By Adèle Charbonneau
Cities are both the victims and the causes of climate change. Urban centers are the key contributor to climate change as nodes of activities and a main source of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, cities are also strongly affected by climate change. Over 90% of all urban areas are coastal, putting most of them at risk of flooding from rising sea levels and powerful storms. The role of developing cities is particularly important as they will host the future urban population yet their capacity for action is limited by their financial and capacity constraints. Learn from four cities in the Global South (Bogota, Lagos, Tehran and Surabaya) that have worked to meet the challenges of climate change.
The fight against the impact of climate change has been one of the top priorities for Bogota's administrators. According to Jorge Bela, Bogota is the only city in the region that included climate change mitigation in its general plan. The Plan de Ordenación Territorial (general zoning plan) was heavily modified to take climate change into account. It primarily seeks to densify the city, banning new construction in the rural areas, and substantially increase the size of protected areas. Perhaps one of the most far-reaching projects is the Rio Bogotá Environmental Recuperation and Flood Control Project, funded by the World Bank. The river banks are being enlarged to 40 meters and a buffer zone is being created, which can safely flood during periods of intense rain. The outgoing administration has also launched projects geared at preventing climate change. The expansion of dedicated bike lanes and the creation of improved paths for pedestrians are two examples of non-polluting commuting solutions.
In Lagos, Peter Adeyeye talks about flooding, which has become a serious issue as many parts of the city are below sea level while sporadic rainfall and human activities have increased vulnerability. To address this challenge, the state government has been investing massively in the maintaining, upgrading, and rehabilitating of strategic road networks in the city under the Road Network Efficiency Improvement (RNEI). An example of rehabilitation work is the construction of 1,800 meters of drainage channels. The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), the agency responsible for enforcing all environmental laws and policies, also began a public sensitization initiative focused on clearing of drains to prevent flooding in the city. Finally, the Lagos government developed a flood control master plan which aims to reduce flooding in Lagos from 40 percent to 20 percent by 2015 and eliminate all by 2025; however as of now the plan only exists on paper.
For Maryam Amiri, Tehran is associated with many environmental threats, one of the most dangerous challenges being earthquakes. This concern prompted the Tehran Municipality in 2005 to investigate deteriorated areas in Tehran. In that year, the Master Plan was approved and a special program was created to address this issue. A formal office was also established in each of these neighborhoods (about 50 neighborhoods in total) that would facilitate running programs through interaction with residents and attract their participation to renovate their homes. Financial incentives, such as mortgage loans, were considered to encourage residents to renovate their houses and make them more earthquake-resilient. But the efforts have been mainly to reduce the population density by creating more open spaces. However, the municipality's approach is not perfect. The additional density of houses is a violation of the Master Plan and maintains density at high levels, while poverty limits the loan potential.
For the past few years, Surabaya has been getting ready to become a Green City in 2020. Widya Anggraini writes about the cooperation established in 2011 with the City of Kitakyushu in Japan and Kitakyushu Asian Center for Low Carbon in a program called the Low-carbon Program and Environmentally Sustainable City (ESC) Planning. This project intends to achieve four objectives: to encourage Surabaya city planning to develop low-carbon and environmentally friendly activities in the fields of energy, transportation, waste and water; to identify programs that can reduce greenhouse emissions and save energy costs in the short term; and programs that can limit emissions in the long-term; and to encourage the development of a data management system to measure the reduction of CO2 emissions and make a CO2 measurement methodology. The main challenge lies in the availability of resources and the behavior change of community members to be more energy efficient and environmentally conscious.
These global initiatives provide ideas on solutions available for cities to fight against climate change using public policies, financial incentives and international solidarity. Check out more of the discussion on climate change and cities on URB.im and contribute to the debate.
Photo credit: Peter Adeyeye