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Toledo, Ohio: The first green wave?

It's time for the United States and the Obama Administration to take a stand. Either this country will become a leader in sustainability technology, services and implementation, or it will languish forever behind the European Union, China, the Middle East, South Korea and other nations.

After a promising start by the Obama administration recognizing the importance of clean technologies, particularly clean energy and transportation, we are one year later paralyzed: Copenhagen was a qualified failure, Congress has abdicated passing climate change-related regulations, and the backdoor plan for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases is being challenged in Congress.

Part of the blame has to go to the White House. During President Obama's first 30 days, a raft of new programs under the Stimulus, about 11 percent of the $787 billion dollars, were announced that would benefit clean technology research and implementation.

By April the administration moved on to health care, leaving the green economy and climate change measures twisting in the wind. Instead of bolstering the effort with statistics, stories and demonstrations of why the world is already moving toward green as the biggest next-generation economic opportunity, the US green D-Day troops landed on the beach without air cover, supplies or a mission objective.

During late spring and summer last year, I spoke with numerous administration and Congressional officials. I proposed that the administration develop and release detailed figures on where green job growth was occurring. I also advised projecting those figures into a future of guaranteed clean technology dominance, with specific stories about where record numbers of new jobs were already being created:

• Toledo, Ohio has 4 percent of its metro workforce (6,000 jobs!) engaged in clean technology production, at all levels including executive, research, marketing and labor. That's equivalent on the regional level to major industries that have picked up and left the Midwest and moved overseas.
• California's green economy grew almost three times faster than the rest of its economy during 1995-2008. That job growth was in geographic regions all over the state, including wealthy urban coastal areas as well as in less prosperous and recession-ravaged inland regions.
• The greater Boston metro area has become a hotbed for clean energy research and production through state programs and private sector collaboration, with MIT and Cambridge acting as important science and policy advancement centers.
  
• Austin, Texas is a leading center for incubating renewable research, production and deployment, demonstrating public-private partnerships and academic collaboration, with the University of Texas.

Obviously, the officials did not understand that supporting "green jobs" means more than talking up the merits of each technology, which was their tact.

They told me, "We can gather and promote those statistics after the stimulus jobs are created." Or, "The White House staff is taking up every day with health care discussions--there is only one day per month for environmental discussions, so it's not enough time." (I couldn't believe at this day and age, they failed to frame the issues as "economic development" not "environmental" issues!)

The urgency of demonstrating how the clean technology economy is taking root in many Congressional districts and media markets is evident: people just need to see what these new opportunities are without having to understand the complex technologies themselves.

Only through such visceral stories, demonstrations and a few choice statistics will the American public public and media recognize that taking on the challenges of climate change and foreign oil dependency present untold opportunities for domestic jobs and market leadership.

Don't believe that this stuff is important? Let's look to China, which now leads the world market in solar and wind technologies. Or Europe, which just announced a Supergrid project, that will combine deployment and research capabilities from nine nations for a renewable energy grid across the Continent.

New green cities are being either planned, designed and built in China, South Korea, The Middle East and even India, based on new clean tech ecosystems combining renewable energy, with water and material conservation processes, along with information technologies. It's ironic that a US-based company like General Electric needs to base one of its largest clean technology research investment in Abu Dhabi, but that's the reality of our new economic era.

President Obama and Congress need to illustrate that we are falling behind in this race for the future of our national economy, planet and local livelihoods. They need to shine a solar spotlight on this new world that is emerging all around us, in our factories, universities and research laboratories to make them a recognized engine of our regional economies.

The president can look to a US city for inspiration. Seattle has set a goal of making itself North America's first carbon neutral city by 2030, which will require a Manhattan Project-type approach among local government, businesses, civic organizations and local experts. Only through well-researched shout-outs from the bully pulpit of the Presidency will such efforts capture and sustain the national imagination.

Our past has proven that once our nation is inspired, we all can move collectively toward a common goal: Let's use our existing and expected progress in sustainability to define a future of hope and economic regeneration.

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active urban sustainability strategy consultancy. He is author of How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings and a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.




 

This weekend I volunteered to warn shopkeepers and officials in my San Francisco suburb about dangerous urban flooding potential during the next week.

Every Friday noon in San Anselmo the "flood siren" (not disaster siren, mind) is tested. Within fifteen minutes of the last time it blasted for real in 2005, at 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday, three to four feet of water was soon gushing down the main street (see photo above) into homes and businesses. People here are acutely sensitive to heavy rain and the level of the town's creek, since they are still trying to rise up from that cold watery blow four years ago.

Up and down the California coast, metro areas including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are experiencing a series of El Nino-generated Pacific storms. Further inland, Phoenix will also take a big hit. The forecasted 6-10 inches of rain over the next days will almost certainly bring localized flooding and mudslides. Ocean storm swells will reach 20-30 feet on some parts of the coast by Thursday, lashing roads, infrastructure and housing. (Update Jan. 22: the storms this week luckily did not flood San Anselmo, but did cause heavy rains, some flooding and infrastructure damage throughout the state and Arizona, while also reducing the region's drought).

NOAA 5-day precipitation forecast from 1/16/10: small purple circles in California represent areas expected to receive 8+ inches.

How much of this weather and its impacts can be directly attributed to global climate change, I will not venture. The coastal and tidal flooding that is expected in California, however, will be one of the hallmarks of a changing climate. Another effect will be drought---which California and the Southwest have been experiencing for three years--the flip side of climate change's growing precipitation impacts. Coastal and desert urban areas in particular need to steel themselves for such a schizophrenic future.

Leaving things up to "officials" to figure out disaster plans is not recommended; true community resilience will require research, networking and knowledge sharing within and outside one's normal sphere. In my case, I think I was able to plug a few vital holes that may have been missed.

Most store owners in San Anselmo (pop. 12,000) that I spoke with were savvy about imminent flood danger. Based on their experience with the New Year's Eve flood of 2005, a few shopkeepers had excellent information and resources: they referred me to online creek-level readings ("anything over ten feet and I'm out of here," one man said), and email alerts that can be sent to email or phones from Nixle.com, a national information mass customization service that localizes updates on disasters, road closures and crime.

Nixle, for instance, has newly updated postings from the San Anselmo Police Department about potential hazards for flooding and safeguards. There's even a local AM radio (1610) station dedicated to disaster updates for the area.

But none of that seemed to be enough to really prepare people. One friend, a council member from the neighboring town that was also flooded in 2005, did not know about the severity of the forecast weather when I chanced to run into him at a musical performance over the weekend. He had me send him the forecast links from NOAA showing him exactly how much precip is expected to fall. He emailed back, "We're trying to get our flood plain residents to batten down the hatches. This should help."

Other small business owners that I spoke to were new to town, including immigrants. Unlike long-time business owners who told me they were warned by the police (or that had vivid mud-damaged inventory and moldy wallboard memories), the new shopkeepers knew almost nothing about flooding dangers or where to get the free sandbags.

Those who were around in December 30, 2005, have learned that floodgates (above, white board) for each business offers the best protection. In actuality, these are just rails installed on each side of entrance door where a piece of plywood can be inserted as a barrier against the torrents of water can come crashing against and under the front shop door (usually glass). Gates work even better than sandbags, but sandbags will prevent the glass doors from being smashed open.

The town and surrounding communities, even the federal government, tried to take some larger-scale policy actions after the 2005 flood, which caused almost $100 million in property damages county-wide. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) developed a new local flood risk map based on the 2005 event, and insurers offered policies that residents within the areas were urged to purchase. An extensive engineering study of the region's watershed is being made, a $125-per-property flood fee narrowly passed a controversial vote, while creek debris clean-ups have become popular all-age volunteer events each fall before the winter rainy season arrives.

Some houses have been rebuilt and raised above the flood-prone region along San Anselmo/Corte Madera Creek. This normally placid creek empties seven miles later into San Francisco Bay. High bay tides back the creek up so that it can't empty into the bay quickly.

San Anselmo/ Corte Madera Creek Watershed: San Anselmo is in center, San Francisco Bay, on right

Unfortunately, it doesn't take much time for San Anselmo/Corte Madera Creek (watershed in brown above) to back up from San Francisco Bay and rise in the Marin communities lining its flood plain, since it is surrounded by steep canyons that channel rainfall off nearby hills. Asphalt parking lots, impermeable pavement and poorly planned development have also increased the speed by which rainwater runs off into the creek. For instance, when I checked creek levels online Sunday the 17th, the creek was 2.9 feet, but after heavy rains Sunday night and Monday morning the creek was already over 6 feet. Flood stage is 11 feet (update 1/20/10: after heavy rain, the creek level went from 4 feet to 10 feet in matter of five hours, before receeding slightly) .

The irony of California's winter storms is that they bring needed water to reservoirs and mountain snowpack, promising to reduce or temporarily end the region's ongoing drought, which has been costing the agriculture industry and some cities hundreds of millions in lost revenue and in water purchases. Marin County last year was the first in the Bay Area to approve desalination from San Francisco Bay water, despite energy and marine environmental impacts along with a hefty $100 million-plus price tag.

Not surprisingly, the state's residents have a love-hate relationship with their winter weather. To make the affair even more volatile, climate change may be swinging the status from drought to flood in a matter of a few weeks.

Indeed, California's coastal metros (along with the Gulf Coast, including Florida and New Orleans) may be the first litmus test for how to adapt to the unpredictable excesses and scarcities of a changing climate.

 Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active urban sustainability strategy consultancy. He is author of How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings and a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.

Chevron's Nigerian oil pipeline has been overtaken by the Movement for the Emancipation of Nigeria in the Niger Delta (above: AFP/File Photo). The group is obviously well-armed and trained. See the lead machine gunner supplied by ammunition/communications (left), and flanked by AK-47s and rocket launcher holders (left rear, right rear) scanning the horizon of Niger River, which has pipeline, production and transport facilities (Niger River Delta and Nigerian offshore oil areas are in yellow below).



The Niger Delta has been the source of about 2.5 to 3% of world oil supply and reserves, with Shell, Exxon, BP and others holding major delta and offshore concessions.

Multi-national oil companies have been open flaring oil wells 24 hours a day into the air, and causing extensive water pollution in the area once home to rich fishing and agriculture.
Thus the region is growing infamous for impacted civilian uprisings, peaceful and not so.

Said the governor of Nigeria's Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan: "...the oil companies have polluted the air, the waters and soil....So, with this kind of situation, our people can no longer fish or farm and so they can no longer feed themselves, the capacity to do this is no longer there and when you cannot feed yourself, you are hungry and when you are hungry, you get angry and when you are angry, you get violent. So, it is a vicious cycle...We want to create a Delta State without oil...We should be able to create a Nigerian economy without oil, bring our youth up and train them to become farmers and non-violent producers".

Nigerian novelist and television producer Ken Saro-Wiwa was hung after military trial in 1995, concerning demonstrations by the Ogoni group he founded, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).

Before the news of the Chevron pipeline takeover, oil markets were already heating up Friday to almost $83 a barrel, the highest range since October 2008, after hitting their historic peak of $147 a barrel in July 2008. Based on Nigeria and increased demand from China, this week could be be a harbinger for 2010 oil price trends.

Are rising oil prices and energy insecurity putting the issue of future global fossil fuel supply in play once more?  

Next10, a research organization in San Francisco, released last week an analysis of green job growth rates in California by sector and region, "Many Shades of Green". Looks like Golden State green job growth has outpaced other job growth since the mid-1990s into 2008 and the great recession.

Overall job growth in California's continuously expanding green sectors was 36% between 1995 and 2008, with traditional job growth at 13% over the same period. When the recession hit California in 2007, green jobs continued to grow into 2008 at a 5% pace while the rest of the job market actually decreased 1% in the state.

The nitty-gritty:

• The statewide region for green job growth was the Sacramento area, with an 87% percent growth rate. Sacramento experienced the highest-level employment growth (157%) in air and environment jobs (2.5 x 1995 levels). Energy generation employment grew by 141%.

• California's total green job growth leader is the San Francisco Bay Area with 41,674 green jobs. Bay Area trends include the largest number of energy generation jobs (roughly 7,000). Energy generation grew by 20%, with the high concentration in solar.

• In the San Joaquin Valley, total green job growth was 48% with the highest concentration of jobs in wind energy. Concentration in alternative fuels represent three times the state average. The number of jobs in green transportation grew 211%.

• In the Los Angeles area, energy generation jobs grew by 35% and energy efficiency jobs grew by 77%. In Orange County green transportation jobs grew 1,875% including alternative fuels and motor vehicles and equipment. Energy generation jobs grew by 176%

• According to Next 10, The Inland Empire's energy generation jobs grew by 85% with the highest concentration in solar and wind. Energy efficiency jobs grew by 91%.

Next10 is focused on innovation arising from the intersection of environmental, economic and quality of life interests. The non-profit was founded by venture capitalist F. Noel Perry.
 

(photo copyright Los Angeles Times)

Evidence that speculative auto-dependant sprawl was one of the major factors behind the Great Recession is emerging through real estate market studies of major US metro areas, from Washington DC to Southern California.

Note the New York Times on November 6 (p.A13):

New research about the recession has also bolstered one of transit's central premises -- that highway-driven sprawl is bad for a city's economic health. Recent studies at the University of Utah, for example, concluded that foreclosure rates in the Washington area were much lower in counties served by the Metro rail system, compared with the next ring of counties farther out, and that home prices in Phoenix had also fallen in direct proportion to the distance from downtown. 

A new report I wrote for the Post Carbon Institute (link to pdf) includes the case of Victorville, California, a virtually 100 percent auto-dependent city of 107,000 that grew from 64,000 in 2000. Real estate prices started to crash in this Mojave desert community in 2006 when gas hit $2 a gallon. Victorville is now one of the foreclosure capitals of the nation, as home prices fell from an average of well over $325,000 in 2007 to under $125,000 in 2009.


Source: City-data.com (11/09)

The market was so decimated that large new homes, some might call them McMansions, were demolished in Victorville (see photo at beginning of post) earlier this year to free the city from liability resulting from possible vandalism, crime and fire danger.

As gas prices hit $3 and $4 a gallon, people couldn't afford the thousands of dollars of extra gas expenses that were required to commute to the Los Angeles area, which is almost 100 miles away. As a result, home prices crashed, foreclosures proliferated, developers went bankrupt, and the city and the region are now suffering. At the same time, San Bernardino County was successfully sued by the California Attorney General's office for allowing development in its communities, such as Victorville, with disregard for global climate change and regional air pollution.

Similar imploding exurban real estate prices started the 2007-2009 national foreclosure crisis, with these toxic assets setting off the derivatives financial meltdown and, you know the rest...

Victorville is by no means an isolated example. The amount of suburban and exurban development that occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s when fuel prices hit their historic low prices (see graph below) has created a massive expanse of excess houses and infrastructure requiring untold resources to build and maintain.

 

Largely because of such sprawl, stimulated by inexpensive gas prices and a lack of local government controls, California's main source of greenhouse gases come from the transportation sector.

Clearly it's time for the focus on "green cities" to expand outward to greening the suburbs and the exurbs, because that's where the majority of our nation's population resides. Though 80 percent of the nation lives in urban (developed) areas, only 20 percent of those "urbanites" live in big cities. About 60 percent of US population lives in metro area 'burbs of under 100,000. 
 
During the last three years, outer-suburban or exurban areas lost far more value than real estate in urban or suburban areas served by public transit with walkable, bikeable and mixed-use zoning options as my report and others, such as Prof. Arthur C. Nelson's at the University of Utah, are demonstrating.

This is the first time in US history that sprawled low-density suburbs or exurbs have fallen faster in average value than city or inner-suburban areas; suddenly "Smart Growth" is more than a niche market or trend--it will be at the core of financially successful planning and development.

Greater density with non-auto mobility options is going to dominate development as long as we have climate change, volatile resource availability (particularly water) and high gas prices. In addition to economics, there are demographics. The nation's dramatically aging population consists of more single people, retired couples and empty-nesters who want apartments or condos from which they can walk, bike and ride buses or use subways and light rail. 

The redesign of suburbs and exurbs will require some painful Victorville-type actions that may waste resources, such as tearing down certain neighborhoods or homes. There are other options, however. Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson demonstrate design examples in their excellent 2009 book, Retrofitting Suburbia.

Not all future metro areas need to follow the hub-and-spoke format with central cities and their suburbs. Metro areas might consider, for instance, designing growth and transit corridors around multiple regional centers of economic activity, which was the aim of the Los Angeles area's Compass Blueprint.

California's anti-sprawl Senate Bill 375 is the nation's first such statewide measure. It now is being guided by an official strategic growth process, which is being led by a council with modeling tools for preferred scenarios developed by Calthorpe Associates, transit-oriented development champion Peter Calthorpe's Berkeley, CA firm.   

On a more granular level, cul-de-sacs, which are impediments to non-automotive mobility, can be re-engineered to accommodate more direct walking and biking access.

Some innovative buyers are devising ways to use the glut of unoccupied or unsold large homes for business or residential purposes other than single-family living. Based on major shifts in market demand, home builders are downsizing and are constructing more energy-efficiently.

The days of plowing productive agricultural areas under for suburban home tracts and strip malls may be coming to an end. A Denver suburban home developer is incorporating working agricultural land into unsold tract home land plots in numerous communities, in what is being billed as "Agriburbia."

Clearly, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emission reduction and resource conservation are becoming guiding factors for much more than regulatory and environmental compliance, they are beginning to dictate the very economies upon which our metro regions operate.

We must now rethink how to develop our communities so that sprawl does not re-emerge, and relegate it to history, as an oddity from the era when gas was cheap, the climate was forgiving and resources were seemingly endless. 

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, a consultancy based in San Anselmo, California with international projects on urban sustainability strategy and metrics. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings. 

 

 

Los Angeles Times photo

Sprawl is dead: That's the takeaway of a new report analyzing how toxic exurban real estate started the US economy on its downward spiral. Metro regions and developers are picking up the pieces and are vowing, "never again."

The unchecked trend of US exurbanization was one of the major factors setting off the beginning of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, according to a new research paper published by the Post Carbon Institute investigating the relationship of sprawled, completely car-dependent communities to real estate risk as well as to climate change and ecosystems.

Besides the inherent threats to climate change and dwindling resources, exurban development during the past decades put the United States in a vulnerable economic position when steadily rising gas prices in 2004-2005 began their march toward $4-5 a gallon in mid 2008. 

The research paper argues that many suburbs and most exurbs, which constitute the vast majority of urbanized areas in the United States, have been building up an infrastructure of complete auto dependence, which threatens the climate through multiple forms of inefficient energy, food and resource use.

Despite the emerging "green" urbanism trend, which can be found in a number of North American cities, unplanned exurban growth must be addressed and managed more efficiently, or the economy will face further severe national real estate shocks as oil prices rise again.

California's Senate Bill 375 is the first statewide anti-sprawl measure, and similar regulation and related regional planning processes will need to occur on a national basis to systemically reduce the combined risks of exurban development and financial speculation. 

The following is an excerpt from my complete paper, a publication pre-release of the "Roadmap for the Transition" series.

******

In April 2009--just when people thought things couldn't get worse in San Bernardino County, California--bulldozers demolished four perfectly good new houses and a dozen others still under construction in Victorville, 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The structures' granite countertops and Jacuzzis were removed first. Then the walls came down and the remains were unceremoniously scrapped. A woman named Candy Sweet came by the site looking for wood and bartered a six-pack of cold Coronas for some of the splintered two-by-fours. For a boomtown in one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States, things were suddenly looking pretty bleak...

The recent decline of Victorville and other "boomburbs" may well prove to be the last gasp of the United States' decades-long suburban/exurban development frenzy. We will be absorbing or trying to erase the unwanted surplus of this end-of-the-twentieth-century building spree for years, if not decades. In the meantime, exurban communities in general--and Victorville in particular--will face a daunting set of short term and long term challenges as the 21^st century shapes up to be very different than the world they were built for...

Within the United States, existing metropolitan areas can be retrofitted to take advantage of breakthroughs in sustainability and efficiency technologies, as well as new financial incentives.

The American Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009 has provided some funding for the energy-efficient redesign of our buildings and our means of transportation. But much more ambitious projects need to be undertaken to retrofit our communities not only for energy efficiency, but to build their overall resilience.

Fortunately, a foundation for this work already exists. Barely ten years ago, "green buildings," downtown streetcars, urban farms, car-sharing companies, high-quality bicycle infrastructure and other physical features now associated with urban sustainability were found only in a handful of North American cities. Today, they are popping up everywhere.

Big cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are actively trying to "out-green" each other, while smaller cities like Boulder, Colorado, and Alexandria, Virginia are rolling out their own localized sustainability solutions.

Some communities have taken early steps toward protecting their surrounding agricultural lands, or "foodsheds," from well-established regional plans and policies in Portland, Oregon to San Francisco's 2009 comprehensive local food policy. Cities are starting to realize that they can't just "grow smarter"--they have to fundamentally remake themselves to be resilient for the unprecedented economic, social, and environmental challenges of the 21st century.

Some metro areas rethinking themselves for resilience have simultaneously become home to "clean tech" centers with significantly high job growth rates. Clean tech clusters are emerging in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and Austin, as well as in some less-expected locations; in Toledo, Ohio, for instance, more than 4% of all jobs are now in research, development and manufacturing for solar energy. Other key areas of future job growth are in green building and landscaping, water conservation technologies, low-carbon materials design and advanced transportation...

If the "Great Recession" of 2008-2009 taught us anything, it was that allowing the unrestrained sprawl of energy-inefficient communities and infrastructure is not a sustainable economic development strategy; rather, it is a recipe for continued disaster on every level.

Twentieth century-style sprawl has destroyed valuable farmland, sensitive wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable natural water supply systems at great environmental, economic, and social cost. We can no longer manage and develop our communities with no regard for the natural resources and ecological systems that provide our most basic needs.

What lessons emerge from metropolitan areas that have begun to plan for the future by building their resilience with economic, energy, and environmental uncertainty in mind?

• Build and re-build denser and smarter. Suburban and urban population densities need to increase so that energy-efficient transportation choices like public transit, bicycling and walking can flourish. Multi-modal mobility cannot succeed at the densities found in most American suburban and urban communities today. Increasing density doesn't have to mean building massive high-rises: adding just a few more stories on existing or new mixed-use buildings can double population density--and well-designed, increased density can also improve community quality of life and economic vitality. Resource-efficient building technologies, as certified by the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Environment and Energy (LEED) or the US EPA's Energy Star rating, can be retrofitted for existing building stock and mandated for all new construction.
• Focus on food. Gardens (whether in backyards, community parks, or in and on top of buildings) may supplement people's diets with fresh local produce--but urban areas need to think big and plan systemically for significantly increased food production. In many Asian cities and towns--even big cities like Seoul, South Korea, the size of New York--there are thriving small farms interspersed within metro areas. Growing and processing more food for local consumption bolsters regional food security and provides jobs while reducing the energy, packaging and storage needed to transport food to metro regions.
• Focus on water. Our freshwater supply is one of our the most vulnerable resources in the United States. Water vulnerability is no longer just a problem for Southwestern desert cities--communities in places like Texas, Georgia and even New Jersey have recently had to contend with water shortages. As precipitation patterns become less reliable and underground aquifers and mountain snowpack dry up, more and more communities will need to significantly reduce water demand through conservation, restrictions and "tiered pricing."
• Think in terms of systems. If we think of our urban areas as living, breathing entities--each with a set of basic and more specialized requirements--we can better understand how to transform our communities from random configurations into dynamic, high-performance systems of resilience. The "metabolism" of urban systems depends largely on how energy, water, food, materials, labor and knowledge are used (and reused, where possible), or metabolized. From these ingredients and processes come products, services, and--if the system is efficient--minimal waste and pollution...

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, a consultancy based in San Anselmo, California with international projects on urban strategy and metrics. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings.

Songdo International Business District, South Korea

On the eve of G-20 meetings this week in the heart of the United States, the momentum of climate change leadership is ironically taking shape in Asia and Europe.

That is borne out by new announcements on smart, green city programs, as well as other major developments coming from China and South Korea leading up to December's Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

Before I get to the wired city news, some relevant signs from the tea leaves of Asian political leadership:

• China has stepped up to a leadership role on the road to Copenhagen, this according to the climate change chief of the United Nations. With China's cities alone expected to account for a major portion of the world's greenhouse gas increases over the next 20 years, such early-stage signals are monumental.
• South Korea has put forth a climate change mitigation scheme for developing nations that is being given serious consideration. It would set up a registry in developing nations, which South Korea is classified as, by which national emissions reductions can be measured against business-as-usual emissions.

Both China and South Korea are home to an emerging model of cities that are being planned with combined IT infrastructure and management systems that reduce carbon and resource use in construction, waste production, water and energy use, teleworking, transportation and mobility.

South Korea, in particular, is designing its national stimulus program and economic development strategy around the convergence of sustainability planning, IT innovation and energy usage.

It's not surprising that South Korea's largest development project, Songdo International Business District, optimizes low-carbon design with ubiquitous information technology.

In China, IBM announced last week an eco-city research center, which will feature a collaboration between the global technology provider and the national government on the latest IT-based water management systems and more.

China is also designing Eco City standards through its central government's Ministry of Housing, Urban-Rural Development; it is looking to such planning and management systems that can scale up to meet 350-400 million more people that its cities will house by 2020. China is said to be looking beyond reducing carbon emissions and water use: it is taking into account other macro design factors such as as climate change adaptation, including natural disaster risk. 

The developer of Korea's Songdo, Gale International, and Cisco also announced last month an agreement with China to develop a city district in Changsha, Hunan Province.

Meanwhile, the European Union is not sitting idle when it comes to wiring its cities for sustainability. After hosting a "Green and Connected Cities" session before The European Union's Committee of Regions last year (at which I addressed delegates), Europe announced last week it is putting significant investment into wiring and enabling 30 cities for advanced IT energy efficiency capabilities.

And the United States? Beyond Boulder, Colorado, which has recently implemented the model for the nation's first Smart Grid-connected city, looks like we will be spending our days leading up to Copenhagen mired in a decades-old health care debate while the rest of world is shaping a future of innovation.