New ways of measuring the climate footprint of cities show that urban consumption is a key driver of global GHG emissions. Cities therefore have a responsibility to significantly reduce their GHG emissions. This work has mostly focused on transport, buildings, energy and waste. This report assesses the impact of urban consumption on climate breakdown and explores the type and scale of changes needed to ensure that cities reduce their GHG emissions in line with internationally agreed, climate-safe limits.
Author: erik
Transforming Coastal City Adaptation: From Idea to Practice
"People living in coastal cities around the world face great risks from the impacts of climate change. In the developing world, these often combine with the challenges of urban development and overcoming poverty and sharp inequalities, generating a particularly difficult set of tasks for local policy makers. Adaptation measures often focus on large infrastructural measures such as coastal defenses, at the expense of integrated and inclusive solutions that tackle not only people’s exposure to hazards, but also social vulnerabilities and their root causes. This Brief introduces three key considerations for transformative policy change that builds resilience in highly exposed coastal cities."
Sustainable Development Report 2019
"The Sustainable Development Report 2019 presents an updated SDG Index and Dashboards with a refined assessment of countries’ distance to SDG targets. New indicators have been included, primarily to refine the indicator selection on agriculture, diets, gender equality and freedom of speech. Once again, Nordic countries top the SDG Index. Yet, even these countries face major challenges in implementing one or several SDGs. No country is on track for achieving all 17 goals with major performance gaps even in the top countries on SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). Income and wealth inequalities, as well as gaps in health and education outcomes by population groups also remain important policy challenges in developing and developed countries alike."
Lifelines
From serving our most basic needs to enabling our most ambitious ventures in trade and technology, infrastructure services are essential for raising and maintaining people’s quality of life. Yet millions of people, especially in low- and middle-income countries, are facing the consequences of unreliable electricity grids, inadequate water and sanitation systems, and overstrained transport networks. Natural hazards magnify the challenges faced by these fragile systems. Building on a wide range of case studies, global empirical analyses, and modeling exercises, Lifelines lays out a framework for understanding infrastructure resilience — the ability of infrastructure systems to function and meet users’ needs during and after a natural shock — and it makes an economic case for building more resilient infrastructure.
It examines four essential infrastructure systems: power, water and sanitation, transport, and telecommunications. The focus is on spending better. Investing in regulations and planning, in the early stages of project design, and in maintenance can significantly outweigh the costs of repairs or reconstruction.
Lifelines concludes by identifying five obstacles to resilient infrastructure and offering concrete recommendations and specific actions that can be taken by governments, stakeholders, and the international community to improve the quality and resilience of these essential services, and thereby contribute to more resilient and prosperous societies.
Making Affordable Housing a Reality in Cities
"Cities are growing at an unprecedented rate, presenting an incredible opportunity for the development of local economies. However, their residents need good, affordable housing – and this remains a challenge around the world. Well-functioning property markets can act as a financial springboard for enterprises and job creation. An enabling environment for affordable housing can be developed with the right infrastructure, investment and macroeconomic policies targeted towards social and financial inclusion. The challenge of affordability requires not just short-term fixes but also long-term strategies. Solutions will need to address both the supply side and the demand side of the housing market, and involve public-sector, private-sector and non-profit stakeholders."
The Future of Cities
This report identifies challenges influencing the future of cities in Europe and beyond in fields like environmental impact, ageing, health, housing, social segregation, governance and mobility. It also presents several perspectives from which to look at resolving these issues. It is an initiative of the Joint Research Centre (JRC)i, the science and knowledge service of the European Commission (EC), supported by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). The main aim is to raise open questions and steer discussions on what the future of cities can, and should be, both within the scientific and policymaker communities. The report benefits greatly from the collective intelligence put forward by the Members of the EC Community of Practice on Cities and is linked to aninteractive online platform, which is s designed to raise open questions and steer discussions for sharing and accumulating knowledge on the future of cities.
Cities fit for Climate Change
This sourcebook on climate-proof urban development addresses key issues at the interface of climate change and urban development. Its content builds on the knowledge gained in the global project ‘Cities Fit for Climate Change’ (CFCC). It has been elaborated over the project’s three-year course through great contributions by the project partners from Chile, India and South Africa. The sourcebook is divided into three parts:
Part I describes the thematic context and provides a background to the global CFCC project. It introduces the Climate-Proof Urban Development Approach (ClimPUDA), a framework for practitioners to address climate change in the urban context. The considerations entailed in this approach are used throughout the sourcebook and constitute its conceptual foundation.
Part II focuses on good practices of climate-proof urban development. Different case studies from the Global North and the Global South represent the broad range of experiences available. Each case study is analysed based on four Fields of Action (FoA) which are part of ClimPUDA. They are (1) Governance and Management, (2) Policies and Strategies, (3) Measures: From Policy to Action, and (4) Capacity Development.
Part III provides further information in terms of capacity building in the field of climate-proof urban development and also contains all sources on which the sourcebook is based.
The 8 Principles of Sidewalks
"Walking is the most democratic way to commute. It is the oldest and most common mode of transport in the world, not to mention being a far healthier option – for both people and cities. The 8 Principles of Sidewalks systematizes the most relevant Brazilian and international references into a single publication about the planning, design and construction of sidewalks that meet the needs of people walking. The goal of this guide is to provide deeper insight into the role of sidewalks in spaces that provide opportunity for social interaction among people."
Mixed reality for public participation in urban and public space design
Mixed reality is a new technology that enables visual experiences where physical environments and digital objects coexist and interact with each other in a realistic way. In practice, this means you can look through a mobile device and see digital objects and models as if they were really there. This report is based on more than two years of research by a team of UN-Habitat urban planners and Ericsson researchers. Mixed reality technology – although still in its infancy – might offer the opportunity to bridge the divide between inhabitants and their cities, making change literally appear before their eyes and giving entire neighborhoods the chance to weigh in on how their future smart city will look, feel and serve their needs.
This new visually realistic blending of reality with virtual imagination can create a more intuitive space for planners, architects, residents and other stakeholders to viscerally experience and re-imagine future environments. Architectural sketches and designs can be made more legible and accessible, thus pulling users into the process of design and strengthening the long-term viability and buy-in of urban projects.
2019 SDG Indicators and Dashboards Report for European Cities
"This is the first report comparing the performance of capital cities and a selection of large metropolitan areas in the European-Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In total, results for 45 European cities are presented in this first prototype version.
Achieving the SDGs will require, at the local level, deep transformations in transportation, energy and urban planning and new approaches to address poverty and inequalities in access to key public services including health and education."