Green Flow

Japan's Green Renewal? After the Disasters UN Tour

2012-03-06T15:08:00Z

I've returned from a sobering United Nations-led tour of six tsunami-damaged communities and two radiation-impacted cities in Northern Japan. The obvious conclusion: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is forcing Japan to go green, including the launch of a new renewable energy national feed-in tariff that starts in July. Meanwhile the governor of Fukushima, Yuhei Sato, told us that renewables will be the "key factor" in the revival of his devastated prefecture.

Though little planning is in evidence yet as to how this economic and energy transformation will be integrated, our UN tour did witness fragmented signs that Japan can provide a developed-nation resilience role model in the face of cultural, energy system and environmental devastation.

Organized by the Nagoya, Japan-based UN Center for Regional Development (UNCRD), we traveled for a week as part of a fact-finding mission with UNCRD director Chikako Takase and her staff. The mission was called "Reconstruction Towards Sustainable Communities" and my role was to advise Japanese community leaders on green economic development recovery strategies and opportunities. I had met with a range of clean tech energy companies and urban planning and design firms in preparation, as well as the US Department of Commerce.

I was joined by experts from five countries, Japan, Australia, Bangladesh, Thailand and the US. One fellow American represented the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It seems our contingent was somewhat of a novelty. I was told by the UN and the US Embassy in Tokyo that we were one of the first (if not the first) from outside the three affected prefectures to meet with local leaders on reconstruction and post-disaster management planning.

UN reconstruction tour group of Japan disaster areas, in Ishinomaki (photos Warren Karlenzig)

The tsunami-scoured coastal cities where some 20,000 died--bodies are still being discovered by white ships trolling the coast and on land by locals--are focused on the future of survivors. We visited temporary housing and just-opened temporary retail developments. These modular constructed units, complete with personal flairs such as lanterns, public benches and landscaping, house locally-owned shops from bars to barbers to fish mongers that were wiped out by the tsunami.

Ofunato City temporary retail center

With 300,000 in the region driven from their homes by the "tsunami attack," communities submitted reconstruction plans including land use schemes to the national government. Redevelopment plans are in the process of being approved for funding, though actual rebuilding will not begin for years because of many factors: namely, the ground is still unstable or sinking in the coastal cities from the 9.0 subduction earthquake (one tectonic plate going under another, causing one plate to sink). There were two medium-sized quakes while we in the region, one a 6.0 off the coast. A veteran of the California Loma Prieta quake of 1989, I recognized the tell-tale zig-zag signatures of earthquake damage in many buildings we visited.

Meanwhile, waste management issues, including removal of radiation and salt-contaminated soil and debris (petrochemicals are causing them to spontaneously combust) from the tsunami, also bedevil everyone from small farmers to civil authorities. In one city, they had 106 years worth of waste piled around what used to be the town center. The rest of Japan is disinclined to accept much of this waste because of potential radioactivity.

When and if they are able to build, the plans of two tsunami-ravaged cities stand out for being smart growth models. Ishinomaki was a pre-tsunami city of about 160,000: 4000 were killed by the tsunami, the most deaths of any city in Japan. Its entire port and low-lying downtown areas were virtually annihilated, with the odd building and remnant inexplicably standing, such as a domed cartoon art museum and, most bizarrely, a Statue of Liberty replica formerly housed in a pachinko parlor.

Ishinomaki has a plan to virtually wipe clean its remaining "ghost" downtown to create a mixed-use residential-commercial zone that will be two to three times more dense than before , according to city leaders we met. The city hopes to be more protected from the coast through site elevation, barriers and other features. The more vexing question is how to keep its young people from leaving the area for Tokyo and other big cities to the south: transit-oriented redesign will be one factor making younger citizens less likely to flee.

Another critical planning issue is how male-dominated Japan intends to ensure that all its citizens, including women, the elderly and handicapped in disaster-struck communities are part of the visioning process.

Rikuzentakata, a city of 22,000 (2,000 died in the tsunami), is making plans to make "new energy" a key part of its redevelopment vision. This city which was reported to have been "wiped off the map," by 65-foot (19.2 meter) waves is today pursuing national government subsidies and private investments to create large-scale distributed generation of renewables, including PV solar, land biomass (wood), marine biomass and offshore wind. Together with other nearby communities, Rikuzentakata is studying how to trade domestic CO2 credits for reduced emissions. The city's quest for zero waste and zero CO2 emissions also has it exploring industrial ecology strategies: i.e., using fish bones, tsunami debris wastes or other byproducts such as waste heat to be used as inputs for new processes.

Rikuzentakata debris

We also toured a small community-supported organic farm in southern Fukushima Prefecture, outside the town of Iwaki. A volunteer non-profit had recruited helpers the previous summer to remove radiated soil--the farmers showed us how subsequent tests for radiation had recently come up negative. Meanwhile the "hot" soil they had dug out and scraped away was still heaped in a pile, because the national government would not remove or receive it, as the farmers had been led to believe they would.

Farmer Ryoji Sato (left) at small community-supported farm outside Iwaki (above) and Soto showing map of reduced radiation levels in farm soil over period 2011 through March 2012

Lunch found us back in Iwaki eating at a small take-out place in someone's home. Although every item served was organic and local, including mushrooms, for once in my life this type of fare made me lose my appetite.

Locally produced organic food lunch in Iwaki

Prior to the Fukushima disaster, Japan relied on nuclear energy for 25-33% of its needs. This summer the last two remaining nuclear plants operating in Japan (out of 54) will be shut down, at least temporarily, and there are many signs throughout the nation that electric power is already in short supply. Although outdoor temperatures were hovering in the 20s and 30s (0 to -4C), we attended multiple meetings circled around one or two kerosene heaters, in buildings using almost no electric light, without the use of central indoor heating. Is this a glimpse into what a business-as-usual energy future looks like in other industrial countries?

Meeting with Kamaishi city business, fishery and agricultural leaders

One meeting in a luxury high-rise hotel in Minami Sanriku had a planned blackout for two hours while we met with business and community volunteer leaders, along with the hotel's owner, who had sheltered and fed 400 community members after the tsunami (the bottom two stories were damaged but the rest of the building was habitable). Staff handed out heavy winter parkas so we could continue our discussions in relative warmth.

Minami Sanriku shrine (photo Warren Karlenzig)

Besides jackets, Japan has been using technology to cope with its new dilemma. Utility sponsored websites and mobile apps let people know exactly when to conserve the most, which they have been doing by hanging wet clothes to dry in south-facing windows or balconies, and by curtailing use of light, heat or appliances. So far Japanese society has reduced its energy use to meet a 30% power deficit, but the margin between rolling or planned blackouts and power is paper thin, even in Tokyo.

Later this month, our delegation will be working with UNCRD to develop recommendations based upon our visit of the Tohoku Region's three tsunami and radiation-impacted prefectures. My prediction is that Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima will remain in the global consciousness not only for this one-year anniversary of their triple disaster, but for the lessons they underscore for all of us as we make our way into an uncertain future for energy, water, food, and shelter in the wake of disasters, natural or not.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and co-author of the United Nations Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Cities win big in leaked agenda for UN Rio+20

2012-01-11T01:03:43Z

A leaked agenda for the United Nations Rio+20 conference places urban sustainability in a major role for UN member nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forth for ratification this June. The document acknowledges that cities are on par with nations in terms of implementing and measuring sustainability progress over the next 18 years--the-make-or-break period for mitigating and adapting to global climate change.

The Rio+20 agenda, leaked today in the UK's The Guardian under the Ogilvy Mather promoted slogan "The Future We Want," lays out ten areas for new Sustainable Development Goals that will be released in Rio; urban sustainability is one of the key goals (other nine major categories include climate change, food security, water, green jobs, oceans, natural disasters, forests and biodiversity, mountains, and chemicals and waste).

The Rio+20 draft agenda states: "We recognize the need to integrate sustainable urban development policy as a key component of national sustainable development policy and, in this regard, to empower local authorities....We recognize that partnerships among cities have emerged as a leading force for action on sustainable development. We commit to support international cooperation among local authorities, including through assistance from international organizations."

Officially, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, follow-up to the historic UN 1992 "Earth Summit," also held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is dedicated to marshalling the global Green Economy.

The leaked 19-page agenda calls for major global actions in financing, policy, technology implementation and collaboration in the face of global climate change and economic turmoil, developing-nation poverty and climate-exacerbated natural disasters.

Elaborating on the importance of cities as part of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, the document includes the following recommendations:

"We commit to promote an integrated and holistic approach to planning and building sustainable cities through support to local authorities, efficient transportation and communication networks, greener buildings and an efficient human settlements and service delivery system, improved air and water quality, reduced waste, improved disaster preparedness and response, and increased climate resilience."
"...members of civil society to be actively engaged in sustainable development by incorporating their specific knowledge and practice know-how into national and local policy making."
"...the essential role of local governments and the need to fully integrate them into all levels of decision-making on sustainable development."
need for "...a toolbox of good practices in applying green economy policies at regional, national and local levels."
"...creation of Centers of Excellence as nodal points for Green technology R&D"
"...call for strengthening of regional and sub-regional mechanism, including the regional commissions, in promoting sustainable development through capacity building."

The Sustainable Development Goals will be obtained through a three-part process over an 18-year period, staring this year with the Rio+20 event:

2012-2015: establishment of indicators
2015-2030: implementation and periodic assessment of progress
2030: comprehensive assessment of progress

On the road to Rio, the UN's "Shanghai Manual for Sustainable Cities" was released by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in December as a playbook for mayors of global cities so they can deploy triple bottom line strategies (I co-authored the manual with the UN). Non-governmental organization Ecocity Builders began last fall high-level discussions with the UN and NGOs ICLEI and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, on potential Rio+20 standards for ecocities including the International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS).

Out of the 1992 Earth Summit, with 110 heads of state and thousands of non-governmental leaders, emerged pivotal treaties and frameworks for decades to come, including the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21. Other products of the first Earth Summit include the Global Environmental Facility at the World Bank, and national sustainability agendas in 86 countries based off Agenda 21, according to Jacob Scherr, director of global strategy and advocacy for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Scherr is coordinating a Ford Foundation-sponsored effort called "Sustainable + Just Cities" to make cities a top priority of Rio+20 agreements.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, author of How Green is Your City? and co-author of the UN's Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Global Mayors Start Acting Upon UN's Sustainable City Manual

2011-12-05T06:05:04Z

After providing the curriculum for training urban leaders from 12 Southeast and Central Asian nations a few weeks ago (Manila, Philippines is pictured above), the United Nations is now globally launching the full content of the Shanghai Manual: A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development in the 21^st Century.

The free publication features 47 global urban sustainability case studies and dozens of timely policy recommendations, especially when one considers the lack of global climate treaties due to tactics of "delaying nations" at the Durban climate talks, including the US. Instead, the Shanghai Manual is a practical tool intended to help the world's major and medium-sized cities in developing nations further advance their local green economies. The "green economy" is also the key theme of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20.

Using integrated sustainability planning (across management, financing and technology), one of the main functions of the manual will be to provide a basis for capacity building through the UN's Center for Regional Development, with support from UN agencies or departments including UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN Habitat and UN Conference on Trade and Development Office and global consultancies.

As co-author of the Shanghai Manual, I engaged in thematic sessions with the 12 Asian nation mayors and city leaders at the United Nations Center for Regional Development (UNCRD) in Nagoya, Japan. What became clear during sessions--which were based off the ten chapters in the Shanghai Manual--was the urgent need to cover a gamut of sustainability issues confronting Asia's local leaders.

Participants at the UNCRD capacity building included James Chan Khay Syn, the charismatic mayor of Kuching, Malaysia (population 2.5 million), the youthful Mayor Jejomar Erwin S. Binay Jr., representing Makati, Manila's downtown district, and the urbane Executive District Officer, Muhammad Maswood Alam, who administers to Karachi's 17 million citizens. Meanwhile, China will be using the Shanghai Manual as a compendium sponsored by the national government to train its city leadership at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Shanghai.

While something like the lack of green ordinances may, at this point in time, appear egregious to those in the United States or Europe, developing nations face a range of problems that render basic governance and provision of services much more challenging. For instance, in addition to pressing social-economic challenges, participants at the UN's Japan training center cited warfare, security and sensitive political issues as impediments in addressing sustainability.

After an opening session by UN Habitat on strategies for working with "informal" communities (more than half of land in Asian cities has title in dispute or is unregistered), participants offered ideas for helping their own city's slum dwellers, who may number in the thousands or hundreds of thousands. One approach suggested by the participating mayors was to perceive slums not as informal but as "aspirational" communities. Such a consideration requires enabling a differing range of educational and social services, options by which the more ambitious could integrate into formal society. To better provide the most targeted city services, data gathering from slum dwellers--peoples' sex, age and special needs--was offered as an important first step for cities so they could plan essential services and outreach tactics based on surveys. City visits to community gatherings (i.e., clubs, mosques, temples, churches) was suggested by one city official as a key method for communicating sustainability policies.

The training offered some surprises. During the Q & A following a presentation on green building principles and case studies, participants related that none of their cities had implemented large-scale green building measures, as these programs were thought to be too costly. At the end of the week's training, however, mindsets apparently shifted. A third of city participants said that they would soon start green municipal building ordinances and projects, as clear economic and operational benefits should result from combining energy efficiency audits and modeling better behavior (turning off unused lights and air conditioning in government offices). From such practical beginnings, green building ordinances and green building codes could provide an economic impetus. One mayor remarked how a municipal green building program seemed like a good way to help jumpstart the nascent Southeast Asian commercial green products and services market.

Participants--both the cities and the officials running sessions--left with some answers but more importantly they gained new networks and strategic insights that they can share with their colleagues back home and around the world.

Global urban capacity building based off the Shanghai Manual, called a "living document" by the UN, is expected to continue. UN sustainable city sessions in other continents are in the planning stages. The ultimate goal? Addressing the evolving global landscape for financing, implementing and managing cities in rapidly developing nations to help mitigate and adapt to climate change and peaking resources.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, author of How Green is Your City? and co-author of the United Nations Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Death of Sprawl: Past and Future

2011-11-29T17:52:07Z

Seems like my chapter "The Death of Sprawl" from The Post Carbon Reader is taking on a life of its own. Friday, Christopher Leinberger had an Op-ed in the New York Times, titled "Death of the Fringe Suburb," which built upon concepts I had published (and sent Leinberger last year) namely, that the US mortgage crisis and Recession were set off by upsidedown economics of sprawl speculation in US exurbs or "Boomburbs" and we can't ever do that again.

The site Adapturbia also recently put together a nifty visual presentation of "The Death of Sprawl" that localized my content to provide context for sprawl issues confronting Sydney, Australia.

What's important here is that the research and the real estate sales figures are becoming ever clearer: people increasingly prefer to live in mixed-use, transit-oriented walkable and bikeable neighborhoods over drive-everywhere bedroom communities. Those preferences will not change and we will not go back, which is affirmed by the abandoned exurban housing and development that are fast becoming the nation's newest slums: for the first time in the nation's history, suburban poverty now outweighs urban poverty.

One need only take a look at the foreclosure heavy areas such as California's Inland Empire: my chapter provided a case study of Victorville, CA, one of the last gasps of the residential car-centered Boomburb economy of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Leinberger's piece hit on the changing real estate taste in demographics (retired Boomers and upcoming Millennials) while my thesis examined how cheap energy fueled nearly 100% car-dependent exurban growth. We both concluded that denser, mixed-use metro areas are the wise investments of the future because: more people want to live that way so that is where investment will occur. Developers know that strip malls, sidewalk-less mini-mansions and business parks that cater to cars only are poison in this economy.

To get where this is going, one need only look at the three cities out of 20 that have had positive real estate sales in the past quarter: Portland (free public transit, leading US city bicycle transit rate), New York (leading US public transit rate, active bikeway development) and Washington, DC (one of highest transit rates behind New York and high walkability).

The national foreclosure capitals, on the other hand, are testimonials to sprawled, exurban, car-dominant development: Las Vegas, Phoenix and California's Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside counties, including Victorville). See map of 2011 US foreclosures below:

Sprawled communities, exurbs, fringe suburbs, whatever you call them, are underwater in terms of money invested and will remain so. Some of these communities will make themselves more resilient with car-free transport, local food production, water and wildlife conservation and other acitviites that restore local resources, jobs and social interaction.

But many will become abandoned slums and will need to be torn down, just as Victorville did with some of its "high-end" residential neighborhoods. Other monuments of sprawl, particularly in desert communities, will remain as stark monuments to the follies of our distant past.
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, author of How Green is Your City? and co-author of the United Nations Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

UN's Shanghai Manual Launches to Guide Urban Futures

2011-11-09T04:36:21Z

A powerful triumvirate, the United Nations, Bureau International Des Expositions and the mayor of Shanghai, released this week the Shanghai Manual: A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development in the 21^st Century. This timely (and free!) manual is aimed at helping leaders of the world's cities use integrated urban planning, management, financing and technology to green their economies and build climate and economic resilience.

"The Shanghai Manual details the experience and practices of cities across the world in addressing common challenges and achieving harmonious development...and is therefore of great theoretical and practical value," Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said at Monday's launch, according to the Shanghai Daily.

Aimed at a target readership of mayors and executive leaders of developing nation cities, the bilingual (English and Chinese) Shanghai Manual is the basis for capacity building and training being rolled out in Asia next week by the United Nations. City leaders representing 12 Asian nations will attend the United Nations Center for Regional Development in Nagoya, Japan, where UN officials and I will lead urban sustainability training for leaders ranging from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Karachi, Pakistan, to Makati (Manila), Philippines. In addition smaller cities including Chiang Mai, Thailand are participating.

Shanghai, China's largest city (17 million+ in the city proper), earned the street cred of being the manual's namesake by hosting the 2010 World Expo (photo above), so its mayor was honored with the manual's unveiling. Also attending the launch was Sha Zukang, United Nations Undersecretary-General as well as Secretary-General of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development known as Rio+20. The Shanghai Manual is credited by the UN as an important contribution to the Rio+20 agenda.

The Shanghai Manual, which I co-authored with colleagues at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, emerged from the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the largest world's fair in history. Devoted to the theme of "Better City, Better Life," the expo was the first global event of its kind to recognize climate change, and was dedicated to sustainability education. The expo featured demonstrations on resource efficiency and new approaches in transportation, water and material use, biological restoration, industrial ecology and low-carbon, low-impact development.

Vicente Loscertales, secretary general of the World Expo Bureau called the Shanghai Manual, "The most precious legacy of the Expo Shanghai."

China now recognizes that its future is bound up in seriously grappling with sustainability issues: the country accounted for half the entire world's construction activities in 2010. Over the next 30 years, China's massive planned urbanization is adding hundreds of millions more people, so it must continually innovate low-carbon and resource-efficient urban planning and development.

The integrated sustainability approaches highlighted in the Shanghai Manual include the use of activities such as participatory budgeting and in-situ slum revitalization, while other planning investigates non-motorized transport, transit-oriented development, dedicated cycling tracks, as well as congestion and demand management of transportation.

Management strategies include coordination of the formal and informal sectors (i.e., the rag-pickers of Pune, India), city-scale rainwater harvesting and zero-waste applications.

Social-cultural issues covered include the use of social networks, micro-finance and mobile communications, and bridging the digital divide with e-governance and e-learning. Technological investigations focus on distributed renewable energy, smart city applications including remote sensing and smart grids, along with analytical tools such as carbon-footprinting, eco-mapping and city sustainability dashboards.

Based on 47 case studies from a range of cities, the Shanghai Manual highlights successful integrated long-term urban planning, economic development, program and project implementation and multi-stakeholder participation.

Thematically divided into ten chapters it covers (case studies are listed for each):

· Towards a Harmonious City: Sustainable Sydney 2030; Nairobi Metro 2030

· Delivering Effective Urban Management: New York City's Integrated Sustainability Planning and Management; Slum Upgrading in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Mexico City's Plan Verde; Porto Allegre, Brazil's Participatory Budgeting

· Economic Transformation: Baoding, China's Clean Energy Economy; Bilbao, Spain's Ria 2000; South Korea's Smart Grid 2030 Roadmap; San Jose, United States' Green Vision; Germany's Feed-in Tariff for Renewable Energy

· Transport: Guangzhou, China's Bus Rapid Transit System; Bogotá, Colombia and Copenhagen, Denmark's Planning for Cycling; Goteborg, Sweden's Planning for Multi-Mobility; Singapore's Traffic Congestion Management; Berlin's Low-Emission Zone

· Waste Management: Pune, India's Rag-picker Cooperative; Bogotá, Colombia's Contracting of Formal and Informal Sectors; Extended Producer Responsibility in Mauritius; Dhaka, Bangladesh's Community-based Composting to Convert Organic Waste to Resource and Generate Carbon Credits

· Green Buildings: Madrid's Bamboo Ecobuilding; Hamburg, Germany's Haften City; US Green Building Council's LEED Program; Masdar City, United Arab Emirates' Hot Climate Appropriate Design; Washington, DC's George Washington University's Landscape and Building Water Management

· Science & Technology: Sophia Antipolis, France's Science & Technology Park Development; San Diego, United States' Biotech Cluster Development; Mexico City's Biometropolis Medical Park; Singapore's Media 21 Global Media City; China's Torch Program Development; Gautang, South Africa's Innovation Hub

· Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) for Smart Cities: Singapore's Digital Master Plan 2015; Mumbai, India's e-Governance; Leeds, United Kingdom's e-Learning Vision; Bridging the Digital Divide in Zambia, Africa; Dhaka, Bangladesh's Monitoring of Land Use and Land Cover Change Using Remote Sensing; Eco-Maps in Amsterdam and San Francisco

· Culture and Sustainable Cities: Quito, Ecuador's Historic Preservation; Frankfurt, Germany's Office of Multicultural Affairs; Development of a Bengali-British Identity in Spitalfields, United Kingdom; London and Toronto's Creative Spaces Project; Johannesburg, South Africa's Creative Industries

· Mega Events: 2010 Shanghai Expo's Global Platform for Future Urban Development; Ningbo, China's Leveraging Shanghai Expo 2010 to Boost Urban Transformation; Aichi, Japan's World's First Eco-Expo; Beijing, China's 2008 Olympics; Torino, Italy's Managing Multilevel Partnerships; Lille, France's 2004 Olympics; Rio De Janeiro's Preparation for UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)

(Photo: Shanghai Expo 2010, copyright Warren Karlenzig)

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, author of How Green is Your City? and co-author of the Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

UN Rio+20 Agenda Galvanizes to Sustainable Cities

2011-10-24T15:00:39Z

As Rio+20 takes shape (officially, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, follow-up to the historic UN 1992 "Earth Summit," held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), the issue of sustainable cities appears to be taking center stage in planning for the June 2012 event dedicated to marshalling the global Green Economy.

"Cities provide a great framework to galvanize public opinion and citizen participation," said Jared Blumenfeld, Administrator of Region 9 of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "Cities also have a lot in common: New York and Beijing have more in common in terms of challenges they face than do the US and China."

On the road to Rio, the UN's "Shanghai Manual for Sustainable Cities" will be released by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs on Nov. 7 as a playbook for mayors of global cities so they can deploy triple bottom line strategies (I co-authored the manual with the UN). Blumenfeld, who spoke last week at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, said that the US Department of State and EPA are preparing by next week a Rio+20 submittal that is "cities focused." (Previously, the United States and Brazil recently announced the US-Brazil Joint Venture on Urban Sustainability .) Meanwhile, non-governmental organization Ecocity Builders has begun high-level discussions with the UN and NGOs ICLEI and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, on potential Rio+20 standards for ecocities including the International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS).

Scherr, who also spoke with the EPA's Blumenfeld, cited UN Secretary General Ban Ki-
moon's declaration that, "We are running out of time," in reference to global environmental species and habitat destruction, combined with human-caused climate change. Scherr pointed out that in 1950 there were only 50,000 cars on earth--soon there will be 1 billion. Illustrating the trend toward species extinction and habitat loss, he noted that one-third fewer animals inhabit the planet than there were only 40 years ago.

Such unchecked developments combined with fast-growing global urban populations--not to mention increasing difficulty in forging successful national-level sustainability agreements--make cities the best means of addressing global sustainability, Blumenfeld said.

Blumenfeld, the former director of San Francisco's Department of Environment, said that the most effective strategies for Rio+20 may rest upon enabling local actions such as significantly increased city recycling goals (including zero waste) and banning plastic bags. "In ten days you can get the word out in cities and you can make a difference," he said, "which is very different than getting people to focus on international agreements."

Scherr implored those in their twenties or younger to take an interest in the UN Rio+20 proceedings and participate in whatever way possible, since it will be so vital to shaping a planet's future that will be decidedly urban (75% by 2050): "It shouldn't be called Rio+20. It should be called Rio for Twenty Somethings."

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, and co-author of the forthcoming United Nations Shanghai Manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

UN's New Sustainable City Effort Starts With Asia

2011-10-04T19:02:32Z

2010 Shanghai Expo Closing Summit

We all need to reinvent urban planning for the 21^st century.

Never has the need been greater for integration across urban management, systems, experts, policies and technologies. The world is rapidly becoming more urban, especially in Asia, where hundreds of millions have begun moving to cities. This massive migration, largest in human history, will produce colossal impacts--including innovation--in energy use, transportation, housing, water and resource use. Economies will be impacted at every scale, especially beyond burgeoning metro areas in national and global markets.

Add climate change and adaptation issues to the development of Asian cities, where more than 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emission increases are expected to occur over the next 15 years, and we are faced with the urgency--and opportunity--to reinvent urban planning. Planning for the future of cities needs to now embody a process combining sustainability strategies with information and communications technologies (ICT), supported by the sciences (natural + social) in concert with engaged participation: from the slum to the boardroom to the ivory tower.

Considering such needs, the United Nations is announcing capacity building for sustainable urbanization, with an initial focus on Asia. On Nov. 7, the UN will release its "Shanghai Manual for Sustainable Urbanization" (where else but in China's largest city, Shanghai?). The Shanghai Manual, developed in conjunction with the Shanghai Expo 2010 (photo above), represents not only the knowledge legacy of dozens of symposia held throughout the Expo, but also new research, case studies and policy recommendations targeted for mayors and other urban executive leaders.

The Shanghai Manual and its subsequent planned UN sustainability capacity building for mayors represents a thematic lead-in to the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held June 2012 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Rio+20 marks the anniversary of the historic 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ("The Earth Summit") and will draw upon the broad themes of The Green Economy and Sustainable Development. In Rio, the UN 193 Member States, along with groups such as business and NGO representatives, will evaluate global progress made and setbacks encountered in achieving sustainable development, and will try to define ways to create a more sustainable future for all.

My contributions as co-author of the Shanghai Manual include chapters on "Delivering Effective Urban Management", "Economic Transformation", and "ICT for Smart Cities". Other chapters are devoted to:

Towards a Harmonious City
Transport
Waste Management
Green Buildings
Science & Technology
Culture and Sustainable Cities
Mega Events

Release of the Shanghai Manual will be rapidly followed by training for mayors of 20 cities from 15 Asian nations. Invited to this training are Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam: they will meet at the UN Centre For Regional Development in Nagoya, Japan, where I, along with other experts from the UN, will lead instructional sessions in November. The United Nations expects the training in Nagoya will influence:

"Enhanced awareness of participants about feasible and attractive policy options for a green economy for rapidly growing cities of Asia

Increased exchanges between local and national levels of government in the participating countries, thus contributing favorably to the preparation for the (Rio+20) Conference by Member States themselves

Enhanced national capacity to identify common challenges and opportunities associated with a green economy and sustainable urban development" (photo by Warren Karlenzig)

Urban Parklets: The New Front Stoop

2011-09-18T20:29:40Z

San Francisco's parklets (left, from top to bottom: #1, Valencia Street, #2 and #3 Divisadero, and #4, Castro and 17th, bottom) are a vibrant testimony to the city's Pavement to Parks Program, managed by a non-profit, the Great Streets Program. The city's 15 parklets all started with two to three parking spaces, or other poorly-utilized urban space (the city says 25% of its space is taken up by streets or auto rights of way, while only 20% of the city is parkland--still one of the highest totals in the nation). With the help of architects, artists and landscapers, the asphalt is converted into living, breathing social settings.
The parklets do continue to provide parking space for the non-polluting form of transit: bicycles. I took a cycling tour this weekend of the city's parklets, which offer cyclists a safe and convenient place to park their two wheels and take a rest with their steed.
In the Valencia parklet (top photo), which included edgy canopy steel structures, I counted 19 people hanging out, and 31 bicycles parked. The space was much livelier, more functional and attractive than any three cars could have ever been in the same space.
San Francisco is now analyzing the numbers, behind its parklets, which were started in 2010. The analysis includes the number of users, maintenance costs, and neighborhood economic benefits.
The City by the Bay admits it was inspired by New York City's public plazas, just as it confessed using Bogota's Sunday car-free streets Ciclovia concept for its own Sunday Streets program.
Imitation is of course the sincerest form of urban innovation these days. The beauty of such experimentation is that it can be adapted for local conditions, including climate, public tastes and zoning.
The Pavement to Parks program is one of the most exciting deployments in the trend of enabling reduced urban dependency on cars, while fostering artistic and nature-enhanced community. There are other major trends portending that the future of cities (and suburbs) is beyond cars: the increase in mixed-use zoning, transit-oriented development, car sharing and light rail.
To wit: adaptable use of public spaces has become a key indicator of urban resilience. (Photos by Warren Karlenzig: click on each photo for larger format view)
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

My Two Cents in Wall Street Journal's How to Build a Greener City

2011-09-12T05:06:45Z

I was quoted in the lead article by Michael Totty in Monday's Wall Street Journal on "How to Build A Greener City." The article (and quote) leads off a special section, including the following articles:

An Apple Tree Grows in Suburbia

The Urban Quest for Zero Waste

Testing Their Metals (on reducing industry material use)

Building Owners Want Water That Never Leaves

Power Play: GE Makes Big Bet on Little Firms

In Fracking's Wake

Talking About Waste With P&G

Cities as Ecosystems a Fresh Look

Reduce Energy Usage at Home

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Cities and Smart Grids: latest from US and China

2011-08-30T01:12:23Z

The internet, distributed renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy management are ready to coalesce: the impact on cities and our lives will be profound. The US-China Green Energy Conference (sponsored by the US-China Green Energy Council) held Friday in the Silicon Valley took a deep bi-national dive into what smart grids are and what they will mean for so-called smart cities, their wired citizenry and the future of global carbon emissions.

Smart grid specifics are finally starting to emerge from the marketing haze. They will rely heavily on smart buildings, and are a critical solution in making renewable energy more scalable through more efficient energy transmission systems. Cities like Dubuque, Iowa are working with 1,000 residents to test smart grid applications and have reportedly lowered their water use by 6% in early trials with IBM.

Elsewhere, China is testing a four-square kilometer smart grid pilot area in its national urban eco showcase, Tianjin Eco-City. The smart grid includes a 30kw PV solar microgrid on the roof of the Tianjin "Eco-City Business Hall," where residents will be able to charge their electric vehicles while they view virtual reality demonstrations of how the smart grid works, including its "self-healing" capabilities within the Eco-City's network.

In terms of renewable energy, smart grids will be a killer app. Right now, when the wind completely dies in larger areas of wind power generation, such as the West Texas plains, the transmission system supplying electricity to cities, including Austin and Dallas, suffers a "mad scramble," according to Liang Min, of the US Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). In fact, according to Chuck Wells from OSISoft, such power hiccups are currently so disruptive, that 45% more fossil fuel is needed to back up regional energy grids having large-scale wind and solar generation versus regional grids that rely only on fossil fuels.

On the home or business side, people are responsible for about 30% of a typical building's energy system performance, said John Skinner, Managing Director of Intel's Open Energy initiative. The more reliable information people have, the more likely they can make smart decisions about energy use, and the more likely they can pay less for energy than they do with analog meters (the ones with the wheels turning inside them).

Energy transactions will become more transparent through next-generation smart grid transaction languages, such as TeMIX which was presented to the US-China energy conference by Edward Cazalet, CEO of TeMIX. Cazalet's presentation reminded me of how the internet was optimized when TCP/ IP, the unifying data transfer protocols behind the web, were created. The capability for energy systems to use a unified language around energy use and transactions will be critical. This language will allow governments, businesses and residents to better manage their energy consumption. Currently, energy costs can vary tremendously based on factors including climate, usage and equipment, costing as much as five times or more during peak hours. Few people outside of large businesses realize they can cut energy costs dramatically by changing their behavior, which can be as straightforward as running energy guzzling appliances during off-peak hours.

None of this means that smart meters are a panacea. In cities throughout California, smart meters have been rolled out clumsily by the utility Pacific Gas and Electric. After four years of replacing residential and business analog meters with wireless smart meters, a vocal and well-organized group of citizens are objecting to the continuous signals they transmit. Others object based on invasion of privacy or fear the new meters would overcharge them. PG&E has finally gotten around to a public education program extolling the benefits of smart meters, which they say are mandatory for their customers. Besides the heavy handedness, even with the new PR campaign, PG&E has not made the case for compelling consumer benefits.

Consolidated Edison of New York City, on the other hand has managed their smart meter pilot program more effectively. Con Ed ran an extensive public education program and transparent opt-out option for those that did not want smart meters (2% did not want them) on their home or business for their New York City pilot program. The utility offered participants in its pilot program rebates of $25-50. Six rate structures with hourly rate changes and a web-based consumer dashboard explained and demonstrated different rates, according to EPRI's Liang Min.

Many companies including Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, General Electric and Google are eyeing the nascent smart grid for its potential not just to make cities more eco-efficient, but for also for lucrative smart-grid revenue streams as they penetrate the last major untapped digital pathway into our lives.

"We are cooperating with many high tech companies," Kai Xie, General Manager of the US Office of the China State Grid told the US-China Energy Conference. "We have also developed some in-house products for our customers, including a dashboard (with Intel) as part of a two-way communication combined smart meter and consumer portal. "

Our information, communications, photographs, entertainment and medical industries are all now increasingly digital, and soon our energy will be digitized, too. Let's hope the planet and our cities will benefit from a smooth and well thought out transformation.

What's an Ecocity and Why Should We Care?

2011-08-16T16:35:03Z

"Ecocity" is a popular designation for dozens of global urban centers. Indeed the 9th Ecocity World Summit next week in Montreal, Canada will be packed with city officials, planners, activists, educators, and corporations from 75 nations, as well as the United Nations--all trying to plan how the city can be designed and conducted more in harmony with ecosystems, culture and the biosphere.

The summit will also present a scheme to assess ecocities on defined standards and indicators. Seeing that international standards for overall sustainability at the city level do not yet exist, how can ecocities take things to the next level and collectively push forward urban sustainability performance across borders, languages, cultures and local conditions?

Cities are where sustainability meets true systems approaches and economic need: they'll go from harboring more than half of the planet's people to about 70 percent of humanity by 2050. The Earth is undergoing the greatest mass migration in its history as hundreds of millions of rural residents of China move to its booming cities.

Some of the largest ecocity projects include Tianjin, China (pictured above); Waitakere, New Zealand (208,000 pop.) was self-designated as an ecocity before it was absorbed by neighboring Auckland in 2010.

A host of other cities in China including Changchun, Rizhao and Tangshan ("Caofeidian International Eco-city") are modeled as eco-cities, while India is also planning development of several eco cities along its new Delhi-Mumbai transportation and industrial corridor. Japan, which has been helping India plan its largest ecocity, is also sponsoring development or retrofitting of numerous ecocities or "eco towns."

The term "ecocity" was first used by Richard Register in 1987: Register went on to found in 1992 Ecocity Builders, a non-profit based in Oakland, California. (Disclosure: my consultancy Common Current just finished helping Ecocity Builders and its international advisors develop standards and indicators for ecocities, called the International Ecocity Framework and Standards, or IEFS.)

Ecocity Builders' Register, Executive Director Kirstin Miller, Ecological Footprint co-creator Bill Rees and other participants will be addressing the Montreal Ecocity Conference to present the IEFS to participants and partner cities. Four Early Partner Cities (EPCs) for the IEFS--Vancouver and Montreal, Canada; Curitiba, Brazil and Kirtipur, Nepal--will also participate. These cities or communities are already gathering information and data for the IEFS in order to provide initial feedback on the standard and indicator development process.

The IEFS consists of 15 system "conditions" or categories. Cities will eventually be analyzed and measured based on the performance of these components, which have an integral relationship to the city's bioregions (bioregional mapping will become a key IEFS activity). The 15 IEFS categories include:

· Access by Proximity: Walkable access from housing to basic urban services and transit access to close-by employment options.

· Clean Air: Air quality conducive to good health within buildings, the city's air shed, and the atmosphere.

· Healthy Soil: Soils meet their ranges of healthy ecosystem functions as appropriate to their types and environments; fertility is maintained or improved.

· Clean and Safe Water: Access to clean, safe, affordable water; the city's water sources, waterways and water bodies are healthy and function without negative impact to ecosystems. Water is primarily sourced from within the bioregion.

· Responsible Resources/ Materials: Renewable and non-renewable resources are sourced, allocated, managed and recycled responsibly and equitably, without adversely affecting human health or the resilience of ecosystems.

· Clean and Renewable Energy: The city's energy needs are provided for, and extracted, generated and consumed, without significant negative impact to ecosystems or to short- or long-term human health and do not exacerbate climate change. Energy consumed is primarily generated within the local bioregion.

· Healthy and Accessible Food: Nutritious food is accessible and affordable to all residents and is grown, manufactured and distributed by processes which maintain the healthy function of ecosystems and do not exacerbate climate change. Food consumed is primarily grown within the local bioregion.

· Healthy Biodiversity: The city sustains the biodiversity of local, bioregional and global ecosystems including species diversity, ecosystem diversity and genetic diversity; it restores natural habitat and biodiversity by its policy and physical actions.

· Earth's Carrying Capacity: The city keeps its demand on ecosystems within the limits of the Earth's bio-capacity, converting resources restoratively and supporting regional ecological integrity.

· Ecological Integrity: The city maintains essential linkages within and between ecosystems and provides contiguous habitat areas and ecological corridors throughout the city.

· Healthy Culture: The city facilitates cultural activities that strengthen eco-literacy, patterns of human knowledge and creative expression, and develop symbolic thought and social learning.

· Community Capacity Building: The city supports full and equitable community participation in decision making processes and provides legal, physical and organizational support for neighborhoods, community organizations, institutions and agencies.

· Healthy and Equitable Economy: An economy favoring economic activities that reduce harm and positively benefit the environment and human health and support a high level of local and equitable employment options - the foundation for "green jobs".

· Lifelong Education: All residents have access to lifelong education including access to information about the city's history of place, culture, ecology, and tradition provided through formal and informal education, vocational training and other social institutions.

· Well Being--Quality of Life: Strong citizen satisfaction with quality of life indicators including employment; the built, natural and landscaped environment; physical and mental health; education; safety; recreation and leisure time; and social belonging.

While some of these categories are being matched to existing tools and indicators (i.e., Walk Score and similar GIS mapping for Access by Proximity), other categories will need a period of innovation around analytical processes or tools such as the Gini co-efficient (which may be used to measure income level disparities in the category Healthy and Equitable Economy) and the Ecological Footprint (to determine Earth's Carrying Capacity). These have been extensively modeled on the national level, for instance, but have yet to be consistently applied on the local level.

The lack of international urban sustainability standards has perplexed and bedeviled cities, planners, developers and companies wanting a consistent scorecard across global urban management and development.

True, international sustainability standards exist for buildings, such as the US Green Building Council's LEED, and the BREEAM standards from the United Kingdom, even neighborhoods (LEED for Neighborhood Development). China is also developing its own Three Star standard for buildings. Emerging from the Harvard School of Design is the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure, while BREEAM is launching BREEAM for Communities.

But the time has come for consistent urban sustainability frameworks and indicators across everything from infrastructure and mobility, to urban agriculture, energy, water, materials and biodiversity.

The International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS) is one of the main entrants in the global race to define and measure what makes a city sustainable. With the cooperation of its Early Partner Cities, Ecocity Builders and the IEFS will hopefully begin to answer these key questions along while getting down to the real business: helping solve how the cities of the world are remaking themselves as ecocities or more sustainable cities to prepare for a future of more extreme risk--which equals opportunity.

Salon on Green Flow and media offering to Big Oil

2011-07-20T22:11:04Z

Well, any media is good media, right?

This blog was covered in a Salon exclusive yesterday, which focused on the questionable marketing tactics of Social Media Today (SMT), which syndicates my blog through the site Sustainable Cities Collective.

Seems SMT presented a deck recently to oil giant Chevron about having "access" to such bloggers as myself and NRDC's Daron Lovaas (click on above slide from SMT deck on "Future Mobility: Building a Community), the international non-profit's federal transportation policy director.

This reference and image of my blog was done without my permission or knowledge, thank you, as Salon kindly tacked onto the end of the article today. Chevron said it knows nothing about this. No word form Lovaas at NRDC yet, says Salon.

Back to Murdoch, then.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Green:Net Event on ICT and Climate Change

2011-04-13T19:55:12Z

With Japan's Fukushima, there is an urgent need to re-examine how technology will help address climate change. What societal, economic and other costs will we pay for our technological fixes? In the case of low-carbon energy technologies, Fukushima has radically rearranged the cost-benefit balance sheet.

Next Thursday April 21, research group GigaOm sponsors the Green:Net 2011 event in San Francisco, which will examine how information and communication technology (ICT) can better manage the causes and impacts of climate change.

Despite the environmental costs of ICT, which includes growing energy consumption and mining of dwindling precious metals, ICT is an overall net positive in the battle to mitigate carbon emissions and resource inefficiency. In other words, ICT sustainability gains outweigh ICT life-cycle production, use and disposal (eventually reuse?) costs.

Areas that will likely produce the greatest ICT sustainability improvements include topics that will be covered in depth by Green:Net presentations, panels and sessions, including:

Smart Grids: In a new report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that smart grids will be key to rise of clean energy, including renewables, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.
Transportation infrastructure and logistics: This can mean getting the latest train, bus or carshare availability information on your handheld, as well as congestion and parking pricing for industries, businesses and residents.
Crowdsourcing: I love the story of how Delhi, India is using Facebook to have people report traffic jams, blockages and illegal parking or traffic situations.
Smart buildings: Distributed energy control, analytics and energy efficiency systems for offices, commercial buildings, homes and appliances will reduce energy use in the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitting segment--buildings.
Smart cities: As urban populations and cities expand worldwide, there are growing needs to use ICT for planning, management, analytics and citizen participation. In New Songdo City, South Korea, which I visited in 2009, ICT is being designed to provide this new city with a unified management system allowing more efficient energy use, lower carbon transportation, and more efficient businesses and residential services.

Companies, VCs and experts appearing at Green:Net include Google, Tesla Motors, Claremont Creek Ventures, Pike Research, Spring Ventures, GE Energy, Silver Spring Networks, RelayRides, ABB Technology Ventures, Otherlab.com, Yahoo, Smart Grid Strategy, Global Green USA, Austin Energy, A123 Systems, Cisco, AES Energy Storage, Autodesk, Microsoft, CC Labs, Control4, CODA Automotive, Joel Makower from GreenBiz Group, Stanford's Annika Todd and Jonathan Silver from the US Department of Energy.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, strategic adviser to the Institute for Strategic Resilience and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Learning from Japan about Resilience

2011-03-16T00:25:41Z

Hourly Japan 's tragedy grows almost beyond comprehension (3/16 Update: The head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this afternoon that releases of radiation at Fukushima have been "extremely high" and that "could impact the ability to take corrective measures."). There is universal empathy over the pain and suffering being experienced, fear about impacts on Japan's and the world's economy, and anxiety about releases of radiation. For those of us living in seismically active coastal earthquake zones (me), or anyone living in the airshed of an active nuclear facility (most of us), or living downwind (the West Coast of the US and Canada), concerns are multiplied.

We must use this teachable moment to comprehensively plan for climate change, energy availability and transformational natural disasters. These multi-dimensional factors present non-linear problems bound up together, a "wicked problem."

The urban need for effective resilience planning has never been more urgent or daunting. The Sendai Earthquake shattered existing risk models with a 9.0 initial offshore earthquake, spawning a colossal tsunami from the epicenter toward shore, resulting in a humanitarian crisis underpinned by now-uncontrolled nuclear radiation releases.

Loss of life is rampant, and amongst survivors physical and psychological suffering is acute.

All grids are down, no transportation, communications or energy are available in impact zones. Yet, the modest bicycle has emerged triumphant from the chaos in Tokyo and beyond.

Infrastructure, communications, trains, subways, roads, energy, soil, air, water, and food are all impacted in terms of delivery, quality and supply. People are wisely cloistered indoors, but getting basic supplies will become the next concern for survival even before the radiation leaks subside.

In terms of global economic fallout, supply chains are getting hit, (microcontrollers, airplanes, and the automotive and electronics sectors, impacting global trade at least for the year.

Trend: World supply of renewables are being recalculated and redefined

Nuclear has lost its dubious "renewable" status permanently. Anything that makes land and resources unusable and dangerous for years should not qualify as a first solution. But with coal use likely peaking as an energy source and because its threat to climate, we are forced to consider nuclear as an energy option.

Trend: Need for New Nuclear Power Plant Criteria

Earthquake, and Cat 3 to 5 hurricane and typhoon zones should be taken off the global list of available nuclear energy generation sites. Nuclear needs a complete re-examination in terms of lifecycle energy costs (how much energy is used in mining uranium and other material) as well as lifecycle radiation risks.

Trend: Nuclear won't be Dismissed Outright

Considering the increase in the cities of the developing world (China, India) and their need for energy--it will be almost impossible to dismiss nuclear as an energy source, unless some very massive leapfrog technology comes along. We're stuck with most of the nuclear plants we have, at least for now. Plants should be scrutinized, even temporarily or permanently closed if they can't be run with "Post-Fukushima" confidence. Germany is doing just that to its older nuclear plants. The EU is stress testing more than 100 of its nuclear plants, according to the American Public Media show Marketplace.

France, the world's leading nuclear economy, doesn't get major temblors or tropical storms. China, on the other hand, has massive fault zones. Southeast China, like the southeast US, also hosts its version of Hurricane Alley in its Pearl River Delta region. China has 13 plants up and running with 20 in planning stages, many in severe typhoon and earthquake risk areas (3/16 Update: China announced it was at least for now suspending the 37 nuclear plants it had in construction or planning stages.)

The challenge for urban planning agencies in the Pacific Rim: cities are more likely to be coastal, putting them at heightened risks for Pacific earthquake zones as well as climate change risks. The rising average ocean levels resulting from melting polar ice caps will only make tsunamis and flood events worse. The West Coast of the US dodged a bullet when the tsunami from Japan hit at low tide: still, California alone had more than $30 million in tsunami damage last week. Sea level rises will exacerbate the damage caused by tsunamis, and will also increase sea water intrusion into drinking water supplies and fresh water ecosystems. About 1.6 million households in Japan were without water as of 3/18.

Distributed Energy, Communications, Transportation and Radiation

Energy: Solar, biogas and fuel cell technologies will gain as they can be used on or near where they generate energy, providing energy supplies even after disasters take down the power grid. Distributed forms of energy require only local transmission lines, which can be repaired quickly. Wind energy relies more on national grid energy transmission networks (though as the most affordable major renewable energy supply, wind demands a share of the energy pie). Because of transmission risks, coal plants will decline, even if "clean coal" is perfected, let alone invented. Electricity supply is spotty from Tokyo north. Tokyo faces six months of brownouts, or reduced power because of the nuclear crisis (nuclear provides the nation with 30% of its total electric power).

Communications: Cellular telephone service in Japan was severely disrupted, not so for land lines and internet communications. The recommendation according to the US Department of State: "Where possible, you may be able to contact family members using text messages or social media such as Facebook or Twitter." Of course that means email, chat, Skype, Vonage, etc. work in Japan, too.

Mobility: Trains and subways are back up in the Tokyo Metro, after being mostly down for a few days, as they are the lifeblood of urban Japanese life. The northeast region, however, is physically cut off from the urban spine of Tokyo. My Japan sources, Eric and Ken, tell me the regions should be able to be linked with cycling, if the right bikes are used (mountain or cruiser tires). I got around after the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 with an old Fisher (pre "Gary"), and was even regularly able to clamber with that bike down a post-earthquake four-foot San Andreas Fault road drop on State Highway One, on cliffs above the Pacific. Though Highway One north was not reopened to cars for over a year, it still provided cyclists safe passage between West Marin-San Francisco.

Radiation: When the French, the planet's reigning nuclear experts, tell their people to flee Tokyo and then the US warships evacuate, you know things are critical. Tuesday nuclear plant overflights for aircraft were banned and, more disturbingly, operators may have been forced by events to abandon nuclear plant control rooms.

Besides the immediate risks to health, the big unknown risks jeopardize land, infrastructure and food. How will Japan safely assess radiation levels and then make a go/ no go decision for what's inhabitable or edible? How will that information be conveyed to the international community? Already the US has made multiple requests that Japan release more data on its basic air radiation levels. (Update: in the first break of policy with Japan, the US today, 3/16, has set an evacuation zone of 50 miles for US citizens versus a Japanese zone of 12 miles.)

Imagine the complexity of trying to obtain, analyze and effectively communicate radiation levels in soil, water, food and products.

Overall, Japan has remained stoic, calm, and orderly for which its leaders and people should be greatly commended. There have been no reports of looting or price gouging. Now may we all breathe carefully, take stock of the lessons that emerge, and plan for a world of new forces and constraints.

We should take heed from Japan. Its situation at present may seem unbelievably hellish, but it could demonstrate for the world how to face not only natural disasters that rightfully grab headlines, but also how to deal with the forces that will always lurk in the background: climate change and energy supply volatility.

Image: Associated Press via The CityFix

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current. He is a fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, strategic adviser to the Institute for Strategic Resilience and co-author of a forthcoming United Nations manual on global sustainable city planning and management.

Enabling Future Global Green Cities

2011-02-08T18:33:46Z

Between 2000 and 2030 the global urban footprint will double, mostly due to growth in developing nation cities. Urban carbon and resource impacts cannot, must not double during this period. What can be done by policymakers, the private sector, civil society and urban leaders to prevent the unthinkable, a global climate and ecosystem incapable of supporting stable species populations and food production?

A botched transition to the coming urban future will ensure stresses far beyond our comprehension.

So, I will be addressing the Global Green Cities Symposium in San Francisco Feb. 24 on "Enabling Future Global Green Cities." In my previous post I described how this event acknowledges a sense of urgency by taking a novel approach to expert and cross-industry collaboration.

Clearly, cities in developing nations are the crux of the matter: 90% of projected urban growth will occur in developing nation metros during the next decades. By 2040, the developing nation urban sector will benefit from an estimated total of more than $300 trillion in expenditures for the built environment and transportation, both in infrastructure and operations. Increasingly these city functions and services will be optimized to address both climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation.

Before getting to the how, let's address the issue of cities on the basic level of benefits and risks.

Pros of increased urbanism:

easier provision of lower-cost high-value services (healthcare, education, water, transportation, communications, commerce)
enhanced cultural activities and opportunities
urban economic innovation in global hubs benefit their surrounding rural regions, and especially national economies

Cons of increased urbanism:

increased pollution and concentration of wastes, congestion, urban-heat island effect
negative social impacts which can include loss of sense of community, isolation from nature and decreased safety and security, exacerbated by a large-scale lack of affordable housing
sprawled urban borders place natural resources (agricultural land, habitat, fisheries, watersheds) at much greater risk

Beyond the pros and cons of urbanization, the populations and economies of all cities are vulnerable to the increasingly severe impacts of global climate change, including rising sea levels, flooding, winter storms, drought and extreme heat events. Besides higher rates of death and disease from climate change-induced environmental conditions, mass population migrations are expected to occur in the not-distant future. From New Orleans to Bangladesh, urban climate-related population diasporas have already begun.

Cities will need to quickly begin shifting their spending from high-carbon intensity infrastructure to green infrastructure that produces very low carbon emissions in production, transport, implementation and maintenance.

Long-term and strategic action plans will be necessary to guide capital toward infrastructure solutions offering attractive returns on investment. Such returns can take many forms--reduced operating costs (including reuse and disposal), low embodied and operating carbon emissions, lower air and water pollution levels, and greater resource efficiency.

Global competitiveness may soon be defined in part by comparative carbon emission rates. Low-carbon urban economies, for instance, will gain a decisive edge over economies (urban, exurban or rural) that remain relatively heavy per-capita carbon emitters. This competitive advantage will be gained not only because of environmental and quality of life factors but also because of the potential merger of international trade rules and carbon emissions regulations.

The OECD Mayors Roundtable in 2010 recommended that urban policy makers pursue integrated policy in three areas: the adjustment of firms to new sustainability related business opportunities and energy volatility; enabling individual consumers or citizens to change their preferences for products and services, and, finally; developing and effectively diffusing green technologies in the marketplace.

Following are other leading strategies and recommendations that will be covered in the United Nations "Shanghai Training Manual for Sustainable Cities". (In order to be more likely to succeed, multi-sector collaboration and transparency will be required of each):

New integrated, long-term and multi-scale models for structuring, managing, measuring and financing city performance (e.g., World Bank Eco2 Cities program) including life-cycle energy/ carbon, maintenance and capital cost management across budgets, capital planning and large-scale investments. Early examples include Curitiba, Brazil, and a Stockholm industrial district.
Mega-region and regional planning approaches, including those with "cascaded" micro-planning, such as Greater London (pdf).
Community-based natural disaster management, such as the Dhaka example (pdf)
Core ICT Planning and Strategy: With e-planning ICT can help cities avoid high-carbon land use. Digital technology makes it possible for cities to achieve lower carbon emissions from better planning and management of infrastructure, buildings, energy and transportation. ICT can provide valuable public access in communications and governance, such as Mumbai's e-government platform.
Public-private partnerships that are well constructed. Early examples include South Korea's Smart Grid 2030, and China's Guangdong Province wastewater projects. Public-private partnership agreements should be part of a transparent public process that is beneficial to all parties, especially citizens.
"In situ" slum upgrading, versus indiscriminately tearing down slums. Vulnerabilities must be addressed for those slums that are located in areas particularly at risk to climate change, such as flood plains and land subject to severe storm erosion. The good news, however, is that most urban slums are high density, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, made from recycled material, adaptive to changing conditions and can be socially inclusive with strong neighborhood social networks.

Green urbanization has the potential to shape the 21^st century as much or more than earlier economic and technological advances. The key difference between this trend and prior economic waves--transportation, communications, energy, advanced materials and industrialization--will be the use of integrated urban system approaches.

Bonafide global green cities will only be fully realized through combined cultural, managerial and technological innovation that is constantly guided by the active participation of the civil and private sectors, academia and government.

Let's all get busy...

("World Metro Map" image credit)