Nature | Correspondence
Climate policy: Push to decarbonize cities after Paris talks
- Journal name:
- Nature
- Volume:
- 528,
- Page:
- 193
- Date published:
- DOI:
- doi:10.1038/528193a
- Published online
Subject terms:
As the United Nations climate summit in Paris draws to a close, we suggest that cities should be a focus of action against climate change (see also and Nature 527, 439–441; 2015). Covering just 3% of Earth's surface but housing more than half of its population, they account for 70% of global energy demands.
Cities are already ahead of nations on climate policy. Initiatives such as C40 Cities (www.c40.org) and the World Mayors Council on Climate Change (go.nature.com/yyqjre) help urban centres to integrate climate objectives into current policy and long-term planning. The Cities for Climate Protection campaign run by the global cities network ICLEI, for example, has prevented emissions equivalent to some 54 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from more than 1,000 cities (see www.iclei.org).
We shall still have to cope with factors that affect city infrastructures and supply chains, such as rising sea levels, accelerating migration from rural to urban areas, and more frequent and extreme weather events. Fundamental changes are needed in the way that we build and manage the urban environment (see go.nature.com/q61pq5).
Report this comment #67389
The importance of embodied carbon in construction has only recently been appreciated
(Embodied carbon recognised at last.
If we expand cities using current construction techniques, then the buildings and infrastructure will generate about 100 tonnes CO2e per extra city dweller. That's climate disaster.
(The carbon cost of achieving low carbon life styles
The ICLEI "Declaration to the Ministers at COP21" is full of buzz words that I have been reading for decades: INSPIRE, EXPAND, INTENSIFY, DEEPEN, CONNECT, INCLUDE, ENGAGE & etc. It seems high on encouragement but short on explaining what sort of lifestyles will fit within necessary carbon budgets... Prototype urban developments are needed that can show it is possible to live within these budgets. ("Notes on the future of cities": http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/notes-on-the-future-of-cities/)