural areas or in urban centres too small to be considered cities - including many coal, oil and gas fired power stations, many heavy industries and a large percentage of wealthy, high-consumption households. In high-income nations, a large part of the wealthy population do not live in cities. This helps explain why cities in high-income nations have much lower levels of GHGs per person than the average figure for their nation.

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Confusion and limitations The high estimates for the role of cities in global GHGs may be muddling up fossil fuel burning with greenhouse gas emissions. IPCC figures for 2004 suggest that carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use accounted for 57 percent of global anthropogenic GHGs. So cities may have 70 percent of fossil fuel combustion but this would mean around 40 percent of all GHGs. The figures that overstate the role of cities in global emissions may be making false assumptions. For instance, they may be assuming that all industries and power stations are in cities.

Or they may be muddling up ‘cities’ with ‘urban centres’ (a considerable part of the world’s urban population live in urban centres too small to be considered cities). When cities are said to consume 75 percent of the world’s energy, it would be interesting to know what proportion of emissions from industries and power stations are assumed to be within ‘cities’.

Any attempt at creating a globally comparable emissions index for cities is confounded by boundary issues. It is difficult to compare even relatively simple data – such as population figures – between cities, because of the different measures used to identify these. Are figures for an historic administrative area, the contiguous built-up area, or the larger municipal or metropolitan area which may contain substantial areas of open countryside?

PHOTO © ADAM JAKUBIAK

From production to consumptionbased analyses But it is not cities, other urban centres or rural areas that produce GHGs, but particular activities located there. It is also confusing to assign all such emissions to particular places.

Most large coal-powered power stations may be outside cities but much of the electricity they produce is used in cities. Large airports are used by far more than the population living in that city – so should the city where they are located get allocated all the aircraft fuel that they use?

If we choose to allocate GHGs not to where they are produced but to the home of the people whose consumption led to these emissions, the entire picture changes. So emissions from, say, the steel plant are not allocated to the place where the plant is located but to the home of the person who bought and uses the goods into which the steel went. Using this kind of GHG accounting system would mean wealthy cities such as London, New York or Tokyo suddenly have much higher emissions per person because most of the goods consumed by their inhabitants are made elsewhere.

The big manufacturing cities in, for instance, China, would have much lower levels of emissions because most of their GHGs are from their industries and these would now be allocated to the cities where those who bought these goods

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Comparing cities and their nations for greenhouse gas emissions per person

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GHG emissions per capita

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USA District of Columbia

15 UK SPAIN

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Glasgow New York

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London Barcelona

Rio de Janeiro Sao Paulo

0 Source: Dodman, David (2009), “Blaming cities for climate change? An analysis of urban greenhouse gas emissions inventories”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 21, No 1.

live. The same can be done for electricity – with the GHGs from power stations being allocated to the homes of the people or the businesses and institutions that consumed the electricity. Similarly, GHGs from travel get allocated to the person who does the travelling (or to where they live). Emissions from agriculture and deforestation get allocated to the persons who consumed the food or wood products. Under this kind of scheme, cities may account for 60 or more percent of all GHGs – although this is a bit misleading because most of these emissions are from a relatively small proportion of the world’s cities which are the most prosperous ones with the most inhabitants with high-consumption lifestyles.

So here too, it is not cities in general but a small proportion of cities that account for most GHGs. However, even here, a very large part of the consumption-driven emissions would come from wealthy households living outside cities – in urban centres too small to be considered cities and in rural areas. Generally, a wealthy rural household will have higher GHGs than a comparably wealthy city-based household because of greater private automobile use and generally larger heating and cooling demands from their homes.

This consumption-based accounting would also produce even larger differentials between cities in per capita emissions. Cities that con-

centrate wealthy people with high-consumption lifestyles would probably have GHGs per person that were thousands of times larger than most small urban centres in low-income nations.

Inter-city and intra-city differentials But it is not cities in general but particular cities that have high per capita GHG emissions. Most cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America still have low emission-levels per person; most cities in the least developed countries are likely to have between a twentieth and a hundredth of the emissions per person of say, New York or London.

However, it can be misleading to focus on city averages for per capita figures in that there will be very large differentials within cities. Since the poorest households have very small per capita emissions, the differentials between the individuals with the highest and the lowest per capita emissions are going to be very large.

Do we see cities as problems or solutions?

One justification for emphasizing the very large role of cities in GHGs (including greatly overstating it) is to pay more attention to cities.

This is much needed, given how little attention has been given to the role of cities in economic and social development. But it would seem

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counterproductive to over-state their contribution to GHGs as this diverts attention from the real problem – the high-consumption lifestyles and life-choices of a relatively small proportion of the world’s population, most but not all of whom live in high-income nations.

It also draws attention away from the very large differentials in average GHGs per person between cities and within cities.

Finally, focusing on cities in low- and middle-income nations as large GHG emitters (when most are not large emitters) produces the wrong agenda for change. Most of the cities most at risk from the impacts of global warming are in low- and middleincome nations, and it is generally among their low-income populations that risks are concentrated. So these are cities that contribute very little to GHGs but which are far more at risk from the global warming created

by GHGs. What is so urgently needed for cities and other urban centres in low-income nations is a focus on adaptation, including getting the protective infrastructure in place so their populations are not seriously impacted by more extreme weather or sea level rise or constraints on fresh water supplies.

But perhaps worse than this, blaming cities for most GHGs misses the point that well-planned and governed cities are central to delinking a high quality of life from high levels of consumption (and so high GHG emissions). This can be seen in part in the very large differentials between wealthy cities in gasoline use per person. Most US cities have three to five times the gasoline use per person of most European cities – and it is difficult to see that Detroit has five times the quality of life of Copenhagen or Amsterdam. Singapore has one-fifth of the automobile ownership per person of most cities in other high-income nations, yet also has a higher income per person. It is also evident in the fact that many cities in high-income nations have GHGs per person that are far below their national averages.

Cities have long been places of social, cultural economic and political innovation, and indeed, in high-income nations, city politicians often demonstrate a greater commitment to GHG reduction than do national politicians.

Achieving the needed reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions depends on seeing this potential of cities to combine high quality of life with low greenhouse gas emissions and acting on it. u

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Our future is in your hands There are few places in the world where people are more terriďŹ ed of climate change and its impacts than on small islands. Here, the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, Hon. Apisai Ielemia, speaks out in this article adapted from a speech delivered at the 14th Conference of the Parties held in Poznan, Poland in December 2008 under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC).

Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, Hon. Apisai Ielemia

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UN PHOTO Š MARCO CASTRO

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very year it becomes more and more evident that climate change is upon us. We, the Pacific island peoples, have consistently over the years been expressing our concerns over the threats posed by climate change. And we have called for increased adaptation and mitigation efforts, including global reductions to greenhouse gas emissions.

Recent scientific evidence on ice sheet melting and ocean acidification suggests that we must act more rapidly before it is too late for countries like Tuvalu. Our future is in your hands.

The months of this year will be crucial in establishing a new climate change regime. I would like to highlight five key issues that we believe are necessary to tackle climate change. It is critical that we have the [world’s] support in ensuring that together we effectively address the threats posed by climate change.

Second, we must use the commitments made in the Kyoto Protocol to contribute towards funding adaptation. We must use a share of the proceeds from the allocation of emission targets in Annex One Parties to provide a new revenue stream for adaptation. This is critical. For extremely vulnerable countries like Tuvalu, we need guaranteed and substantial sources of income for adaptation. Handouts from aid budgets will not be sufficient.

The Adaptation Fund, in this regard, is the survival fund for Tuvalu and many others. Small Island Developing States like Tuvalu need direct access and expeditious disbursement of funding for real adaptation, urgently, because we are suffering already from effects of climate change.

How else can we say it more clearly!

“Unlike the economic crisis which originated from a lack of transparency and a failure of regulation and which may be corrected by anticyclical fiscal stimulus packages, climate change is not a phenomenon which will work its way through an economic cycle. Lack of action will make things irreversibly worse, will cause more human suffering and will be even more expensive to solve in the longer term.” President Bharrat Jagdeo of the Republic of Guyana On the issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we believe that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach by all major emitting countries. For those large emitting developing countries we acknowledge the need for development. But we need assurance that development does not cause other countries, like ours, to suffer. We cannot sink while others rise. Given our extreme vulnerability as a small, low-lying atoll country, we must not sink from the problems caused by the big and industrialized countries.

First, we believe that the Kyoto Protocol should be strengthened. This can only be done by the industrialised countries, known as Annex One, taking deep emission reductions during the next commitment period. The architecture of the Kyoto Protocol must remain.

Yet it appears that some key industrialized countries are trying to make the Adaptation Fund inaccessible to those most in need. I am compelled to write that we are deeply disappointed with the manner some of our partners are burying us in red tape. This is totally unacceptable.

The most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change must be able to access this fund without delay. We do not want the Adaptation Fund to turn into all the other funds administered by the Global Environment Facility, where the only countries that can properly access the funds are the ones that can afford consultants and UN agencies to write lengthy and endless project proposals and work their way through metres of red tape and survive lengthy delays.

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Thus my third proposal is that we must negotiate a new international legal instrument to ensure that developed countries who are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol take deep emission reduction targets. In particular, we are looking to the United States to step out of the dark ages of inaction and become a leading light on climate change. I certainly hope that President Barack Obama will lead his country into a new enlightened period of global responsibility and stewardship.

We are seeking substantial emission reduction targets from the United States. It must provide a comparable effort with Kyoto Protocol Parties. The United States has a lot of catching up to do.

Therefore we must create a process to allow major emitting developing countries to take targets to reduce their emissions well below their current emission trajectories. We need a global response to climate change and we need all major greenhouse gas emitters in the world to contribute to a global response.

Fourth, we need a new arrangement for least developed countries and small island developing states to pursue a low-carbon future. We need strong international assistance to allow us to develop and deploy renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies so that we are guaranteed energy security. We cannot afford to be held hostage to continual leaps in the price of imported fuels.

Fifth, we seek a new arrangement for adaptation under the new legal agreement we will agree upon in Copenhagen at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December this year. This new agreement on adaptation should provide new finance over and above any new arrangements developed under the Kyoto Protocol.

We envisage that the United States and major developing countries will contribute to this arrangement. Within this new arrangement on adaptation we are seeking a new international regime on insurance to ensure that the countries that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are able to recover from these impacts.

It is our belief that Tuvalu, as a nation, has a right to exist forever. It is our basic human right. We are not contemplating migration. We are a proud nation of people with a unique culture which cannot be relocated somewhere else. We want to survive as a people and a nation. We will survive. It is our fundamental right. u

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Climate change

The challenge for Africa’s cities Along with all the development problems confronting African cities, they are under-resourced and ill prepared to cope with the hazards of Global Environment Change (GEC). Here leading experts*, David Simon and Cheikh Guèye, explain some of the challenges.

Low-income housing in Africa is threatened by climate change

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PHOTO © DAVID SIMON

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PHOTO © DAVID SIMON

Homes in the low-lying area of Bariga are under threat from rising sea levels

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n poorer countries, Global Environment Change represents a fundamental development and an environment and governance challenge that threatens to undermine all recent development gains and to increase human poverty and vulnerability.

Addressing the skills, knowledge and resource gaps is therefore an urgent priority. Cities represent key concentrations of wealth, power, infrastructure and economic dynamism which can be harnessed in the search for solutions.

Conversely, they also have concentrations of poverty, and the problems that go with it.

Effective urban action to mitigate the impacts of and to adapt behaviour to their changing realities requires a good understanding of the complex interactions

of causes and effects in order to identify the groups and areas most at risk, and to formulate appropriate strategies.

The key priorities should be the most vulnerable (usually poor) people living in the most vulnerable localities such as low-lying or steeply-sloping land. There is still time to plan for Global Environment Change by integrating appropriate changes into relevant plans and actions. Simply adding these to shopping lists for donor funding will not be adequate.

Coastal and inland cities face different combinations of risks. Inundation from sea level rise and overwash of low-lying areas during storm surges, along with salinization of the water table, are particular coastal problems. Heat islands and intensified local winds may be more severe for inland urban areas. Security of fresh water and adequate

food supplies are likely to be problematic everywhere affected by increasing temperatures and falling rainfall.

In Senegal, for example, agricultural failure is already contributing to increased rural-urban migration. These challenges also underline the importance of understanding city functioning as part of broader systems rather than as self-sufficient entities.

To most people in Senegalese capital, Dakar, home to some 2.5 million people, Global Environment Change represents something that is both distant, due to the number of immediate priorities related to widespread poverty, and at the same time very close when we see the powerful impact of GEC in some areas.

The government’s political will to address any given issue is commonly measured by the presence of that issue in the

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discourse of President Abdoulaye Wade on emerging themes. Faced with the worst floods that Dakar has ever known, he has recently announced an ambitious and unprecedented initiative: the Plan Jaxaay. This plan allows for the relocation of entire suburban neighbourhoods into thousands of homes built largely with state subsidies.

Rufisque East in metropolitan Dakar is symbolic of the type of disaster that could in future affect the inhabitants of African cities. This city’s centenary cemetery (in the Lébougui neighbourhood of Thiawlène) has been partly destroyed by the fury of waves and the encroachment of the sea that has already engulfed the neighbourhood mosque and entire houses.

Bargny Guedj, another area near Rufisque, has experienced the same problems. Farther south, the town of San-

gomar, has become an island through erosion of its land bridge to the mainland. Inappropriate low-income housing in the sprawling peri-urban fringe beyond the airport is also threatened (See photo on page 17).

These cases exemplify what will happen increasingly in years to come both in Senegal and some of its West African neighbours like Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria. Real strategies to anticipate and manage risks do not yet exist.

A sea wall is the only measure that has been implemented in Rufisque.

For example, the newly constructed Bar Beach promenade on Victoria Island at the mouth of Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria was not designed to cope with likely sea level rises of 30-50 cm during this century. It also does not protect the numerous densely populated, low-lying areas of the city around the lagoon

like Bariga, where poor residents are very vulnerable. Similar examples exist across Africa. It is inevitable that, in addition to all their existing development challenges, African cities will face the effects of climate change, for which they remain under-resourced and ill prepared. u

*David Simon, Professor of Development Geography and Head of Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, is Chair of the UK National Committee on the Human Dimensions of GEC. Cheikh Guèye is in charge of Prospective and Convergence at the Executive Secretariat of the NGO ENDA-Tiers Monde in Dakar, Senegal.

Both are serving members of the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) core project on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change.

Putting urban vulnerability on the international agenda Michail Fragkias, Executive Officer, International Human Dimensions Programme, Urbanization and Global Environmental Change project, reports back on two recent international workshops organized by the IHDP and its partners – UN-HABITAT, ENDA-Tiers Monde, the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, and the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

The joint conclusions of scholars and mayors and their advisors suggested strong interest in collaboration with local and international initiatives to combat the adverse effects of climate change and increase the resilience of cities to climate change.

Concerns over drought, sea level rise, coastal erosion and land use change were raised frequently. But agreeing on the necessity to incorporate environmental concerns is not enough because the main challenge is convincing leaders and politicians.

There exists a need for a good balance between responsibilities at local, regional, national and international level – a shared responsibility.

They found a striking imbalance in the governance decentralization process: while more responsibility is being devolved to the local authorities, this is not being matched by adequate resources.

Mayors identified specifically the difficulty of utilizing human resources: some key skills did not exist or were inadequate but others (such as the basic one of environmental management) do

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exist but deployment is hampered by the funding problems.

Finally, there is a mandate to move ahead: mayors agreed that even small steps can help create momentum for change. The truly responsive actors and agents of change exist at the local level. Mayors are prepared to move forward once they get funding associated with policy changes that could build improved resilience in their cities.

Both workshops identified a pressing need for additional emphasis on adaptation to climate change in cities. A collaboration of local and international institutions is critical for strengthening local responses to climate change.

Practitioners also suggested the need for a better coordination and organization of capacity building initiatives. Local development plans are a good entry point for integrating climate change aspects into local planning.

There was consensus that we now face a pressing need for the development of new initiatives and programmes for climate change and cities in the global south.

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How construction is vital to reducing emissions UN-HABITAT has an important role in supporting institutions, professionals and the private sector in the housing and construction sector to mitigate climate change, writes Mohamed El Sioufi, Head of UN-HABITAT’s Shelter Branch.

Most greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings’ heating, air-conditioning and lighting

PHOTO © TINOU BAO

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inistries of construction, municipalities, physical planners, architects and the construction sector have a pivotal role in mitigating climate change Urban greenhouse gases (GHG) are emitted mainly from buildings, industry, and transportation. It is estimated that buildings use up to 40 percent of energy and emit about 30 percent of greenhouse gases during their life cycle.

The building life cycle Urban planning and design provide the framework in which buildings are set while architectural design is the conceptualization of how buildings are shaped, built and utilized. Buildings consume energy and emit GHGs during their life cycle.

Beginning with the excavation of raw materials, the production of building materials, the construction and, most importantly, the utilization of the buildings ending with their demolition. Climatic conditions are key in determining the amounts of energy used by buildings and their emissions.

Urban environmental planning and design Environmental urban planning and urban design play important roles in saving energy and reducing GHGs. Compact cities enable people to walk, use non-motorized transport, enjoy effective public transit systems and thus reduce commuting distances and emissions.

Environmental issues, when taken into consideration during the urban design phase, impact more directly on buildings with regard to orientation exposure to or protection from the sun and wind depending on climate. Water and waste management also need to be considered in a more planned and efficient way.

Both urban planning and design are the responsibility of physical planners and are regulated by municipalities. All should strengthen urban climate change mitigation.

Architectural design Architecture has now moved to respond here.

The new trends have a variety of names – Passive, Sustainable, Green, Emerald, Eco, Environmental…. Architecture or Buildings.

Some of these trends revive traditional indigenous wisdom used over the centuries to mitigate against harsh climatic conditions on buildings. Walls and roofs, for example, or

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shading devices on buildings can be designed for better insulation to reduce heat loss in cold climates and keep it out in hot climates.

Architects and architecture schools are encouraged to produce new designs that will contribute to climate change mitigation. These new designs need also to address the issues of urban poverty and consider low-cost building materials and technologies. Municipal capacities should be strengthened to regulate the types of buildings under their jurisdiction through building licenses for new buildings or retrofitting those that are inefficient.

Construction When it comes to the selection and use of construction materials, importing those that need to be brought is a major cause of transport emissions. Therefore the use of local materials and the proper natural resource management are important. In the case of the use of concrete, about three-quarters of the carbon emissions emanate from on-site production, and efforts to convert cement plants so that this is reduced to one quarter must be studied.

In moderate climates, where most developed countries are located, there is little need for cooling and heating. But the use of energy and GHG emissions in the life cycle of the buildings peak in the construction phase.

Where bricks and tiles are produced by burning clay for example, GHG emissions are significant. In fact there is usually a double jeopardy from this practice: firstly, wood or charcoal is frequently used to fuel inefficient furnaces. Secondly, vital carbon sinks are reduced because of deforestation. This situation is exacerbated in the case of displacement of large numbers of people in post-crisis situations where there is a need for shelter and the only materials available are trees resulting in deforestation and desertification.

Ministries of housing, construction and industry, bureaus of standards, the private sector, architects and others have an important role in promoting this agenda. Building material production licenses help ensure quality and thus lower emission during construction.

Technologies such as stabilized soil blocks produced through labour-intensive hand presses achieve zero emissions and should be encouraged. Production of construction materials close to the building site reduces transport emissions. These concepts need careful planning and by architects and builders. In

“In the case of the use of concrete, about three-quarters of the carbon emissions emanate from on-site production, and efforts to convert cement plants so that this is reduced to one quarter must be studied.” the case of population displacement, relief agencies have to provide sustainable shelter alternatives.

Building use and management Most greenhouse gas emissions come from heating, air-conditioning and lighting. If the previously mentioned phases of the building cycle are climate-change-mitigation compliant, then their performance should be efficient.

In cases of existing buildings with high GHG emissions, retrofitting is a good idea.

This however, is not enough. The role of people using and managing a building is very important. A passive house needs active inhabitants who remember, for example, to turn out the lights. In developing countries, for example, high GHG emissions emanate from the use of wood and charcoal in inefficient cookers that fill homes where women and children spend a good deal of their time with unhealthy fumes. Utility companies should be encouraged to produce clean energy. Likewise energy efficient household electrical equipment. Municipalities are encouraged to utilize energy-saving bulbs in all public buildings. Penalties for wasting power could be levied through incremental billing.

Incentives While the solutions seem straightforward, there is always a cost involved. For example, renewable energy generation necessitates an initial cost that must be calculated through a life cycle analysis. Builders usually invest the minimum in construction leaving the high energy costs to the users.

Climate change

Air-conditioning does not help buildings’ efficiency

Environmental costs are also not factored in these calculations which once accounted for would show a different picture. Retrofitting building material production units to use less polluting fuels also has cost implications.

In order to overcome this it is necessary to tap into available financial incentives. Paradoxically, despite the above, none or extremely few construction plans have benefited from the Clean Development Mechanism. There is a role for UN-HABITAT to explore this and help make these funds accessible to central and local governments as well as building materials industries. The highest impact would be to address the construction industries in

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PHOTO © ROBERT DUCK

PHOTO © TINOU BAO

fast-growing countries where GHG emissions from the production of building materials and the use of buildings are significant.

The role of professionals in planning cities and designing and converting buildings using green principles can contribute significantly to mitigate climate change. On the regulatory side, ministries of housing and construction as well as local authorities that issue building licenses can all contribute positively to ensure that the state-of-the art design concepts are applied and appropriate building materials, sources of energy and other measures are utilized to reduce GHG emissions and minimize the use of non– renewable energy.

UN-HABITAT through its Shelter Initiative for Climate Change Mitigation as part of the Sustainable Urban Development Network aims at supporting various partners mentioned above in achieving significant reductions in energy use and GHG emissions in buildings and urban settings. u Born in Egypt, Mohamed El Sioufi has a doctorate in Environmental Architecture and Urban Planning. He has over 30 years of international experience advising through technical cooperation, training and teaching in the human settlements field.

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India targets young people to ďŹ ght global warming Padma Prakash, editor of the online social science portal, eSocialSciences.com, encourages young people to take up the climate change challenge and ride the green road.

The Climate Caravan aims to promote eco-friendly transport

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n January, a Climate Caravan convoy of vehicles travelled 4,000 kilometres from Chennai to New Delhi, passing through 15 Indian cities. The cars were electric with solar panelled roofs, and the truck ran on biofuel made from the Jatropha plant. They were fired up further by hand-cranked radios and a solar powered live band who travelled with them.

Quite apart from the sheer excitement of driving these cars on their longest run, the group had a more serious purpose: to turn the public gaze on how young people in all walks of life across the country are tackling global warming, mitigating its effects and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Meet the road show: Reva, the local version of the electric city car, rapidly becoming not

The Climate Caravan vehicles run on biofuel

just an eco-friendly auto option, but a symbol of youth. The travellers in the vehicles all use biodegradable materials and reusables such as clay tea cups and stitched-leaf plates.

Their entertainment – hand-cranked radios, and Solar Punch, the world’s first solar powered band.

In India, work participation rates of all groups between 18 and 29 has fallen by three to six percentage points. Young first-time job-seekers are increasingly being pushed into low end manufacturing and services jobs in the informal sector.

The young are overwhelmingly represented at the two ends of the spectrum — they are the ones with incomes and aspirations that lead to unsustainable lifestyles. They are also the ones with poor incomes working at precarious lowend jobs that contribute to ecologically unsustainable processes and practices.

Growth trajectories of mega cities like Mumbai show that the marginalized are being pushed further and further away from Main Street and Garden Suburb to reclaimed treeless landscapes of concrete blocks, brackish soil, poor drainage and services. In so many ways theirs is the kind of living that only enhances the carbon footprint. The marginalized travel longer distances to work. They have limited choices and must work where they find it.

They pursue occupations that are typically the most polluting – the unregulated factories, the small, home-based units, and as vendors swelling the ranks of the informal sector.

All this makes for a complex link between cities, youth and climate change that is not

PHOTOS © ALEXIS RINGWALD

easy to untangle or modify. The Climate Caravan is a good example of one kind of intervention: it seeks to involve young people in showcasing climate change.

There are others too. Associations and networks have sprung up to generate social and scientific knowledge on climate change and to create awareness about the wide-ranging impact of climate change. The Club of Youth Working for Environment in Ahmedabad, the South Asia Youth Environment Net set up in July 2002 with UN Environment Programme’s support and more recently the Indian Youth Climate Network.

Yet, there is much to be done in devising innovative means of adaptation to the impact of climate change. This is where groups traditionally working on employment and livelihood issues come in.

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SEWA, a member-based organization of over 70,000 women workers of all ages in the informal sector is one such. Its Clean Ahmedabad and volunteer Arogya Bhagini (health worker) campaigns to take two examples have been very successful in defining the connection between living well and securing sustainable lives.

Its members, many of whom are young women rag pickers, ensure the separation of garbage, undertake community drain cleaning, construct rainwater harvesting tanks and plastic lined ponds and are educating communities to be self-sufficient in all resources.

An estimated 2.5 percent of the urban population earns its living on the streets as vendors or in other informal occupations. Youth-led groups that focus on livelihood and employment, housing and other rights often find it difficult to include climate change issues — such as energy-efficient housing and public transport — in their livelihood and labour campaigns.

It isn’t easy to nest environmental demands within campaigns for labour, housing or health rights.

A survey in September 2002 by the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research in the Kendra Para district of Orissa showed that people felt that the frequency and intensity of droughts, floods and cyclones had increased.

It is not enough to educate people on the possible impact of global warming. They have to be trained to cope. Capacity building is what institutions and groups like the People’s Science Institute in Dehra Dun and Pukar from Mumbai do through research and action targeting and including young people. PSI set up in 1988 by a group of newly graduated engineers from Indian Institute of Technologies, has been at the forefront of disaster mitigation research and training young people on soil pollution, forestwater linkages, and food security in collaboration with local communities.

Pukar, a Mumbai research initiative offers youth fellowships that have drawn young people from the slums and tenements and injected in them the spirit of evidence-based decision-making on urban issues such as transportation options, use of open space, city governance and so on.

In the current economic downturn it will be even more difficult to resolve the tensions that arise in prioritising environment over other immediate concerns. u

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Why sustainable cities hold the key to climate change Cities are the foundation of civilizations, driving economies, progress, creativity, and implementing political imperatives. But when they fail, so can civilizations. Here, Daniel Hoornweg and Perinaz Bhada, of the World Bank’s Finance, Economics and Urban Department argue that humanity’s response to climate change will depend on, and hopefully strengthen, the relationship between citizens and their cities, and cities and their national governments.

Cities now have to address issues such as traffic congestion

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ities are increasingly leading the climate change dialogue, sometimes at odds with the position of the national government.

At the climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia in December 2007, local governments launched the World Mayors and Local Governments Climate Protection Agreement. They will play a critical role in the next round of negotiations in Copenhagen.

The link between climate change, cities and their suburbs is inextricable. While changes in farming, land-use practices and deforestation clearly impact climate dynamics, the concentration of economic production and households associated with cities, and their growing demand for products and resources, has caused most of the greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the last half century.

While it is well documented that GHG emissions increase with per capita income and city sprawl, it is also clear that cities can curb emissions effectively by increasing the efficiency of urban transport, legislating for energy-efficient buildings, and by adopting more efficiency and denser urbanization patterns.

On the other hand, it is clear that cities will bear the brunt of climate impacts. For example, more than 80 percent of the damage caused in the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina was felt in cities; and the majority of the world’s poor at threat from climate change now live in cities.

Many cities recognize that mitigation and adaptation to climate change is one of their foremost challenges. And indeed, over 880 US cities have voluntarily agreed to meet or exceed Kyoto Protocol targets.

Cities need to be at the forefront of the overall political debate as they will be called upon to play a greater role in creating awareness, initiating greening policies, and leading by example. These efforts will need to be added to today’s - at times overwhelming - challenges faced by cities as they struggle to provide adequate local services.

As local governments assume a greater role in the global response to climate change, the advocacy and endorsement of their citizens, over discussions in cafes, schools, and myriad grass-roots programmes will be critical to define humanity’s response to climate change.

Thirty-seven of the world’s largest economies are cities (see the table on page 26 – Economies based on GDP for cities and countries and annual sales for corporations). By 2050 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, and an

ever greater proportions of pollution, resource consumption, innovation, capital, higher learning, economy, culture and the arts will originate from cities.

Cities are also the world’s largest employer. The economic heft of cities is significantly greater than that of global corporations and yet far more training and salaries are provided to business leaders and management than to local governments.

Cities in developing countries are particularly challenged by climate change since most of the world’s urban growth (economic and population) is occurring there. Vulnerability to climate change includes urban populations at risk and, as emerging cities become wealthier, risk to infrastructure.

The growing vulnerability of cities is critical as climate change appears as the major challenge to the new Urban Century. Climate change will push cities to become more assertive in international negotiations; to develop networks among themselves; build trust with citizens; and most critically, especially for cities in emerging economies, concentrate on management and strengthening of local institutions.

On 4 February, 2008 some two million people peacefully marched in Bogotá, Colombia, to protest the FARC guerillas. The march was initiated

by Oscar Morales through Facebook. Today’s social networks can readily link people across communities and highlight the power of citizens and cities to quickly turn a single voice into action, a movement, and with increasing speed, a culture.

Cities need to work within a changing culture of connectivity and real-time public involvement.

If a peaceful march of millions can be started by a single person, so too can small groups foment

COVER STORY

opposition against much needed infrastructure or critical policy changes. Without effective early public consultation in today’s connected world a handful of local residents can delay and increase the costs associated with critical infrastructure programming.

Cities must better articulate the impacts associated with key economic and infrastructure decisions and build trust with the community.

Climate change will force cities to govern more broadly, fully integrate citizens within service provision, and work more closely with national governments.

As economies strain under greenhouse gas mitigation programmes and weather stresses intensify, cities still need to manage their numerous responsibilities such as land development, housing, waste management, wastewater treatment, and traffic congestion.

Effective municipal management is a prerequisite for citizens to move toward more sustainable solutions. Citizens need to be more active in infrastructure solutions such as user fees, waste separation, and shared services such as rental cars.

Sustainable development needs sustainable cities. The most critical stakeholders in delivering progress on the Millennium Development Goals are cities, especially those in developing countries.

These same cities are now being called upon to respond to climate change. During the next 30 years cities and their citizens will face an even tougher struggle to mitigate the causes of, and adapt to, increased greenhouse gas emissions. How humanity responds will define much of the rest of the Urban Century. u

PHOTO © THOMAS BUSH

Hurricane Katrina caused devastation in the Gulf of Mexico

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Climate change

Top 100 Economies: countries, cities, and companies Country/City/Company

1 United States 2 China 3 Japan 4 India 5 Germany 6 United Kingdom 7 France 8 Italy 9 Brazil 10 Russian Federation 11 Tokyo, Japan 12 New York, USA 13 Spain 14 Korea, Republic of 15 Canada 16 Mexico 17 Indonesia 18 Los Angeles, USA 19 Australia 20 Turkey 21 South Africa 22 Iran, Islamic Republic of 23 Thailand 24 Argentina 25 Netherlands 26 Poland 27 Chicago, USA 28 Paris, France 29 London, UK 30 Philippines 31 Pakistan 32 Belgium 33 Osaka/Kobe, Japan 34 Saudia Arabia 35 Colombia 36 Egypt 37 Ukraine 38 Mexico City, Mexico 39 Philadelphia, USA 40 Washington, DC, USA 41 Bangladesh 42 Boston, USA 43 Walmart 44 BP 45 Sweden 46 Switzerland 47 Austria 48 Exxon Mobil 49 Royal Dutch/Shell Group 50 Dallas/Fort Worth, USA

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GDP/Revenues (D billions PPP, 2005)

12,434 8,610 4,013 3,787 2,409 1,969 1,859 1,690 1,534 1,523 1,191 1,133 1,121 1,055 1,041 1,034 821 639 622 607 568 549 542 539 530 515 460 460 452 440 366 342 341 341 338 329 316 315 312 299 296 290 288 285 284 276 273 271 269 268

Country/City/Company

GDP/Revenues (D billions PPP, 2005)

51 Greece 52 Malaysia 53 Vietnam 54 Buenos Aires, Argentina 55 Hong Kong, China 56 San Francisco/Oakland, USA 57 Atlanta, USA 58 Houston, USA 59 Miami, USA 60 Sao Paolo, Brazil 61 Algeria 62 Seoul, South Korea 63 Toronto, Canada 64 Portugal 65 Czech Republic 66 Detroit, USA 67 General Motors 68 Romania 69 Madrid, Spain 70 Norway 71 Chile 72 Seattle, USA 73 Denmark 74 Moscow, Russia 75 DaimlerChrysler 76 Israel 77 Toyota Motor 78 Ford Motor 79 Sydney, Australia 80 Venezuela 81 Hungary 82 Finland 83 Peru 84 Phoenix, USA 85 Minneapolis, USA 86 San Diego, USA 87 General Electric 88 Total 89 ChevronTexaco 90 Ireland 91 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 92 Barcelona, Spain 93 Shangai, China 94 Nigeria 95 Melbourne, Australia 96 Istanbul, Turkey 97 Morocco 98 Denver, Usa 99 Singapore, Singapore 100 Mumbai, India

262 262 250 245 244 242 236 235 231 225 222 218 209 208 206 203 194 193 188 187 187 186 182 181 177 175 173 172 172 171 171 164 163 156 155 153 153 153 148 144 141 140 139 137 135 133 132 130 129 126

Climate change

COVER STORY

Climate change is not gender neutral Integrating gender into climate change policy at the local, national and international levels is of paramount importance. Here Lucia Kiwala, Chief of UN-HABITAT’s gender mainstreaming department, and colleagues Ansa Masaud in Geneva and Cecilia Njenga in Nairobi, explain that putting gender at the top of the climate change agenda is more important than most people realize.

A

t UN-HABITAT, the UN agency for the built environment, there is growing concern about the impacts of climate change on towns and cities around the world in an age when, for the first time now, more than half of humanity lives in urban areas.

We have learned painfully at first hand

Women are the first to suffer when disaster strikes

from disasters around the world that climate change adaptation and mitigation measures cannot be gender neutral. This is because climate change impacts are not gender neutral. (See fact box on page 29).

In this new urban era, one billion people live in urban slums. Our research shows that their

Photo Š S.Singh

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COVER STORY

Climate change

numbers are set to double in little more than a generation if current trends prevail. Everywhere, it is the slum dwellers whose homes will be swept away if floods strike or a hurricane hits.

ference of the Parties held in Poznan, Poland in December 2008 under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC). “I support your drive to

Woman can play an important role in shaping policies regarding climate change

Women and the children they support are usually the first to suffer when disaster strikes.

Yet women are also the most important agents of change at the household and community levels.

In our humanitarian work as part of the One UN country teams helping pick up the pieces after a terrible disaster, we ensure that gender is incorporated, so that we can build back better.

A woman who loses her home, after all, should not lose her inheritance, land or property rights as well.

“It is heartening to see here governments like Finland and the Global Gender and Climate Alliance bringing the voices of women to the global deliberations on climate change,” said Mrs. Tibaijuka in a speech at the 14th Con-

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PHOTO © SOFIA HENRIQUES

exchange knowhow and experiences, and most importantly, your push to translate the language of the UNFCCC so that people at the local level people can understand the implications of the decisions being taken, complex as they are.”

Women can and do make a difference.

They are knowledgeable and experienced in adaptation and mitigation strategies, natural resource management, conflict resolution and peace building. Women leaders at the national, local and community levels have already made a visible difference in natural disaster responses, both in humanitarian and post-disaster recovery.

Many slum residents around the world are often environmental refugees who have fled

from floods, droughts or other calamities in outlying areas. And in the slums themselves, the residents often live in places highly vulnerable to the impacts of disasters such as floods, and are also least able to cope with the effects. Women’s groups in these cases should be the direct beneficiaries of adaptation funds to ensure access to energy, and the protection of water catchment areas so that streams don’t run dry.

We have to increase awareness of the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women within the predominantly male world of technocrats working in this field. We must have gender responsive policy-making, planning and programming, and ensure the effective participation of women at every level if the Copenhagen climate talks in December 2009 are to be a watershed.

The solutions aside, human face of climate change must be strengthened through increased focus on women, youth and the very poor.

In many countries of developing world, declining agricultural productivity due to climate change related weather patterns and population pressures are pushing greater numbers of rural residents towards the cities.

More than a quarter of the populations of the world’s Least Developed Countries now live in urban areas. From 15 million in 1950, their numbers have jumped to 234 million today.

The nexus between rapid and chaotic urbanization and climate change has multiple impacts on highly vulnerable groups, especially women, youth and the very poor.

Look at it this way: in many households in these countries, especially in the slums, women rely on firewood for cooking fuel. Yet if cities had the capacity to deliver power, or for that matter to provide cooking gas, fewer trees would be felled. This is where the battle to save our forests starts – right in the slums!

Look at this too: women often have to risk their lives to walk long distances to fetch water or go to the toilet. Sometimes, household and human waste is simply dumped in rivers or streams. Yet if cities had the capacity to deliver better water and sanitation services, key water sources would not get contaminated, and there would be fewer health and environmental risks.

Cities spew out huge amounts of the so-called greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Seventy-five percent of global energy consumption is thought to take place in cities. At the same time, cities and local authorities in some countries hold tremendous power, leverage and

Climate change

Fast facts The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that greenhouse gases and aerosols will alter the energy balance of the climate system. Over the next two decades it is projected that there will be a warming of 0.2°C (IPCC, 2007). Climate changes are expected to have unprecedented effects on people worldwide, particularly through the increase in natural disasters. Social, economic and geographical characteristics will determine the vulnerability of people to climate change. Many studies have determined that poor women are more vulnerable to natural disasters given socially constructed gender roles and behaviour.

A study of disasters in 141 countries provided decisive evidence that gender differences in deaths from natural disasters are directly linked to women’s economic and social rights. In inequitable societies, women are more vulnerable to disasters; for example, boys are likely to receive preferential treatment in rescue efforts and both women and girls suffer more from shortages of food and economic resources in the aftermath of

disasters (Neumayer and Pluemper, 2007).

Women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men during a disaster.

In the 1991 cyclone disasters which killed 140,000 in Bangladesh, for example, 90 percent of victims were women. Similarly, in industrialized countries, more women than men died during the 2003 European heat wave. During Hurricane Katrina in the United States, African-American women, who were the poorest population in that part of the country, faced the greatest obstacles to survival. During the 2006 Indian Ocean tsunami, more women died than men – for example in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, male survivors outnumber female survivors by three or four to one (Davis et al., 2005).

Although women are disproportionately impacted by disasters and swift environmental changes, women have also contributed to curbing the impacts of climate change. Women’s knowledge and responsibilities related to natural resource management have proven to be critical to community survival.

Gender Mainstreaming in Local Authorities Since the 1980s, there has been a growing recognition of the need to ensure women’s equal access to urban public spaces. This handbook documents initiatives, which promote women’s empowerment, equal opportunities and outcomes for men and women in the development of cities and local authorities. Some are comprehensive and are based on supportive policies, while others are ad-hoc and address specific issues as a result of crises. Whatever the context, the initiatives provide lessons that others can learn from. UN-HABITAT provides technical advice, training, resource materials and support for women’s networks on gender-related work in urban development. For further information contact, gender@unhabitat.org

COVER STORY

Recommendations by women’s groups at the climate change talks The UNFCCC international Adaptation Fund must include gender considerations.

National and international adaptation plans, strategies, and budgets should mainstream gender.

Global and national studies should produce gender-differentiated data on the impacts of climate change and emphasize the capacities of men and women to adapt and mitigate climate changes. Studies should also determine the advantages of implementing gender-sensitive adaptation projects.

Governments should understand and use the knowledge and specialized skills of women in natural disaster survival and management strategies.

Women must be recognized as powerful agents of change and that their leadership is critical. Women should be included in all levels of strategies to adapt to climate change.

Women’s access to, and control over, natural resources need to be improved in order to reduce poverty and vulnerability and to ensure that women have resources to adapt properly.

Training and educational programmes for women and girls (especially in vulnerable communities) that provide general information about disasters, and strategies to cope with them should be developed.

resources to influence both the causes of climate change and the solution to advance climate protection through mitigation and adaptation.

The perspectives of women, youth, and children must inform policy, programme design and implementation at the global, national and local levels. The local knowledge and experience of women must be tapped in designing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

International gender and climate change organizations should strengthen linkages with grassroots organizations and local authorities in all countries, and especially those bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.

Human settlements planning needs to take

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COVER STORY

Climate change

UN-HABITAT in the driving seat - a strategy towards gender equality UN-HABITAT promotes the empowerment of women and gender equality in the sustainable development of cities.

By creating awareness of the different effects of urbanization on men and women and promoting gender equality, whole communities can benefit, societies can become fairer and services more effective. The Gender Equality Programme (GEP) is UN-HABITAT’s roadmap towards gender equality.

If we are to meet the global anti-poverty targets as pledged in the Millennium Development Goals, we cannot afford to overlook the needs of women and girls, who not only make up half the world’s population but represent the majority of the urban poor. To stabilize and prevent the growth of slums and promote liveable, productive cities, we need to respond to enduring gender differences and inequalities. These persist despite decades of campaigning from women’s rights organizations. For example: lWomen

Developing countries are most at risk from climate change. Road flooded in Chennai, India PHOTO © GURU THILAK

the level and type of impacts of climate variability into account. Any action to reduce the impacts of climate variability in human settlements can only succeed with an understanding of overall vulnerability – and that includes the situation of women in slums and informal settlements.

Next, we need to develop gender indicators to monitor impacts of climate change, and to ensure that planning strategies respond to the specific needs of women and men.

And finally, we must support the response capability of vulnerable groups by strengthening their assets – social, natural, physical, human, and financial. And on the latter – especially in these times of global financial crisis and economic downturn. u

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hold less than two percent of the world’s private land. lWomen in slums and informal settlements are particularly at risk of violence in public spaces. lWomen generally spend more time in slums than men, since many men leave for work in other areas. This leaves women to bear the brunt of confrontational evictions, which generally take place during the day. lWomen also have more exposure to all the attendant risks and dangers lurking in slums. lThe lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls in slums and informal settlements deters many girls from attending school, particularly after the onset of puberty.

UN-HABITAT tackles gender equality in housing and urban development through:

Compiled by Emily Wong

lAdvocacy and monitoring of gender equality in cities – Inequality between men and women has previously been under-reported due to a shortage of data on women’s situations in comparison to men’s. UN-HABITAT is promoting and developing global reports and policy guides that reflect gender differences, so that inequalities in specific areas can be identified and then addressed. lUrban

planning, governance and management — Gender-responsive policies and legislation help governments and stakeholders design and develop inclusive cities and urban services that respond better to the needs of women and men—for example in resource allocation, personal safety and security, and post-conflict and disaster reconstruction.

lAddressing inequalities in land and

housing — A woman’s right to land and housing is largely linked to marital property and inheritance rights. Women generally have more difficulty securing land and property and keeping it. UN-HABITAT works with governments to improve policy, legal and regulatory frameworks that also respond to women’s land and housing. lDeveloping

environmentallysound urban services — The agency works to improve governance and infrastructure such as clean drinking water, sanitation and waste management, transportation and power. Moreover, UN-HABITAT seeks to ensure that women are engaged in the design, management and evaluation of these services.

lImproving

finance systems for affordable housing — Promoting programmes on financing affordable housing and infrastructure for the urban poor, especially women.

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The e Citie nviron m s: Reve back ental ra to aled ce fo Wh : UN the fu y ture r the O New electric -HABIT lym AT aw pics cars rep ort: ar the will tran d win stat ners e of sform urb the worl an tran d’s citie sport s

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FEATURES

Water

India’s Gwalior a leader in development Sahana Singh, editor of Asian Water, the region’s leading magazine on water and wastewater, last year won the prestigious Developing Asia Journalism Award (2008) in the Infrastructure Category for this article* on a UN-HABITAT water project in Gwalior, India. What she saw, revealed many surprises…

“O

King, I will marry you on the condition that you arrange for water from my village to be delivered to the palace in Gwalior,” said an audacious girl to the besotted King Man Singh of Gwalior. The King acquiesced and the girl went on to become famous as Queen Mrignayani. Considerable engineering expertise was exercised to ensure that water from River Rai was delivered via an aqueduct to the palace of the assertive queen.

Water, which was the central concern of a queen in the 15th century continues to be a subject of major importance even today in the city of Gwalior situated in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Incidentally, the main source of water for the city is the Tighra Waterworks which is not far from the medieval queen’s hometown.

The historical city of Gwalior, along with three other cities in Madhya Pradesh – Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur, has been targeted by the Water for Asian Cities Programme. This programme is a collaborative initiative of the UN-HABITAT, the Government of the Netherlands and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and countries in the region for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This includes Goal seven, Target 10: to reduce by half the proportion without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.

The Water for Asian Cities Programme aims to bring clean water and better sanitation across the region

Photo © Rajendra Prasad Ravuri

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The Water for Asian Cities Programme The Water for Asian Cities Programme was officially launched during the Third World Water Forum on 18 March, 2003. Several cities in India, China, Nepal, Laos and Vietnam have been covered under this programme. In all these cities, the Programme seeks to promote propoor governance, water demand management,

Water

increased attention to environmental sanitation and income generation for the poor linked to water supply and sanitation. To achieve this, the programme aims to mobilize political will, raising awareness through advocacy, information and education; training and capacity building, by promoting new investments in the urban water and sanitation sector; and by systematic monitoring of progress towards MDGs. “A loan of USD 181 million has been approved by the ADB in the four towns of Madhya Pradesh mainly for the improvement and expansion of urban water supply, sewerage and sanitation, water drainage and solid waste management,” says Aniruddhe Mukerjee, Chief Technical Advisor, UN-HABITAT. How effective has the Water for Asian Cities Programme been?

In the Gwalior slums of Laxmanpura, Ramaji ka Pura, Subhash Nagar and New Mehragaon, a range of schemes are in various stages of completion. In order to not deter the poor with high water connection charges of Rs 750 (USD 17), they are allowed to pay in easy instalments. User charges are a flat Rs 80 (USD 1.80) per month.

From the smiling faces at Laxmanpura slum in the heart of the city, it was clear that the availability of water to drink, wash and cook had eased a number of woes. When asked whether they were using water indiscriminately on account of the flat water charges, one woman exclaims: “Of course not! We know that we should not use water wastefully. If we do that, there will be less water for others in this settlement.

We have formed a committee to keep a vigil on water wastage, so we regularly walk around to inspect.”

At the hillside slum cluster of Ramaji Ka Pura, Islampura and Subhash Nagar, some 4,000 households do not get water despite piped connections, due to low pressure. In the households where the pressure was sufficient, water was supplied for only two hours in the middle of the night. But hope is in sight thanks to UN-HABITAT and the local municipal corporation.

With considerable community participation including the active role of women, the construction of a surface water reservoir and an overhead tank along with a network of distribution lines are about to be completed.

“It will be a relief when water starts flowing,” sighs a woman. “It is such a torture to stay awake at night to fill buckets of water. Once the water starts flowing at regular timings to our

houses, we women will get more time to take up some income-generating activity like embroidery, which will ease the burden of household expenses.” Most of the men in this slum work as labourers or vendors in the city.

Woes of open defecation Open defecation in rural areas and urban slums remains a major problem faced in India over the centuries. For the rural folk, it is the norm to walk to distant fields to defecate. While men can do this at any time of the day, women need to go early in the morning before sunrise. The same unhealthy practice is being followed in most urban slums. Incidentally, many cases of sexual abuse are reported in the early mornings when women go to answer the call of nature.

Earlier efforts by financing organizations and governments to build toilets for the poor have often failed miserably because the poor, who are unused to sitting within the confines of a toilet, prefer to relieve themselves in the open. Also, they began to use toilets as storerooms to store grains and other articles, defeating the very purpose for which they were built.

It was realized by international organizations that without community participation and training, it was pointless to execute any scheme. Accordingly, the focus was shifted to educating people, especially women and children on various aspects of hygiene such as the need to defecate in allocated spaces, washing hands after toilet-use, etc. A number of demonstration toilets have been built in the slums to illustrate the benefits of having them.

The efforts to educate people seem to have borne fruit at the slums covered by the Water for Asian Cities Programme. “A scheme has been evolved whereby if a toilet costs Rs 3,000 to build, the slum dweller would need to put up Rs 1,000 in terms of labour and materials, while the remaining Rs 2,000 could be obtained from a revolving sanitation fund,” says Mr. Mohan Mudgal, Technical Advisor to UN-HABITAT. Women are at the forefront of the movement to build toilets for their households. “It is a boon to have a toilet in your own house. There is no need to get up early in the morning to walk to the fields.

We don’t have to worry about the safety of our daughters and daughters-in-law,” says a woman from the slums. Implements to build squat toilets are being provided free. A change in the mindset is evident from the enthusiasm displayed by the slum dwellers to show off their toilets.

FEATURES

Schools are spreading the word Every slum cluster has a primary school in its vicinity. Apart from regular subjects, children are being taught hygiene and good values, which are so important for the betterment of a community. Innovative ways to impart the message of hygiene include the teaching of nursery rhymes on the subject.

“We must wash our hands with soap before eating, after eating, after using the toilet, before cooking and whenever our hands get dirty,” chant the children in unison at one of the schools visited. On being asked why one should wash hands, a child quickly answers, “Because germs will get into our body and make us sick!”

“The children come back from school and teach us so many things,” smiles a proud mother at Laxmanpura. On being questioned whether she believed in an education for her daughter, she replies: “Of course. Both my daughter and son go to school.”

Many schools have rainwater harvesting facilities on their rooftops, an initiative that needs to be pursued more vigorously.

Empowering women It is evident from the confidence of women at the slums targeted by the Water for Asian Cities Programme, that the right strategies have been adopted. Being involved in all aspects of decisionmaking and giving them ownership of assets has given the women a new sense of empowerment.

The men could be seen listening deferentially to the women or making way for them to speak at various meetings.

“Women can do everything that men can do,” says one beaming woman. This leads to some jovial bantering between the men and women seated at the gathering. At a meeting in another settlement, a woman was spotted breast-feeding her baby gracefully within the confines of her saree while taking part in a debate. A sense of sisterhood prevails among the women who cooperate with each other to get tasks done.

“We are saving money for the hard days,” says one woman, showing her bank pass book with a total of Rs 500 in her account. When any one of us needs money for some urgent expenses, we lend to each other,” says another woman.

Mayor says social component is important A visit to the Mayor’s office located in an elegant building dating to medieval times, revealed a person who is deeply involved in

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FEATURES

Water

Gwalior slums fast facts Even in a small city like Gwalior, there are 230 slums. The WAC programme has only covered 16 slums so far. In the other three urban centres of Madhya Pradesh under the purview of the Programme, the number of uncovered slums is even greater. Besides, the four cities of Madhya Pradesh are just a miniscule fraction of India – a country bursting with over one billion people, and 22 percent below the poverty line. Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, the world’s largest, is home to one million people.

The Slum Environmental Sanitation Initiative in 16 Gwalior slums has helped about 5,000 households (25,000 people), with water and sanitation facilities.

The Management System for Community Toilets at Laxmanpura developed under the Water for Asian Cities Programme was shortlisted as a model for best practices on sanitation for National Urban Water Awards 2008 instituted by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

Under the Community Managed Water Supply Scheme in Ramaji ka Pura a distribution network to provide water to 1,200 households (about 6,000 people) has been completed.

The system is being successfully operated and managed by the Community Water and Sanitation Committee. The residents are getting water for a fixed monthly fee. A community managed sewage scheme has also been completed with support from UN-HABITAT under the Water for Asian Cities Programme.

It benefits 2,500 households.

Other initiatives being implemented

by Gwalior Municipal Corporation in partnership with UN-HABITAT include the renovation of 10 community toilets serving some 5,000 people; a community movement of more than 300 residential and welfare assisociations mobilized to improve water and sanitation and awareness in Gwalior’s slums.

water and sanitation issues. “A lot of work has been done to improve the situation in our city, but a lot more needs to be done,” admits Mr. V.N.Shejwalkar, the Mayor of Gwalior. “We must increase the capacity of treatment plants.

We need to move with the times and have modern tools for monitoring. We must carry out 100 percent metering. At the moment, we only charge flat rates for water. We also need to reduce non-revenue water. We must achieve zero open defecation.”

At present, Gwalior does not have any sewage treatment plants since sewage is directly discharged into water bodies. “We have constructing two sewage treatment plants; one in 2007, and the other in 2008,” says Mr. Shejwalkar. He adds that it was important for the social component to be included in engineering projects. “Community participation is a must,” he asserts.

WATSAN classroom An excellent initiative of the Water for Asian Cities Programme is the WATSAN (Water and Sanitation) classroom. This is a state-of-the-

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Source: UN-HABITAT

art classroom equipped to train children and teachers alike about important issues related to water and sanitation. Groups of children and teachers from schools all over Gwalior are regularly brought to this classroom. Similar classrooms have been set up in other cities covered by the Programme.

With creative posters giving a wealth of information in the local language Hindi, models illustrating the process of water treatment and an area for presentations, the classroom provides an atmosphere highly conducive for learning. There is also a stress on values related to water such as the need to pay water bills regularly and not to use water illegally. The importance of inculcating these values at an impressionable age cannot be over-emphasized.

On one wall of the classroom are some original, innocent poems related to water issues composed by children for themselves at a recent contest. At another corner of the room, an interesting experiment has been laid out. “We ask the children to leave a tap open for say five minutes and make them

The delivery of clean, running water is vital for health of slum dwellers

Photo © S.Singh

collect all the water which flows. Then we make them measure the volume. In this manner, they learn how much water is wasted each time they leave a tap running,” explains Mr. K.K. Srivastava, Manager of the Urban Water Supply and Environment Improvement Project. Indeed, the reactions of the children noted in the visitors book reveal that most of them have absorbed a great deal of information.

Community participation – the key to success It is clear that the successes of the Gwalior initiatives are due to a great deal of community participation and cooperation between a multitude of organizations, not to forget NGOs such as Sambhav and Water Aid – all working towards the same goals.

Many committed officials have taken personal interest in the project. The intensive training imparted to officials at various levels has helped to keep them focused on the goals. An integrated structure which takes into account everything from financing to motivation of individuals is evident in the programme. There was a heartening sense of optimism about the future.

Yet slums keep growing. As Dr. Kulwant Singh, Chief Technical Advisor, UN-HABITAT observes: “Supposing we achieve the Millenium Development Goals related to water and sanitation in 2015, we will still have the same number of unserved people as we do today.” u

*This article was edited to meet space restrictions. For a full version and further information see, www.asianwater.com.my or www.shpmedia.com/pub_asianwater.htm

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Housing finance

Where will the money come from now?

Misguided housing credit is the root cause of the global financial crisis writes Daniel Biau, Director of UN-HABITAT’s Technical Cooperation Division.

The construction sector is rarely placed at the centre of economic recovery policies PHOTO © DROUU

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n 7 September 2008, the two giants of American mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were de facto nationalized through the injection of USD 200 billion by the US Treasury.

Together they had a credit portfolio of over USD 5 trillion but also a rapidly increasing debt and collapsing share values.

Although the two institutions were already Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), their fall and forced nationalization was the signal and beginning of the current world crisis.

On 25 November 2008 the Federal Reserve announced that it would purchase up to USD 600 billion of their debt and troubled mortgage-backed securities. In February 2009 the Treasury announced a Financial Stability Plan of more than a trillion dollars and injected 200 new billions in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These figures have been interestingly compared with the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ODA amounted to USD 103.5 billion in 2007 (21.8 billion from the USA, 67 billion from Europe, 7.7 billion from Japan, four billion from Canada).

Root-causes of the crisis Among the many comments on the 2008 financial turmoil, the worst since 1929 and the first of a truly global nature, too little attention has been paid to the starting point of that crisis, i.e. the complete failure of the US housing finance system.

Let’s try and summarize what has happened in the United States between 2001 and 2008, noting that similar events took place in other countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain.

The root-cause is the manipulation of the housing credit system by the banking sector.

This was done basically by playing on interest rates, on down-payments and on loan reimbursement periods.

In simple terms: the banks provided lowinterest credit to middle-class borrowers, resulting in excessive indebtedness and drastic reduction of saving capacities (down to zero or even negative). At the same time, they provided high-interest credit to low-income families (the infamous sub-primes in which adjustable rates were used to hide actual rates, often above 10 percent). This combined with

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insufficient down-payments and overestimation of foreseen income growth, resulting in massive default on these loans.

Both actions were intended to promote the ownership society which has always been one of the core ideological values of the American nation (if you are not a home-owner you can’t be a good citizen; you have no roots). Artificially low-interest rates are the traditional American way to subsidize middle-class housing (and thus to limit official public subsidies) while the new high-interest strategy without serious guarantee of repayment appeared as a miraculous way to improve housing affordability to the poor.

Errors or fatality?

Why did the banks follow that risky track and why did the households fall in the trap?

For households the response is relatively straightforward. During 2001-2006 housing prices were growing much faster (more than 60 percent in five years) than prices of other goods. Therefore buying a house was seen as a good investment (they could hopefully resell their properties at a higher price, provided the upward trend continued). The demand was high both from the middle-class (very happy with low interest rates) and from poorer segments of the society (betting on their improved future and finally, through ownership, getting a slice of the American dream). But unfortunately housing prices cannot increase forever at a faster pace than inflation, simply because at a certain level the demand is saturated, it vanishes and a downward trend starts.

This happened in 2007 when house prices went down by nine percent in the country (in 2008 they went down by more than 10 percent). And it happened simultaneously with an overall credit rationing, resulting in the vicious circle which brought about the financial crash of September-October 2008.

For the banking sector the response is more complex. Indeed bankers are supposed to be smart and intelligent people. Why should they lend to insolvent clients (between two and three million families) through sub-prime mortgages totalling roughly USD 1 trillion, out of a mortgage bond market of USD 6 trillion in 2007?

On this, one finds very few explanations in the world media. Apart from rather obscure considerations on the securitization of sub-prime mortgages and on the contamination of toxic or exotic loans, it is hard to understand why

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Housing finance

financial institutions developed these particular instruments.

strongly criticized by the Wall Street Journal (in “Bailout for Billionaires”, 11 September 2008).

Selling loans The starting point was that they had too much money and needed to lend as much as possible, even by taking exaggerated risks. Second, they found complicated and uncontrolled ways of sharing these risks among themselves. This was done by reselling packages of home loans, mixing these packages to dilute the risks, and taking a profit at every step. The loans were in fact sold in the form of mortgage bonds on the expanding mortgage bond market.

Example: Brother Bank gives a loan of USD 200,000 to the Smith family, at 7 percent over 30 years. In total, the Smith will have to repay USD 480,000 or USD 16,000 per year.

Then Brother sells that loan to Sister Bank (or another investor) for USD 220,000. Brother gets a profit of USD 20,000 and moves away.

Sister Bank may keep or resell the loan. If they resell it they may make a profit; if they keep it they take the risk of faulty repayment.

That risk was to be reduced not by reselling loans one by one as in our example, but by regrouping many of them together (this is called securitization, the process through which a company like Brother Bank bundles its home loans into securities or bonds and sells them to investors), de facto auctioned on the financial market, more precisely on the mortgage bond market.

At this stage bankers were probably expecting both a miracle (good returns) and some losses. This is precisely the essence of capital investment in a market economy: taking controlled risks. They were of course expecting more returns, due to high enough interest rates, than foreclosure losses. Many banks jumped on the new tools developed by the gurus of Wall Street, those who had already imagined the junk bonds of the 1980s (culminating in the savings and loans crisis of 1987). And these banks discovered only in 2007 that the risks were much too high, that losses were getting out of control and outgrowing the returns. This was too late.

More than one million American families (precise statistics are not available) were already facing the threat of eviction because they could no longer repay their mortgages.

Fan and Fred were in deep trouble. They might have had in mind an automatic bail-out in case of difficulties. This is known as a moral hazard (abuse of the Treasury as lender of last resort),

The house of cards comes down The sub-prime sub-sector collapsed in August 2007, announcing the general financial crisis which started a year later and which affects directly all American tax-payers and indirectly all human beings of the planet. The securitization miracle did not happen. The former President of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Alan Greenspan, in a

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In October all bourses fell sharply, from Wall Street to Tokyo, from London to Shanghai, from São Paulo to Johannesburg. On that occasion many governments declared that they needed to revise completely their economic and financial policies and instruments, that an in-depth review and reform of the international financial architecture was necessary, that capitalism had to be regulated. Public opinion was dubitable: the crisis was the result of a mix of conjectural and structural causes but it

Seattle: thousands of people in the US are unable to repay their mortgages

late flash of lucidity, declared: “Securitization of home loans is the major cause of the crisis.” During the summer of 2008 trust among banks vanished, credit became scarce (the so-called credit crunch) and expensive, and the entire world entered into recession. The financial bubble burst.

was difficult to draw the line between human errors and economic fatality.

The co-founder of the Bretton Woods institutions, John Maynard Keynes, is back in force but the role of the housing finance system as the most frequent initiator of all

Housing finance

recent financial crises does not seem to be fully understood yet (The Doha Declaration of 9 December 2008 on Financing for Development does not mention housing finance anywhere in its 90 paragraphs). The fact that a house is generally the most valuable purchase a household can make in its lifetime should give policy-makers and their economists a clue. The vicious cycle housing bubble – financial crisis – economic recession seems to repeat itself with a 10 year

responsibility of governments, as suggested in the Habitat Agenda, and not be left to speculators, traders and unaccountable corporations. In fact housing finance should become a kind of public good or fictitious commodity, placed under close public scrutiny. The present time of economic recession and retraction of real estate markets could offer opportunities for radical policy reform which may be politically popular in many countries.

PHOTO © LARS SUNDSTRÖM

frequency (1987-1997-2007). It is time to break it by acting on its starting point.

Construction, engine of economic growth Housing finance and subsidies – the core of any housing policy – should be the primary

It should be founded at least on the following pillars: (i) a leading role for government though proper institutional strengthening at all levels; (ii) rehabilitation and encouragement of household savings; (iii) regulated interest rates and down-payments; (iv) public

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incentives to the expansion of rental housing, particularly for low-income groups; (v) increased and well-targeted subsidies for lower middle-classes.

Such a financial policy should go hand in hand with proper urban development policies aiming at making land affordable, reducing the cost of services by increasing density, combating spatial exclusion and improving the living environment.

So far both in the United States and in Europe, governments have designed unfocused and hybrid reforms to address the crisis. They seem to lack any strategic vision. By injecting funds into banks and large corporations to save jobs, or by reducing taxes to boost consumption, they mostly deal with the consequences of the crisis. By lowering long-term interest rates they even take new risks. In spite of some welcome attention to infrastructure investment in the US stimulus plan of February 2009 (seen as insufficient by the Nobel Economics Prize 2008, Paul Krugman), the construction sector is rarely placed at the centre of recovery policies. Instead of sprawling public money in all directions, it would be more effective to use infrastructure and housing investment as a driving force to leverage activities in other economic branches, create millions of jobs and strengthen intersectoral synergies (the well-known multiplier effect). Linking housing loans to savings, providing targeted incentives to households and developers, encouraging both rental housing and home ownership, investing in all types of environmental infrastructure, these could be the basic features of an ambitious revival strategy, modelled on what was successfully done in the 50s and 60s in Western Europe and more recently in China.

In the United States the USD 75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative launched on 18 February 2009 by President Obama to subsidize the monthly repayments of three to four million at-risk homeowners (particularly those who received sub-prime and exotic loans) should be accompanied by a complete overhaul of the housing finance system if a new bubble is to be avoided in the future.

After 25 years of neo-liberalism and deregulation, a serious discussion on infrastructure and housing finance might take place. In our global economy, this would be in the best interest of humankind for which the dream of adequate shelter for all becomes every day more illusive. u

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Construction

Canada blazes a trail in green building Environmentally friendly construction is not just a fad perpetrated by eco activists; it saves money, creates jobs and improves the quality of life for residents who live in green buildings, as well as slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Green building offers a viable solution to help combat climate change because projects do not only focus on using renewable energy, but they also aim to reduce the amount of energy used in the home and during construction. By Sarah Marks.

The award-winning Dockside Green development in Canada

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vidence from a Green Building Awareness poll conducted by Harrison Interactive in the US shows that buildings are the cause of more CO2 emissions than cars, yet not even building professionals know this. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development conducted interviews with 1,423 building professionals in eight countries (developed and developing), from late 2006 until early 2007, as part of their Energy Efficiency in Buildings project. Participants were quizzed regarding the percentage of CO2 emissions they believed came from buildings. The average response was 19 percent, which is actually less than half the correct answer of 40 percent. In the US, building professionals believed on average that buildings were responsible for just 12 percent of emissions.

Fortunately, their North American cousins seem far more aware of the impact of buildings on the carbon footprint. “In Canada 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings,” says Thomas Mueller, President of the Canada Green Building Council.

“People are so concerned with how much gas the car uses, but they should look at how much energy it costs to heat your home.”

The Council, formed in 2002, has played a vital role in advising designers, builders and developers on how to make buildings more energy efficient, and in particular, on how to adapt the US Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for Canada.

The system is now being taken up voluntarily as a standard by all tiers of the Canadian construction industry (see box). The Council aims to improve 100,000 buildings and one million homes across Canada by 2015, with a verified 50 percent reduction in energy and water use from a 2005 baseline.

A report released in September 2008 by the Canadian Urban Institute claims that Canada is now leading the green building movement worldwide.

The Council is working towards its goal in two ways: they have three pilot projects aimed at improving the energy performance of existing groups of buildings (the Green Building Performance Initiative) and they use the LEED building standards to assess and certify buildings that have meet the green standards.

“The only thing that we’re not targeting right now is existing homes,” says Mr. Mueller.

New green projects and financial viability The realisation that cars and industry are not solely to blame for our carbon footprints has led urban planners in Canada to undertake impressive new green building projects. The Dockside Green development in the city of Victoria, capital of Vancouver Island on the Pacific west coast, is a new eco-community, whose first phase, Synergy, has set a world record for the most points achieved under the new rating system.

The developers, Vancity Credit Union and Windmill West, led by visionary director Joe Van Belleghem (who is also a founding member of the Green Building Council) are aiming to achieve a LEED Platinum rating for every building in the development, which would be a first for North America. So confident are they of their project’s success that they have backed up their promise with a USD one million guarantee, to be paid to the city of Victoria should they fail to meet the target.

Dockside Green, situated on 15 acres of harbourfront industrial land, is being developed for residential, retail, office and commercial buildings. Belleghem admitted that the economic crisis has affected Dockside Green.

“From October 2007 to March 2008 the market started to slow but our sales actually went up 215 percent,” says Belleghem. “The observation from that was to ask if the market has got more selective in what they are buying?

They really started to do their research.” Belleghem adds citing a shift in values. “I think this is the time when people are going to start to say they want to be involved in projects that are addressing climate change.”

Government figures show that the cost of constructing a LEED-certified building is typically between two and four percent more than a conventional construction.

Dockside Green homes have sold to a wide range of people from countless social backgrounds, affirming Belleghem’s belief that green building is a growth industry. But the key to knowing if green building can really take off, is knowing who your buyers are – are they a solitary section of society with green interests, or is there a increasing supply of buyers ready to snap up eco-friendly homes?

Bellegham says: “A third are buying because of the attributes and a third are buying because it makes a difference when they compare our product to somebody else’s. And

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there’s a third that couldn’t care less – I find them the most intriguing – they get in there and they become environmental braggarts!”

The fact that green building remains a growth area despite the current economic climate, signifies that Dockside developers have hit upon a truly sustainable template for future growth.

Upgrading existing buildings Green building is not just about new constructions however. Canada is also undertaking retrofit programmes to improve energy usage in existing buildings. One example of this is the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Headquarters and Fleet Centre, completed in 2004. It was the first building in the province of Ontario to attain LEED Gold, and its energy consumption is 57 percent less than that of similar buildings designed to building code energy standards. That translates into an annual saving of approximately

Applying LEED standards in Canada The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system is designed as a leadership system – it targets about 20-25 percent of the leading construction companies in the market with the idea that if those 20 percent adopt it, it will pull the rest of the market with them. Gaining a rating certification costs, on average CAD 50,000, but there are savings to be made once energy usage is cut. An optimum improvement of operational practices in existing buildings adopting the standards can bring 16 to 25 percent in performance improvement.

The first phase of the pilot project has seen 500 buildings sign up covering seven million square metres. In the next phase, the Building Council will work with hospitals and universities.

“When it comes to the private sector — 40 percent of our projects are private sector projects — the private sector will adopt it voluntarily if given the right incentives,” says the Building Council’s Mueller.

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Construction

View from Dockside Green

CAD 21,800 (USD 16,895) in natural gas and electricity according to a statement by the region of Waterloo.

Despite the relative ease in obtaining funding and the consequent money saved in parallel to a reduction in energy usage, some of the problems encountered while planning and constructing the EMS headquarters indicate why green building is not more prolific. Yet the local government has formally adopted a LEED Silver standard for all new facilities it constructs.

Government backing One of the reasons for Canada’s success is that the private sector is receiving government support. The Canadian government established the Green Municipal Fund in its 2000 budget with the aim of stimulating investment in pioneering municipal environmental projects that move the progress of sustainable development forward in Canadian society.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is the mouthpiece of municipal governments and they control the Green Municipal Fund.

Ray Sullivan, the FCM Communications Manager, says: “FCM’s Green Municipal Fund can provide grants and loans to municipal governments and to their partners in the private and non-profit sectors. In each case, however, a municipal government has to be a partner in the initiative.” And there is an added incentive: “Currently, we are able to make loans to municipal governments at about one percent interest,” says Sullivan.

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Once an application for funds is submitted, it usually takes four to five months for a decision. Taking the standards of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design into account is a good way of increasing the chance of finding funding. “Currently, green building applications have to target at least LEED Silver and achieve a greater than 40 percent improvement in energy consumption compared to the Canadian Model National Energy Code for Buildings (which defines minimum requirements for energy efficiency). For applicants seeking grants and loans for retrofits, their project must reduce energy consumption by at least 30 percent. Although the Green Municipal Fund uses the LEED rating system as a standard, we also accept equivalents,” says Sullivan.

A global perspective The necessity to build sustainably has also been recognised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which announced a new ISO standard in January this year. This will help the building sector to contribute to energy saving by providing it with specific design guidelines.

“Today’s worldwide increase in efforts toward rational use of natural resources is increasing the markets for energy-efficient buildings and building equipment,” says Stephen Turner, leader of the ISO group.

“The building sector holds great prospects for energy saving through the design of buildings

with improved thermal performance and increased efficiency of mechanical equipment, as well of course through the entire range of buildings’ lifecycles.”

This raises the question why other countries are not forging ahead with green building projects at the same rate as Canada. The answer could be ignorance. As the World Business Council for Sustainable Development indicated in its report, even building professionals are unaware that buildings are responsible for a significant proportion of CO2 emissions.This ignorance may well be due to unfamiliarity: only 13 percent of survey participants had ever been involved in a green building project.

Cost plays an important role in how green a developer chooses to make a construction.

Less energy efficient heating and air conditioning for example, are generally cheaper to install, so a developer can then sell houses at a lower price.

Developers will always be motivated to answer market demands, so, until consumer demand is for energy efficient housing, the developers will keep on building less energy efficient, but cheaper housing. Fortunately in Canada, both consumer demand and standards such as LEED are tipping the balance in favour of green construction. And the fact that the government is openly supporting green building initiatives is spurring on the process through advanced education and training, development of supportive regulations, advanced research and development, and a commitment to build communities that are energy efficient, cost effective and ecologically sensitive.

To make a real impact green building has to happen on a global level. A 2007 report on buildings and climate change from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Sustainable Construction and Building Initiative (SBCI) recognizes that developing countries do not always possess the funding or tools to build greener buildings. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, says: “By some conservative estimates, the building sector worldwide could deliver emission reductions of 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2. A more aggressive energy efficiency policy might deliver over two billion tonnes or close to three times the amount scheduled to be reduced under the Kyoto Protocol.” u

Innovation and news from Europe

Energy UK companies use canals to replace aircon units A new green initiative will use London canal water and heat exchange technology to provide a more sustainable alternative to traditional air conditioning. Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, whose headquarters sit alongside one of the many canals that wind their way around London and England, aims to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 920 tonnes a year and also lower its energy bills.

Tony Hales from British Waterways which controls the 3,500km canal network believes that a further 1,000 waterside businesses across the UK could follow GlaxoSmithKline’s lead.

“A legacy of their industrial past, waterways pass alongside thousands of waterside organizations in cities from London to Bangkok, Myanmar and Dhaka, seeking greener ways of doing business,” says Hales. “More companies

Transport Eco-sculpture can reduce traffic pollution A new form of sculpture, which mixes the art world with the science, has been unveiled in Dundee, Scotland. The life-size model of a car draped in a sheet can turn toxic gases from cars back into oxygen and nitrates.

The Scottish artists who created it, Dalziel and Scullion, say that it is a UK first. “Catalyst points the way to how cities with notoriously bad air quality, from Delhi to Bangkok to Beijing, could, in the short term, mitigate some of the worst effects of airborne pollutants, ” says Louise Scullion.

The artwork is also a technical achievement in how it operates. Made of catalytic titanium dioxide, it reacts with light and triggers nitric oxides, carbon monoxide and sulphur monoxide to break apart. Materials such as nitrates drain off after a rainfall and flow into the earth for plants to use.

“In the wake of the current financial crisis, consumerism has never been more examined,” says Scullion. “At the same time ecological issues have taken a much more central position in our consciousness, environmental sustainability is no longer the topic of specialists and most people now recognize that our generation will play a critical role in shaping and adapting to an uncertain future.” u

Canals can help energy efficiency

PHOTO © GSK

can embrace and realize the benefits of utilizing their canal-side location to lower energy bills and reduce impact on the environment.”

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This first initiative replaces traditional air-conditioning systems and uses recyclable water from the canal to cool the company’s computer data centre via heat exchangers and a water-cooled chiller. It works in a similar way to a car radiator where cool air passes through the hot engine to lower its temperature. Because this results in water being returned to the canal slightly warmer, it has required an environment analysis and consent from the UK Environment Agency.

Hales believes that while this technology has been used in northern Europe, it has never before had the scope nor opportunity for its full potential to be realized with Britain’s extensive network of rivers and canals.

“The nation’s waterways have long provided a green network for boats, bikes, walkers, and wildlife but they can do even more to help Britain become a cleaner and more sustainable place,” continues Hales. “The genius of the waterways is that, 200 years after they were first built, they continue to adapt and contribute to modern society. We are only at the start of unlocking their full potential.”

Transport Ireland unveils first eco-bus

PHOTO © DUBLIN BUS

The new bus is 50 percent quieter than traditional buses

Ireland’s first ever eco-bus has hit the streets of Dublin in a three-year trial, with the aim of dramatically cutting emissions and noise.

The hybrid-electric vehicle, which is powered by an electric motor as well as a 2.4 litre diesel engine, will cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions by a third.

The new double-decker bus, which has wheelchair access, is part of a project by the Irish Government’s Transport 21 investment programme

that aims to invest in and develop greener business practices.

As well as helping the environment by reducing carbon monoxide by 97 percent, hydrocarbons by 76 percent and nitrous oxides, it will benefit residents, as the bus will be 50 percent less noisy.

The three-year trial period aims to check the bus’ reliability and maintenance requirements, to see if it is affordable to roll out vehicles across more routes throughout Ireland. u

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Innovation and news from Europe

Infrastructure Maximizing the power of the sea development will enable the plants to be based far out at sea, especially in the energy intense oceans such as the Atlantic and South Pacific.

To resolve the problem of distance, the electricity generated would be converted to hydrogen using electrolysis and then be shipped by tank ships to land.

“The infrastructure needed would be relatively simple,” says Ebner. “To keep electricity prices low it is important to reduce investment costs and also to minimize maintenance expenses. The device can be used wherever there are currents, and is a highly modular device and can be arranged in various configurations to maximize energy production.”

Captured energy is turned to hydrogen and shipped to the mainland

A new tidal power plant, to be installed in the Messina straits between Italy and Sicily, could be scaled up for ocean use within five years if the trial goes well.

The Sea Power plant, being developed by the Italian based company Fri-El Green Power, is a 500 kilowatt (kw) model and consists of submerged turbines that use the tidal currents to generate electricity.

“These tidal power plants are an economical way of producing electricity,” says Werner Ebner of Fri-El Green Power. “The system is comparatively inexpensive to build and also to maintain, not least because it is based on modules, which can also be easily transported.”

The tidal power plant consists of a floating platform which is held in place by anchors.

Attached to this platform, which generates the electricity, are four cables tied to 20 buoys placed at regular intervals. Under each buoy are the turbines which have diameters of four metres. Similar to wind turbines, the tidal variety are equipped with three rotor blades that spin at right angles to the water. As tides are quite predictable, the energy, particularly in the Messina straits, can be a reliable source of energy.

This link to the electricity grid is easy to do when the tidal plants are close to land, but future

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PHOTO © FRI -EL

Turbines under the buoys capture wave energy

Twenty buoys generate the electricity PHOTO © FRI -EL

PHOTO © FRI -EL

Opinion

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Future Megacities: Energy- and ClimateEfficient Structures in Urban Growth Centres Partnership in R&D—A Funding Priority by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research

T Sponsored statement

he messages of the latest reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are clear: climate change is happening, it is accelerating and, in its current form, it is very probably created largely by mankind.

will occur more frequently in the future, endangering human life, residential areas, infrastructures, ecological systems, economic life and public health and safety in cities. Politics, economics and institutions of civil society will be faced with new challenges.

In view of these developments, the German Federal Government has decided to take action on international climate protection and energy policy by promoting ambitious goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and by adapting to climate trends and weather extremes.

Goals

In June 2007, under German chairmanship, for the first time the G-8 Summit achieved consensus among the industrial states that global warming should be limited to a maximum of two degrees. In order to achieve this, the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases will have to be halved on a global level by 2050.

With the High-Tech Strategy for Climate Protection, the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has put in place a cornerstone of its innovation-driven, international approach to energy efficiency, climate protection and precautionary measures. Embedded within this frame, BMBF launched its funding priority on Future Megacities – energy- and climateefficient structures in urban growth centres. BMBF investments come to EUR 42 million for a five-year period.

Urban agglomerations and, in particular, megacities in developing and newly industrialising countries are important arenas for energy use and production. Although cities only take up 2% of the earth’s land surface, they are responsible for threequarters of global energy consumption as well as approximately 85% of the global production of greenhouse gases.

The underlying trend to urbanisation (with an approximate 1.8% increase per annum in the global urban population) is not stopping.

Cities not only drive climate change, they also receive the full brunt of its consequences, not least because about a fifth of the world’s population lives less than 30 kilometres from the coast in areas with a high population density. Floods, storm tides, strong winds, heavy rain as well as heat waves and droughts

Megacities offer strategic starting points for energy efficiency and climate protection. On the one hand, concentrations of people and material flows make it possible to reduce the consumption of resources. On the other hand, the functional integration of urban industries, infrastructures and networks ensures the accelerated dissemination of innovations, not least in the energy sector. In order to take advantage of this, integrative urban development is required.

Megacities are thus facing critical decisions on the direction to take. Their expansion could further fuel mankind’s energy consumption. In addition, however, innovations in technology and urban planning could help to set up sustainable structures and guidelines for energy demand and production (for instance in the residential and construction, household, traffic, industry and waste sectors), decouple economic growth and energy consumption, and take emissions at least from an exponential to a flattening growth curve.

The goal of bilateral, dynamically developing R&D co-operation projects is to analyse, plan, develop and realise in an exemplary way technical and non-technical innovations for the establishment of energy- and climate-efficient structures. These should enable the city, along with its decision makers and inhabitants, to bring about increased performance and efficiency gains in energy production, distribution and use. Likewise, consumption of resources and greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced in a sustainable way in the future.

In order to achieve the above mentioned goals the sponsored research projects of the BMBF pursue – among others – the following methodological approaches: • Research concepts are developed in close coordination with decision makers and stakeholders in the respective

urban growth centres and elaborated in the context of joint projects based on partnership and the division of work. Relevant interest groups from politics, business and society are integrated.

• The elaboration and realisation of innovative, solution-oriented planning and management concepts can, as far as possible, be transferred to other cities as cases of “good practice”.

• The integrative, multi-disciplinary bundling of competencies and capacities within a manageable framework and the creation of competence networks are required.

• The approach links up with the concept of sustainable development. Ecological, economic and social facets of the development of energy-efficient structures and climate protection are to be considered in a closed and long-term concept.

• Co-operation with enterprises from within the German economy as well as local companies is expected.

• The prospects for appropriate involvement of the partner country, as well as, where applicable, third-party funding, are promoted.

Expected results First results were presented at the World Urban Forum 4 in Nanjing (3-6 November 2008).

Team representatives from Ethiopia and Morocco alongside their German partners presented their cooperative projects on waste management and urban agriculture.

The ultimate outcome of the research will be strategies and pilot projects that show new ways for the introduction of energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres through: • technical innovations in urban infrastructure adapted to local conditions and accepted by citizens; • new forms of political decision making and governance;

Focus The projects strike a geographic as well as thematic balance. They deal with urban agglomerations in China, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Morocco, Peru, South Africa and Vietnam. Projects are aimed at specific energy- and climate-efficient structures in areas like housing and construction, nutrition and urban agriculture, public health and quality of life, urban planning and governance, direct energy supply and consumption, mobility and transport, water supply, waste treatment, and environmental management. The emphasis of the research lies on “prevention and therapy” instead of just “diagnosis”. Projects have to demonstrate that they are commendable (good practice) and transferable (best practice).

Partnership approach The above approach will only function in close co-operation with local partners. Decisions on urban development in urban growth centres need to draw on a solid foundation of scientific knowledge. Those taking the decisions must be able to take advantage of new and well adapted technologies, identify effective management

• new management instruments in urban decision making; • tools to evaluate the effectiveness of urban planning measures; • capacity building and vocational training; and • new partnerships combating climate change.

For further reading, please visit: www.bmbf.de and www.future-megacities.org

AUTHOR : ANDREA KOCH-KRAFT

Sponsored statement

• Synergies with existing or developing parallel national and international research programmes and other initiatives are to be encouraged.

tools and appraise and transfer good practice from other cities where appropriate. Scientific research and the development of adequate technologies, therefore, are key resources to widen the range of policy options for the governance of mega-urban development. Capacity building and international networking figure prominently in this programme. From the outset, stakeholders from politics, economy and society have been included to ensure that the research questions are suited to pressing, local needs. These inevitably need to be studied multi-dimensionally and, as far as possible, in an interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary fashion.

LEADERS

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Conict in Africa taking the Responsibility to Protect

March 2009

Climate change

INTERVIEW

A man for all seasons Toronto is aiming for an impressive three to five percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of one programme – the Mayor’s Tower Renewal – which will see the refit 1,000s of high-rise apartments in the city. The man behind the programme, Toronto Mayor David Miller, has now set himself a global challenge. As chairman of the C40 Cities group — formed by city mayors to exchange ideas and best practices with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions — Miller is leading the campaign to make cities more environmentally aware. By Kirsty Tuxford.

Why did you want to become Chairman of the C40 Cities group?

Because I very much believe that climate change is the challenge of our time, of all time. And the cities have a leading role and can make that change. I felt that when Mayor Livingston [the previous chairman of the C40 Cities group] lost his position as Mayor of London that it would be important to have somebody from the board that was already there who could share his passion to keep the C40 moving strongly forward as it had been.

C40 and the Clinton Climate Initiative have set up a scheme to make city buildings more energy efficient with five banks putting up USD one billion each to finance a retrofit plan for 15 participating cities. What renovations are taking place in Toronto as part of the plan?

The Clinton Climate Initiative’s partnership with the C40 is loosely based on a programme that Toronto has had for about 20 years called The Better Building Partnership,

Biography Mayor David Raymond Miller Born 26 December 1958, San Francisco, California 63rd Mayor of Toronto Chairman of the C40 Cities Group (2008 – present two-year term) Harvard University University of Toronto Law School Political party: Independent (2007 – present) Mayor David Miller

PHOTO © COURTESY OF MAYOR’S OFFICE

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Mayor’s Tower Renewal More than 1,000 concrete slab apartment blocks are undergoing a green retrofit with the aim of slashing their C02 emissions. The work involves the buildings being covered with thermal external cladding to cut down on escaping heat; the addition of more communal spaces and facilities to reduce the need for car trips; the construction of a high-speed public transport train system across the city; open spaces will be used for food production, local composting, youth training and seasonal markets and the installation of green infrastructure such as green roofs, grey water recycling, solar water heating and storm water retention amongst other initiatives.

Tower blocks will be refitted in the Mayor’s Tower Renewal project

in which we’ve done energy retrofits on public and commercial buildings. We have now connected with the C40, and expanded to private apartment buildings and to public department buildings. The programme is called Mayor’s Tower Renewal.

What we’re doing is energy retrofits, including steel cladding on concrete apartment buildings built in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Concrete has no insulating properties at all and the buildings are terrible wasters of energy. There are 2,000 such buildings in the Toronto region and the University of Toronto has estimated that if we clad them we will lower our carbon footprint and our greenhouse gas emissions by somewhere between two and five percent. With an energy retrofit you rejuvenate the building so you get a whole layer of wins: you get significant environmental improvements, significant job creation, better places for people to live and rejuvenation of poor neighbourhoods – it all comes together.

For how many years will Toronto be working on this plan?

I can’t express it in terms of a finish date.

There are two separate streams to it – one is rejuvenating our own public housing and the second is private housing. We’re further ahead

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PHOTO © COURTESY OF MAYOR’S OFFICE

with the buildings we own. We’re in a good position to do that because we’re Canada’s largest landlords – we’ve got about 140,000

“With an energy retrofit you rejuvenate the building so you get a whole layer of wins: you get significant environmental improvements, significant job creation, better places for people to live and rejuvenation of poor neighbourhoods – it all comes together.”

Mayor David Miller tenants. We recently sold our telecom utility and took CAD 75 million from that sale and put it directly into building retrofits, including energy retrofits. The private ones are just

underway, starting with four buildings, but there are 2,000 in the Toronto region. You’re looking at least a decade’s worth of work and corresponding job creation.

One of the reasons behind the creation of C40 cities was because there was a desire for faster action from governments.

Clearly there’s a need for mass community movement on climate change. Do you think the C40 message would be stronger if it were spread through the public voice?

The way we’re [C40 is] structured is that we push the individual mayors to engage the residents of their own cities. That’s a strength; something mayors can offer – they’re very good at public engagement. We participate in things like Earth Hour, which is all about that.

There are tremendous opportunities to share knowledge, share best practices, motivate people and show people what to do. If you connect them with some brains and some money to make it easier for them to know what to do, you can have some extraordinary results.

How much power do the C40 mayors have when it comes to influencing decisions made by world leaders? Are C40

Climate change

Green spaces in Toronto PHOTO © COURTESY OF MAYOR’S OFFICE

recommendations taken seriously and acted upon?

We do have significant changes [happening] because people in Canada and other C40 countries see the cities and the mayors as the ones who are acting and making change.

When we act, it encourages others to act. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Just last week we announced that we were going to require all retailers to charge for plastic bags because they’re made out of oil and they’re not a renewable resource and we need to reduce. The moment we passed the law, one of the leading national retailers announced they were doing it nationwide. Nobody was compelling them to do it.

They catch up to us, and sometimes the governments don’t even need to act. I’ll give you another example. One of the leading builders in Canada is a company called Tridel, which builds high-rise condominium apartments. We created a programme so that they as the builder could afford to build green buildings because the cost savings accrue to the purchaser not the builder. It costs more for the builder to build a green building, but less, once people buy the apartments, for them to run it. We created a programme where we gave them [Tridel] a loan to do the green work and the loan was repayable by the eventual purchaser. So they built green buildings and the purchasers got lower operating costs, and the chance to live in a green building, which is a win for everybody. The private sector has now taken that over and found a way to do it themselves – they don’t need our loans any more. These are examples of public policy initiatives that other governments took up, and actions that private businesses took over. Because the city did it, it became the national standard.

We learn from each other and sometimes we learn from cities that aren’t C40 cities in the summits, for a whole range of reasons – but this exchange of best practices is extremely significant. Although it’s not a C40 city, we took the ideas behind our energy retrofit, the Mayor’s Tower Renewal, from Chongquing, when I visited Chongquing in the spring. There were different issues – cooling the buildings, not heating them, but concrete buildings are terrible wasters of energy.

So these ideas spread virally, very powerfully, and the C40 is an instrument to do that on a world scale. There are probably 700 million people living in the city regions that are represented.

One of the aims of C40 is to create a purchasing alliance to drive down the cost of energy saving technology.

Companies such as Siemens, Johnson Controls, Honeywell and Trane have committed to increase operations and lower prices to help move the retrofit along. Do you think it would it be beneficial to include the CEOs of private sector companies as members of C40 to ensure their continued support?

I’m very supportive of mayor-led organizations because the nature of the position of mayor is that you’re required to act. That’s the job of a mayor: to make change and do it quickly. I see the chairs, CEOs or presidents of these companies as being strong partners, so I think it’s very appropriate to welcome them as partners but I think the organization should be an organization of mayors because that’s how we get things done. These kinds of companies, like Johnson Controls, really stepped up not just with C40 cities, but with other cities that have an interest. It is certainly very significant when you see a business leader take these kinds of projects to heart. That is what mayors are about. We’re about bringing together the public, the private sector and labour with the academic sector.

How often do the C40 mayors get together to discuss plans?

The board has conference calls regularly and there’s a lot of work mayor to mayor. We also have various meetings about particular issues – we recently had a conference in Tokyo

INTERVIEW

about adaptation. There is regular contact between the mayors as a whole and groups of mayors within the organization.

Does C40 work with any other agencies aside from the Clinton Climate Initiative?

Yes, I’ve appeared at OECD forums and we are in discussions with the World Bank. We partner where we can. Our interlinked partner though, is the Clinton Climate Initiative and what they have brought to the table is the ability to bring on board significant international corporations, the ability to take a great idea from one city and scale it on a massive world scale to make real change and to start work on lowering the costs on some of these opportunities – that’s the mass buying power that’s possible.

The parallel for me in the developing world is cell phones. Some countries went right from nothing to cell phones; they didn’t have to go through wire. And if we can do that on environmental issues – leap to the next standard – there are huge opportunities. They don’t start parallel – the way some countries industrialized 150 years ago was not the same way England did. And to get that great leap forward we need some of the costs for some of these – particularly renewable generating – to come down quickly. If you do that you can leap over the steps that the west took, and that’s why buying power really matters – for solar pholtovoltaic or hot water – there’s a tremendous potential if you get the costs down.

The energy retrofit programme is the best example of where we’ve got the buying costs down. And it’s only been two years since the C40 summit in New York, which was our launch really – fairly extraordinary achievements so far, but we’re working closely with the Clinton Climate Initiative to see what else can be done and we should have some announcements to make at the Seoul summit in May 2009.

The C40 Seoul Summit in May will address challenges in the fight against climate change. For cities, what would you say is the single-biggest obstacle preventing the implementation of energy-saving initiatives?

The fact that many of the tools we need are beyond our legal control. To fight climate change there are so many things you can

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Climate change

Toronto has sold off its telecom utility to fund the retrofit of buildings

actually do: it’s about the use of energy, it’s about transportation, it’s about how we distribute energy and it’s about literally how you build cities. So we can control where new buildings go but the building codes for example are often under the control of national or sub-national governments.

Cities have different abilities to control energy. Some cities have their own public utility that generates and distributes energy, some distribute, and some have no role on it. So our biggest challenge is having the national and sub-national governments be as activist as the cities are, and coordinate national, state or provincial level policies in line with our initiatives.

We’re making big impacts – you think about Mayor’s Tower Renewal and a three to five percent reduction in greenhouse gases through one programme. Extraordinary. If the national and provincial governments would harmonize their policies with ours, for example their granting programmes for energy retrofits, and make them larger, and if they would have the building codes in Ontario reflect Toronto’s green building standards, we could make lots more change quickly – and improve the economy, create jobs and lower operating costs. So that’s our biggest challenge: getting the governments to act with the same sense of urgency.

Is there always financial support for poorer cities that may not have the funds to implement plans?

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PHOTO © COURTESY OF MAYOR’S OFFICE

“We are working on a very major project to ensure that those who lead cities in the developed world can reach out directly to the developing cities.” Mayor David Miller There is. I’m not in a position to announce plans yet, but we are working on a very major project to ensure that those who lead cities in the developed world can reach out directly to the developing cities. And we’re working with some prominent international institutions on that because we want to give the opportunity to cities to make sure people start off on the right foot. But they need the funding, they need the assistance technically sometimes, and we’re working directly with some major international institutions to do that. I think that’s a unique opportunity that the C40 has, because we are cities from developed and developing worlds. We can come together, and even though the challenges the cities face may be of different magnitudes, they are similar in principle.

What are your hopes for the next five years for C40? Where do you foresee the biggest achievements?

I’d like to see projects like the building retrofit on a very significant scale in every

C40 city and commercialized in a way that building retrofits are just naturally happening through the private market in cities around the world.

I’d like to see the right kind of technological link between the cities so that we are speaking the same language about how we’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions and have the same technology available to us to measure and to reinforce our actions. And I’d like to see at the end of five years, the national governments being as active and activist as the C40 cities.

So I think if we stick together through the Copenhagen UN climate change conference this year then we will force the national governments to act the same way cities are – that’s when we will have really started to fight climate change.

We’re very much focused on Copenhagen this year, and I think there’s a tremendous opportunity in Seoul. We’re going to show the world what we’re doing. We’re going to go to Copenhagen and say to our national leaders: ‘It’s time for you to act! It’s not an issue to debate any more, it’s about action’. u

Latin America and the Caribbean

IN-FOCUS

Colombia recruits female entrepreneurs to transform housing Over the past two years, investment from multilaterals and the private sector in Colombia has not only improved living conditions but has helped develop a new class of entrepreneurs within such communities. By Richard Forster.

PHOTO © ALVARO REYES

Tiling dirt floors raises health and education levels

W

hen a North American company decides on its next move — which market to target, which brand to launch or which competitor to buy — directors face some tough choices. As they pass round the sparkling mineral water, opinions will vary. “The Nomis acquisition looks a better option. We can streamline production and reduce overhead.”

“What about the spend on R&D? The new casing we are using for impermeables has raised margins 7.2 percent.”

The majority of the population of South America and the Caribbean, some 360 million citizens, have an even tougher option: a complete lack of choice. They don’t get to choose which bank to go to because they aren’t part of the formal financial system. They may not even have identification papers so they can’t get an account or credit anyway. In fact, they can’t even choose where to live, as they have

no access to mortgage finance or even a right to a legal title to sell their existing so-called home. Mineral water? A pipedream.

Such people seem so removed from those managing large corporations that to consider that their interests might converge seems absurd. But there is now one option which could help them both — to work together.

This thinking stems from the theories of University of Michigan professor C.K. Prahalad who believes poverty can be alleviated by encouraging companies to offer goods and services to the poorest members of society while assisting such people to become entrepreneurs in their own right. It may not be right for all businesses, but as part of a strategic company review, a company may wish to consider the underserved majority population of a country or region — known as the “bottom of the investment pyramid” — as part of its future client base. This term coined by Prahalad refers to the

lowest socio-economic group in society. In the Latin America region alone this is a potential market of 360 million people estimated to be worth USD 5 trillion by Washington D.C.’s World Resources Institute. To reach such people, it means directors not only looking at the customer with new eyes, but also reviewing their whole business model.

In Prahalad-speak you have to rethink your cost structures, your distribution chain and your core competences.

One agency at the forefront of promoting such a rethink is the Inter-American Development Bank through its Opportunities for the Majority initiative. “When you think of one industry that has cracked the code of how to approach low-income markets and which has established a real business opportunity for growth and profit, I think you have to look at the cell phone industry,” says Francisco Mejia, an IDB investment officer who is working closely to promote the Initiative. “If

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Latin America and the Caribbean

you see what the cell phone industry did, they changed their business model going from postpaid to prepaid, from very complicated contracts which they still have in the upper income market to no contracts. They introduced a whole new set of business processes so people could afford it.”

The results were not only an increase in incomes of those making use of the new services but also access to other benefits. Financial services by cell phone have brought the poorest people into the financial system for the first time in India, the Philippines and South Africa. The question then is, if the cell phone industry has been able to crack that code what does it take for other industries such as housing, health and construction to do the same?

Innovation alone is not sufficient. While innovation can reduce costs and lower prices, it is not just about providing a tailored product stripped of some quality at a lower price. Importantly it means building a business within the community so its members become entrepreneurs in their own right and the supply chain and consumption grow.

Private companies which are looking at marketing products to these communities know it is not enough to have the lower-cost product without a distribution chain which can reach the local community. Most often this means that the local community is the distribution chain. Nestlé has rolled out its products in Brazil for low-income communities which rely on local people providing a door-to-door sales force. Without the local saleswomen, perception of the products as high-priced or even counterfeit would have meant the project falling by the wayside in communities where trust is not a commodity which can be developed in a sales training school.

In the housing sector, Colombia’s Colcerámica provides a good example where the company’s normal distribution channel did not necessarily reach the low-income population they wanted to reach. Up to 2006, the company had been a tile and bathroom products company which served the middle and high-income markets enjoying a dominant position in tile manufacture and supply for over 10 years. But after a cost reduction programme leading to the manufacture of a special tile for the low-income market, the company saw an opportunity to assist the estimated 1.5 million homes that had untiled, dirt floors.

To open up the new market, the company had to establish a new distribution chain leveraging the capacity of community NGOs in particular and engaging local women heads of households (madres comunitarias or day care mothers) as the sales force. These sales teams were managed

by Colcerámica staff housed in a small service centre. The sales women not only had a monetary incentive to sell and plan the floors in their neighbours’ houses but also had been made aware of

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the health benefits from tiling dirt floors which was necessary for madres comunitarias to carry out their work as day care mothers.

The women were hired to work with Colcerámica on a commission basis: part of the commission went to the community organization itself which managed the saleswomen and exhibited the tiling products. As well as allowing local commerce to flourish by encouraging women to sell the product, it also allowed day care mothers to increase their income from the continuing day care homes they could provide to the hygienic standards required. The attendant health benefits also mean longer-term successes: according to the IDB, studies have demonstrated that having permanent floors is associated with lower incidences of disease and higher achievement in cognitive tests. In addition, house values are estimated to increase on average 15-20 percent with a tile floor.

“Everybody wins under this distribution model,” comments Mejia.

Grassroots companies What is important though in reviewing these successes is that while the top-bottom approach of these big companies has succeeded with the right product and the right distribution, it is equally important, if not more important, to look at the approach of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) growing from a grassroots level.

The challenge for such companies is different to those faced by the bigger national players. Small local businesses already have a product co-created, understood and distributed within the local community but a lack of financing caps their growth and opportunity to scale up the business.

In such cases, multilaterals can step in to provide the finance to develop successful operations on a wider basis. The World Bank has set up a USD 370,000 programme in Colombia’s capital Bogotá partnering with UN-HABITAT and local banks to provide wider access to microfinance for low-income housing. The aim is to provide the 40 percent of the population who lack access to formal housing credit with sustainable housing microfinance by developing the financial and regulatory infrastructure necessary for the wider dissemination of housing credits.

The Inter-American Development Bank has also been active in the Colombian housing sector to assist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) moving from a local community model to a countrywide or regional model. The Bank is working with Minuto de Dios in Colombia to give displaced and homeless people longer term micro-mortgages. “The difference in a micromortgage for three years compared to a 15 year tenor could be the equivalent of a minimum salary so it is significant and that could actually unlock having a house for someone,” says

Colombia Urbanization Total population: 43 million Urban population: 76 percent Slum to urban population: 22 percent Annual population growth rates: Urban: 3 percent Slum: 1 percent Slum Indicators Percentage of urban population with access to: Safe water source: 98 percent Improved sanitation: 94 percent Sufficient living area: 86 percent Durable housing: 97 percent Source: UN-HABITAT

the IDB’s Mejia. The IDB is funding around USD 17 million of the USD 80 million costs for this and a similar programme for NGO Mario Santo Domingo in Colombia where people are involved in self-construct homes. “Part of the technical assistance [the IDB is funding] is to give people training in constructing bricks, making up mortar and cement and the activities to make them selfsufficient in construction,” says Mejia. So it is not just about providing access to a home: it is also about sustaining development by encouraging people to become microentrepreneurs.

Mobilizing private capital to invest in the majority population is vital to achieve such goals.

Mexico’s most profitable bank Compartamos has launched Latin America’s first social venture fund IGNIA, which will invest in companies whose strategic goal is to improve the lot of the poor. The fund had attracted USD 34 million in equity commitments by the end of 2008 and will act as a regional conduit for investment. “The whole concept behind IGNIA is to serve as an investment vehicle for social entrepreneurship,” says Carlos Labarthe, joint CEO of Compartamos. “It’s not about donations, it’s the concept of social investment in social companies that need economic support but that also need advice.”

The key to such social entrepreneurship will depend very much on a grassroots approach and targeting businesses that have grown from the community. Those directors sitting in a US boardroom who can appreciate that may find a new source of organic growth perhaps where they least expected. u

Latin America: News

March 2009

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Latin America and the Caribbean: News

DISASTER MANAGEMENT USD 600 million fund launched for disaster management The Inter-American Development Bank has made a USD 600 million credit facility available to assist Latin American countries with their urgent financing needs following natural disasters. In order to qualify for funding, countries must prove that their current disaster risk management programme is adequate, and then they will be eligible for facility loans of up to USD 100 million, or one percent of their GDP, whichever is less.

Funding is also dependent on the scale of the disaster.

INFRASTRUCTURE Brazil receives World Bank support for urban development The World Bank approved a USD 46 million loan in February, which will go towards boosting economic activity, improving urban infrastructure, and enhancing regional management capacity in the state of Creará in north-eastern Brazil. The region has 600,000 inhabitants, 67 percent of whom are classed as poor. However, the World Bank believes the area to possess significant economic development potential, particularly in tourism and manufacturing.

CONSTRUCTION Ministers promise to make green building a reality A forum organized by the Dominican Republic government in January saw Caribbean and Latin American environment ministers resolve to promote sustainable building across the continent. Representatives from 28 countries attended the event and discussions emphasized the need for long-term regional strategies, awareness programmes, incentive implementations and risk assessments for areas prone to disaster. The move to promote sustainable building was initially proposed by the Mexican government after the United Nations Environment Programme and the Sustainable Buildings and Construction Initiative (UNEP-SBCI) had undertaken projects in the region.

INFRASTRUCTURE CEMEX backs improvements to Mexican pavements A public-private sector initiative called Mejora tu Calle (Improve your Street) is being supported by Mexico’s cement company CEMEX. The company is providing 35,000 microloans for low-income families to help pay for upgrades to street paving. Research shows that residential areas with good paving have lower crime rates, a higher level of sanitation and better access to services such as electricity, sewage disposal, transportation and rubbish collection.

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Energy Mexico unveils biggest regional wind farm Mexico recently began generating electricity from a new wind farm in La Ventosa region which coincidentally translates to ‘windy city’. It will be the largest in Latin America and once fully complete will consist of 167 wind turbines and generate 250 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

After almost relying exclusively on its vast petroleum stocks for decades, Mexico is now realising the potential of its wind and solar resources. Oil production fell by 9.2 percent in 2008, and to assist tap its natural renewable resources it has turned to foreign companies to develop the technology. The new wind farm will help reduce CO2 emissions by six million tons within 10 years.

Based in Oaxaca state, the farm is run by Spanish energy companies Iberdrola and Acciona Energia and Mexican giant CEMEX. It is the first in Mexico to be constructed, owned and operated by a private firm.

The importance of the event was not overlooked as Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón inaugurated the wind farm himself. “If we don’t do something about this problem of climate change it probably could become — I’m sure it already is — one of the biggest threats to humanity,” he said at the inaugural ceremony.

The region was chosen especially for its near perfect breezes of 25km/h to 35km/h, of which similar areas have been identi-

La Ventosa Valley

PHOTO © LAURA ULLOA

fied for further wind farms to be built.

“The intensity of wind in various parts of the country can make our plants among the most efficient in the world,” energy secretary Georgina Kessel told reporters at the opening of the new facility.

The final output of the farm will generate enough electricity to meet 13 percent of the state’s demand, or enough energy to power a city of half a million people.

Last year, Mexico became the first major emerging economy to commit an emissions reduction target, announcing it would halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 based on 2002 levels. It is aiming by 2012 to build a series of wind farms that will generate 2,500 MW of electricity. u

Infrastructure Floating cities could help combat climate change A floating city based on a giant lilypad’s structure, is one idea to beat rising sea levels that has come to the fore from French-Belgian architect, Vincent Callebaut and could be built off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Estimates by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predict that sea levels could rise by as much as 20 – 90 cms this century. This would lead to dire consequences for countries such as the Netherlands, Bangladesh, India and the Pacific Islands.

“Not less than 250 million ‘climate refugees’ and nine percent of global GDP are threatened

if we do not build protections related to such a threat,” says Callebaut. Trinidad and Tobago is about to begin plans to build a man-made island off the coast of Otaheite Bay, in which the lilypad option could be used.

The lilypad eco-city is directly inspired by the great ribbed leaves of the Amazonia Victoria Regia lilypad. The half aquatic, half terrestrial city is able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and would be completely self sufficient, in energy, food and water. This enables it to be compliant with environmental goals of balancing climate, biodiversity and water.

Latin America and the Caribbean: News

Transport Mayor reveals green ambitions for Mexico City Mexico City, infamous for being one of the most polluted in the world, aims to be clean and green, as its new green plan was announced by Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.

Called the Green Plan, its USD 5.5 billion budget plans to attack problems in water, air, transport, green space and waste management over the next 15 years.

“We’ve taken the first step on a long path to build the sustainable city that we want,” says Ebrard. “We need to recover streets and roads for efficient, non-polluting, mass transportation with properly trained drivers, and to promote non-motorized transportation. I want Mexico City to be the greenest city in the Americas.”

The plan includes building 10 corridors to be used only for zero emission metrobuses, replacing the 35,000 outdated mini buses that currently ply the streets. A new metro line will be built and completed by 2012, and more bike lanes to be added that would make Amsterdam’s network small in comparison.

“Sustainable development actions in transportation, especially mass transportation, will lay the foundations upon which the future of a sustainable city will be built, preventing the unfavourable tendency for environmental degradation,” says Ebrard.

Ebrard joins thousands of other city officials in riding their bikes to work on the first Monday of every month. The government’s own vehicle fleet has already been updated as more than two hundred gas-fuelled vehicles have been replaced by electric cars, and other action will be undertaken to convert or acquire new low-emission units.

The proposed floating city PHOTO © VINCENT CALLEBAUT ARCHITECTURES

It reaches a positive energy balance with zero carbon emissions through the integration of renewable energy (solar, thermal, photovoltaic energies, wind energy, hydraulic, tidal power station and osmotic energies). Everything would

IN-FOCUS

ENERGY Bahamas seeks renewable energy solutions The Bahamas Electricity Company is to receive a grant to fund exploration of renewable energy alternatives. The company will investigate solar power usage along with waste to energy innovations and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), which is a revolutionary new technique where tropical islands can produce both power and desalinated water. The grant is being provided by the Inter-American Development Bank.

ENERGY GDF Suez to construct largest-ever energy project in Brazil French energy company, GDF Suez, has received a 20-year loan from the Brazilian Development Bank BNDES towards the construction of a 3,300 MW greenfield hydroelectric power station in Jirau in Brazil. The loan totals BRL 7.2 billion (approximately EUR 2.44 billion). The bank loan is the largest ever granted by a development bank in Brazil and will cover 68.5 percent of the total investment of EUR 3.3 billion.

A new metro line is part of the green plan PHOTO © BENJAMIN EARWICKER

Further measures include mandatory bus transportation for private schools, creating pedestrian only zones in downtown areas, installing intelligent traffic lights and restricting car use in central areas on Saturdays and Sundays. u

be recyclable and the island would produce as much oxygen and electricity as it needs.

The floating city would be constructed out of polyester fibres covered with titanium dioxide that minimizes atmospheric contamination. The city is mobile and can float with the currents and the wind. Three ports provide access to the city, with each covered by gardens for fresh produce cultivation.

“The eco-city lilypad meets the political and social challenge of integrating human sustainable development with the natural world,” says Callebaut. “It will be a major challenge of the 21st century to create new means to accommodate environmental migrants. The lilypad eco-city is one idea that can achieve this.” u

TRANSPORT Brazilian municipality to benefit from plan to upgrade public transport system Maringá, a municipality in the State of Panraná in Brazil is receiving funding to upgrade its urban transport systems. USD 13 million will be used to consolidate a new integrated public transport system, modernize traffic lights, upgrade the traffic network and revamp central areas.

ENERGY Chile begins construction of USD 120 million wind farm The Monte Redondo wind farm has begun construction in Chile, 320 kilometres north of Santiago at a projected cost of USD 120 million. The wind farm will be fully operational by October 2009 and will register under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism for carbon credits.

ENERGY Barbados to reduce dependence on fossil fuels In a drive to promote sustainable energy sources, the Inter American Development Bank has agreed to grant Barbados USD one million to set up a Sustainable Energy Framework. The initiative aims to make renewable energy more affordable and regulatory and financial incentives will be developed to make renewable energy use more attractive.

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Asia-Pacific

Singapore: a model for sustainable development?

As a pioneer in sustainable development, Singapore has been approached by the World Bank to provide technical assistance on urban planning in neighbouring countries. Vicente Carbona analyses Singapore’s successful development and reveals the latest initiatives in the city-state.

Artist’s impression of the Conservatory Complex

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PHOTO © NATIONAL PARKS BOARD.

Asia-Pacific

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ingapore has long understood that as a buoyant, industrialized urban centre with extremely limited resources in water, energy and, especially, land, its sustainability depends on bold urban planning and ambitious environmental controls. In a recent development that recognizes Singapore’s outstanding reputation in development, World Bank President Robert Zoellick and George Yeo, Foreign Minister of Singapore, signed an agreement last December to create a joint World Bank-Singapore Urban Hub. This will be tasked with providing expertise and technical assistance on the major urban challenges facing developing countries.

“Through its own unique development experience, Singapore has built a vast knowledge base on meeting these sorts of challenge,” says the World Bank’s Zoellick.

“Bringing this knowledge together with the World Bank Group’s development operations in East Asia and around the world creates a vital source of relevant and tested expertise that we believe many countries can benefit from.”

The Hub will bring together Singapore’s recognized expertise in urban development, education, and public administration, with the Bank’s global development knowledge and operational experience. The aim is to provide advice and technical services to South-East Asian countries with plans to expand to other Asian countries including China, and eventually to go truly global into Africa.

New Inter-Ministerial Committee Singapore has been a key player in urban development since it became an independent republic in 1965. One of the most recent initiatives was the establishment last year of an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) to articulate a national strategy and to ensure that Singapore grows as a lively and more livable city, with a Master Plan for the next 10-15 years, and a wider-ranging Concept Plan that has a 4050 year horizon. The main challenge is to see that continued growth does not come at the expense of quality of life for its citizens.

“We want to position Singapore as a leading, distinctive Eco-City State that is not just economically vibrant but also environmentally sustainable,” says Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan who co-chairs the IMCSD. “This means growing as fast as

we can, whilst ensuring that our good living environment and economic growth potential for future generations are not affected.”

After a series of forums and meetings, which has resulted in over 1,300 suggestions obtained through an online consultation initiative, the Inter-Ministerial Committee and other public officials are pleased with the positive public response. Suggestions and views covered a wide range of topics, from recycling, energy efficiency, cycling and clean energy, to marine

URBAN WATCH

housing. Such incorporation not only creates additional social interaction spaces to replace the lost ground, but also brings a unique balance of built and natural environments. The incorporation of greenery also serves to reduce heat gain on the roofs and allows natural rain harvesting.”

Part of this new focus includes a return to the fundamentals of good design and architecture, such as north-south orientation of new buildings to minimize solar exposure,

“In Singapore, high density presents not only the most viable housing solution but also creates an opportunity to generate some of the most innovative sustainability ideas, one of the best practices that has emerged is the incorporation of high-rise greenery into high-density housing.” Tai Lee Siang nature area conservation, solar energy usage as a renewable energy, and the use of more sustainable building construction materials. The Committee has now brought the public consultation process to a close, and will take the next few months to study the feasibility of the suggestions raised and respond to key ideas. The government has recently announced it will set aside USD one billion over the next five years to implement the Committee’s recommendations.

A tradition of innovation Sustainability in Singapore is centred around three priority areas: resource management, pollution controls and improving the quality of the physical environment. In a densely-packed, high-rise urban centre, this is achieved by making new and existing buildings more resource and energy efficient, and actively promoting these goals among industries, businesses and transport services.

“In Singapore, high density presents not only the most viable housing solution but also creates an opportunity to generate some of the most innovative sustainability ideas,” says Tai Lee Siang, President of the Singapore Institute of Architects. “One of the best practices that has emerged is the incorporation of high-rise greenery into high-density

and the use of natural ventilation to reduce reliance on air conditioning. “Such a mindset shift has seen many buildings to be environmental friendly without heavy investment in technology,” says Tai. Promoting an ambitious renewable resources programme requires involving the global business community in innovative ways, and Singapore has undertaken a pioneering strategy of investments in this sector. Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) of Norway, one of the largest solar companies in the world, recently committed to establishing what is envisaged to be the world’s largest fully integrated solar manufacturing complex in Singapore, a SGD 6.3 billion (USD 4.1 billion) investment to produce up to 1.5 gigawatts of solar products at steady state. In early 2008, Oerlikon Solar, a leading supplier of equipment for making solar cells, chose Singapore as its Asian manufacturing and R&D hub.

And most recently, NorSun AS, a Norwegian firm, announced the construction of a SGD 300 million cutting-edge solar wafer manufacturing facility in the city-state.

In March last year, clean energy was signaled out as a key growth area for Singapore, with a goal to generate up to 7,000 jobs, by 2015, through an infusion of SGD 350 million in public funds. Besides solar energy, which is

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Waste Management - Semakau Landfill

the main focus area, Singapore’s industry development efforts in clean energy also cover fuel cells, wind power, tidal power, energy efficiency and carbon services. In a related development, Ms. Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for National Development, recently announced an ambitious plan to provide training opportunities for 8,000 new, high-skill green collar jobs over the next five years.

To oversee the growth of this industry, the inter-agency Clean Energy Program Office (CEPO) has put forward a set of initiatives including investing SGD 50 million (USD 32.7 million) toward a Clean Energy Research Program (CERP) to support R&D efforts, a SGD 25 million graduate scholarships programme to groom top-notch talent for the industry, and various incentive programmes for clean energy solutions and to assist private sector participants offset part of the capital costs of installing solar technologies in new building projects.

Singapore has long been exemplary in its efforts to institute highly successful water demand and wastewater management practices, taking into consideration quantity and quality, public and private sector participation, equity and efficiency, and strategic and economic considerations. Singapore has managed to attain self-sufficiency by reducing domestic water consumption and unaccountedfor-water. In a 2006 report, Cecilia Tortajada of the Third World Centre for Water Management (Mexico), stated: “By ensuring efficient use of its limited water resources through economic instruments,

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adopting the latest technological developments to produce new sources of water, enhancing storage capacities by proper catchment management, practicing water conservation measures, and ensuring concurrent consideration of social, economic and environmental factors, Singapore has reached a level of holistic water management that other urban centers will do well to emulate.”

The effort to increase the city’s green spaces has also seen excellent results. Over the past decade, despite the physical development required to accommodate a 70 percent increase in population, the city-state’s green cover (percentage of land area with vegetation, as seen from satellite images) has increased by 10 percent, so that almost half of Singapore’s main island is now covered with vegetation. Between 1986 and 2007, despite the fact that the population in Singapore grew by 68 percent from 2.7 million to 4.6 million, the green cover in Singapore grew from 35.7 percent to 46.5 percent.

Singapore recycles what can be recycled, and incinerates the rest in state-of-the-art plants. Aside from reducing the need for landfills, the city-state also began to convert waste-to-energy from the incineration process, which currently provides up to three percent of total electricity demand, while at the same time stabilizing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. What they do with all that incinerated rubbish is another of Singapore’s success stories.

The rise of eco-tourism In 1997, at a cost of SGD 610 million, the government built a seven kilometre rock perimeter enclosing the sea between two southern islands, thus creating the Semakau Landfill, which covers an area with a capacity of 63 million cubic tons. Once this offshore landfill became operational in 1999, the last landfill on the main island was closed. Divided into cells, the seawater is then pumped out, the seafloor lined with thick plastic, and the incinerated ash is then dumped into the cell. Lastly, it is covered with dirt and seeded with grass. Water quality is sampled monthly to check for any seepage.

This has resulted in a new, thriving ecosystem that has been developed into a nature sanctuary and a site for ecotourism. Since mid-2005, Palau Semakau has been open for guided tours of its mangroves, intertidal zones, and coral reefs. It has come to represent a clear example of Singapore’s unique, creative way of working toward urban sustainability.

In adopting the next round of priorities and initiatives, the Inter-Ministerial Committee recognizes that the effective implementation of some of the new measures could mean additional costs in the short term, costs that will be offset via longer-term benefits for individuals and businesses. The government has stated that while studying the new recommendations, it will take into consideration the rising costs.

“The IMCSD will be pragmatic and resultsoriented,” says Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam. “It will assess the effectiveness and benefits of the various options against their costs to businesses and consumers. We will set meaningful goals but pace the changes so that everyone can adjust smoothly.”

Singapore is on the move in all these fronts, and officials are optimistic. They are actively encouraging people and industries to adopt long-term sustainable practices, and developing new capabilities to optimize resources and improve environmental performance further still. And there is widespread understanding that new technologies will also have to be harnessed to improve performance and mitigate current limits to growth, perhaps the city-state’s main constraint, given the difficulty of balancing and accommodating its entire national infrastructure, including housing, recreation, commerce, defence, waste and water treatment, transportation, and airports, within an area of just 700 square-kilometres. u

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Asia-Pacific: News

URBAN STRATEGY New report highlights urban poverty in India A new report on the nature and dynamics of urban poverty in India has been issued by the Indian government’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The report was released in New Delhi in February. The UNDP hopes this new information will assist the government to build a national strategy to help the urban poor. The report says that urbanization in India will be at a rate of 50 percent by 2030 yet the urban poor lack basic services.

WATER Bold plan for sanitation in Korea Asia’s rapidly growing population is placing a tangible strain on drinking water resources and basic sanitation facilities. A new project in Korea - Partnership for good governance and knowledge on urban water management - will endeavour to assist water utility companies to manage and provide improved services.

Funding of USD 500,000 is being provided in the form of a grant from the Republic of Korea’s e-Asia and Knowledge Partnership Fund, which is administered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). An additional USD 100,000 to pay for training, venues and equipment is being provided by the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water).

DISASTER MANAGEMENT Burma’s cyclone is worst ever natural disaster The latest annual report from Munich Re, the world’s second-largest insurer, has revealed that last May’s cyclone Nargis took the most human lives of any one disaster when it hit Burma. Estimates say that 135,000 people were killed: 85,000 deaths have been officially confirmed in Burma, while 54,000 people are still missing. Despite the number of natural disasters falling from 2007 to 2008, more damage was caused and more people lost lives in 2008.

WATER Singapore backs revolutionary new project by Siemens Siemens Water Technologies’ new project aims to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent by utilizing new desalination technology. The venture has been awarded a SGD four million research grant from Singapore’s Environment and Water Industry Development Council (EWI). The announcement was made at the Singapore International Water Week summit in January. Chuck Gordon, CEO of Siemens Water Technologies said: “We truly consider this developing technology a breakthrough in the desalination market, with significant global implications on water resource management and the wider use of desalination in the future.”

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Energy On-demand solar energy raises the bar for renewables On-demand solar power could soon be assisting the remotest towns in Australia and provide a global solution to urban development. Not only will the use of the sun’s energy reduce dependency on coal-generated electricity or costly diesel powered generators but large amounts of coalfired energy are lost during transmission to remote towns. meaning towns at the end of the grid system suffer the most from power shortages.

Steve Hollis, from Lloyd Energy Storage, says that his new on-demand solar system, which will be built in three Australian towns this year, can alleviate this problem for remote urban developments.

“We’re putting environmentally friendly generation out at the end of the branches of the tree if you like, so it can pump energy back in when the branches are in trouble,” says Hollis.

The system uses a series of mirrors that redirect the sun’s heat onto a 10 tonne graphite block on top of a 15-metre tower. The block gets heated up, and stores the heat at a minimal loss. As it is an on-demand system water is then passed over it when it is needed; creating steam that then turns a conventional three MW steam turbine. An ondemand system means that the problem of where to store the energy once generated doesn’t arise.

Hollis says that it can assist towns in three ways: “Firstly it is a renewable energy replacement for coal. Secondly, it avoids the energy authorities having to upgrade their transmission lines so they can get more power out in the peak. Thirdly, it

On-demand solar power PHOTO © LLOYD ENERGY SYSTEMS

will provide an energy source at the end of the line that can return power back into the grid.”

The system’s mobility and flexibility are other advantages that can make the technology easily transportable on the back of trucks.

“We have made it modular so it can be redeployed in remote towns in rural Australia and overseas, without involving monstrous towers, such as what you see with wind turbines,” says Hollis.

The company has already begun building a three MW project that powers two towns and a second, larger, project will commence later this year, which will provide 10 MW to another growing region. “So far there has been strong interest from many countries as they see the long-term advantages and savings that on demand solar energy offers,” adds Lloyd. u

Water Environmentalists launch clean up of Mumbai river The Mithi River, which runs through the middle of the bustling and sprawling Indian city of Mumbai, is set to receive a lifeline from a group of environmentalists and local citizens.

The group, with the support of award-winning conservationist, Rajendra Singh, wants to replicate the work that Singh did in the 1980s with his work on various rivers in Rajasthan. To that end they have created the Mithi sansad, or river parliament. The hope is that the sansad will enable them to learn the extent of abuse the Mithi has suffered and also to learn how the water and rivers are managed.

The sansad’s tasks are to gather alternative experts who can suggest measures on how to control flooding in the city that is economical and using only environmentally friendly methods to save the river.

“The people of Mumbai were not aware of floods and its dire consequences until July 2005, when the city was lashed by the largest monsoon in recent memory,” says Singh. “Today the situation has completely changed. Everyone is scared to the core and wants a permanent solution to the problem.”

Asia-Pacific: News

Transport New Chinese railway will be energy efficient The Western region of China will see the construction of the first ever railway line connecting the northern city of Lanzhouin, in Gansu province, with the southern city of Chongqing, a major manufacturing hub and a major exporter to the greater Mekong.

The 820 km line will boost economic growth in one of the poorer regions of China and will become the shortest land route between these two economic centres. The total cost of the project is estimated to be USD 8.6 billion. Financing will come from a group of Chinese banks, the ministry of railways, local governments and the Asia Development Bank (ADB).

“The project is expected to stimulate the development of industrial and natural resources and tourism, generate employment, raise living standards and help reduce poverty,” says Manmohan Parkash, transport specialist for the ADB. Nearly 17 million people live in the region, many of them poor. They will take a hands-on role in the construction through hiring preferences, to build and operate the railway line. The project is part of the Chinese government’s strategy to expand infrastructure and to stimulate growth in underdeveloped interior regions of the country.

The railway track will be capable of handling double-stack containers, raising its carrying capacity over regular lines, reducing land use, and improving energy efficiency. Over 30 railway stations will be built and state-of-the-art safety equipment will be installed.

To help create a ‘green corridor’ along the rail route, financing from the ADB will include

Development has brought about many environmental problems to Mumbai. “Thousands of mangroves have been destroyed and these were the main deterrents to air and water pollution, flooding and climate change which the city is facing now,” says Singh.

The environmentalists stress that any action taken will need to coincide with the environment. “We encourage development of all kinds but we want to conform with nature. This is the guiding objective of Mithi sansad,” says environmentalist Janak Daftari.

The sansad will have between 50-200 members at the beginning, with more people to be invited in the future. “We encourage all local people who live around the Mithi to come and

New railway line for China PHOTO © SANTIAGO LLOBET LLIGÉ

environmental protection equipment worth USD 12 million. A switch in traffic from roads to the new rail link will result in significant cuts in fuel consumption and emissions of harmful carbon dioxide.

The network is part of a grander scheme to boost connectivity and trade between China the greater Mekong, Central Asia and Europe.

To travel by rail from Europe to China is relatively trouble free, but the connections and infrastructure into south east Asia are still either non existent or found wanting.

Funding from Japan, France and the ADB are making this realm of dreams turn into reality, which within eight years will see connections from Singapore via Phnom Penh in Cambodia, up to Ho Chi Minh City and then onto China. u

join the sansad, as they know best the bio-diversity of the area,” says Singh. u

The Mithi river

PHOTO © AYRA VIDYA

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DISASTER MANAGEMENT UN-HABITAT assists victims of Pakistan earthquake An earthquake of 6.4 on the Richter scale destroyed the homes of 800 families in Baluchistan, south western Pakistan last October. The Provincial Disaster Management Authority says that 68,200 people were affected and were left facing a freezing winter without roofs over their heads. The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) granted USD 900,000 to assist with providing shelter for the homeless, and UN-HABITAT worked with the Pakistani government, the military, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Emergency Shelter Cluster to organize the construction of 947 transitional shelters in 19 villages throughout the Baluchistan province.

CONSTRUCTION Report urges China to move to green building An Asia Business Council report published at the end of 2008 claims that Asia’s share of global energy consumption has doubled in 30 years and the energy consumed by Asian buildings is increasing at a similar rate. China is building almost half of the world’s new floor space, which breaks down to nearly two billion square metres annually, and the report says that these buildings consume two to three times more energy per unit of floor space than those in developed countries. That is the equivalent of the weekly energy needs of two 500-megawatt coal plants.

ENERGY New lightbulbs will save USD 100 million a year in Philippines The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is financing a project to distribute 13 million energy-saving lightbulbs in the Philippines.

The government wants to slash energy bills and homeowners and businesses will be given the bulbs for free. A loan of USD 31.1 million will finance the project. The new compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) will be distributed for free in exchange for old incandescent bulbs, and estimates say that each new bulb will save customers 400 pesos, or USD 8.50 every year for seven to 10 years. Incandescent bulbs only use 20 percent of the energy they consume to produce light, whereas CFLs don’t waste any electricity.

URBAN DEVELOPMENT Environmental protection plan unveiled for Shanghai China wants to make Shanghai more environmentally friendly and has revealed a plan to create green housing and public buildings, along with cutting exhaust emissions. The Environment Protection Bureau chief, Zhang Quan is in charge of the plan, which will also see 800 city petrol stations fitted with gas recycling facilities. The Bureau wants the plan to be implemented in time for the 2010 World Expo.

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Abu Dhabi to build the world’s first zero carbon city The United Arab Emirates is no stranger to grabbing the headlines when it comes to construction. From the world’s tallest building to the biggest man-made island, its reputation for extravagance and excess is now being put to an eco-friendly use as it builds from scratch the world’s first sustainable city. Jonathan Andrews reveals the ambitious plans for Masdar and asks whether such a zero carbon city can change the habits of one of the most oil rich nations on Earth.

Islamic-inspired garden spaces and piazzas are featured in the new city

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itting on the edge of Abu Dhabi’s airport lies a fenced off six square kilometre area of scrubland. To the casual observer, there is little to indicate that this site could soon be the home to 50,000 people, 1,500 businesses and a high-tech university that will specialize in renewable energy technology.

Buildings go up fast in the ever-changing skyline of Abu Dhabi, and by 2016 the government hopes that this USD 22 billion project will be the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste, and carfree city that will be run entirely on renewable energy.

“Masdar city represents more than a real estate development: it aims to be a Silicon Valley for the clean technology age,” says Khaled Awad, director of property development at the Masdar Initiative. “It will be a living, breathing community that will seek to develop sustainable solutions to the global energy and environmental challenges we face.”

Masdar, literally meaning the source, has attracted high profile organizations that want to be associated with the phenomenal task of designing, building and running the eco-city.

UK architecture firm, Foster and Partners, has designed Masdar and has employed traditional planning techniques used to build ancient Arab cities.

Gerard Evendon, senior partner at Foster and Partners, believes its one of the most important projects in the world at the moment. “It’s addressing all the issues that we have to address in future design as architects and engineers can no longer carry on designing in a backward way.

We have to seize the challenge and design buildings which are much lower in energy consumption and are sustainable.”

Encased in a wall, the city will feature dense, low-rise buildings to create a compact community with narrow streets to help keep out the fierce desert sun, yet allow gentle breezes to flow through. All streets will be pedestrianized, and residents and workers will walk around a string of Islamic-inspired garden spaces and piazzas more commonly found in southern Italy. The entire city will be suspended on stilts rising six metres from the ground, so as to increase air circulation and to keep the city off the hot desert floor. It will further be split into three levels. Located on the middle level will be the functioning life of the city with shops, businesses and homes, much like any other city, except it will be completely car free.

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One level above, residents can hop on any number of driverless personal rapid transport pods, which are metro cars that seat four people.

Based on studies from European urban development agencies, a maximum walking distance has been set at 200 metres. Essential services will always be located within this distance from any point, including shops that will sell locally grown produce. Goods will also be transported this way.

Evendon, from Foster and Partners, says that it will be a fully integrated city complex. “We’re not having a situation whereby we have ‘oh that’s the medical quarter over there and the entertainment over there’. What we are trying to do is say, ‘Okay, we’ve got this community here and that one relates to another so what do they share?’”

The residential space within the city will be provided for those people who work there. As tenants are signed up, companies are allocated residential space for their employees. Photovoltaic panels will generate power for the city, while cooling will be provided via concentrated solar power. A large patch of land adjacent to the city has been given over to solar panels, where 70 percent of the 10 MW grid connected solar plant is complete – the largest in the Middle East and North Africa region. It is so far developing enough energy that developers believe it could power most of the construction work in the first building phase.

Roofs and shading over the streets will incorporate thinner film photovoltaic canopies. Although most of the panels and technology come from Chinese, German and US suppliers, the main goal for Abu Dhabi will be to move up the solar value chain, by becoming a solar industry hub in its own right.

Water will be provided through a dew and solar-powered desalination plant. Landscaping within the walls and crops grown outside the city, will be irrigated with grey water and treated waste water produced by the city’s water treatment plant. As the city grows so too will the trees and natural environment, as wastewater will feed the gardens. An intelligent metering system will also allow any citizen to view how much energy, water and carbon he or she is consuming compared to the average citizen.

Overall the city will need about a quarter of the energy of a normal city of comparable size.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is another big name that is throwing its support behind the project. “This will quite literally kick-start a global revolution in renewables,” says Eduardo

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Personal rapid transport pods will ferry people around

Gonçalvez, from WWF’s programme One Planet Living, that is taking a hands-on role in the Masdar project. “The UAE is the only country in the world that has agreed to work with WWF to set targets for reducing its national carbon footprint.”

Zero carbon: fact or fallacy?

Criticisms still abound though about Masdar’s claim to be completely emission and carbon free.

Businesses that do not meet the city’s strict ecofriendly requirements will not be able to set up shop but will have to go somewhere outside the perimeter. Some foods will still need to be imported and although a light rail system will connect the city to the airport and the rest of Abu Dhabi, many will still have to drive to the city.

Outside the city walls there will be giant car parks, leading many to dub it an eco-city theme park for day-trippers.

Gonçalvez from the WWF rebuts these criticisms and says the project needs to be looked at in the context of a range of initiatives being undertaken by Abu Dhabi and the UAE. “Abu Dhabi, and the Masdar city project are working to lead the way in both the developed and developing world and put many governments, especially the G8 countries to shame,”says Gonçalvez . “The G8 countries alone account for one

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Dense, low-rise buildings help keep the desert sun at bay PHOTO © MASDAR INITIATIVE

third of total human ecological footprint.” Masdar will of course have an impact on the UAE’s carbon footprint, as it will help Abu Dhabi fulfil its pledge to source seven percent of its domestic energy needs from renewables by the year 2020 – a major step for a country that is the world’s fourth largest oil exporter.

While Masdar has the luxury of being financed by big petrodollars, many question whether a city such as this can be financed and built again in another part of the world.

“We realize that not everyone or every country in the world has the resources to build a city such as this,” says Khaled Awad. “We must remember that the goal of the new city is to set new standards and develop new clean and sustainable technologies that can be transferred to other cities around the world.”

Masdar officials refer to the technological development of computers, and that whilst less developed countries in the world cannot purchase the latest computer technology, industry development is making them ever cheaper, efficient and affordable for all.

Gerard Evendon from Foster and Partners concurs and sees the project as a Petri dish, that will in future years provide sustainable energy technologies that will be easily adaptable for all cities.

“For the first time all ideas and technologies can be brought together into a city context. That means we can test things that have never been really tested before,” he says.

The city not only aims to be the world’s greenest city, but will also be home to the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology (MIST), a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), that aims to bring together some of the world’s leading post-graduates to research and develop ideas for renewable energy.

MIT faculty and staff will provide advice, scholarly assessment and assistance in connection with the establishment of MIST. It aims to open its doors to the first batch of postgraduate students by July this year. “MIST will feed the city with talent and innovative technologies that will enhance the economic development and promote new industries using renewable energy and resources in the emirate and the region,” says Sultan Al Jaber, head of the Masdar Initiative.

Foreign partners Reaping the economic windfall of this emerging market, Masdar’s long-term aim is to leverage its early entry to become the authority of the sustainable movement. Whilst most of the construction will be financed by the Abu Dhabi Future

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“We realize that not everyone or every country in the world has the resources to build a city such as this. We must remember that the goal of the new city is to set new standards and develop new clean and sustainable technologies that can be transferred to other cities around the world.” Khaled Awad

Located on the middle level of the three will be the functioning life of the city PHOTO © MASDAR INITIATIVE

Energy Company, Credit Suisse, has invested USD 100 million in the initiative’s clean tech fund. Other sources of funds to cover running costs will be raised through the UN’s carbon trading scheme. Since Masdar will perform better than any pollution regulations require, they will sell one million carbon credits to companies that do not meet local standards, raising approximately USD 15 million.

Masdar is also working with other partners such as Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto and UK oil company BP which will work together on carbon-capture and storage schemes.

Such partners not only allow Masdar to take advantage of foreign expertise but also to have its ideas independently scrutinized. GE has signed on as a partner, where it will build its Ecomagination Centre, by 2010. Here it will showcase its innovations and will house up to 100 technologists developing new sustainable water, energy and environmental systems.

GE’s Middle East and Africa CEO and President, Nabil Habayeb, believes that the fact this is taking place in a country better known for oil consumption and exploitation speaks volumes.

“This is a part of the world where a few years ago if you were to talk about renewable energy in a meeting, it would end in a nanosecond,”

Construction will be complete by 2016

comments Habayeb. “ How could you talk about renewable energy to a hydrocarbon-based economy? To see the transformation of Abu Dhabi, into that of leading the investment and development of a zero carbon emission city, and the technology that impacts the whole world, is phenomenal.”

Other questions are being asked about whether or not this project can be built and attract tenants to undertake intensive research into renewable energies. The stampede into the renewable energy sector when oil hit USD 150 a barrel has become an amble now that the price has dropped considerably. Already, construction work on China’s proposed zero-carbon city, Dongtan, has been postponed for two years.

Awad dismisses such concerns. “We are looking beyond the downturn. Nothing has been de-

PHOTO © MASDAR INITIATIVE

layed and nothing has been postponed. We are in this for the long-term. We want to be in the energy business, not just the oil business and renewable energy must remain high on the agenda and continues to make absolute sense, even in difficult times such as these.”

Likewise, Habayeb from GE is adamant: “Our plan is to go forward with what we have committed for Ecomagination and Masdar city. We haven’t slowed down or revised our figures.”

Last year homo sapiens turned into homo urbanis for the first time in human history, with the majority now living in cities. Between 2009 and 2050 the world’s urban population will double from 3.2 billion to 6.5 billion. Gonçalvez of the WWF says: “Masdar city is one way that is aiming to keep city living an option but one that doesn’t drive us into deeper and more dangerous ecological debt.”

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Khaled Awad

Aerial view of Masdar city once completed

But will people be willing to check their liberties at the city gates of Masdar? Or will they prefer to live in the relative freedom outside the walls, with all the creature comforts that a country rich in oil can provide? Foster and Partners argue that their plans for Masdar provide people with more choice than ever before.

“I think we just need to give people choice and freedom to make the decisions themselves as to how they want their bodies to react to the climate, rather than being sealed into an air-

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conditioned building and dictated to about the environment they have to live in,” says Evendon. “Once we give the options back, people will realize the things that they’ve lost.”

Likewise, the Masdar Initiative argues that it will not be an ecological prison. “There will not be individual restrictions in place,” explains Awad. “ For example – if you want to have a 20-minute shower, you still can. Our approach is about making people aware of their carbon impact, and it’s then up to them to change their behaviour.”

PHOTO © MASDAR INITIATIVE

“There will not be individual restrictions in place. If you want to have a 20-minute shower, you still can.

Our approach is about making people aware of their carbon impact, and it’s then up to them to change their behaviour.”

Khaled Awad

Gonçalvez from WWF says that whatever the economic situation, time is running out.

“The bottom line is we need a global paradigm shift. We need to fundamentally change the way we – the human race – live, work and play. And we need to do it very quickly.” u

Opinion

March 2009

LEADERS

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Middle East and Africa: News

SANITATION New UN-HABITAT project for Kenya The Water for African Cities project was launched in December 2008 in partnership with three NGOs: Sustainable Aid in Africa International (SANA) in Kenya, the Uganda Environmental Protection Forum (UEPF), and KATEDFU in Tanzania. The aim is to improve hygiene by installing latrines, giving the poor access to secure places with sufficient water for personal use and educating women and members of vulnerable households about the effective use of these sanitation facilities.

Women are being targeted by the project as typically in Africa, they hold the responsibility for water, sanitation and hygiene in the home. The project is aimed at 45,000 people in the Lake Victoria region, plus an additional 49,000 should benefit under the Water for African Cities II programme.

SECURITY Displaced citizens in Chad to get new housing UN-HABITAT has announced that it will help the government in Chad to improve housing conditions for the country’s internally displaced people. Long-running ethnic conf licts in the Central African Republic and the Sudan Darfur region have meant that thousands of people have been uprooted. The UN team Resident Coordinator in Chad, Mr. Kingsley Amaning has proposed collaborative efforts between several UN organizations and the Chadian government to push forward housing development. Thanks to the UN’s MINURCAT mission, the eastern area of Chad has now been sufficiently stabilized to allow planning and implementation of housing to begin.

CLIMATE CHANGE African mayors angry over effect of greenhouse gases Mayors from capital cities all over African have expressed their worries over the effects of climate change felt by their respective cities. Rising sea levels, f looding and extreme weather conditions are affecting Africa disproportionately considering the amount of emissions generated there. The mayors met for a two day conference hosted by UNHABITAT in Nairobi in February.

Samba Faal, mayor of Gambia’s capital Banjul voiced concerns that a one metre rise in sea level would result in 50 percent of landmass being lost. The 116 Seychelles islands are also under threat, according to mayor Marie-Antoinette Alexis of Victoria: a sea level rise would wash away beaches. The conference highlighted African cities’ need for assistance to deal with the consequences of climate change.

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Tourism Spanish government boosts Namibian tourism

Namibian landscape

PHOTO © UTE VON LUDWIGER

Namibia is set to receive a USD 6 million grant to help boost its fledgling cultural tourism sector via the Spanish Government and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Funds.

The UN says the grant will aim to use cultural tourism development as a vehicle for poverty reduction in the country, particularly among women, disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, and for HIV-AIDS sufferers. “To achieve this, the programme will

promote the sustainable use of cultural and natural resources, sustainable employment creation and income-generating opportunities through the implementation of five pilot models,” says a UN spokesperson.

These models include cultural villages, cultural trails, cultural and interpretive centres, cultural industries and a geopark. The geopark will be the first of its kind in Africa and encompasses sites of scientific importance, not only for geologists but also by virtue of its archaeological, ecological and cultural value.

“It will also aim to redirect tourists, who prefer to visit natural tourism areas to cultural tourism, by bringing them to the people to experience their ways of living,” says the UN representative. The pilot locations for the cultural villages include Kavango, Kunene and Tsumkwe and the trails in Oshikuku, Elim, Tsandi and the Hardap region. u

Water UN-HABITAT backs scheme to help reduce disease Participants from 10 countries surrounding the Lake Victoria region in south-eastern Africa recently received training on water quality monitoring and how to develop action plans for their own towns and cities.

The three-day course organized by the Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation Initiative and UNHABITAT, explored ways of how to help battle waterborne diseases and to raise awareness between water quality and disease.

The CEO of the Lake Victoria South Water Services Board, Michael Ochieng, reminded participants that the provision of safe drinking water poses a serious challenge to water providers as a result of the rapidly growing populations in African towns and cities, with many residents, particularly the poor, resorting to the use of water from alternative, and often unclean sources.

“As service providers, it is our obligation to undertake periodic water quality monitoring in order to ensure that the water we supply to our consumers is properly treated,” says Ochieng.

A portable bacterial test kit (the Portable Microbiology Laboratory or PML) was presented and explained to the group. It offers a simple and

cost-effective approach to monitoring the bacteriological quality of water. The tests can be performed within two to 18 hours, with the results providing a disease risk assessment of water sources.

“Piped water, dug wells and springs are not regularly or properly tested and treated in many African cities,” says Ochieng. “The tests are an effective means of demystifying water quality testing and raising awareness on the direct linkage between water quality and disease.

“The development objective of the project is to support the Lake Victoria Region to enable the locals to achieve water and sanitation related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to contribute to an equitable and sustainable development,” says Ochieng. u

Potable water in Malawi

PHOTO © UN-HABITAT

Middle East and Africa: News

Renewable energy Largest African wind farm to be built in Kenya Kenya will soon see construction begin on a new wind farm in the north of the country that will produce 300 MW of electricity by 2012. The Turkana Wind Power consortium (LTWP), made up of Kenyan and Dutch partners, will build 353 wind turbines in northwest Kenya near Lake Turkana, and will be the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Using the latest wind turbine technology LTWP can provide reliable and continuous clean power to satisfy up to 30 percent of Kenya’s current total installed power,” says project development manager Carlo Van Wageningen.

The valley has historically been known as a giant wind corridor, where winds, known locally as the upepo sweep through the Turkana valley between the Kenyan and Ethiopian highlands.

“One consortium partner, and long-term resident of Kenya, Willem Dolleman, used to go to this particular site to fish and was always flabbergasted that he could never set up a tent because it would always blow away,” explains Van Wageningen.

The German Wind Energy Institute confirmed Dolleman’s idea when it conducted on-site wind measurements for three years, and concluded that the average monthly

wind speed of 11 metres per second was the best that they had ever encountered.

“Once we had government support and control of a feasibility study over the 60,000 hectares, our next problem was logistical,” explains Van Wageningen. “The closest sea port is Mombasa, which is 1,200km away.

So we had to bring in a Dutch company that was experienced in heavy lifting and that could do a load and port facility survey, so as to get the materials from the port to the valley.”

Financing will come from development finance institutions, in which the consortium plans 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt for the project. Already the African Development Bank has pledged to provide 30 percent of the USD 760 million total needed.

The initial phase of the wind farm will begin generating electricity in June 2010 and will reach full production of 300MW by June 2011.

“Eighty percent of Kenya’s energy production already comes from renewable energy via hydroelectric dams and geothermal technology,” explains Van Wageningen.

“When this project is completed, Kenya will become one of the top countries in the world that uses renewable sources of energy.” u

IN-FOCUS

WATER UNEP atlas shows shrinking resources in Kenya Kenya’s Lake Olbollosat might soon disappear forever, according to analysis of a new atlas published by the United Nations Environment Progamme (UNEP). Kenya: Atlas of our changing environment was requested by the Kenyan government and has been assembled using detailed satellite images from the past three decades. The atlas does highlight some positives in terms of environmental management in Kenya, but it also clearly shows that natural water resources such as lakes are shrinking. The Olbollosat lake has previously dried up, but returned. However, there are fears that Kenya’s rapidly growing population could put increasing pressure on the lake and it might disappear for good. In 1960, Kenya’s population was eight million; today it has reached an astounding 38 million and is expected to continue growing.

CLIMATE CHANGE Africa under pressure to join Climate Neutral Network Even though Africa has one of the world’s lowest carbon footprints, other nations are saying it should join the year-old Climate Neutral Network (CN Net). At a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) news conference in Nairobi in February, Costa Rica’s Minister for Environment and Energy, Roberto Dobles Mora, said: “Successful economies of the future will have to be carbon neutral and Africa and other developing countries must not be left behind.”

Mora went on to emphasise that Africa could benefit by twinning with developed nations and learning how to follow their best practices.

UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said: “The entire world must go green, become less dependent on fossil fuels; this is not targeted at developed economies only.”

HEALTH Soap solves problems caused by urban growth in Mali’s capital The non-profit organization, JIGI, is helping female slum dwellers combat poor hygiene and earn money by making and selling soap. Local NGOs in Bamako in Mali say that rapid urban population expansion has lead to an increase in the size of slums such as Nafadji on the city’s outskirts.

Inhabitants suffer social and economic problems; hardly any children attend school, and unemployment is high. Hygiene standards are also low due to beliefs that hand washing augments poverty, and also because many inhabitants of the slums cannot afford soap. The new initiative has drastically reduced the price of soap, so now more residents can afford to keep clean.

JIGI are also educating people about the necessity of good hygiene.

Lake Turkana: a giant wind corridor

PHOTO © LTWP

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Middle East and Africa: News

TRANSPORT Population explosion in Saudi cities causes traffic chaos The population density in major Saudi cities grew by more than 120 percent between 2002 and 2008 according to a new study by the Land Transport Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The study concluded that Jeddah has the highest population density and that it was still increasing each year by 20-28 percent.

The high number of people in cities is resulting in traffic congestion and transportation problems. Officials behind the study say that there is a need for an awareness campaign encouraging residents to only own one vehicle. The study also emphasized the need to expand public transport.

CONSTRUCTION WHO building in Jordan aims for LEED certification The Middle Eastern environmental services company, Energy Management Services, has signed an agreement with the World Health Organization to advise on the construction and management of the WHO’s new premises in Jordan, with the aim of achieving a gold certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) from the US Green Building Council (USGBC). This is the first time a Middle Eastern WHO office will attempt to meet LEED standards.

LEED certified buildings make savings on reduced use of water, energy and operational costs, and provide a high quality indoor environment.

ENERGY Sudan turns to wind power A new 500 MW wind power farm is being constructed along the Red Sea coast by a consortium including the National Electricity Corporation (NEC) of the Republic of Sudan, the Aeolus Association, and the Dubaibased OMENE Holdings LLC and its Sudan affiliate. The farm is a small component of an ambitious expansion plan by the NEC, which will reach 17,000 MW by 2030. Currently 80 percent of Sudanese homes are without any electricity.

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Environment Winners of Dubai Awards revealed An independent international jury, chaired by Ms. Banashree Banerjee of India, announced the winners of the 2008 Dubai International Awards for Best Practices to improve the Living Environment. Each winner is awarded prize money of USD 30,000, a trophy and a commemorative certificate.

The 10 winners for the Best Practice category are: APROCOBU (Association for the Promotion of Cooperative Stores for Production, Selling and Supplying in Burundi) - A multi-ethnic project promoting reconciliation and alternative livelihoods to ease pressure on land due to over-reliance on agriculture. This is in a region where land shortage is one source of conflict.

Involving Indigenous People in Forest Management Decision Making, Democratic Republic of the Congo - A partnership that transfers global positioning satellite mapping techniques for participatory resource management in indigenous forest communities.

Micro-Gardens in Dakar, Senegal - Shows how to make small inner-city spaces agriculturally productive to reduce poverty, improve food security, increase aesthetic value and provide an input into solutions to global warming.

Marianhill Landfill Conservancy, South Africa - A state-of-the-art landfill addressing environmental issues including pollution and waste management and protection of nature while enhancing community benefits. Encourages sustainable land use by turning landfill areas into energy producing areas.

The New Qingpu Practice - Sustainable Construction of Ecology and Humanity, China - Showcasing the conservation of a historic Shanghai neighbourhood taking into account cultural, environmental and social values.

Integrated People-Driven Reconstruction in Post-Tsunami Aceh, Indonesia - A successful and participatory programme for the physical, social and economic reconstruction for tsunami survivors.

Spanish Network of Cities for the Climate, Spain - Joining more than 60 Spanish cities, a shared local climate change strategy has been developed, promoting more efficient use of energy resources in public lighting and transportation.

“Heartfelt Houses” The pilot Project: Housing Consolidation and Environmental Recovery of the Juan Bobo Stream Basin Area, Colombia - An initiative that relocates families from the Juan Bobo river bank, in a consultative and participatory process, resulting in better living conditions as well as environmental recovery of the river bank.

From Discontent to Collective Action: A Social Movement that Protected Balandra Bay, (a social and natural icon) northwest Mexico - Through a citizens’ movement - involving over 18,000 citizens, plus federal, state and municipal governments’ efforts, social and policy results were achieved for the long-term protection of Balandra Bay, La Paz, preventing it from being developed into tourist and exclusive residential accommodation that would have affected 250,000 inhabitants.

Partnership in Opportunities for Empowerment through Technology in the Americas –POETA, The Americas - This practice demonstrates social use of technology by providing IT training to help overcome unemployment and social exclusion of people with physical disabilities in marginalized areas in 18 Latin American countries.

For the Best Practice Transfer category, the two winners are: The Palestinian Housing Council, Palestine - Has created a participatory and collaborative structure with significant results in housing, benefiting more than 5,000 families and influencing national housing policy.

Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP), Pakistan - A large scale participatory programme for improvement of safe water supply and sanitation services.

Middle East and Africa: News

Transport Bamboo bicycle launched in Ghana A new bicycle built from bamboo is set to relaunch the bicycle as a form of transport in areas where historically it hasn’t been well suited – Africa. Most bicycles in Africa are imported from China or India. The majority are wholly inappropriate as they are not suited to the local potholed dirt roads that turn into mud baths immediately after a heavy downfall of rain. Nor can they be used to transport products or materials. For these reasons anything with an engine, whether it be a motorbike or a car, is the means of transport most Africans aspire to.

Yet, being cheap to buy and with low running costs, the bicycle should be the main vehicle for transport for the rural poor and could help unblock congestion in African cities.

One of the world’s elite bike designers and builders, Craig Calfee, first latched onto the idea of building bicycles from bamboo when he noticed his dog struggling to sink teeth marks into a stick of bamboo. “The first bike I built was a little rough,” says Calfee. “I then built a few more for friends, and people started asking about them, so I decided to start offering them to the public.”

Calfee then started thinking about his unusual form of transport on a grander scale.

“Bamboo is plentiful in Africa and Asia and can be easily grown in dry areas with minimal irrigation,” explains Calfee. “It isn’t labour intensive, and doesn’t require electricity or a large investment in equipment.”

Indeed bamboo, often seen as the poor man’s timber, is probably the strongest natural material on the planet. It is also environmentally friendly and highly renewable – sometimes growing at more than a metre a day.

After Calfee placed his idea on his website, hoping some investors would support it, he received an email from David Ho who was more interested in buying one of Calfee’s carbon-fibre bikes.

“I’m an avid cyclist and came across Craig’s website,”explains Ho. “I decided that there was great socio-economic potential to be had in bringing the concept of the bamboo bicycle to the developing world, and was able to seek seed funding from the Earth Institute at Columbia University to further this aim.” Further discussions followed

where an agreement was met for a project to be developed with two main objectives: to build a better bike for poor Africans and to stimulate a bicycle building industry in Africa to satisfy local needs.

Trials began in Ghana, which surveyed the needs of locals in order to guide the design of the bamboo bike. “Everyone we met was very excited by the sight of bicycle: it was like nothing they had ever seen before!” says Ho. “The locals helped us better understand the need for a bike to withstand rough off-road terrain; we also got very positive feedback about the cargo rack we designed, and have added small design details like bells and lights due to the constructive input provided by local residents.”

Production is set to begin next year in Ghana’s second city, Kumasi, in the hope of selling the bikes for USD 55, half the cost of an imported Chinese bike, on a business plan backed by KPMG. “Requests for prototypes are coming in from investors in countries ranging from Kenya to Argentina and more,” says Ho. The aim is to set up a network of bamboo bike-producing factories around sub-Saharan Africa, and other parts of the world, that will each produce upwards of 20,000 bamboo bicycles annually for use in their respective local markets.

Ho says: “We hope to eventually produce and sell approximately five million bikes per year. In order to make that happen, we will continue to dialogue with interested parties worldwide, and conduct further tests on the bikes we are constructing here in New York.” u

The bamboo bike

PHOTO © EARTH INSTITUTE

IN-FOCUS

HEALTH Arab countries suffer major damage from air pollution The Arab Environment and Development Forum recently published a report saying that Arab countries suffer immensely from the impacts of primary and secondary air pollutants. The Arab population are displaying an increase in respiratory and skin diseases, and eye infections, which are believed to be a consequence of exposure to and inhalation of pollution. The Arab Environment Agency say that governments are currently obliged to spend more than DH 18 billion to fight health problems arising from vehicle emissions. The authorities have reacted by implementing new legislation to limit CO 2 emissions.

WATER Cleaner water for Yemen A new project to improve water and sanitation facilities in Al Howta city in Yemen means that 36,000 people will benefit. The work is being financed by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The two organizations signed a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

SECURITY UN sends help to desperate Gaza residents UN-HABITAT sent a field mission to Gaza as part of the larger UN assessment team dispatched by the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, after his visit to the region in January. UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka said: “In line with UN-HABITAT’s technical mandate, the focus of this advanced mission will be on shelter and settlement recovery, and basic infrastructure rehabilitation. We will also support local authorities in managing post-conflict reconstruction.”

ENERGY Chevron to open USD 20 million centre in Qatar US energy company Chevron is planning to set up a Centre for Sustainable Energy Efficiency in partnership with the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP).

The Centre’s focus will be to investigate lighting and cooling technologies that are required in the extreme climate of the Middle East.

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Central and Eastern Europe: News

URBAN STRATEGY UN-HABITAT official bestowed with honorary citizenship Ms. Ligia Ramirez, the head of the UNHABITAT’s Belgrade office, has been granted the honorary citizenship award by the city of Nis in Serbia, in recognition of her contribution to the city’s development strategy and work promoting Nis, both in Serbia and further afield. The ceremony took place on 11 January, the same day that the city celebrates its liberation from the Ottoman occupation. The city mayor, Milos Simonovic presented the award together with the chairman of the city assembly, Mile Ilic. Ramirez is also the chief technical advisor for Settlement and Integration of Refugees Programme (SIRP).

TRANSPORT Budapest wins award for promoting clean transport alternatives The city of Budapest in Hungary has won the European Mobility Week Award for 2009.

A panel of independent experts deemed the city to have done the most to raise public awareness regarding traffic air pollution and to promote cleaner alternatives. Budapest’s efforts in promoting sustainable public transport included two car-free days, a race for VIPs to demonstrate the efficiency of public transport, an exhibition of clean and energy-efficient vehicles, a conference on air quality and noise mapping and a day promoting the pleasures of walking in the historical city centre along the banks of the Danube. Permanent measures such as expanding the downtown pedestrian area, increasing parking fees in the city centre, improving metro and tram infrastructure and services, and introducing new bicycle lanes and park-and-ride facilities have also been executed. Budapest also closed its ring road during EMW, reducing transit traffic in the city by around 25 percent.

TRANSPORT Central and Eastern European cities to benefit from new fund for green transport The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing funding to help cities invest in more environmentally friendly buses. Special assistance is being given to Eastern European countries that need to establish public transport authorities and an initial fund of EUR 15 million will be available for cities needing technical assistance with developing emission-cutting projects. Mario Aymerich of the EIB spoke in at a conference in Brussels in February about the intention behind the fund, saying that it was to encourage hydrogen or hybrid buses to be implemented in cities.

Cities that are given financial assistance will have to first prove that they are working to the EU’s 20-20-20 policy: reducing greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, and covering 20 percent of the cities’ energy needs with renewables by the same date.

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Climate change THE 14TH UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES IN POZNAN, POLAND (COP 14)

Secretary-General warns world leaders: don’t backslide The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Kimoon said the world had to avoid backsliding in the fight against global warming and devise a “Green New Deal” to fix the twin climate and economic crises.

He made the remarks in an address to more than 100 environment ministers from around the world. He said the crises were an opportunity to address both challenges simultaneously: “Managing the global financial crisis requires massive global stimulus. A big part of that spending should be an investment - an investment in a green future, an investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs and spurs green growth.

“We need a Green New Deal”, he told the ministers gathered in Poznan, Poland for UN climate talks overshadowed by the concerns about a global recession. “Yes, the economic crisis is serious,” he said. “Yet when it comes to climate change, the stakes are far higher. The climate crisis affects our potential prosperity and peoples’ lives, both now and far into the future.” He described the need for a deal that works for all nations, rich as well as poor, saying it had been embraced with enthusiasm at the recent development conference in Doha, Qatar, and at a meeting of finance ministers in Warsaw. “We also urgently need a deal on climate change to provide the political, legal, and economic framework to unleash a sustained wave of investment. In short, our response to the economic crisis must advance climate goals, and our response to the climate crisis will advance economic and social goals,” Ban Ki-moon said. “What we need, today, is leadership – leadership by you.”

Prior to the address he held a private meeting with heads of UN agencies, including Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, to discuss these issues. She also later attended an open meeting of the Chief Executive Board of the United Nations presided by Ban Ki-moon.

The progress so far The Poznan talks reviewed progress at the halfway mark of a two-year push to work out a new global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the UN pact binding 37 nations to curb emissions by about five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

Mr. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Cli-

mate Change, said in a keynote address: “We need to hear, feel and see your resolve to complete the task that you set us all in Bali a year ago. You launched the Bali Road Map to fulfill this task – not to procrastinate on it. The Bali Road Map is about issues of today, not about delay.” He cited examples of what he called clear signs of urgency – Mauritania in the grip of a triple stranglehold with a spreading desert, encroaching ocean and worsening floods. The Maldives island nation saving up for exodus because of rising seas. “Distrust and suspicion have haunted these talks for much too long,” Mr. de Boer said. “This is your opportunity to move on, to tell the world how you will deliver together, to tell the world how you will reach out to each other on finance and technology, to tell the world how you will create governance structures for finance in which no one is more equal than the next.”

Speaking out Developing nations, such as China and India, say recession is no excuse for the rich to delay fighting climate change. “If Europe sends a signal that it can make deep cuts only in the prosperous times, what are the developing countries supposed to say?” asked Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo.

In Poznan, a new Adaptation Fund to help poor countries cope with the impacts of rising seas, droughts, floods and heat-waves were among the most contentious issues.

Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia, whose Pacific island nation is threatened by rising seas, accused some industrialized nations of “burying us in red tape” to deny access to cash in the Adaptation Fund. The fund could reach about USD 300 million a year by 2012 to help build coastal defences or develop drought-resistant crops.

“We will not sink,” he said to applause. “We’re not contemplating migration, we will survive.”

Addressing the plenary on behalf of the world’s least developed countries, Mr. Mohamed Shareef, Deputy Minister of Housing, Transport and the Environment of Maldives, said there was no time to lose. “We understand the need for discussion and to bring ideas to address climate change – but we don’t have the luxury to waste time any more,” he said. “We have to consolidate

Central and Eastern Europe: News

IN-FOCUS

CLIMATE CHANGE DOW Chemical Company and Alstom Technology sign MOU to reduce CO2 in Poland Europe’s largest coal-fuelled thermal power station is about to become greener.

The plant, built by Alstom Power Inc. is in Belchatow in Poland and a new pilot project is underway to construct a carbon capture plant at the site. The DOW Chemical Company’s advanced amine-based scrubbing technology is expected to be used to help the new plant capture an estimated 65,000 metric tons of CO2 annually.

Rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions threaten coastlines

our ideas and concrete steps should be agreed to take the decision on time. Copenhagen is not even a year from now.” He said the world’s poorest countries appreciated steps being taken by the European Union. Speaking for the Union, French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Barloo said the world’s most powerful economic bloc would be ready to cut its emissions by up to 30 percent if an agreement is reached in Copenhagen next year.

Mayors, local authorities say the urban dimension crucial to climate change talks Mayors and local authorities representing cities around the world in December urged delegates attending a milestone session of climate change talks to ensure that cities are kept high on the agenda given that they are home to half the world’s population and responsible for most of the emissions that cause climate change.

“The voice of cities has to be heard at the COP in Poznan,” said the city’s mayor, Ryszard Grobelny, referring to the 14th Conference of the Parties held under the auspices of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC). He was speaking at a Local Government Climate Session co-organized by Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and the Association of Polish cities.

Think cities, mayors warn In a joint message to the conference, the mayors said: “We, cities and local governments, represent half of the world’s population. Cities consume up to 80 percent of all energy, and must implement strong local climate actions.

Cities must commit to ambitious reduction targets, mobilize citizens around the globe; and offer national-local partnership to limit global warming.”

“It is the local authorities which have a much closer relationship with their citizens than natio-

PHOTO © PATRIZIO MARTORANA

nal governments. It is our duty to ensure that the opinions and voices of our citizens are heard when it comes to climate change,” Grobelny said.

Echoing his views, the Mayor of Entebbe Uganda, Stephen Kabuye who serves as Vice-President of ICLEI, said that local authorities were in a special position.

“We need to go to the leaders and we need to go down to the schools, the places of worship to spread the gospel of climate change,” he said. The issues were so important that if not well handled – all the other problems (of urban poverty) could get worse, he said.

World leaders meeting in Poznan worked hard to create a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which dozens of nations, but not the United States, agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Several mayors said they hoped this position would now change.

In Bali last year, nations set a goal of negotiating a successor to Kyoto, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in 2009. Delegates in Poznan laid the foundations for Copenhagen.

But the economic crisis and the timing of the talks dampened expectations in Poznan. There was concern that sour economy may discourage wealthier nations from agreeing to help fund cleaner energy in developing countries.

In a message to Poznan, President Barack Obama, who promised to take strong action on climate change, said: “The time for denial is over. We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend my administration to do.”

David Cadman, a Vancouver City Councillor and President of ICLEI added that the problems were urgent and that the world could no longer delay on a sound climate change agreement.

“Climate change is happening all around us.

The world’s cities have got it; now national governments need to hear us.” u

TRANSPORT Asia Minor and Europe to be linked in pioneering project An historic rail project that will connect Europe and Asia will finally become a reality. The rail link will travel under the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul and will be partially constructed under the Sea of Marmara. Work was due to be completed in 2006, but had to be stopped after important archaeological finds were unearthed. The Schindler manufacturing company is supplying 59 escalators and nine elevators for stations along the line. The project is one of the biggest construction developments currently taking place.

ENERGY Slovak housing associations win awards for energy efficiency Three Slovak housing associations from Žilina, Prešov and Dolný Kubín were chosen as winners in 2008’s Energy Efficiency Excellence Awards. The awards were organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) together with the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic. There were three categories of judgement: highest energy-saving achievement, most effective investment in energy and highest project return. The winners all received project financing through EBRD partner banks. Slovak energy use is 75 percent higher that the EU average.

CONSTRUCTION Building better in Serbia The first phase of a EUR 15 million programme to provide housing for refugees in Serbia concluded at a colourful ceremony the capital Belgrade. The Settlement and Integration of Refugees Programme (SIRP) ran from 2004-2008 and was financed by the Italian government and implemented by UNHABITAT. It provided some 670 new homes for 3,000 refugees and vulnerable people.

The programme has also built institutional capacities for social housing development, assisted the social and economic integration of refugees and displaced people, and helped boost the development capacity of local governments. The programme was also used to assist Serbia’s integration into the European Union.

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Conict in Africa taking the Responsibility to Protect

March 2009

People

Obituary

Peter Oberlander

P

eter Oberlander, a founding father of UN-HABITAT, passed away peacefully on 27 December 2008, his family announced. An architect and teacher who became Canada’s first Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, he was 86.

Just weeks before his death, Professor Oberlander wrote the main cover story for the inaugural issue of Urban World on the role of cities in the future.

He played a crucial political role in convening the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat 1) in Vancouver in 1976 and the third session of UN-HABITAT’s World Urban Forum 30 years later.

In 1970, he was called to initiate Canada’s first Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, and become its inaugural Secretary (Deputy Minister). He served in that post for three years.

After the Habitat 1 conference he founded the Centre for Human Settlements at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver.

Between 1980 and 1990 he served on the Canadian Delegations to the annual meetings

Obituary

Peter Swan

P

eter Swan, an Australian national who served many years with UN-HABITAT, suffered a heart attack at his adoptive home in Bangkok, Thailand on 23 November, 2008. He was 64. Mr. Swan joined the agency in 1989 as officer in charge of its information division.

From 1995 to 1998 he served in Bangkok, as Coordinator of the Community Development Programme for Asia, before assuming responsibility for UN-HABITAT’s Cambodia programme in Phnom Penh. Mrs. Tibaijuka, cited his popularity among colleagues, and the role he played in making the 1996 Istanbul City Summit a success.

He is survived by his wife. u

Peter Oberlander PHOTO © CENTRE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS , UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLOMBIA

of the UN Commission on Human Settlements, Nairobi, Kenya.

“He was a father to us all. Peter was one of the greatest and most prominent supporters of the creation of UN-HABITAT,” said the agency’s Executive Director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka in a message of condolences.

URBAN WATCH

“When Mr. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, he started the Federal Ministry of Urban Affairs that brought cities to the cabinet table in Canada. His personal efforts then helped bring the United Nations Habitat Forum to Vancouver in 1976. Thirty years later, he played the pivotal role in bringing UNHABITAT back to its birthplace in Vancouver for the third session of the World Urban Forum,” she said.

Professor Oberlander, OC, PhD FRAIC LLD (HON), was born in Vienna on 29 November 1922. He moved to Canada in 1940 as the Nazis rose to power. The first Canadian to obtain the Master of City Planning and subsequently the PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Harvard University, he served as the UBC Professor Emeritus in Community and Regional Planning, pursuing an active research programme at the UBC Centre for Human Settlements until his death.

Concurrently, since 1995, he served as Adjunct Professor in Political Science at Simon Fraser University. Between 1998 and 2008, he also served as a Federal Citizenship Court Judge.

Among the many honours conferred upon him, he and his wife were both named Officers of the Order of Canada. He is survived by his wife, three children, and four grandchildren. u

From rags to riches on the streets of Mumbai

S

lumdog Millionaire starts at the end, with 18 year-old orphan Jamal Malik, from the slums of Mumbai, just one question anyway from winning the top prize of 20 million rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? However, when the show breaks for the night, before the all important final question, Jamal is bundled out of the television studio and taken to the police station where he is tortured and beaten by corrupt police, who demand to know how he cheated. Determined to prove his innocence, Jamal recalls the story of his life in the Mumbai slums, where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures on the treacherous streets, of witnessing the murder of their mother in anti-Muslim riots, the violent and terrifying encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl

he loved and lost. Through a sequence of dramatic flashbacks, Jamal reveals how each of his own life experiences provided him with the key to answer each of the game show’s questions.

The brilliant cinematography enables the film to travel with swiftness and stealth through the slums and palaces of Mumbai, as the viewer becomes engrossed in how and why Jamal came to be sitting in the Millionaire hot seat. Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for 10 Academy Awards at the 2009 ceremony and went on to win eight Oscars, the most for any film that year, including Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. It also won five Critics’ Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film. For an interesting glimpse into UN-HABITAT’s work in India’s slums, see the Gwalior story page 32. u

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People

Hong Kong Dean wins UNHABITAT award

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Professor Anthony Gar-On Yeh PHOTO © UN-HABITAT

rofessor Anthony Gar-On Yeh won the 2008 UN-HABITAT Lecture Award. The Award is presented by UN-HABITAT through the Global Research Network on Human Settlements (HS-Net), an international board that advises the agency on its Global Report on Human Settlements. The award seeks to recognize outstanding and sustained contribution to research, thinking and practice in the human settlements field. A key component of the award is the delivery, by the winner, of a lecture before a live audience. Professor Yeh presented his lecture, entitled GIS as a Planning Support System for the Planning of Harmonious Cities at the fourth session of the World Urban Forum, Nanjing, China, in November, 2008. One of Asia’s foremost urban planners, he is Dean of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong. u

New drive to bring sport to slum dwellers

U

N-HABITAT and the International Olympic Committee have signed a landmark memorandum of understanding aimed at empowering underprivileged communities across the globe by encouraging them to take part in sport. The UN-HABITAT executive director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka stated that “over 50 percent of slum populations are made up of young people and there is no better way to give direction and motivation than by encouraging them to participate in sports.”

There are also plans for the formation of a follow-up committee to help maintain international cooperation and the exchange of information. u

UN-HABITAT Executive Director meets Bill Clinton

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Former US President Bill Clinton chats with Mrs. Tibaijuka in February at a meeting organized by the Clinton Global Initiative University in Austin, Texas PHOTO © THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE

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eveloping countries should be practising sustainable development. This was the upshot of talks between UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka and former US President Bill Clinton at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative on 14 February in Texas. The pair also discussed the United Nations Global Campaign for Sustainable Urbanization and how the potential of today’s youth should be harnessed to help in the fight against climate change and the alleviation of poverty. Other themes discussed were education, global health, peace and human rights.

Mr. Clinton convened over 3,000 participants, including university presidents, students, activists and policy makers to mobilize their commitments to solve some the world’s most pressing challenges. The university prioritized five themes: education, energy and climate change, global health, peace and human rights, and poverty alleviation. u

New UN-HABITAT publications

Asset-based Approaches to Community Development

Best Practices on Social Sustainability in Historic Districts

Housing Finance Mechanisms in Thailand

Land, Property, and Housing in Somalia

UN-HABITAT P.O.Box 30030, GPO Nairobi 00100, Kenya Tel. (254-20) 762 3120 Fax. (254-20) 762 3477 www.un-habitat.org

FOR A BETTER URBAN FUTURE

URBAN WATCH

Book review

Reshaping Economic Geography

By Daniel Biau

T

he World Bank 2009 World Development Report is a masterpiece. By proposing to reshape economic geography, it is not always politically correct but it provides a lot of food for thought, particularly on the role of urbanization in development.

The report starts by analyzing geoeconomic transformations along three dimensions: density, distance and division (development in 3-D) and three geographic scales: local, national and international. It states that density is the most important dimension locally, distance to density the most important dimension nationally, and division the most important dimension (or indeed obstacle) internationally.

Therefore it advocates that urbanization, mobility and regional exchanges should be encouraged with the overall objective to facilitate market access. This is based on the fact that “over the last two centuries growing cities, mobile people, and vigorous trade have been the catalysts for progress in the developed world”. Noting that “a striking attribute of economic development is its unevenness across space,” the report also deplores that “politicians generally view this economic imbalance disapprovingly.” The authors criticize “the prescription that economic growth must be more spatially balanced,” and affirm: “Governments generally cannot simultaneously foster economic production and spread it out smoothly.” Slowing down urbanization constitutes an ineffective policy response: this view may not be politically correct but it is well documented, with examples taken from all over the world.

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In its third part the report elaborates policy recommendations which claim to be universal on how to combine economic growth with social development. It discusses the spatial transformations that must happen for countries to develop.

The report acknowledges that in many countries such as India and Nigeria the response has to be a blend of spatially blind, connective, and targeted policies. Indeed many countries face a three-dimensional challenge and it is over-simplistic to consider that targeted interventions (such as slum upgrading) should only take place in highly urbanized countries.

The cornerstone of integration is certainly public investments in institutions and connective infrastructure, independently of the level of urbanization. The WDR prescription to follow three successive stages sounds rather theoreti-

cal and exaggeratingly normative: If one accepts that higher densities and shorter distances make the difference, targeted interventions can be a useful tool to influence these two spatial factors.

The division dimension (the third D) is more problematic as it refers to the impermeability of borders and national differences in regulations.

Here the report recommends – in its last chapter – systematic regional integration, as divisions hamper the movements of labour and capital. But it falls short of criticizing the barriers to international migration. Regional integration is certainly desirable, particularly in Africa, but global integration and cooperation remain an economic challenge, specifically for developing regions located near large world markets.

Finally some comforting statements deserve, because they come from the World Bank, to be highlighted such as “the best predictor of income in the world today is not what or whom you know, but where you work” or “more rapid poverty reduction will probably require a faster pace of urbanization, not a slower one”, or “climate change calls for a different urban form, not slower urbanization” and even: “cities without slums is not a realistic vision for developing countries”!

Drafted by dozens of researchers Reshaping Economic Geography is a much welcome and provoking must-read for all human settlements experts. u World Bank, World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009. Reviewed by Daniel Biau.

Conference and events calendar

URBAN WATCH

C40 Climate Leadership Group Seoul Summit 18-21 May 2009 The Shilla, Seoul, Korea www.c40seoulsummit.com

C40 mayors – including C40 Cities group chairman, David Miller – and mayors from affiliate cities, together with policy makers, experts and scholars in climate, transportation and energy fields will meet to discuss opinions with regards to tackling climate change in large cities.

There will also be a simultaneous Climate Change Expo offering the latest climate change related technologies. Bill Clinton will be among those attending the event on behalf of the Clinton Climate Initiative.

GC22 (UN-HABITAT event): The 22nd Session of the Governing Council 30 March-3 April 2009 Nairobi, Kenya http://www.unhabitat.org/list.asp?typeid=11&catid=26

The Governing Council meets every two years to examine UN-HABITAT’s work and relationships with its partners. The Council is composed of 58 member states. It is a high-level forum of governments at the ministerial level during which policy guidelines and the organization’s budget are established for the next two-year period.

Global City 7-8 April 2009 Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi www.globalcityforum.com

A forum for the public and private sector to exchange best practices and exchange ideas on sustainable urban strategies. Attendees will include mayors, urban planners, decision-makers, leaders and renowned speakers such as government advisors, CEOs of major corporations, architects and municipality officials.

eeGlobal: Energy Efficiency Global Forum and Exposition 27-29 April 2009 Palais des Congres, Paris, France http://eeglobalforum.org/

The eeGlobal Forum is organized by the Alliance to Save Energy and aims to discuss and define why energy efficiency is paramount in the battle to keep up with the world’s energy demands in the cleanest way.

Speakers include world-class energy efficiency leaders from industry, government, and non-profit organizations. Discussions will share information and strategies on the latest technical, commercial, and policy information.

Euro-Syrian Cities Congress 9-10 May 2009 Damascus, Syria http://websites.mam-sy.org/home.php

The Regional Centre for Sustainable Local Development organize the two-day Euro-Syrian Cities congress, which is the initiative of the EC funded Municipal Administration Modernization (MAM) programme. The aim is to bring together European and Syrian representatives from local authorities and decision-makers in local development. The congress and its workshops will set the framework for knowledge-sharing, and will instigate networking to lay down the foundations of future Euro-Syrian local partnerships.

Canadian Sustainability Indicators Network: Fourth international conference on sustainable development and planning 13-15 May 2009 Limassol, Cyprus http://www.csin-rcid.ca/event.aspx?id=5612

Following three previous, successful conferences in Skiathos, Bologna and the Algarve, this event will focus on issues pertaining to regional sustainable development and planning. The mission of the conference is to encourage planners, environmentalists, architects, engineers, policy makers and economists to work together in order to ensure that planning and development can continue sustainably.

The conference will be of interest to planners, environmentalists, engineers, architects, ecologists, economists, policy makers and other governmental officials, researchers and academics involved in the field of sustainability.

Low Carbon Cities: 45th ISOCARP International Congress 18-22 October 2009 Porto, Portugal www.isocarp.org

The Low Carbon Cities Congress is the annual meeting of the global group of experienced, professional planners who make up ISOCARP. Attendees to the event will discuss ways to find an international strategy to reverse the current trend of increasing C02 emissions. The congress will explore the role of planning and development in reducing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere through creating low-carbon cities.

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Conference briefing

The World Urban Forum – the world’s premier conference on cities

Swelling cities pose fresh global challenges, leaders warn

By Paul Okunlola

A

t the epoch making Fourth Session of the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum hosted by the Chinese city of Nanjing, the strongest message coming out was that the swelling cities of the world are posing fresh challenges every day.

The 3-6 November 2008 Forum drew nearly 8,000 participants from some 155 countries with its exhibition alone attracting more than 20,000 visitors in just four days.

Barely a speaker at the UN-HABITAT biennial gathering missed a chance to give their views of what a harmonious city is all about.

Setting the tone in the first opening statement, Mr. Jiang Hongkun, the Mayor of Nanjing, said: “Building harmonious cities is our vision. This session of the Forum convened to discuss the theme, harmonious urbanization, will promote new ways of building cities at home and abroad.”

The city was adorned with flyers and posters welcoming Forum visitors and laser light shows lit up the night skies from high buildings in the newly modernized city.

The poorest people in cities face appalling living conditions PHOTO © ALEX BALINT

More and more people are swarming into cities, causing overcrowding PHOTO © CÉCILE GENG

These staggering figures are testimony that the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum, held every two years, is now firmly established as the world’s premier conference on cities.

As delegates from around the world exchanged views in the newly built giant Nanjing convention and exhibition centre, the buzzwords on everyone’s lips at the fourth session of the World Urban Forum were “harmonious urbanization”.

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Slum dwellers worldwide are being forced into deeper poverty

PHOTO © VIVEK CHUG

Conference briefing

UN predictions state that by 2030 more than five billion people will reside in cities PHOTO © CARARR

World leaders caution on rapid urbanization Against the milieu of the global financial crisis, world leaders at the meeting warned that dangerous new threats had emerged on the international development agenda, as developing countries grapple with the effects of the growing tide of people swarming into cities in search of better livelihoods.

For his part, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the urbanization challenge now facing countries in the developing world had already snowballed into a “crisis of global dimensions,” while United Nations officials alerted that some 1.2 billion slum dwellers worldwide may be on the verge of being forced deeper into poverty by prevailing economic conditions.

New studies published by UN-HABITAT at the Forum show that no fewer than three million people are being added to the population of the world’s cities every week – or some five million people each month – as demographic changes ensure that the world’s population becomes predominantly urban for the first time ever, this year.

Said Mr. Odinga: “The UN predicts that by 2030, the number of city inhabitants will be over five billion, or 60 percent of the world’s population. We have been warned that unless policy makers undertake a radical rethink, we face disaster. When we look at the progress of human migration to urban centres over the years, we will know that time is not on our side, and we will treat 2030 or 2050 as if they were next year, if not next week.”

In her address, UN-HABITAT Executive Director Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, noted that the times are testy for development planners around the world, who now have to tackle the growing consequences from the world’s prevailing economic crises.

“Since the end of last year, we have witnessed a succession of crises, the scale and pace of which took us all by surprise. The year started with a fuel and food crisis, after climate change had been confirmed as a fact of life to which we must adapt or perish. Before we could come to grips with these serious matters, a sub-prime mortgage meltdown in the United States was to unleash a financial crisis whose contagion has been so fast and so vast that the entire world is now grappling with the effects.

“The financial crisis, the threat of global recession and the huge swings in commodity prices and stock markets further threaten the foundations of globalization that have underpinned global growth for the past decade. We are witnessing a resurgence of protectionism combined

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The Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Dejiang Zhang, told the gathering that in the light of the population challenges facing his country, China itself was opting to adopt a coordinated development approach between its cities and regions, with special emphasis on energy saving and climate change mitigation.

The urbanization story in numbers A UN-HABITAT status report, The State of the World’s Cities launched at the forum has revealed that the growing level of inequalities in income and access to adequate shelter have become socially and economically unsustainable, posing such threats as social unrest, reduced economic efficiency, reduced level of investments and, diversion of security

PHOTO © SOFIA HENRIQUES

Human migration to urban centres continues

with credit contraction that can further exacerbate and worsen a global recession.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also warned delegates that the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals could be threatened if the urbanization crisis was not effectively addressed.

“There are many billions of people suffering from a lack of affordable housing and all the facilities that make life decent,” the Secretary-General said. “We must work together and generate the political will to have a smooth implementation of the Millennium Development Goals and work more closely and harder than before.”

funds to security issues. No fewer that 25 million people in Africa are at risk of sea level rise from climate change, with the most vulnerable cities being Alexandria (Egypt) Dakar (Senegal), Lagos (Nigeria), Abidjan (Cote D I’voire), Cotonou (Cameroon), Tunis (Tunisia), Mombasa (Kenya), Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Maputo (Mozambique).

For the poor represented by some civil society groups, for young people represented by youth groups, or women’s organizations, the concept carried a message of hope easy to understand in a world urbanizing so quickly that, according to UN-HABITAT

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the Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, H.H. Dejiang Zhang; China’s Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Hon. Jiang Weixin; the Governor of Jiangsu Province Lou ZhiJun, the Mayor of Nanjing Jiang Hongkun; and for their warm welcome to us and our delegations. And not least Mr. Qi Ji, Deputy Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Forum, Chair, Deputy Mayor Lu Bing of the City of Nanjing,” said Anna Tibaijuka.

“This word of thanks goes out also to their assistants, their staff and the ever attentive Space in city centres is hard to come by PHOTO © C2 RINGO

figures, two-thirds of humanity will be living in towns and cities in another generation.

Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that in a new urban age with most people living in cities, urban crime was likely to increase.

“The rise in crime is bound to continue and accelerate as urbanization – especially in Africa and the Caribbean – continues to grow at a rapid pace. This carries important implications for global – and not simply local – security,” he said.

He cited reports on regions where crime had had an impact on development – for example in Africa, the Balkans, the Caribbean and Central America. His office had demonstrated the link: under-development increases vulnerability to crime, and crime hurts development.

The success The success of the Forum in 2008 was due to the intense interest and concern about modern life in a rapidly urbanising planet shown by participating partners from nearly every walk of life. And it was also thanks t0 the tremendous efforts of the People’s Republic of China to ensure that everything in Nanjing worked smoothly, even though the meeting was held in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake – one of the most devastating in living memory. Not least, it also followed closely on the heels of the 2008 Olympic Games in China.

“In expressing our heartfelt appreciation, it is important especially to cite here

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multilingual young people who were at every venue to give a helping hand – and always with a smile.

“If we think back on the Forum, it is the smiles and kindness shown us all that remain uppermost in our minds,” she said.

She also thanked the Governments of Norway for providing financial support towards civil society participation at the Forum and the Kingdom of Bahrain for sponsoring the Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Award, which will from now onwards become a standing feature of the biennial event. u

Other highlights of the Forum The World Urban Youth Forum More than 500 youth activists from over 50 countries worldwide, gathered in Nanjing, China, for the opening of the UN-HABITAT World Urban Youth Forum.

The two-day conference, hosted by the Nanjing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Youth League, is third biennial session of its kind, and takes place traditionally on the eve of the World Urban Forum. This year, youth delegates discussed the theme: “Harmonious Urbanization: The Challenge of Balanced Territorial Development.”

African Mayors African Mayors from the Lake Victoria region signed an agreement with the Yangpu District of the Municipal Government of Shanghai for enhanced cooperation and exchange programmes. The agreement was signed during the fourth session of the World Urban Forum in Nanjing.

Ms. Zong Ming, Magistrate of Yangpu joined the mayors of 21 towns from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda which all border Africa’s greatest lake at a colourful signing ceremony witnessed by UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka.

Business leaders Private sector leaders brainstormed on how to build greener cities even as they push their bottom lines. Business leaders committed to corporate responsibility discussed ways of improving living conditions and achieving harmonious cities. They sought ways to ensure responsible business practices for sustainable urbanization and the core principles that could underpin it. They also discussed affordable technologies and business models that could work for the urban poor at the bottom of the economic pyramid, so that cities and towns are safer, more equitable, harmonious – and better for business.

New youth fund UN-HABITAT in November unveiled a groundbreaking fund to finance youth-led development projects around the world. The Opportunities Fund for Urban YouthLed Development, announced at the Forum was created to engage young people in achieving sustainable urbanization. The Fund is initially being financed through a USD 2,000,000 grant over two years from the Government of Norway. Other governments and donors are being invited to contribute.

World Urban

Forum 5

The Right to the City: bridging the urban gap In 1996, during the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, the right to housing was enshrined, and the Right to the City was launched successfully on a world level. The Urban Forums that took place after Istanbul narrowed their focus to cities at the same time as the world’s population was migrating to cities on an increasing basis. But at that time, cities were still not ready to accommodate such people, who were seeking shelter, services and to participate in the economy.

Today we need to rethink and renegotiate the fundamental bases of the city we want. We live in different countries but consume global products, we move around in the same way and use the same natural resources. The World Urban Forum aims to address problems that are repeated in each of our cities, where we want to enjoy, collectively, the beneďŹ ts offered by modernity and human development.

We understand that the city is a collective space, culturally rich and diversiďŹ ed, that belongs to all its inhabitants and where their social functions must assure the universal, just, democratic and sustainable distribution of wealth, services, goods and opportunities.The Right to the City should be understood as a right to fair use, within the principles of sustainability, democracy, equity and social justice. The city of people linked through emotional and cultural ties with diversity and plurality expressed through ways of life and identity, is the main stage of social experiences enlivened by disputes over territory and power.

Adoption of the Right to the City, as a frame of reference to lead to the construction of a more humane, democratic and sustainable city, has been chosen by Brazil as the strategic and conceptual theme of the 5th World Urban Forum and will be submitted for approval to the Secretariat of the World Urban Forum in Nairobi during the 22nd Session of the Governing Council.

The World Urban Forum to be held in March 2010 in the city of Rio de Janeiro will seek to encourage discussions to establish the Right to the City in other countries and to ensure its implementation and effectiveness by means of appropriate regulations, programs, activities, projects and policies. Interested parties from various countries will present their own experiences including a list of rights which have not yet been addressed by policies and public action.

One of the goals of the Forum must be to admit that these rights should be established and that governments, the private sector and the general public can and must act to make them concrete and not theoretical. When defending the Right to the City, one

is also defending the right to a democratic space that challenges the exclusion and fragmentation existing in our cities today.

These concepts will be brought to life in WUF5 through six strategic themes which will drive discussion and the media debate. The panels and networking events will contribute to the content of session summaries to be presented at the end of each day.

The six strategic themes are: l l l l l l

Right to the City Funding of Cities Participatory Democracy Inclusive Cities Cultural Diversity in Cities Sustainable Urban Development

An agenda of events and discussions will also be drawn up from the “concept documentsâ€? provided by international specialists in each of the six strategic areas. The idea is to improve the debate not only for the beneďŹ t of attendees at sessions but also for those attending the networking events.

We hope that from these events, the Forum will promote a dialogue and build common commitments that result in new solutions for our cities.

To rethink our urban utopia is the main task. Our challenge now is to learn with the rest of the world, taking into account the needs of our partners so that best practices and actions are multiplied in every city, creating a better world where everyone can live with dignity, respect and citizenship.