Low Carbone Cities

The author was invited by Mayor Hau Lung-pin to come to Taipei City tin 2011 to discuss strategies for the city’s tenth successive Car Free Day — and as part of this collaborative brainstorming process to draw on his experience of some seventeen years working with this, one hopes, transformative transportation approach in different cities around the world.

Turner, have studied meaning construction through language based on intricate mental mapping operations. Their research suggests that conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending permit human beings to reduce very complex issues to human scale. Climate change is such a complex issue. We ask: How is it linguistically reduced to human scale and, in the process, made amenable to thinking and acting? To address these questions, we have analysed the emergence of lexical compounds around a recent key word in debates about climate change in the English speaking world, namely 'carbon'. One such compound and metaphor/blend is 'low carbon diet'. In this article we study how the use of the compound 'low carbon diet' in an advertising campaign, a book, and by a catering company in the United States permitted US newspapers to reduce climate change to human scale. We have combined and compared metaphor and blending analysis with media and discourse analysis to shed light on the linguistic framing of a real-world problem, that is, we engaged in applied blending analysis.

Significance: Through the medium of a pilot study on the Garden Cities Wolfson Economics Prize (UK) and the three main case studies (Catalonia/Netherlands/UK), the thesis investigates the key ideas of each project, evaluating their effectiveness related to sustainability and quality concepts. The exploration of European and UK large-scale projects is interpreted on a journey to innovative and successful landscape schemes, giving the opportunity to this thesis to evaluate their effectiveness and delivery with regards to low carbon and spatial quality. Rigour: The examination of the state of the art in regional landscape design concepts was based on the identification of the key ideas by current theory, the communication methods, and their impact to large-scale project development. Establishing collaborations with pioneer projects in Catalonia, the Netherlands and the UK, the study has developed a specific methodology that allows the identification of key issues, such as low carbon and quality of space, as well as the evaluation of their dissemination and interpretation through the landscape project process. A pilot study (Garden cities – Wolfson economics prize) followed by three case studies (Landscape Observatory, the Netherlands and HS2/HS2LV) are the main steps to evaluate the effectiveness of the processes followed and the best practices towards a sustainable and quality landscape design.
Originality: The contribution to knowledge of this thesis lies upon the identification and creation of sustainable strategic schemes that work effectively at the scale of landscape projects, affecting positively the way regions are conceptualized and addressed. The need for a project framework supported by policies and legislation that will secure the early integration of ideas such as low carbon, spatial quality and drawings, is identified as a significant step towards successful project implementation and impacts on the extent to which key issues will be delivered in strategic schemes. The recognition of drawings and visuals as communication tools, through the landscape project process, improves the understanding of the land and acts significantly in the interpretation of the landscape vision as well as the integration of key issues in strategic schemes. Evidence collected during the study indicates that innovative projects can form theory and therefore that the key issues of low carbon and spatial quality can be interpreted differently across Europe, playing distinct roles, and gaining significant importance to the landscape project process. Impact: The proposal for a common European and UK agenda related to strategic landscape schemes will share lessons of good practice suggesting ways to strengthen the areas of sustainable landscape development and it will improve understanding, communication, and implementation of low carbon and spatial quality, by sharing knowledge and adopting best practices, creating a sustainable environment.

The entry begins with a definition of geography and with a description of what the discipline shares with the other social sciences and what makes it distinctive among them. Terminological clarifications are provided with regard to the relationship between human geography and physical geography, and between human geography and urban geography. After a brief history and overview of human geography’s engagement with social theory, the entry offers a discussion of the politicization of contemporary human geography and of how this phenomenon is reflected in theory building and concept development.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0464

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The current scenario of the planet, predominantly and increasingly urban, is one in which cities account for over 70% of emissions related to energy consumption. Cities are suffering the consequences of climate change resulting from the exponential increase in anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Scientists are struggling to engage nations and cities into actions to limit the increase of Earth's temperature to no more than 2°C by the end of the century, and control the intensification of extreme events that already cause problems and disasters. Limiting the increase of temperature seems a distant and unlikely probability in spite of the weak commitment of the parts. Initiatives that allow us to understand and quantify GHG emission sources in urban areas, and guide the implementation of actions for mitigation are becoming more common. The emergence of cities and communities planned to be environmentally responsible towards a sustainable society, albeit rudimentary, is a reality. Whereas some path errors need to be corrected, they bring valuable lessons. The use of Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment tools such as LEED-ND and BREEAM Communities, is a possibility. They may not currently allow an accurate accounting of mitigation measures arising from implemented sustainability strategies, nonetheless they are important tools that can positively boost planning, design and construction of low-carbon cities and communities. Adjustments are yet necessary, but the first steps have already been taken and more accurate tools such as eTool and PrecinX were already been developed – they only need to be more broadly implemented or serve as an example to new systems adapted to the local context.

Kaynak: Kocabas, A. (2011) ‘Düsük Karbonlu Kentlesme: Türkiye'nin Gündemi ve Yerel Ölçekteki Adımlar’, KBAM 2. Sempozyumu: Planlamanın dünü, bugünü, yarını: planlamada yeni söylem arayışları, Ankara: ODTU.

Öz: Özellikle son beş yıl içerisinde, iklim değişiminin ve küresel ısınma tehdidinin kentsel boyutunun Türkiye‘de planlama kuram ve pratiği kapsamında ele alınması gerekliliği konusunda giderek artan bir farkındalık oluşmuş bulunmaktadır. Bu bildirinin amacı küresel ölçekte atılmakta olan adımların izdüşümü olarak biçimlenen Türkiye‘de ortaya çıkmakta olan devingen iklim değişimi planlamasını, özellikle iklim değişimine ve düşük karbonlu kentleşmeye geçişe ilişkin beklentiler çerçevesinde, irdelemektir. Bu kapsamda öncelikle düşük karbonlu kentsel gelişme konusu ele alınarak kavramsal çerçeve oluşturulmuştur. Kentlerden karbon salımını azaltmaya yönelik evrilen ulusal politikalara ilişkin irdeleme ise Ulusal İklim Değişimi Eylem Planı ile sonlanmaktadır. Üçüncü bölümde ise kentsel alanlardan karbon salımı azaltılmasını sağlayacak olan kentsel planlama mekanizmasının iklim değişimi bileşeninin geliştirilmesindeki zorluklara değinilmektedir. Bildiri Türkiye‘de düşük karbonlu kentleşmeye giden yolun varlığına işaret etmekte ancak bu yolda uzun bir yolculuk yapılması gerektiği görüşü ile sonlanmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Düşük karbonlu kentleşme, iklim değişimi, eko-kent, sürdürülebilir kentsel gelişme ve dönüşüm, İstanbul.

LOW CARBON URBANISATION: evolving Turkish national agenda and policies
Source: Kocabas, A. (2011) ‘Düsük Karbonlu Kentlesme: Türkiye'nin Gündemi ve Yerel Ölçekteki Adımlar’, KBAM 2. Sempozyumu: Planlamanın dünü, bugünü, yarını: planlamada yeni söylem arayışları, Ankara: ODTU.

Abstract: During the past five years there has been a growing acknowledgement of the need for planning in Turkey to explicitly address the urban dimension of climate change and the threat from global warming. The aim of this paper is to examine the emergence of planning for climate change in Turkey, with particular reference to climate change mitigation and to discuss the prospects of a gradual transition to low carbon urbanisation. The paper first establishes a conceptual framework for addressing the issue of low carbon urban development.  The analysis of evolving national policies to reduce carbon emissions from cities culminates with the National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. The third section focuses on the challenge of developing the climate change dimension of urban planning which will reduce carbon emissions from cities and towns. The paper concludes that a route to low carbon urbanisation in Turkey is emerging, but that it will be a long journey. 
Keyword: Low carbon urban development, planning for climate change, eco-city, sustainable urban development and regeneration, Istanbul.

Çalışma kapsamında, sokakların otomobil haki-miyetinden geri alınışı ve düşük karbonlu yaşam anlayışına giden aşamalar incelenmiş ve düşük karbonlu yaşam üzerine literatürden süzülen beş prensip mahalle ölçeğinde ele alınmıştır. Ma-halle ölçeği, fiziksel mesafeler ve sosyal bağların görünür olduğu ve bu prensiplerin algılanması açısından elverişli bir mekansal bütünlük sun-maktadır. Çalışma kapsamında, düşük karbon ulaşımını en yenilikçi biçimde temsil ettiği dü-şünülen bisiklet kullanıcılarıyla "düşük karbon yaşam" üzerine bir farkındalık anketi gerçekleş-tirilmiştir. Sonraki aşamada, İzmir genelinde dü-şük karbonlu ulaşıma referans veren bazı proje çalışmaları incelenmiştir. Bu çalışma, "düşük karbonlu yaşam farkındalığı" çalışması olarak yapılan literatür çalışmaların-dan da görüldüğü üzere, Türkiye örneğinde ilk kez yapılmaktadır. Anket sonuçlarına göre, bisiklet kullanıcılarının, düşük karbon yaşam üzerine farkındalıkları pozitif bir tablo çizmektedir. Özel-likle, düşük karbon ulaşım üzerine farkındalıkları yüksek çıkmıştır. İncelenen güncel uygulama projeleri de, İzmir'in düşük karbon yaşam an-lamında bir potansiyele sahip olduğunu gös-termektedir. Genel olarak değerlendirildiğinde, belirli bir farkındalık düzeyinin bisiklet ve yaya öncelikli tasarımlar konusunda söz konusu oldu-ğu görülmektedir. Tüm bunlar, düşük karbon ma-halle oluşumuna zemin teşkil edecektir. Anahtar sözcükler: Düşük karbonlu yaşam,dü-şük karbon mahalle, bisiklet ve yürüme öncelikli kentsel tasarım, kamu sağlığı, İzmir.

A low carbon city development program is one of the critical events in today's sustainability initiatives worldwide, including Malaysia. This paper is therefore aimed to review Majlis Perbandaran Klang, MPK framework and their action on the low carbon city development in Klang city, Malaysia based on their recent Diamond Rating Certificate 2017 award by Sustainable Energy Development Activity (SEDA) Malaysia through their Bangunan Sultan Alam Shah of its Low Carbon Building Assessment Green-pass Operation. This paper was done based on findings by reviewing a thorough review of the literature and Expert interview (MPKlang Officers) on their current practice of their low carbon city conceptual, framework and initiatives, strategy and achievement. The Low Carbon Cities Framework, in general, has been proven to be effective implementation into the development of sustainable Low Carbon City. This review concluded that with proper strategic planning and execution, a city could be transformed into a low carbon city and shall be evolved to advance sustainable city in the future. Low Carbon Cities Framework has proven to be effective implementation into the development of sustainable Low Carbon City, mainly in Malaysia. The success of LCCF is based on the progress in the implementation of the eight-phase strategy in a city. This study concluded that with proper management, a city could be transformed into a low carbon city with various ways of carbon emission, management skills of managing the resources, and the end product of every energy they unit. However, room for improvements in LCCF implemented by MPK could be in the evolvement of the sustainable cities instead of just aiming for low carbon cities.

A B S T R A C T The paper explores the ability of urban transition experiments to transform the development regime in which they are embedded. Using three European case studies – BedZed, Vauban and Hammarby – it investigates the processes of broadening and scaling-up within cities, nations and across cities globally; and finds that transition experiments do influence the development regime in which they are embedded. The impact of experiments on the development regime does vary significantly with scale. The innovative components, which are assembled in experiments (cultural, structural and practices) also seem to have differing propensity to influence the development regime at different scales. Thus, cultural innovations have a greater propensity to influence the development regime across all scales, whilst the structural and practice innovations tend to influence the development regime locally and nationally. The case studies also demonstrated the significance of context (historical and geographical) in shaping experiments and influencing the transformation process. This finding suggests that the importance of broadening in the transformation process has been overstated. The experiments show that broadening across national boundaries and for prolonged periods, can result in expanding niche-regimes which become increasingly diverse. But it does not result in transformation.

Carbon pricing is widely recognized as an effective policy instrument for climate change mitigation. Carbon pricing have been imposed in 39 developed countries and eight middle-income countries. Eight more middle-income countries are considering its implementation. As experiences from industrialized countries may not be relevant to developing countries, this literature review fills a knowledge gap by collating the impacts of carbon pricing in developing economies to facilitate cross-learning. Some developing countries still have distortionary subsidies in place, while others are going through environmental fiscal reforms to nudge their societies and economies towards greenhouse gases emission reduction. Various studies demonstrated that safeguards introduced with carbon pricing could help firms to transition while maintaining the motivation to innovate to stay competitive. At the household level, given different energy consumption patterns, carbon pricing in developing economies is not necessarily regressive, especially for rural population. Aggregate impacts to employment rate and gross domestic product change over time as the economy restructures towards decarbonization. A well-designed carbon pricing policy package with revenue recycling mechanisms tailored to the socioeconomic circumstances of the country could achieve multiple dividends of economic growth, increased employment, improved equality, national debt reduction or accomplishment of other sustainable development goals.

In June 2015 Accra experienced severe rainfall that continued for a number of sodden days, creating widespread flooding across many parts of the city. When the rains eventually cleared, the landscape was a scene of devastation. At Malam Junction a bridge collapsed under the torrential downpour, killing several people. Cars had been carried down the hill, scattered randomly by the surging waters, many of the roads were covered with debris, and significant damage was visible among the low-lying properties of the neighbourhood. In central Accra the highest profile of the many tragedies that were to unfold led to 152 lives being lost when floodwaters carrying fuel from a petrol station caught fire, creating an explosive fireball visible from many kilometres away. Across the metropolis over 8000 people were displaced, movement, business, and everyday life were brought to a standstill and over US $100 million of damage caused to the built environment of this West African city. As the floods were at the worst, the Mayor of Accra, Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, was hosting a meeting and celebrating his recent award as “Best Mayor of Africa.” Many in the city found it distasteful that such an event, proclaimed among the storm-beaten banners attached to streetlights throughout the city, was continuing amidst a widespread emergency. But it also highlighted the inability of politicians to fully grasp the foreboding signs of future troubles. This was one of the worst flood events in Accra’s recent history and a harbinger of the extreme socionatural conditions that cities across

This paper forms part of wider research looking at pioneer landscape strategies across Europe, examining the extent to which low carbon, sustainability and spatial quality can be delivered effectively on urban and strategic scale, and covers examples from the ‘Landscape Observatory’ (Spain), the ‘Room for the River’ and ‘New Dutch Waterline’ (Netherlands), and the ‘HS2/HS2LV’ project (UK). This paper presents the Netherlands and the UK case studies, illustrating effective ways where the key issues of low carbon and quality of space are integrated in the design framework and the impact this has on the decision making. The case studies have shown that effective implementation requires visual communication and an in-depth understanding of how the concepts of sustainability and spatial quality are expressed. Policies, and legislation are also considered significant for landscape based developments.

This poster compiles the Design Strategy maps spreads from Sun, Wind & Light, 3rd edition into a single large page. Design Strategy maps show some of the relationships among Design Strategies and Strategy Bundles, across nine levels of nested complexity, from Materials (Level 1) to Neighborhoods (Level 9)..

This paper develops a geographic understanding of urban energy transitions in sub-Saharan African towns and cities. In doing so this paper seeks to critically reflect on the value and limits of urban transitions analysis as a framework for understanding energy networks beyond the largely integrated systems across the Global North. We explore how these potentials and deficits can be addressed by examining promising developments across a series of debates in urban studies that can help sensitise this approach to energyscapes in the African context. By reviewing urban transitions analysis through these debates the paper offers four important contributions to expand existing ways of understanding energy transition. These include the particular urbanisation dynamics of African towns ands cities, the need to locate the urban across energy regimes, the agencies of various intermediaries and urban actors and the contested politics inherent in the governing of energy networks. In the conclusion we reflect on the specific directions that have emerged from the paper in relation to our contributions, offering a geographically informed framework that allows us to better examine the challenges and specificities of transition across these rapidly growing urban regions.

Infrastructure threatens to lock-in societies to fossil fuels, unless something is done about it now. This is because infrastructure lasts for such a long-time, meaning that any infrastructure built or rebuilt now will last well into the 21st century – even until the end of the century in some cases. Consequently, there is a need to integrate climate change, especially adaptation, into infrastructure now or societies will be left with infrastructure designed around an unsustainable socio-technical system (e.g. combustion engines, roads, suburbanization, etc.). Such change is conceptualized in the literature as a sustainability transition. However, any attempts at such transitions have to address the materialities of infrastructure systems (e.g. physical form, environmental context, etc.). In this paper I develop the concept of socio-material systems and apply it to transport infrastructure in Ontario, Canada.

This landmark study builds on international practice and knowledge in urban revitalisation, city competitiveness, place branding and marketing, urban regeneration, tourism, retail and town centre management, among others to offer a multidisciplinary assessment of how town and city centres can compete and prosper sustainably by positioning themselves strategically on the basis of their 'DNA' or 'personality'.

The report offers a simple town centre 'personality' test linked to a typology of town and city centres. It also offers, for the first time ever in the UK, a national town centre performance framework linked to a do-it-yourself set of key performance indicators that anybody can use straight from the box without any previous knowledge of market research or statistical analysis.

Urban agriculture in Cuba is often promoted as an example of how agroecological farming can overcome the need for oil-derived inputs in food production. This article examines the geographical implications of Cuba's low-carbon urban farming based on fieldwork in five organopónicos in Pinar del Río. The article charts how energy flows, biophysical relations, and socially mediated ecological processes are spatially organised to enable large-scale urban agricultural production. To explain this production system, the literature on Cuban agroecology postulates a model of two distinct modes: agroecology versus industrial agriculture. Yet this distinction inadequately explains Cuba's urban agriculture: production in the organopónicos rather sits across categories, at once involving agroecological, organic-industrial, and petro-industrial features. To resolve this contradiction, a more nuanced framework is developed that conceptualises production systems by means of their geographical configuration. This provides analytical clarity—and a political strategy for a low-carbon, degrowth agenda.

For the full article, see http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-015-9659-y

Climate is a global issue with significant implications for Malaysia. Apart from national mitigation and adaptation strategies for addressing impacts of climate change, the government needs to also look into regional and local resilient policies to reduce greenhouse gases. This paper examines how Iskandar Malaysia, a rapidly developing economic corridor initiate a low carbon society (LCS) blueprint to guide the development of this economic corridor. The blueprint provides a sustainable green growth roadmap with 12 policy actions for the region. The paper also demonstrates how collaboration between researchers, policymakers and related stakeholders is achieved through a series of consensus building sessions at the local level and outlines the lessons learned from a policy-oriented research.

The struggle against climate change begins almost in every place of the world, and the involvement of local communities in saving the environment is visibly growing. However, it cannot be denied that, in most cases, systemic actions, if they actually occur, focus on reducing emissions in transport and industry. In the author's opinion, mitigation actions in almost every area of life should be the answer to climate change. Also important are adaptation measures related to the consequences of potential changes in the environment, and in the context of the problem addressed - also an anthropogenic environment; the interests of current and potential city users will clash in this space. In this context, it is proposed to implement urban buildings as small residential units, characterized by high mobility and self-sufficiency, which do not degrade biologically active space. An example of the attractiveness of this thesis can be self-sufficient "microhome" housing units. The ...

Successful responses to climate change will involve broad networks of governance that link multiple actors. But for this, its is important to understand the dynamics of certain key players. This paper focuses on one such player – the municipal bureaucracy – to ask two questions: First, what institutional barriers block the integrated municipal responses to climate change needed for a low carbon transition. Second, what reforms are necessary to create departments that are able maintain sustained innovation in the context of changing circumstances ? It is based on a case study of how one South African city, Durban, responded to an ongoing national electricity crisis that began in February 2008. This material is drawn from 70 interviews and participant observation conducted between October 2007 and April 2009.
Durban2 is one of South Africa's leading cities on the issue of climate change. It has integrated climate considerations into official development planning processes, linking them to other development goals, and including them in the performance contracts for high level management. The city's Environmental Management Department, in partnership with the Tyndall Centre and the Golder Consultants, is also conducting advanced downscaling of global climate models, and carrying out projects related to food security, carbon mitigation, and renewable energy.

El panorama de inseguridad energético de la República de Colombia fundamentalmente por su dependencia tecnológica y de energéticos primarios provenientes de otras naciones es evidente, ya que la cartera de Minas y Energía del país anunció la necesidad de importar gas natural licuado por sus siglas en inglés LNG, tema que del que se tiene pleno conocimiento desde el año 2012 por parte de la Unidad de Planeación Minero Energética donde se generan las estrategias en materia minera y energética del territorio Colombiano.

En este trabajo de investigación aplicada respecto al ecosistema de la ciudad de Medellín se logró evidenciar el estado del ecosistema hídrico y la calidad del aire por medio del reconocimiento del territorio o simple inspección y presencia de olores ofensivos asociados a compuestos inorgánicos como es el sulfuro de hidrógeno (H2S). Constatado por encuestas a la comunidad en el perímetro de las inversiones públicas de saneamiento básico como es el caso de las plantas de tratamiento de aguas residuales (PTAR) en el municipio de Bello, Antioquia y lograr de esta forma reportarle a las autoridades de forma propositiva en materia de la solución a la problemática de la contaminación del aire y la alternativa energética para el país con la generación de gases combustibles renovables como es el caso del biogas proveniente de la valorización energética de lodos del servicio público de alcantarillado.

Worldwide, cities are responsible for approximately 75 per cent of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. With few systematic urban planning models to reduce carbon emissions in existence, it is difficult to take effective steps. The Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP) tool was developed to support low carbon urban planning in a structured, incremental way. The approach has been used in several studies and applied in new developments. The second step of REAP, regarding tuning, exchanging and cascading of energy at various scales, is relatively new, offering cities additional opportunities. In an urban redevelopment for Rotterdam city ports, novel techniques for the exchange of different temperature levels of heat were designed. These involved a spatial plan based on the energy system chosen. Linking spatial planning to the exchange of waste heat within buildings, between buildings (such as supermarkets, greenhouses and apartments), between neighbourhoods and at city level with district heating provides urban planners with a new perspective on planning: a smart grid for heating and cooling! To build reduction scenario pathways, changing the energy mixes of existing cities into low carbon energy mixes is crucial. Carbon dioxide (CO2) mapping, energy potential mapping and the REAP principles will help people to choose effective solutions. They were used to build detailed stakeholder-based CO2 reduction pathways with the GRIP (Greenhouse gas Resinal Inventory Protocol) scenario tool. This chapter discusses REAP, CO2 mapping, energy potential mapping and a method to build structured reduction pathways.

Funding details:
CO2 emissions are responsible for climate change and these will have adverse consequences particularly on low and middle income countries. Malaysian CO2 emissions have seen a growth of 300% in the last 20 years. Malaysia's dependence on non-renewable energy sources is increasing as a result of the growing population (2% annual growth) and urbanisation in the country. Portland cement production is responsible for about 8% of the total CO2 emissions in the world, and an increase in production would be required in order to cope with the

Even though sub-Saharan Africa has contributed little to historic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the continent is at the forefront of global climate change impacts and decarbonization imperatives. Such dynamics prompt the need to question where the financing for rapid construction and transformation of urban infrastructure systems that respond to emerging efficient, low carbon and long-standing developmental objectives should come from. This paper examines the potential role of carbon financing in the form of the Clean Development Mechanism and the growing critiques from across the continent and beyond in relation to this financing pathway. It argues that carbon market-based responses to mitigation generate a series of problems, flawed logics and failures in the capacity of towns and cities to address low carbon, urban futures and should be replaced through a shift to financing based on climate debt reparations.