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The world’s leading professors explain the latest thinking in the humanities and social sciences in just 10 minutes.
Climate change can seem very remote.
Even though stories of increasing levels of the atmospheric gases that are leading to global warming and the devastating impacts of changing weather patterns across the world are frequently in the news, we usually think about climate change as a global issue that can only be resolved at the international negotiating table.
But its causes and possible solutions may be closer to home than we think.
Over the past three decades, researchers and policymakers have increasingly recognised that climate change is a profoundly urban issue.
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Hi, I’m Harriet Bulkeley, Professor of Geography at Durham University, and today, I hope to address a question: why are cities an important part of climate change?
Cities are a key source of the greenhouse gas emissions that are produced from energy consumption. As growing numbers of the world’s population are living in cities, the concentration of economic production, energy use, transportation and consumption in cities means that they are central to how our climate is changing.
In their latest report, the IPCC show that while in “2015, the urban share of global emissions was about 62%. By 2020 … [this] had increased to between 67-72% of global emissions”. These emissions are not evenly distributed as “about 100 of the largest emitting cities account for about 18% of the global carbon footprint”.
And at the same time cities are feeling the impacts of climate change more rapidly, and with more consequences, than elsewhere. For example, as a result of the combination of climate change with the urban heat island effect, “extreme heat risks are expected to affect half of the future urban population, with a particular impact in the tropical Global South and in coastal cities and settlements.”
The complexity of cities and their often-high levels of inequality mean that the risks of climate change are experienced in complex and cascading ways, and will affect diverse urban groups differently.
Cities, with all their diversity, are then on the frontline of how climate change is and will be experienced. They are also central to the future climate that we will all inhabit.
A growing number of cities across the world have recognised their crucial role in taking action to address the twin challenges of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing resilience by adapting to its impacts.
In 1989, the first city governments started to voice their concerns and commitments to action. And through the first two decades of this century, the numbers have swelled such that there are now nearly 14,000 cities representing over 1.2 billion people who have declared a commitment to address climate change.
And they are not acting alone. One of the most remarkable and important features about how cities have taken up the challenge of addressing climate change is that they have done so through developing transnational collaboration to share knowledge, build their capacity to tackle the problem, raise funding and create solidarity and political support.
ICLEI, the network of local governments for sustainability, was founded in the 1990s and it now has regional branches globally. C40, established in 2003, is a network of large cities which now has 97 members representing over 20% of the global economy.
As part of their efforts, city governments have developed commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, both internally and across their communities, and have created action plans and policies to do so. Even when national governments have turned away – as happened in Australia and the US during the 2000s – many city governments stayed the course continuing to pledge commitment and to develop plans for action.
Despite this momentum shown by city governments, urban action for climate change has not proven to be a silver bullet that can resolve the climate crisis.
For a start, not all cities are engaged equally – city networks for climate change remain relatively dominated by large cities in the Global North, while smaller cities in the Global South where much of the predicted rise in urbanisation is due to take place are less likely to be involved.
There is also mixed evidence about how successful those cities that have signed up to take action have been in moving from setting targets and developing plans towards actual implementation. While we have seen that those involved in city networks are more likely to have met initial targets and reduced emissions, an analysis of action taken across the G20 found that “while over 3,000 cities and 173 regions have pledged commitments to mitigate climate change” less than half have provided adequate data about their progress and it is likely that even smaller fraction are on track to keep their commitments. A similarly mixed picture emerges when it comes to adaptation planning and building resilience.
Part of the challenge for cities in moving from commitments to action lies in the degree to which their remit and capacity are shaped by others. Cities operate under the conditions of multilevel governance – that is their autonomy to govern is shaped vertically by the powers of regional and national government and horizontally by the extent to which they are able to draw on collaboration with neighbouring local authorities, partner organisations, businesses and communities.
These multilevel governance conditions shape how far it is a city’s responsibility to manage transportation or land use planning, their freedom to regulate or levy taxes, as well as the different kinds of resources and authority they can draw upon.
Cities are of course also constrained by the finance they have available to take action for climate change. Frequently there are no specific funds dedicated to climate action and being able invest for what can often seem like a long-term return can be politically challenging. At the same time there are of course many cities around the world who lack funding for the provision of even basic services, and climate change together with other risks is reducing their ability to borrow to invest in making urban development resilient.
Now, in the face of these constraints and limited evidence of the impact of urban climate policy and planning, it might be tempting to write off cities efforts in addressing climate change as well-intentioned but ultimately futile.
Yet over the past two decades, research I’ve been undertaking with international collaborators and early career researchers has shown that a focus on policy and planning does not give us a full picture of what cities can and are doing in the face of the climate crisis. Instead, we’ve been looking at various kinds of urban experimentation that cities have implemented – often, as a response to the constraints they face.
This experimentation ranges from formal set-ups like living laboratories for testing electric vehicle infrastructure or smart grids, through to more informal space for trying out new solutions through temporary installation of urban forests, beaches and play spaces to reclaim streets from motor vehicles.
Urban experimentation is not only driven by the constraints cities face, but also because of the need to involve multiple actors to tackle the climate crisis. Spaces of experimentation allow city governments to work in novel ways with community groups, businesses and not-for-profit organisations to try things out together, develop new kinds of organisational structures and funding mechanisms, and build capacity and trust.
Most recently we have been working to understand how cities are working with nature to address climate change and other sustainable development goals. For example, in Malmö, Sweden, nature-based solutions including ponds, swales and other natural spaces for water are being used to reduce the risk of flooding in the city. In Hyderabad, India, the city has recently been recognised for its work in planting trees seeking to reduce pollution and runoff, provide cooling in the city and creating new jobs in growing plants for nature-based solutions. Our Urban Nature Atlas documents over 1000 examples of initiatives such as this worldwide.
Our work suggests that urban experimentation can generate catalytic change when it works to ‘undo’ existing ways of developing and living in cities. These kinds of interventions help us to question what is ‘normal’ about the city and to start to do and think differently – for example, questioning whether all surfaces in a city need to be paved, if they can be places where energy is generated as well as used, or their importance as refuges for our relationships with nature.
Experimentation is then a critical means through which the indeterminacy of urban climate changed futures can be explored. What does it mean to act on climate change in ways that do not jeopardise economic growth? Who will win, who will lose? What does it mean to live a good life under climate change? By creating space in which trade-offs, unintended consequences and matters of justice can be not only considered but actually encountered, urban experimentation is essential in tackling climate change.
Thinking towards the future, however, continual and uncertain changes will determine the actions cities can take. Scientific warnings tell us that the planet is unlikely to remain below 1.5 degrees, the threshold that has been determined for our ability to manage the impacts of climate change.
Exceeding 1.5 degrees will have all sorts of consequences for cities, leaving them with complex questions about the kinds of trade-offs they need to confront and of the questions of justice that they raise.
Facing these futures raises not only scientific and technical questions, but profoundly social and ethical issues – whose lives should be protected and why? How should the costs of action or of doing nothing be calculated, and who should pay? What would it mean to create just transitions? As cities come under increasing pressure in the face of the climate challenge, there is an ever more important role for social sciences, the arts and humanities to help illuminate the challenges we are facing and how we might go about navigating them.
This kind of thinking shows us that even while climate change brings great risks and conflict into cities, it also helps us to think about urban futures in ways that put justice at its heart. It’s clear that as we navigate the climate crisis in the everyday urban places that many of us call home, there is no way forward without bringing questions of justice and equity to the forefront of our decision-making.
Working with and through the climate crisis might just be what we need to generate more hopeful and equitable futures for all.
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