NYC as World’s Green Capital

A group called Earth Energy Economy LLC or E3 plans to organize “the world’s largest urban cleantech event” in 2014. The event would be focused along the East River in 5 key concentrated activity zones in each borough. The zones will feature green transit hubs that would offer a combination of bike-share, electric car-share, electric shuttles and water taxis. The greatest purpose of the event is to accelerate the development of a cleantech industry cluster to be known as the “East River Clean Technology Corridor”. Demonstration projects will begin in 2011 with Dekalb Station serving as the first beta site.

E3NYC Annouces 6-Month Cleantech Expo for 2014

Additionally, E3 is co-sponsoring ONE PRIZE: an Annual Design and Science Award to Promote Green Design in Cities. This year the design competition is soliciting ideas of ways to envision New York’s waterways as the “Sixth Borough of New York City.” The competition is a response to the city’s waterfront vision plan, and the jury will be chaired by Amanda Burden, New York City Planning Commissioner Chair.

Sam

Attention urbanites: your carbon footprint just went up a size

TheCityFix reported on a new study today that dissects the relationship between cities and greenhouse gas emissions – and the results are a bit humbling for global city-dwellers. Or at least the more affluent, sprawly ones.

Cities and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, researched by World Bank staff and Canadian academics, went beyond just per capita emissions and looked at total emissions. That, combined with also considering emissions from the production of what city residents consume, results in about 80% of the world’s share (though a little over half of the global population is actually urban). Like any alarming new climate stats, once you pick apart a number generalized to the whole world the picture is more nuanced and less surprising. Affluent urbanites produce a larger share of emissions, denser neighborhoods are more efficient than less dense ones. The chart below is an example – unsurprisingly the U.S. is the biggest, fattest emissions blob:

CO2 emissions per capita, 1967-2005, from Cities and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, p. 16

But that’s exactly the point the report is trying to make – rather than take it at face value that cities by nature are more efficient, policymakers and planners need to look at the nuanced context of where they’re operating when doing emissions inventories and designing climate strategies. In other words, disaggregate, disaggregate, disaggregate.

The irony is that obviously with climate change comes greater vulnerability to  coastal cities,  but according to forthcoming work by the Asian Development Bank the impacts of how climate change will force migration to urban areas that are safer is sorely neglected and likely to accelerate.  So by that logic cities create most of the world’s carbon emissions, the effects of which will cause more people to move to cities, resulting in greater urban emissions…and so on.

Maybe that’s a bit fatalistic, but on a more hopeful note with greater density and better transit options cities do end up having lower per capita emissions.  Cities are also at the forefront for taking action on climate change, perhaps because residents and businesses benefit directly from energy efficiency and better transportation. Cities form for reasons of efficiency – good planning and policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions will also have a proportionately large impact to cool down our hot, crowded cities.

Amy

Hot, crowded Cities

There are many debates about how the world’s cities, from the built environment to the behaviors of city dwellers, will adapt to rising temperatures and climate change. Tomorrow the Matthew Kahn, one of the world’s foremost experts on the economics of the environment and author of Climatopolis will be speaking at the Rudin Center’s Livability Summit.  Here is an excerpt from his book, a longer portion can be found here.

The rise of this mega-city foreshadows China’s trajectory over the 21st century—and that of the rest of the world. Hundreds of millions will be moving to cities like Shanghai to strike it rich and escape the rural life as more and more of the world’s population continues the shift that’s been going on, in fits and starts, since the Industrial Revolution: moving from the rural to the urban. By 1950,30 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. In 2000 this fraction grew to 47 percent, and the United Nations predicts it will rise to 60 percent by 2030. Like you and me these would-be city dwellers want economic opportunities and material comforts that we take for granted:cell phones (and decent service), personal computers, access to private transportation and household air conditioning.Given this search for the good life,and the amenities that go with it, the move toward urban life makes sense. Cities are capitalism’s growth engine, offering opportunity along every dimension from finding a job to support yourself, a mate to spend your money on, great cultural events to attend with them, and fantastic restaurants of all kinds.And, maybe, a bit later, parks to take the kids to. City growth has lifted billions of people out of poverty.

Melissa