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CITIES
AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
Responding to an Urgent Agenda
Volume 2
ii
CITIES
AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
Responding to an Urgent Agenda
Daniel Hoornweg, Mila Freire, Marcus J. Lee,
Perinaz Bhada-Tata, and Belinda Yuen, editors
Washington, D.C.
Volume 2
iv
Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Cities and the Urgent Challenges of Climate Change 1
List of Authors and their Affiliations 14
Part 1. Measurement and Indicators of City Climate
Impacts and Performance
Chapter 1 City Indicators on Climate Change:
Implications for Policy Leverage and Governance
17
18
P McCarney
Chapter 2 Detecting Carbon Signatures of Development

Patterns across a Gradient of Urbanization:
Linking Observations, Models, and Scenarios
62
M Alberti and L R Hutyra
Chapter 3 A Critical and Comparative Evaluation of CO2

Emissions from National Building Stocks of Developed
and Rapidly-Developing Countries
Case Studies of UK, USA, and India
74
R Gupta and S Chandiwala
Chapter 4 Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions

in Urban Counties in the United States with a Case Study
of the New York Metropolitan Area
136
L Parshall, S Hammer, K Gurney
Chapter 5. Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effect

by Urban Design: Forms and Materials
164
J Bouyer, M Musy, Y Huang and K Athamena
Chapter 6. Framework for City Climate Risk Assessment

S Mehrotra, C E Natenzon, A Omojola, R Folorunsho,
J Gilbride, Cynthia Rosenzweig
182
Part 2. Infrastructure, the Built Environment

and Energy Efciency
Chapter 7. Getting to Carbon Neutral: A Review
of Best Practices in Infrastructure Strategy
243
244
C Kennedy, D Bristow, S Derrible, E Mohareb, S Saneinejad,

R Stupka, L Sugar, R Zizzo and B McIntyre
Chapter 8. Towards CO2 Neutral City Planning

The Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP)
268
A Dobbelsteen, N Tillie, M Joubert, W Jager and D Doepel
Chapter 9. Urban Sprawl and Climate Change: A Statistical

Exploration of Cause and Effect, With Policy Options for the EU
290
I L Bart
Chapter 10. The Role of Intelligent Transport Systems

for Demand Responsive Transport
312
R Clavel, E Castex, D Josselin
Chapter 11. An Investigation of Climate Strategies

in the Buildings Sector in Chinese Cities
332
J Li
Chapter 12. Opportunities and Challenges

to Electrical Energy Conservation and CO2 Emissions
Reduction in Nigerias Building Sector
345
J-F Akinbami and A Lawal
Chapter 13. A New Water Paradigm for Urban Areas

to Mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect
366
M Schmidt
Chapter 14. Characterizing the Response of Buildings

to Climate Change: The Issue of Overheating
382
T Kershaw and D Coley
Chapter 15. Comparative Study of Energy and Carbon

Emissions Development Pathways and Climate Policy
in Southeast Asian Cities
395
A Phdungsilp
Part 3. City Institutions and Governance

for Climate Change
Chapter 16. Understanding and Improving Urban Responses
to Climate Change. Reections for an Operational Approach
to Adaptation in Low and Middle-Income Countries
R Sanchez Rodriguez
411
412
Chapter 17. Planning Climate Resilient Cities: Early

Lessons from Early Adapters
430
J Carmin, D Roberts and I Anguelovski
Chapter 18. Climate Change and the Resilience

of New Orleans: the Adaptation of Deltaic Urban Form
462
A Carbonell and D J Meffert
Chapter 19. Governance and Climate Change:

Assessing and Learning from Canadian Cities
498
C Gore, P Robinson and R Stren
Chapter 20. Climate Change Adaptation Planning

in Toronto: Progress and Challenges
524
J Penney, D Thea and E Ligeti
Chapter 21. Climate Change and Urban Planning

in Southeast Asia
541
B Yuen and L Kong
Part 4. Economic and Social Aspects

of Climate Change and Cities
Chapter 22. Does Climate Change Make Industrialization
An Obsolete Development Strategy for Cities in the South?
563
564
L-Y Zhang
Chapter 23. Adaptation and Mitigation: What Financing

is Available for Local Government Investments
in Developing Countries?
583
T Paulais and J Pigey
Chapter 24. High Cost Carbon

and Local Government Finance
602
P C Annez and T Zuelgaray
Chapter 25. Mobilizing Private Sector Resources

Toward Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Action in Asia
633
J Park
Chapter 26. The Price of Climate: French Consumer

Preferences Reveal Spatial and Individual Inequalities
649
J Cavailhs, D Joly, H Cardot, M Hilal, T Brossard, P Wavresky
Chapter 27. Social Aspects of Climate Change

in Urban Areas in Low- And Middle-Income Nations
S Bartlett, D Dodman, J Hardoy, D Satterthwaite and C Tacoli
670
Chapter 28. The Urban Poors Vulnerability

to Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean
727
L Winchester and R Szalachman
Chapter 29. Vulnerability and Resilience

of Urban Communities under Coastal Hazard Conditions
in Southeast Asia
752
V Nitivattananon, T T Tu, A Rattanapan and J Asavanant
Chapter 30. Built-In Resilience: Learning from Grassroots

Coping Strategies to Climate Variability
776
H Jabeen, A Allen and C Johnson
Chapter 31. City Health System Preparedness

to Changes in Dengue Fever Attributable to Climate Change:
An Exploratory Case Study
797
J M Lapitan, P Brocard, R Atun, C Tantinimitkul
Epilogue
Perspectives from the 5th Urban Research Symposium
817
Foreword
The 5th Urban Research Symposium on Cities and Climate Change Responding
to an Urgent Agenda, held in Marseille in June 2009, aimed to highlight how
climate change and urbanization are converging to present us with one of the
greatest challenges of our time. Responding to these twin challenges effectively
and sustainably is a key objective for governments, authorities, institutions and
other organizations involved in urban development processes. The World Bank,
the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea,
and the French Development Agency were therefore particularly committed to
the co-organization of the Symposium.
As the ultimate source of much of the worlds energy consumption, and thus
greenhouse gas emissions, cities have a key role to play in mitigating climate change.
To varying extents, cities are also vulnerable to climate change impacts, with poor
populations facing the greatest risk, such that adaptation and increased resilience
constitute priorities for every city. Consequently, climate change mitigation and
adaptation in cities has emerged as a new theme on the global agenda, creating a
strong desire among governments, the private sector and the academic community
worldwide to learn from experiences and good practice examples.
The 5th Urban Research Symposium made an important contribution to the
growing body of knowledge and practice in the area of cities and climate change.
During the three day Symposium, approximately 200 papers were presented to
over 700 participants representing more than 70 countries. As co-organizers,
we found it very rewarding to have such an audience and to see the wide range
of topics discussed, from indicators and measurement, to institutions and
governance. This publication represents an edited selection of the many papers
submitted to the Symposium and gives a flavor of the questions asked and
possible answers. Besides, the entire collection of Symposium papers is available
as an online resource for interested readers.
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CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The Symposium was made possible through the commitment and contributions of a wide range of partners and co-sponsors, as well as through the interest
and participation of the wider community of urban researchers and practitioners.
We were encouraged by the success of the Symposium which exceeded many
expectations, and therefore wish to further disseminate its results via a publication of collected papers. We look forward to the benefits that the partnerships
forged during the Symposium, and the knowledge gained, will have for global
efforts on cities and climate change.
Inger Andersen
Vice President
Sustainable Development Network
The World Bank
Michle Pappalardo
General Commissioner for Sustainable Development
Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea
Pierre Jacquet
Chief Economist
Executive Director (Strategy)
French Development Agency
Acknowledgements
The 5th Urban Research Symposium was co-organized by the World Bank,
the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea
(MEEDDM), and the French Agency for Development (AFD). The Symposiums
Steering Group included Abha Joshi-Ghani, Mila Freire, and Daniel Hoornweg
of the World Bank; Aude Vermot-Gaud and Anne Charreyron-Perchet of
MEEDDM; and Nils Devernois and Laureline Krichewsky of AFD. The Symposiums Scientific Committee comprised Yves Crozet, Mila Freire, Pierre-Noel
Giraud, Bernd Hansjuergens, Sylvy Jaglin, Andrew Norton, and William Solecki.
The Symposium Secretariat was led by Jean-Jacques Helluin and Perinaz Bhada
at the World Bank. Many World Bank colleagues provided helpful comments at
every stage during the Symposiums development, from the initial concept note
review through to the Symposium itself. Excellent organizational and administrative support for the Symposium was provided by Adelaide Barra, Viviane
Bernadac, Louis Blazy, Laura de Brular, Vivian Cherian, Xiaofeng Li, Maria
Eugenia Quintero, and Berenice Sanchez. Thanks also go to Zoubida Allaoua
and Kathy Sierra of the World Bank, and Robert Peccoud and Veronique Sauvat
at AFD, for their guidance and leadership.
The institutional and strategic partners who generously contributed to
the Symposium included the French Environment and Energy Management
Agency (ADEME), Caisse des Dpts, the Cities Alliance, the Dexia Group, the
Euromedina Urban Network, the European Commission, the Fonds Franais
pour lEnvironnement Mondial (FFEM), the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
GDF SUEZ, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Global
Environment Facility (GEF), GTZ, ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability,
the Institut des Sciences et des Techniques de lEquipement et de lEnvironnement
pour le Dveloppement (ISTED), the International Development Research Centre
(IDRC), the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), the
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Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the City of Marseille, Metropolis, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), United Cities and
Local Governments (UCLG), the UK Department for International Development
(DFID), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UN-HABITAT,
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Urban Climate Change
Reseach Network (UCCRN), and Veolia Environnement. The World Banks
Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) commissioned some
researchers and produced a related publication.
Much appreciation is due to the authors of all papers submitted and presented
at the Symposium, as well as to all Symposium participants whose ideas and
contributions provided for rich and lively discussions during the various sessions.
The authors of the eight commissioned research papers helped to synthesize and
strengthen the knowledge presented at the Symposium, including through the
preparatory workshop for commissioned researchers.
Preparation of the online volume of this publication involved a team from
the Urban and Local Government Unit of the World Bank, comprising Christa
Anderson, Julianne Baker Gallegos, Mila Freire, Daniel Hoornweg, Marcus
Lee, Pascaline Ndungu and Belinda Yuen, with assistance from Adelaide
Barra. Technical and substantive editing was ably undertaken through a team
comprising Anu Ramaswami, Sebastian Carney, Elliot Cohen, Shobhakar
Dhakal, Enessa Janes, Christopher Kennedy, Cynthia Skelhorn, and Joshua
Sperling. Useful comments were received from the peer reviewers, Ellen
Hamilton, Susan Parnell and Federica Ranghieri. Rene Saunders provided
design services for this online volume.
INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Cities and the Urgent Challenges
of Climate Change
The Challenge of Cities and Climate Change

Climate change is among the most pressing challenges that the world faces today.
Given current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), the world
is already committed to significant warming. This is a serious challenge, given the
wide range of expected climate impacts on natural systems as well as on human
societies, as assessed in the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC 2007). The severity of these impacts will depend in part on
the outcomes of global efforts to mitigate climate change. Yet developing countries
and poor populations everywhere remain the most vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change. Even as poverty reduction and sustainable development remain
at the core of the global agendaas emphasized in the World Development Report
2010: Development and Climate Changeclimate change threatens to undermine
the progress that has been achieved to date (World Bank 2010a).
Urbanization is a defining phenomenon of this century. Developing countries
are at the locus of this transformation, as highlighted in the World Banks 2009
Urban Strategy. It is often repeated that more than half of the worlds population
is now urban. Most of the population of industrialized countries is urban, with
numerous developing countries, particularly in Latin America, also highly
urbanized (UN 2010). Many developing countries in other regions of the world
are following the same path. This transformation represents a challenge, but also
a huge opportunitythe World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic
Geography (2009) framed this in a new paradigm, to harness the growth and development benefits of urbanization while proactively managing its negative effects.
Cities concentrate wealth, people, and productivity, but they also concentrate
vulnerability to natural disasters and to long-term changes in climate. Rising sea levels
will affect millions of people living in coastal cities. Similarly, migration, changes in
land use, and spatial development are likely to increase the vulnerability of populations to changes in weather and climatic conditions. Adaptation to climate change
is therefore an imperative for cities, as it is for the world at large. The urgency of this
challenge is also evident when considering the massive investments in buildings and
infrastructure that cities in developing countries will undertake in the coming years,
which will lock in urban form and structure for many decades thereafter.
The 5th Urban Research Symposium

The links between cities and climate change were the subject of the 5th Urban
Research Symposium held in Marseille in June 2009. Under the main theme, Cities
and Climate ChangeResponding to an Urgent Agenda, the symposium aimed
to advance the state of knowledge on cities and climate change from an applied
research perspective. Attended by more than 700 people from more than 70
countries, the symposium featured eight teams of commissioned researchers and
approximately 200 research papers selected from more than 500 initial proposals.
The symposium was a groundbreaking event, given its scale and its focus on cities
and climate change.
The symposiums research topics were organized around five clusters. The first
dealt with models and indicators to measure impact and performance of cities. The
complexity that characterizes climate change at the global level is heightened at
the city level by the need to define boundaries, identify consumers and producers,
and understand intercity flows. This is also the area where progress has been the
most visible, with international partnerships and committed local governments
working together to harmonize concepts and improve data collection. In turn,
the increased availability of data and indicators stimulates research to test and
apply global models at the city level.
The second cluster focused on infrastructure, the built environment, and
energy efficiency. This area received the largest number of papers, covering issues
from urban heat islands to urban transport policies and energy conservation.
The insights from this cluster are important given the massive investments that
cities in the developing world are expected to make in coming decades. Cities are
also eager to share progress and discuss solutions that have worked elsewhere.
Complementing this volume, the Energy Sector Management and Assistance
Program (ESMAP) at the World Bank has published selected papers from this
cluster on energy efficiency in cities (Bose 2010).
The third cluster dealt with finance and the economic incentives related to
INTRODUCTION
climate change. The papers in this cluster focused more on financing requirements and the difficulties that cities may face in meeting these requirements, and
less on the use of market-based instruments and policies such as carbon finance,
taxes, or incentives to change behaviors or encourage intercity collaboration. The
fourth and fifth clusters were concerned with the areas of institutions and governance and the social aspects of climate change. Both clusters produced important
papers demonstrating the value of early commitment and participation in cities,
as well as the potential to use local development initiatives for mainstreaming
climate change concerns in cities.
The eight commissioned research papers are representative of the five clusters
and cover issues such as the measurement of GHG emissions, city indicators,
energy efficiency in buildings, and the importance of urban form. Papers were
commissioned to ensure that leading, cutting-edge research was the organizing
principle of the symposium and to provide better coverage of climate risk
assessment and resilience, the role of institutions and governance, and the social
aspects of climate change.
The symposium was an intense and research-rich three-day learning event. It
became clear that experts and academics have differing views on any number of
questions, but the areas of consensus are far greater than the areas of divergence.
Although researchers continue to improve our knowledge of the world, decision
makers cannot wait for all doubts or differences to be resolved. Moving forward,
there is increasing urgency to get cities involved in climate change, not only in
taking greater leadership roles but also in contributing to cutting-edge research
at the city scale, defining practical solutions for urban and periurban areas, and
ensuring that research is translated into local policy options. The symposium
represents a start on this longer-term journey in understanding the links between
cities and climate changethe body of research and projects on cities and climate
change continues to grow rapidly.
This online publication presents an edited selection of 34 papers from the
symposium that cover both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Examples
and case studies from cities in industrialized and developing countries are
included, and attention is paid to the perspectives of the poor in adapting to
climate change. Of necessity, these papers represent a portion of the vast and rich
range of knowledge brought together by the symposium. A selection of eight
symposium papers has been published as a printed book. The complete set of
symposium papers is available on the symposiums website, accessible through
www.worldbank.org/urban.
The rest of this introduction presents the main conclusions and key messages
emerging from the symposium, from across all five clusters. These are organized
broadly into sections on mitigation and adaptation, with a final section on priorities for future work.
Cities and Climate Change Mitigation

Cities are critical in global efforts to mitigate climate change. Although questions
remain about how exactly GHG emissions should be attributed geographically,
most of the worlds GHG emissions are ultimately attributable to cities, which
are centers of economic activity. Cities are responsible for two-thirds of global
energy consumption, and this proportion is expected to grow further (IEA 2008).
Yet, because of their density, efficiency, and adoption of innovations and new
technologies, cities can also provide solutions for reducing emissions.
Measuring City GHG Emissions
A fundamental step for cities when it comes to climate change mitigation is to

quantify the GHG emissions attributable to cities. Emissions must be measurable to be manageable; cities will otherwise not be able to set meaningful targets
for emissions reductions, track progress toward achieving such targets, or obtain
financing readily. In response to this need, much has already been achieved at the
city level. ICLEIs Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign, for example,
features a five-milestone process that includes establishing a baseline emissions
inventory. In 2009 CCP had grown to include over 1,000 local governments
worldwide (ICLEI 2010).
Various methodologies for measuring city GHG emissions have been
developed in Europe and North Americasuch as Bilan Carbone, the Greenhoue
Gas Regional Inventory Protocol (GRIP), the International Local Government
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Protocol (IEAP), and Project 2 Degreesraising
questions of consistency and comparability. Although most efforts have sought to
follow IPCC guidelines, considerable variation is found among these methodologies, for example, in terms of the GHGs covered and in terms of the sectors (e.g.,
energy, waste, transport, and embodied emissions in food and other materials
consumed) included (Bader and Bleischwitz 2009). Significant questions exist
with regard to the treatment of emissions associated with transport to and from a
city and of emissions embodied in materials consumed within a city but produced
outside it. Another basic methodological issue lies in the definition of the city for
the purpose of measuring emissions, whether based on administrative borders, a
defined metropolitan area, or a functional economic space. In many developing
country cities, the availability and reliability of data also present a challenge.
The chapter in this volume by Kennedy and others, Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Baselines for Global Cities and Metropolitan Regions, addresses these issues directly
and reviews existing methodologies and available published results for various
cities. Using a consistent, harmonized methodology, the authors have calculated per
capita emissions for more than 40 cities around the world. This demonstrates that
INTRODUCTION
consistency and comparability are possible and constitutes a seminal contribution

to the joint effort between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),
UN-HABITAT, and the World Bank to advance an open, international standard
to measure GHG emissions from cities. Unsurprisingly, the results reveal that per
capita emissions tend to be higher in the cities of industrialized countries compared
with developing country cities. Furthermore, although these results show that per
capita emissions in cities are generally lower than corresponding national per capita
emissions, recent research on U.S. cities suggests that when emissions embodied in
materials consumed in cities are taken into account, city per capita emissions are
in fact very close to national per capita emissions (Hillman and Ramaswami 2010).
Factors Inuencing City Emissions
A variety of factors influence a citys emissions profile in complex ways. These

factors include urban form and land use patterns, climate, building design and
technology, transport modes, and income levels. One would naturally expect
lower per capita emissions in a city with more energy-efficient buildings, higher
rates of public transport use, or lower income levels. The relative importance of
such factors is explored by Croci and others in their chapter, A Comparative
Analysis of Global City Policies in Climate Change Mitigation, which includes
case studies of Bangkok, London, Mexico City, Milan, and New York City. The
authors identify income levels as a major factor in explaining the level of city
emissions, while also noting a number of methodological issues in calculating
emissionsBangkok, for instance, estimates transport emissions from fuels
consumed within the city, whereas the other cities use vehicle-kilometers traveled.
The emissions profiles of cities can be very different, depending on specific
city contexts. Croci and others point this out clearly in their comparison of
cities across industrialized and developing countries. The largest contributor
to emissions in Bangkok is the transport sector, but in London and New York
City it is the buildings sectorspecifically energy consumption in residential
and commercial buildings, with transport coming second. Bangkoks climate,
income level, urban form, and transport systems are all factors that explain this
difference. The implication for mitigation in cities is that although cities can
certainly learn from one another when developing and implementing mitigation
strategies, specific solutions and mitigation measures may not be easily transferable or directly relevant for other cities.
The Importance of Urban Form for Emissions
Perhaps of greatest interest for urban planners and managers is the issue of urban
form and density. It has long been known that denser cities tend to have lower
per capita energy consumption (see, for example, Newman and Kenworthy 1989)
and therefore lower per capita emissions, and that within a given city, per capita
emissions are lower in the denser parts of the city. Although this received wisdom
has been questioned (Mindali, Raveh, and Salomon 2004), these correlations
have been confirmed in recent work, including from the symposium papers and
from research cited in the World Development Report 2010 (World Bank 2010a).
Yet urban form is shaped over longer time horizons, through planning, policy,
and investment decisions.
In the chapter GHG Emissions, Urban Mobility, and Efficiency of Urban
Morphology, Bertaud and others use the examples of Mumbai, New York City,
and Singapore to show how price signalsincluding energy prices and carbon
marketbased incentivesare a key factor in reducing GHG emissions from
urban transport, in combination with land use and transport planning and
policies. They suggest that monocentric cities and density can be managed with
the right policies, and that emissions from monocentric cities can be reduced if
demand for transport between suburbs and the center increases. In their examination of the factors explaining differences in demand for urban transport, the
authors consider how significant reductions in GHG emissions from urban
transport can be achieved through technological change to reduce carbon content
and through a shift in transport mode from private cars to public transit. The use
of energy pricing based on carbon content would promote both of these changes.
The demand for urban transport also depends on urban spatial structures.
Bertaud and others go on to show how in all three cities, spatial policies, including
floor area ratios (FARs), have played an important role. New York City and
Singapore have been able to maintain a high level of transit share by mandating
high FARs, prioritizing and improving connections to public transport, ensuring
high levels of amenities that make downtown areas attractive, and promoting
mixed-use developments located at integrated transport hubs.
Governance Matters for Climate Mitigation in Cities
Armed with a growing understanding of their GHG emissions, many cities are
already at the forefront of the mitigation challenge, with subnational efforts in
these communities proceeding even as global climate change negotiations have
made limited progress. Cities are leading and positioning themselves as a significant part of the solution. Although cities in the industrialized world such as
Chicago, London, or New York City are oft-cited examples, cities across various
developing countries, such as Cape Town, Mexico City, and So Paulo, are also
rising to the challenge. Climate change mitigation plans and responses do vary
among cities, as shown in the examples studied by Croci and othersLondon has
adopted a long-term emissions reduction goal with intermediate steps, New York
INTRODUCTION
City and Milan have chosen medium-term targets, and Bangkok and Mexico
City have shorter-term targets for 2012. All of this is encouraging, because cities
offer humanity the best way to efficiently provide critical services and allocate
increasingly scarce resources.
The importance of governance for climate action in cities is demonstrated
clearly by Bulkeley and others in their chapter, The Role of Institutions, Governance and Planning for Mitigation and Adaptation by Cities. The authors provide
a comprehensive global review of the current state of mitigation and adaptation
action by cities, focusing mainly on cities in the South. Selected case studies
include Beijing, Cape Town, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Melbourne, Mexico City,
Mumbai, So Paulo, Seoul, and Yogyakarta. They examine how these cities are
taking action in three key sectors: buildings, transport, and urban infrastructure.
Issues of governance are dominant when it comes to regulating GHG emissions,
providing services, and working with other jurisdictions. Key factors that shape
responses to mitigation at the local level include effective policy making, access
to additional finance, the congruence between jurisdictional areas and the spatial
scale at which problems present themselves, and municipal competencies in
key areas such as energy, planning, and transport. Governance at the city scale
matters, as do the links and relationships with institutional and governance
arrangements at other spatial scales.
Fast-growing cities offer enormous opportunities for investments in new
energy-efficient technologies and for increasing the amount of energy from
alternative and renewable energy sources. As demonstrated in the chapter by
Croci and others, the energy sector usually offers the greatest potential, with
cities mitigation efforts accordingly focused on promoting energy efficiency
(particularly through standards and regulations for buildings) and striving for
lower carbon intensity in the energy supply. Across most cities, transport is
the second most important sector, with policies focused on encouraging public
transportation instead of the private automobile. Many symposium papers
reflected the wide-ranging body of research on green buildings and energy
efficiency. These include low-energy redevelopment in Rotterdam (van den
Dobbelsteen and others), options for increasing energy efficiency in Nigerian
buildings (Akinbami and Lawal), rainwater harvesting and evaporative cooling
in Germany (Schmidt), and sustainable house construction in France (Floissac
and others).
The motivations of cities and city stakeholders for engaging in climate
mitigation also need to be understood. Wardens chapter, Viral Governance and
Mixed Motivations, describes some of the factors that led to American cities
committing to address climate change and to the launch of the U.S. Conference
of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (USMCPA) in 2005. The USMCPA
has been very successful in motivating mayors in the United States, with more
than 1,000 mayors signed on in 2010 (U.S. Conference of Mayors 2010). Growing
public awareness, a flexible framework agreement, and having participants as
proponents all contributed to the viral spread of climate engagement among
U.S. cities. The USMPCA remains valuable because of its ability to generate
awareness and engage a large number of cities on the issue of climate change.
Although focused on the U.S. experience, Wardens analysis indirectly helps to
advance our understanding of the engagement of cities worldwide on climate
change issues, through international networks such as ICLEI and the C40 cities.
A key observation is that, globally, climate change action among cities is
focused more on mitigation than on adaptation. This is a point advanced by
Bulkeley and others and reinforced by the analyses of Croci and others and
Warden. The broad field of proposals submitted to the symposium also reflected
a bias toward mitigation. This is the case even among cities in developing
countries, even though these cities tend to have lower per capita emissions and
thus would have relatively fewer mitigation opportunities. These cities vulnerability to the impacts of climate change would also suggest an urgent need to
focus on adaptation issues. Although various explanations have been advanced,
such as the need for greater institutional capacity in developing countries,
further research exploring this relative emphasis on mitigation is needed, as is
strengthened understanding of how and why cities are motivated to undertake
action on adaptation.
Cities and Climate Change Adaptation

Given that cities are concentrated centers of population and economic activities,
any impact or disruption, whether natural or human-induced, has the potential
to affect vast numbers of people. The expected impacts of climate change pose
a massive challenge to cities. These impacts will vary from city to city, as well as
within a city. For instance, coastal cities are vulnerable to rising sea levels, more
intense precipitation increases the likelihood of flooding in low-lying areas and
landslides on steep slopes, and extended heat waves are a threat to cities unaccustomed to very hot summers. In every city, the poorest populations are the most
vulnerable, because they have the least adaptive capacity and often occupy areas
that are more exposed to hazards. Building resilience and adapting to climate
change are therefore a high priority for cities. Yet city managers and practitioners
serving the urban poor often point out that the multiple competing priorities
of today are challenging enough; paying attention to uncertain future climate
impacts is thus seen as a lower priority. In light of this, better appreciation of
the cobenefits from urban poverty reduction and adaptation to climate change
is needed.
INTRODUCTION
Cities Responding to the Adaptation Challenge
In spite of the emphasis on mitigation thus far, and the many existing pressing
needs faced by city managers and practitioners, there is a growing body of research
and practice on adaptation in cities. Again, cities in industrialized countries are
commonly cited as examples of good practice in adaptation planning, but cities
in developing countries are also increasingly interested and active in this area.
Heinrichs and others present findings from eight cities (Bogota, Cape Town,
Delhi, the Pearl River Delta, Pune, Santiago de Chile, So Paulo, and Singapore) in their chapter, Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Opportunities and
Constraints. The full collection of symposium papers also reflected this trend
of increased activity in climate adaptation among developing country cities,
for example, in the papers by Carmin and others, which examined the cases of
Durban and Quito, and by Dodman and others on community-level responses
in the Philippines. Together, these papers show that far from being laggards,
in many cases developing country cities are the ones turning out to be the first
movers and innovators when it comes to preparing for, and adapting to, future
climate impacts.
Several key enabling factors can be identified among those cities that are
already responding to the adaptation challenge. The importance of identifying
these enabling factors cannot be overemphasized, because these are essential for
ensuring that cities are able to adapt. Bulkeley and others argue that these factors
largely fall under the area of institutions and governance, which suggests that
efforts to strengthen institutional and governance capacities in general at the
city level would have the cobenefit of enabling better responses for adaptation.
Heinrichs and others highlight several factors that also emerge across the wider
collection of studies, including the availability of information, the need for higher
levels of awareness, synergies with existing priorities and programs, the existence
of strong leadership, availability of dedicated resources, and adequate technical
and financial capacities.
Understanding Climate Impacts in Cities
One basic requirement for adaptation planning in any city is a sound analysis of
possible climate impacts. In itself, this is a challenge of substantial complexity
there is considerable uncertainty of what future climate impacts might be for
a given city, although our knowledge and modeling capabilities are constantly
improving, for example, with downscaling climate models. In Urban Heat
Islands: Sensitivity of Urban Temperatures to Climate Change and Heat Release
in Four European Cities, McCarthy and Sanderson show how urban areas can
be included in regional climate models, using the cases of Athens, Cairo, London,
10
and Moscow. The authors focus on the urban heat island effect, which arises
from heat released through human activity in cities, such as the heating and
cooling of buildings, traffic exhaust, and even human metabolism. Urban buildings and structures absorb heat during the daytime and release it at night, leading
to an increase in nighttime temperatures. The authors caution that future heat
waves may be underestimated if finer features at the urban scale are not included
in model simulations. The potential for applying this analysis to other cities is
considerable and would enable individual cities to fine-tune their knowledge of
potential changes in local temperatures.
In general, modeling efforts are well situated within a broader field of work
on assessing climate risks in cities. Bulkeley and others and Heinrichs and others
analyze how cities are already anticipating and planning for future climate
impacts. One of the symposiums commissioned research papers by Mehrotra
and others also addressed this need: it presented a framework for climate risk
assessment in cities and emphasized the importance of distinguishing among
the different types of risks faced by different cities. The forthcoming Urban Risk
Assessment, an approach for assessing disaster and climate risk in cities, is being
developed by the World Bank with UNEP and UN-HABITAT and proposes a
unified methodology for this purpose. It represents another important step in
bringing the fields of disaster risk management and climate change adaptation
closer. Although both communities of practice have the common aim to support
decision making under uncertainty, they have largely operated in isolation from
each other until recently (Tearfund 2008).
Climate Adaptation and the Urban Poor
An important issue when considering climate change adaptation, especially in

developing countries, is to ensure adequate focus on the urban poor. Significant literature can be found on the economic impacts and costs of adaptation to
climate change (see, for example, World Bank 2010b). Evidence is also available
that the number of people affected by disasters is on the rise, and that within
cities most disaster-related injuries and deaths occur among low-income groups
(UN-HABITAT 2007). Moser and Satterthwaite (2008) clearly demonstrate that
the main driver of increasing loss of life is poverty, which limits individual and
household investments, and exclusion, which limits access to public services. In
this context, not only does climate change exacerbate the existing vulnerabilities
of the poor, but it also creates new risks as more areas in a city are exposed to
climate-related hazards. The urgency is increased in those cities in developing
countries with high concentrations of vulnerable urban poor.
A framework for focusing on the urban poor is provided by Moser in A
Conceptual and Operational Framework for Pro-Poor Asset Adaptation to
INTRODUCTION
11
Climate Change, which shows how the vulnerability of the urban poors assets
can be analyzed and offers examples of asset-based adaptation responses. Vulnerability varies depending on hazard exposure and the capacity to cope and adapt;
these in turn depend on factors such as settlement quality and infrastructure
provision. At the individual level, factors such as age, gender, and social status
also matter. Greater assets (both intellectual and physical) reduce vulnerability
and improve the capacity of the individual and community to react and adapt to
disasters, including postdisaster reconstruction.
A closer understanding of specific vulnerabilities is also useful for taking
concrete actions. Because many poor settlements are located in vulnerable
places or lack protective infrastructure, long-term resilience can be increased
by identifying better locations, increasing property ownership, and improving
infrastructure. At the community level, improving community capacity and
resilience is essential. The paper by Bartlett and others on the social aspects of
climate change in urban areas, together with the paper by Dodman and others,
reveals how community-based organizations and initiatives can be very effective
in enabling adaptation among disadvantaged city dwellers.
An emerging conclusion is that the key to adaptation among the urban poor is
to continue to address the basic poverty reduction and sustainable development
agenda in cities to improve the livelihoods and resilience of the poorensuring
adequate and effective delivery of services such as health, education, water, energy,
public transport, and waste management; providing safety nets and increasing
food security; upgrading facilities and infrastructure in slums and other informal
settlements; and providing security of tenure and property rights.
Priorities for Future Work

Although the foregoing discussion has distinguished clearly between mitigation and
adaptation to climate change, responding to the complex challenges of climate change
in cities does not always lend itself to distinct categorizations in terms of mitigation or
adaptation. Comprehensive and integrated approaches, which include both mitigation and adaptation strategies and the synergies between them, are needed to fully
address this challenge. They also offer opportunities for cities to identify and take
advantage of co-benefits; for example, investments in energy efficiency in buildings
can both reduce GHG emissions and increase resilience in the face of more extreme
weather conditions. Although much work is already taking place on integrated
approaches that deliver co-benefits, greater awareness of these is needed, as is broader
implementation in the field, beyond demonstration and piloting.
The symposiumits papers, presentations, and discussionsreveals
numerous areas in which further research is required to strengthen diagnosis
12
and policies at the local level, building on what is already underway. Several of
these are highlighted here. First, the advances made to measure and analyze city
GHG emissions need to be consolidated and eventually lead to internationally
accepted methodologies used with the same rigor and accountability by cities
in both the North and the South. This will ensure that mitigation efforts are well
targeted within cities with progress toward mitigation targets properly tracked,
and this clarity and consistency will facilitate access to additional finance. Second
is the need to continue to expand work on adaptation in cities, in terms of both
understanding future climate impacts and implementing the most effective
adaptation actions in response to specific risks including disasters. Third, we need
to increase our knowledge of the unique circumstances of developing country
cities, because considerable variation is found among these cities across regions
and across different city sizes and locations. Fourth is the need to undertake
further economic and social analyses of all aspects of climate change in cities;
this was especially apparent from the relatively small proportion of papers at the
symposium on economic and social issues: only a handful of papers addressed the
crucial issue of financing climate actions in cities. The costs and benefits of (non)
action, social influences, and behavioral studies are central to understanding the
basis of public attitudes and behavior for effective climate change action. Last but
not least, data availability is a critical constraint, for which continued efforts in
data collection and utilization are needed.
The overwhelming response to the symposium far exceeded initial expectations. It is clear that the field of research on cities and climate change is growing
and rapidly evolving, which bodes well to ensure that the best knowledge and
analysis is applied to the urgent challenges that cities face in responding to
climate change. The World Bank and its partners are committed to working with
cities, researchers, and other agencies to improve the well-being of cities and their
residents, especially the poor and the vulnerable.
References
Bader, N., and R. Bleischwitz. 2009. Study Report: Comparative Analysis of Local GHG
Inventory Tools. Bruges: College of Europe and Paris: Institut Veolia Environnement.
Bose, R. K., ed. 2010. Energy Efficient Cities. Assessment Tools and Benchmarking Practices.
Washington, DC: World Bank.
Hillman, T., and A. Ramaswsami. 2010. Greenhouse Gas Emission Footprints and Energy
Use Benchmarks for Eight U.S. Cities. Environmental Science and Technology 44 (6):
1902-1910. DOI: 10.1021/es9024194.
ICLEI. 2010. Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) Campaign. http://www.iclei.org/index.
php?id=10829.
INTRODUCTION
13
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2007. Climate Change 2007: The
Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z.
Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H.L. Miller, eds. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
IEA (International Energy Agency). 2008. World Energy Outlook 2009. Paris: International
Energy Agency.
Mindali, O., A. Raveh, and I. Salomon. 2004. Urban Density and Energy Consumption: A
New Look at Old Statistics. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 38(2):
143162.
Moser, C., and D. Satterthwaite. 2008. Towards Pro-Poor Adaptation to Climate Change
in the Urban Centres of Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Human Settlements
Discussion Paper Series, Climate Change and Cities 3, IIED/GURC Working Paper
No. 1. University of Manchester, Global Urban Research Centre.
Newman, P., and J. Kenworthy. 1989. Cities and Automobile Dependence: A Sourcebook.
Aldershot: Gower Technical.
Tearfund. 2008. Linking Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction.
Teddington: Tearfund.
UN (United Nations). 2010. World Urbanization Prospects: 2009 Revision. New York: UN
Department of Social and Economic Affairs.
UN-HABITAT. 2007. Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human
Settlements 2007. London: Earthscan Publications.
U.S. Conference of Mayors. 2010. Mayors Leading the Way on Climate Protection. http://
www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/revised/.
World Bank. 2009. World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography.
. 2010a. World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change.
. 2010b. The Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change. Final Synthesis Report.
List of Authors and their Afliations

CHAPTER 1
Patricia McCarney, Director, Global City
Indicators Facility, University of Toronto
CHAPTER 2
Marina Alberti, Director, Interdisciplinary Ph.D.
Program in Urban Design and Planning and the
Urban Ecology Research Laboratory, University
of Washington
Lucy R. Hutyra, Assistant Professor,
Department of Geography & Environment,
Boston University
CHAPTER 3
Rajat Gupta, Professor of Sustainable
Architecture and Climate Change, School of
Architecture, Faculty of Technology, Design and
Environment, Oxford Brookes University
Smita Chandiwala, Research Fellow, Oxford
Brookes University
CHAPTER 4
Lily Parshall, PhD, School of International and
Public Affairs, Columbia University
Regina Folorunsho, Assistant Director, Nigerian

Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research
Joseph Gilbride, Project Manager, Climate and
Cities, Columbia University and NASA GISS
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist
and Head, Climate Impacts Group, NASA GISS,
and co Chair Climate and Cities, Columbia
University and NASA GISS
CHAPTER 7
Christopher Kennedy, Associate Professor,
Department of Civil Engineering at the University
of Toronto, Canada
David Bristow, Ph.D. candidate, Department
of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto,
Canada
Sybil Derrible, Ph.D. candidate, Department
Canada
E. Mohareb, Ph.D. candidate, Department of
Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto,
Canada
Stephen A. Hammer, PhD, Director, Urban

Energy Program, Columbia University
S. Saneinejad, MASc candidate, Department

Canada
Kevin Robert Gurney, PhD, Associate

Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State
University
R.Stupka, MASc candidate, Department of Civil

Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada
CHAPTER 5
Julien Bouyer, PhD candidate, CERMA
Ecole Nationale Suprieure dArchitecture de
Nantes, France
R. Zizzo, MASc candidate, Department of Civil

Marjorie Musy, PhD, researcher, CERMA

Ecole Nationale Suprieure dArchitecture de
Nantes, France
L. Sugar, MASc candidate, Department of Civil

B. McIntyre, Manager Community Transformation,

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
Yuan Huang, PhD candidate, CERMA / GARC,

School of Architecture and Urban Planning,
HUST, Wuhan, CHINA
CHAPTER 8
Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Professor of
Climate Design & Sustainability, Faculty of
Architecture, Delft University of Technology
Khaled Athamena, PHD candidate, LHEEA

Ecole Centrale de Nantes / CSTB Nantes, France
Nico Tillie, PhD Candidate, Faculty of

Architecture, Delft University of Technology
Marc Joubert, Joubert Architecture, Rotterdam
CHAPTER 6
Shagun Mehrotra, Faculty Fellow and Managing
Director, Climate and Cities, Columbia University
and NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
(GISS)
Claudia E. Natenzon, Instituto de Geografa,
Facultad de Filosofa y Letras, Universidad de
Buenos Aires, and FLACSO Argentina
Ademola Omojola, Associate Professor,
Department of Geography, University of Lagos
14
Wim de Jager, Gemeentewerken, City of

Rotterdam
Duzan Doepel, Doepel Strijkers Architects,
Rotterdam
CHAPTER 9
Istvn Lszl Bart, EU Emissions Trading
Scheme, European Commission DirectorateGeneral Environment
CHAPTER 10
Robert Clavel, Project Manager, Centre
dtudes sur les rseaux, les transports,
lurbanisme et les constructions (Certu),
Ministre de lcologie, du Dveloppement et de
lAmnagement durables, Lyon, France
Elodie Castex, PhD Candidate, Geography,
Universit dAvignon et des pays du Vaucluse
Didier Josselin, Researcher, UMR ESPACE,
CNRS, Universit dAvignon et des pays du
Vaucluse
CHAPTER 11
Jun Li, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France
CHAPTER 12
John-Felix Akinbami, Associate Professor,
Division of Energy Technology and Management,
Centre for Energy Research and Development,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Akinloye Lawal, Building Department, Joseph
Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, Nigeria
CHAPTER 13
Marco Schmidt, Institute of Architecture,
Technische Universitt Berlin, Germany
CHAPTER 14
Tristan Kershaw, PhD, Associate Research
Fellow, Centre for Energy and the Environment,
School of Physics, Exeter University
David Coley, PhD, Senior Research Fellow,
Centre for Energy and the Environment, School
of Physics, Exeter University
CHAPTER 15
Aumnad Phdungsilp, Lecturer, Faculty
of Engineering, Dhurakij Pundit University,
Bangkok, Thailand
CHAPTER 16
Roberto Sanchez Rodriguez, University of
California, Riverside, USA
CHAPTER 17
JoAnn Carmin, Associate Professor of
Environmental Policy and Planning, Department
of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Debra Roberts, eThekwini Municipality, Durban,
South Africa
Isabelle Anguelovski, Marie Curie Postdoctoral
Fellown, Institute for Environmental Science and
Technology, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona
CHAPTER 18
Armando Carbonell, Chairman, Department of
Planning and Urban Form,
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Douglas J. Meffert, Eugenie Schwartz
Professor of River & Coastal Studies and
Deputy Director, Tulane/Xavier Center for
Bioenvironmental Research
CHAPTER 19
Christopher Gore, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson
University, Toronto, Canada
Pamela Robinson, Associate Professor, School
of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson
University, Toronto, Canada
Richard Stren, Professor Emeritus Political
Science, and Senior Advisor, Cities Centre
University of Toronto
CHAPTER 20
Jennifer Penney, Director of Research, Clean
Air Partnership, Toronto, Canada
Thea Dickinson, Researcher, Clean Air
Partnership, Toronto, Canada
Eva Ligeti, Executive Director, Clean Air
Partnership, Toronto, Canada
CHAPTER 21
Belinda Yuen, Associate Professor, National
University of Singapore
Leon Kong, Director, AKO Knowledge
Solutions, Singapore
CHAPTER 22
Le-Yin Zhang, Senior Lecturer, Development
Planning Unit (DPU), University College London
(UCL)
CHAPTER 23
Thierry Paulais, Sr. Urban Finance Specialist,
Cities Alliance
Juliana Pigey, Senior Associate, Urban
Institute Center on International Development &
Governance
CHAPTER 24
Patricia Clarke Annez, Research Director,
Making Cities Work for the Growth Agenda
Project, Wolfensohn Center, Brookings Institution
Thomas Zuelgaray, Ecole Nationale de Travaux
Publics dEtat of Lyon, France
15
CHAPTER 25
Jacob Park, Associate Professor, Business
Strategy and Sustainability, Green Mountain
College, Vermont, USA
Raquel Szalachman, Economics Affairs

Ofcer, Sustainable Development and Human
Settlements Division, Economic Commission for
Latin America and Caribbean United Nations
CHAPTER 26
Jean Cavailhs, Director of Research, UMR
1041, INRA/AgroSup CESAER, F-21000, Dijon,
France
CHAPTER 29
Vilas Nitivattananon, Associate Professor,
Urban Environmental Management, School of
Environment, Resources and Development,
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
Daniel Joly, Director of Research, CNRS, UMR

6049 ThMA, F-25000 Besanon, France
Herv Cardot, Professor, University of
Burgundy, IMB, UMR CNRS 5584, F-21000,
France
Mohamed Hilal, Research Engineer, UMR 1041,
INRA/AgroSup CESAER, F-21000, Dijon, France
Thierry Brossard, Director of Research, CNRS,
UMR 6049 ThMA, F-25000 Besanon, France
Pierre Wavresky, Study Engineer, UMR 1041,
INRA/AgroSup CESAER, F-21000, Dijon, France
CHAPTER 27
Sheridan Bartlett, Researcher, International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
David Dodman, Researcher, Climate Change
and Human Settlements Groups, International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Jorgelina Hardoy, Researcher, International
Institute for Environment and Development Latin
America (IIED-AL)
David Satterthwaite, International Institute for
Environment and Development (IIED)
Cecilia Tacoli, Human Settlements Group
and Rural-urban, International Institute for
Environment and Development (IIED)
CHAPTER 28
Lucy Winchester, Researcher, Latin American
and The Caribbean Institute for Economic and
Social Planning, Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean, United Nations
16
Tran Thanh Tu, Department of Urban and

Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of
Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan
Amornrat Rattanapan, Independent Consultant
Jack Asavanant, Faculty of Science,
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
CHAPTER 30
Huraera Jabeen, Senior Lecturer, Department
of Architecture, BRAC University, Bangladesh
Adriana Allen, Senior Lecturer at the
Development Planning Unit, University College
London
Cassidy Johnson, Lecturer, Development
Planning Unit, University College London
CHAPTER 31
Jostacio M. Lapitan, Technical Ofcer,
Urbanization and Emergency Preparedness,
World Health Organization (WHO), Kobe Centre
(WKC)
Pauline Brocard, Technical Ofcer, Strategic
Initiatives Team, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria Geneva, Switzerland
Rifat Atun, Professor, International Health
Management, Imperial College London and
Head of the Healthcare Management Group
Chawalit Tantinimitkul, Health Ofcer, Ministry
of Public Health of Thailand
PART
Measurement and Indicators

of City Climate Impacts
and Performance
CHAPTER
City Indicators on Climate Change:

Implications for Policy
Leverage and Governance
Patricia McCarney*
1. Introduction
Risks associated with climate change are increasingly finding expression in cities.
The vulnerability of cities to climate change is largely underestimated. There is
no established or standardized set of city indicators that measures the effects of
climate change on cities and assesses those risks and the role that cities play for,
example, in contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While the literature on urban governance is extensive and the research field of city indicators has
grown and strengthened in very recent years, there is little work to date on how
city indicators can be utilized for improved governance. It is the intersection of
city indicators and city governance that this paper begins to address.
The central research question to be addressed is how indicators on cities and
climate change can add new policy leverage for local governments, in terms of building
empowered decision-making and, developing evidence-based policy-making.
The objectives of this paper are threefold: first, to map the core risks for cities
associated with climate change through literature review and city case studies;
second, to examine the use of city indicators to assess and address these risks
Corresponding author: [email protected]
18
CHAPTER 1
19
and vulnerabilities in cities; and third, to determine how knowledge derived

from city indicators on climate change can help to direct a more informed set
of planning norms and practices, more effective infrastructure investment and
urban management, and a more inclusive urban governance.
In addition, this paper will identify gaps in city indicators and/or weaknesses
in methodologies for comparative indicators on cities and climate change and
new challenges in the emerging field of cities and climate change. New governance challenges for cities that arise as a result of new risks and vulnerabilities
associated with climate change will also be identified.
2. Mapping Climate Change Risks in Cities: Core Risks

and Urban Vulnerabilities
While assessment on climate change and risks to cities is quite diverse and varied,
for the purposes of this paper, four broad categories are identified for considering
urban vulnerabilities associated with climate change: alterations in temperature,
alterations in precipitation, alterations in storm intensity and sea level change.
The first three, associated with extreme weather events and the fourth, associated
with sea level change are not well measured as discrete phenomenon in terms
of cities. A further problem that emerged from the literature review on climate
change is the coupling of natural disasters with climate change recordings. Global
increases in those natural disasters specifically associated with climate change
are not well disaggregated. Natural disasters associated with climate change can
be identified as having direct consequences for cities, but again these measures
are not disaggregated. We also know, both through informed professionals and
broad ratings that poorer urban households are usually at higher risk due to
weaker structures, less safe city locations and building sites, and weaker resilience
of infrastructure in poorer cities to withstand damage
Cities in developing countries are disproportionately affected for similar reasons
of vulnerability and weak institutional support and infrastructure systems. Creating
measures and indicators across the spectrum of vulnerabilities is required for informed
decision-making, improved policy on climate resiliency in cities, more effective urban
management of risks, and more empowered governance at the city level.
2.1.1
Assessing Urban Vulnerabilities Associated with Climate Change

Category One Alterations in Temperature
The urban vulnerabilities associated with alterations in temperature include

warmer and more frequent hot days and nights in cities and more extreme events
such as heat waves, producing increased demand for cooling, declining air quality
20
in cities, energy shortages, heat island effects, increased water demand and
water quality problems, human health effects and increased risk of heat-related
mortality. These consequences are detailed in Table 1. Each of these vulnerabilities helps to identify specific measurement needs and core indicators for assessing
urban vulnerabilities associated with alterations in temperature. First, an assessment is made of what city level measures already exist and a sampling of cities
already doing work on temperature change in their cities so as to better identify
weaknesses in measurement and gaps in current information.
Current global data informs a substantial change in global mean temperatures over
the last 100 years. Global temperatures have increased by 0.74C, which is unusual
in comparison to changes in global temperature data in the past (IPCC 2007). Not
surprisingly, increases in global temperature affect temperature trends in cities. For
example, and as indicated in Graph 1, the average temperature in Mexico City has
been steadily increasing over the past century, and particularly since about 1960.
FIGURE 1
Temperature Average in Mexico City 1900-2007
Temperature (C)

Source: Secretaria del Medio Ambiente del Distrito Federal, 2008. Mexico City Climate Action Program
2008-2012.
In addition, cities at their core tend to be 1 to 10F (0.56 to 5.6C) warmer than
their surrounding suburbs and rural areas (Science Daily 2003). This is attributed
to urban heat island effects caused by extensive paving, high densities of buildings
and minimal green space and fauna in city cores. Temperature change is also
indicated by a heightened frequency and intensity of heat waves, resulting in an
increased number of heat related deaths. The 2003 heat wave in European cities
was responsible for 35,000 to 50,000 deaths.
CHAPTER 1
21
High temperatures in urban areas have a direct effect on the energy consumed
by cooling appliances such as air conditioners. In large cities in the United States,
the peak electricity load increases 3 to 5 percent for 1C increase in temperature.
This is significant, considering that the average afternoon summer temperature
in U.S. cities has increased by 1.1C in the last 40 years.
Graph 2 indicates the rise of temperatures in Stockholm, particularly since
1970. Also since 1985, the graph indicates the diminishing number of cold days
in Stockholm being replaced by an increasing number of hot days.
FIGURE 2
Reconstructed Mean Annual Temperatures
in Stockholm 1756 - 2000
Source: The City of Stockholm 2007. Adapting to Climate change in Stockholm
Alterations in temperature have also been tracked in New York City. Graph 3
indicates a trend in temperature rise of over .25F per decade since 1900. New York
City has also experienced an increase in number of hot days (over 90F) since 1980.
FIGURE 3
New York City Annual Temperature in Central Park, Manhattan 1901-2006
Source: New York City Panel on Climate Change 2009. Climate Risk Information.
22
As indicated in Appendix A, three tables on observed temperature extremes

measured in Central Park, Manhattan indicate maximum temperatures exceeding
90F and 100F as well as the number of heat waves experienced per year over the
past century in New York City. During 1971-2000, New York City averaged 14 days
per year over 90 degrees, 0.4 days over 100 degrees, and two heat waves per year. The
number of events in a given year is highly variable. For example, in 2002 New York
City experienced temperatures of 90 degrees or higher on 33 different days; in 2004
temperatures of 90 or higher only occurred twice. None of the post-1900 trends
for these heat events can be distinguished statistically from random variability.
However, seven of the ten years with the most days over 90 degrees in the 107-year
record have occurred since 1980 (New York City Panel on Climate Change 2009).
2.1.2

Category Two Alterations in Precipitation
With regard to urban vulnerabilities associated with alterations in precipitation,

the consequences for governing, planning and managing cities are far-reaching.
Increasing frequency and intensity of precipitation in cities and more extreme
precipitation events can cause pressure on, and deterioration of, water and
sanitation infrastructure, particularly for weak and/or aging municipal infrastructure facilities. In addition, these alterations create adverse effects on the
quality of surface and groundwater, contaminate water supply, create waterborne
diseases, increase risk of deaths, infectious respiratory and skin diseases, disrupt
settlements, commerce and transport due to flooding, and, cause large displacements of people together with loss of property.
By contrast, alterations in precipitation leading to drought also lead to adverse
effects in cities, such as escalating costs of food in cities, food crises and increased
migration into cities from drought affected regions. These consequences are
further detailed in Table 1. Each of these ten consequences helps us identify
specific measurement needs and core indicators for assessing urban vulnerabilities associated with alterations in precipitation. This framework of vulnerabilities
identified assists in first assessing what city level measures already exist across
this list of core vulnerabilities and then identifying gaps in current information.
According to IPCC, precipitation has increased over land north of 30 N where
a general decline has occurred over the tropics since the 1970s. Data at the city level
is however weak on this measure since national (and global) data is not usually
disaggregated by city and only some cities gather information on precipitation.
New York City (Graph 4) and Buenos Aires (Graph 5) are two examples of cities
that gather data on alterations in precipitation. According to this data, there has been a
gradual increase in annual precipitation in the case of New York City over the past 100
years. Alteration in precipitation recorded in Buenos Aires between 1991 and 2006
has been sporadic with some upward trend indicated over this shorter time period.
CHAPTER 1
23
FIGURE 4
Annual Precipitation in New York City
Annual precipitation (in)
Central Park
90
Trend = +.72 in per decade
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Year
FIGURE 5
Precipitation in Buenos Aires 1991-2006
2000
mm de agua calda
1750
1500
1250
1000
750
500
250
0
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09 2000 01
02
03
04
05
06
Ao
Source: Agencia de Proteccin Ambiental, Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires 2008. Plan Estratrgico
2008-2012. Precipitaciones Registradas en la Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires (1991-2006).
2010
24
Where local data does exist, heavy precipitation can be seen as creating serious
consequences for cities in terms of flooding, economic stress and increased
health risks. For example, the E-Coli contamination in Walkerton, Ontario in
2000 was a result of excess runoff from overwhelmed sewer systems (Henstra
and McBean 2003). Flooding from heavy precipitation causes infrastructural
damages and economic loss due to the disruption of daily operations in cities. The
1996 flooding in the Saguenay Region of Quebec due to heavy rainfall resulted in
the evacuation of 15,000 people and caused losses of over $1.5 billion Canadian
(Henstra and McBean 2003).
Occurrences of heavy precipitation events are not recorded by many cities
globally despite the serious consequences known to result. Mexico City however
has more than a century of data recorded on the number of extreme precipitation events. As seen in Graph 6, these recordings indicate a marked increase,
especially since 1965.
FIGURE 6
Number of Extreme Precipitation Events (>30mm/day)
in Mexico City 1890-2003
Source: Secretaria del Medio Ambiente del Distrito Federal 2008. Mexico City Climate Action Program
2008-2012.
Alterations in precipitation associated with drought in many regions also

directly impact cities by creating food shortages, causing food prices to rise
and leading to potential food crises in cities worldwide. Cities particularly
CHAPTER 1
25
affected by the recent global food crisis include Port-au-Prince, Dhaka,

Cairo, Douala, Manila, Jakarta, and major cities in Burkina Faso and Yemen.
The global food crisis brought on by drought has been the source of urban
violence in many cities, manifested in a series of city riots. For example, the
riot in Port-au-Prince which shut down the city in April 2008, was a result
of tensions arising from the global food crisis. At least ten people were killed
from the riots in Cairo, which were due to shortages in basic food commodities and rising food prices.
Lowered precipitation levels also lead to increases in migration into cities from
climate change affected areas. Water shortages in cities are also a consequence of
alterations in precipitation linked to climate change that pose serious risks for the
general urban population and particularly for the more vulnerable groups such
as the elderly, the young and the chronically sick.
2.1.3

Category Three Alterations in Storm Frequency and Intensity
The consequences of alterations in storm frequency and intensity for cities

include power outages and disruption to the public water supply; disruptions to
settlements associated with flood and high winds; migration of population under
stress; loss of property; withdrawal of risk coverage or cost escalation of insurance
by private insurers; and more generally, increased risks of deaths, injuries, and
water and food-borne diseases and post-traumatic stress disorders. These seven
consequences are detailed in Table 1. While global and national data on storms is
being generated, city level measures assessing these vulnerabilities are not yet well
formulated. Categorizing these vulnerabilities helps us identify specific measurement needs and core indicators for assessing urban vulnerabilities associated
with alterations in storm frequency and intensity.
One measure of Atlantic tropical cyclones shows the average number of
storms increasing over the period from 1900 to 2005, from an annual average
of six storms in the period 1930 to 1940, to an annual average of 15 storms from
1995 to 2005 (National Center for Atmospheric Research 2007).
Three major storms that directly affected cities since the year 2000, all demonstrated the consequences detailed in Table 1, namely, settlement disruption, loss
of property and mortality. In Mozambique in 2000, for example, the storm consequences in Maputo and other cities included loss of property, 700 deaths and
settlement disruption to 4.5 million people. In Germany and other neighbouring
countries, flooding along the Elbe and Danube Rivers caused damage to Dresden
and other cities in 2002. Mortality reached 90 and 30,000 people were evacuated
from the City of Dresden. In the United States, the largest storm disaster in US
history occurred in the City of New Orleans in 2005 with deaths reaching 1,863
and economic losses measured at $US81.2 billion.
26
2.1.4

Category Four Sea Level Change
Key consequences associated with sea level change include permanent erosion
and submersion of urban land and settlements; loss of property and livelihood;
costs of coastal protection; costs of land-use relocation; decreased freshwater
availability due to saltwater intrusion and salinity in estuaries and coastal aquifers;
increased risks of deaths and injuries by drowning in floods; rising water tables
and impeded drainage; destruction of urban infrastructure; and long-term effects
on economic growth. These nine consequences are detailed in Table 1. Each
of these vulnerabilities helps us identify specific measurement needs and core
indicators for assessing urban vulnerabilities associated with sea level change.
This framework of vulnerabilities can help to direct research towards identifying
what city level measures already exist across this list of core vulnerabilities and
then identifying gaps in our current information.
Climate change research in general has tended to focus on coastal cities and
a gap has been identified in research on inland cities (Hunt and Watkiss 2007).
There are 3,351 cities in what are termed Low Elevation Coastal Zones (LECZ)
around the world. Many coastal cities are threatened by sea level increases and it
is estimated that by 2015, 21 of the worlds megacities will be in costal locations
(Kreimer et al. 2003). Approximately 17 percent of the total urban population in
Asia lives in low elevation coastal zones with 449,845 people at risk from sea level
rise. According to IPCC (2007), the rate of sea level rise has increased in the last
decade to 3.1 mm/year (compared to 1.8 mm/year for previous years); IPCC also
predicted that average sea levels will rise by about 18 centimeters by 2040 and by
about 58 centimeters by 2100 in the most extreme case. According to Vermeer
and Rahmstorf (2009), global sea levels could rise between 75 to 190 centimeters
for the period 1990-2100. The projected rise is about three times as much as that
estimated by IPCC (2007), which did not fully include the effects of ice loss from
Greenland and Antarctica.
Some cities are tracking sea level changes. But when four cases - Miami, New
York City, Vancouver and San Francisco are examined, it was found that sea level
change is measured differently in each case. Graphs 7-10 indicate sea level rise in
Miami, New York City, Vancouver and San Francisco respectively. These graphs
consistently demonstrate increases in sea level in all four cities. A table compiled
and presented in Appendix B, presents in more detail the different ways in which
sea level change is measured across these four cities. If sound comparisons across
cities on the extent of sea level change are to be drawn, then it is important to
build standardized methodologies, indicators and measurements to allow for this
comparability.
CHAPTER 1
27
FIGURE 7
Mean Annual Sea Level Rise in Key West, Florida Over Time
Relative annual mean sea level (inches)
10
-2
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
2020
Year
Source: The City of Miami 2008. MiPlan: City of Miami Climate Action Plan.
FIGURE 8
Annual Average Sea Level New York City
Sea level rise (in)
The Battery
10
Trend = +1.2 in per decade
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
Year
1990
2000
2010
28
FIGURE 9
Changes in Annual Mean Sea level Vancouver
Source: Metro Vancouver 2009. Metro Vancouver Sustainability Report.
FIGURE 10
Changes in Annual Mean Sea level Vancouver
Source: San Francisco Department of the Environment, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. 2004.
Climate Action Plan for San Francisco: Local Actions to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
CHAPTER 1
29
TABLE 1
Urban Vulnerabilities Associated with Climate Change
Four Categories
of Urban Vulnerabilities
(i) Temperature change
City Impacts
U Heat island effect
U Increased demand
for cooling and energy shortages
U Declining air quality in cities

U Reduced disruption to transport due to snow, ice
U Increased water demand
U Water quality problems
U Increased risk of heat-related mortality, especially for
the elderly, chronically sick, very young and socially isolated

U Reduction in quality of life for people in warm areas without appropriate
housing
(ii) Alterations in precipitation
U Frequency
of increase
U Drought
(iii) Storm activity increase (high

winds, cyclones, hurricanes,
etc.)
U Adverse effects on quality of surface

U Contamination of water supply
U Waterborne diseases
U Poor solid waste disposal
and groundwater
U Increased
risk of deaths, injuries, and infectious, respiratory, and skin

diseases
U Disruption of settlements, commerce, transport, and societies due to
ooding
U Large displacement of people
U Pressures on urban and rural infrastructures
U Destruction of urban infrastructure
U Loss of property
U In-migration from climate change affected areas
U Food and water shortage
U Increased price of food
U Increased migration to cities
U Power outages
U Distress migration to urban areas
U Disruption of public water supply
U Increased risk of deaths, injuries, water
and food-borne diseases;

post-traumatic stress disorders
U Disruption by ood and high winds\
U Withdrawal of risk coverage in vulnerable areas by private insurers
U Potential for population migrations
U Loss of property
(iv) Sea level change
U Decreased freshwater availability due to saltwater intrusion

U Increased risk of deaths and injuries by drowning in oods and
migration-
related health effects

U Loss of property and livelihood
U Permanent erosion and submersion of land
U Costs of coastal protection versus costs of land-use relocation
U Potential for movement of populations and infrastructure
U Increased salinity in estuaries and coastal aquifers
U Rising coastal water tables and impeded drainage.
U Degraded dykes that are unable to sustain future tides
U Encroachment of settlement onto low lying areas
U Destruction of urban infrastructure
U Effect on long-term economic growth
Source: These four categories of urban vulnerabilities are compiled from both the World Banks Climate Resilient Cities
Report, 2009 and IPCCs Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report 2007.
30
City leaders are often not present when international protocols and agreements on climate change are discussed by member states and when states decide
on whether to sign and support these international agreements. The vulnerability
of cities to climate change risks is largely underestimated. There is no established set of city indicators on climate change that is globally standardized and
comparable. With increasing urban vulnerability, estimated simply by the fact of
the increasing dominance of city dwellers worldwide, city governments need to
be considered as new sites of governance in global negotiations on climate change
and in decision-making related to risk assessments.
With national governments increasingly confronting new and emerging
global agendas on climate change and because these agendas all place cities
at risk - national governments while negotiating global commitments must also
initiate dialogue and consensus at the city level to ensure that local authorities
are part of the decision-making, and importantly, as integral parts of mitigation,
adaptation and implementation processes.
2.2 Mapping Cities and Climate Change

2.2.1 Cities and GHG Emissions
Cites are key actors in carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. . GHG
emissions are usually under the control or influence of local governments since
a majority of these emissions are linked to urban form that affects transportation
and energy consumption. For example, according to a recent calculation by the
Province of British Columbia, Canada, 43% of its provincial GHG emissions are
under the control of local governments (Cavens et al. 2008)
Cities can make a positive contribution to the climate change agenda by
consciously making urban related decisions that are informed by a clear understanding of their contribution to the problem and finding ways to mitigate and
adapt to it. However, measurements of emissions by cities are as yet uneven in
both development and application that can guide city mitigation strategies.
Several indicators are available to estimate a citys overall GHG emissions.
UN-Habitat has presented preliminary information on comparative city
emissions (as in Graph 11 below). Building sound comparative measures for cities
is a challenge that UN-Habitat, ICLEI, the World Bank, UNEP and many other
leaders are currently confronting. The indicator of greenhouse gas emissions
measured in tons per capita currently in use by the Global City Indicators Facility
(GCIF) at the University of Toronto is based on existing methodologies in current
use by IPCC and the methodology adopted in the ICLEI HEAT Software Tool
(Harmonized Emissions Analysis Tool). This GCIF indicator measures the total
tonnage of GHG (in carbon dioxide equivalent units) generated over the past
CHAPTER 1
31
year by all activities within the city (the numerator) divided by the current city
population (the denominator) expressed as a per capita figure. A working group
with Global City Indicator Facility and World Bank participation is reviewing this
methodology based upon new methodologies and protocols being developed.
FIGURE 11
Greenhouse Gas Emissions by City
(CO2 tone/person)
CO2 emissions per capita in selected cities
12.0
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
9.6
11.3
8.9
8.1
7.5
5.2
2.3
4.0
4.8
3.8
1.5
Source: UN-HABITAT, State of the Worlds Citie, 20088
A number of different protocols exist for GHG emissions calculations (see

Kennedy et al. 2009). ICLEIs Local Government GHG Emissions Analysis
Protocol is a two-pronged analysis in which local government emissions are
a component of community emissions, together forming a complete GHG
emissions inventory. Both the government and community scopes include
measures for stationary combustion, mobile combustion, fugitive emissions,
product use, other land use and waste. Another protocol developed to calculate
GHG emissions for cities (Kennedy et al. 2009) uses seven components: electricity,
heating and industrial fuels, direct industrial emissions, ground transportation,
air, marine and waste. Air and marine travel represents the main differences
between Kennedy et al. (2009) and ICLEIs protocol.
8Source for UN-HABITAT chart: Toronto: Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollutants in the City of Toronto ICF International 2007; Palo Alto: Mayors Green Ribbon Task Force on Climate Protection Final Report Palo Alto City
Council Study Session 12/18/2006; Rio de Janeiro: Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions City of Rio de Janeiro
2003; Sao Paulo: Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions - City of Sao Paulo 2005; Berlin, Prague and Rome: ICLEI
1997 apub 2003 Inventory Stockholm: Stockholm City Council Web page Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul: Shobhakar
Dhakal, Urban Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Asian Mega-Cities, IGES 2004
32
Transboundary travel whether commuter travel by road or rail, freight, or air

travel are various aspects of a citys porous boundary that make GHG emissions
computation complex. At the community level, ICLEI calculates air travel
emissions only when air travel originates within the community or serves the
needs of the communitys residents. At the government level, only employee air
travel is included. All other air travel is excluded from ICLEIs calculations because
it says it is nearly impossible to determine the boundaries in which the emissions
occurred. Some cities, such as the City of Toronto, exclude air travel emissions
from GHG calculations altogether. Kennedy et al. (2009) include only airports
and marine ports situated within the city limits (Kennedy et al. use the example
of London in which Heathrow and City airports are included but Gatwick and
Stansted are excluded). A more recent methodology tested by Hillman and
Ramaswami (2010) for 8 US cities enables spatial allocation of jet fuel use at
large metropolitan airports to surrounding cities. Tested for US cities such as
Denver, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and Austin, Hillman and Ramaswami
(2010) demonstrate that incorporating spatially-allocated freight, commuter
and airline fuel use, along with life cycle based GHG emissions associated with
producing key urban materials such as food, cement, transportation fuel, that are
essential for life in all cities and used in all cities, yields consistency in per capita
GHG emissions from the city to the national-scale. Life cycle based embodied
GHG associated with key urban materials are recommended to be reported as
Scope 3 emissions; consistently accounting for Scope 3 emissions ensures cities
do not shift emissions outside boundaries, e.g. in a future hydrogen fuel transport
economy. Recent field work in transboundary GHG emissions accounting is
yielding important advances toward developing a harmonized protocol for
reporting GHG emissions associated with urban activities. A review of various
protocols (as of 2009) is provided in Kennedy et al. (2009).
2.2.2 City Mitigation Strategies on Climate Change
With urban areas contributing to more than 70% of global GHG emissions,
it is reasonable to understand why cities are becoming the key actors in global
mitigation efforts. City governments can influence patterns of energy and land
use through important interventions under their control, including land-use
planning, urban design, zoning and local by-laws including building codes and
height by-laws, transport planning including transit planning road networks,
master plan and subdivision controls.
The five sectors identified by Kessler et al. (2009) in Table 2 help to frame
points of intervention by cities for climate change mitigation, suggesting available
technologies and policy instruments available to cities. A few examples of city
action in the field of climate change mitigation can assist in considering measurements for targeting and monitoring mitigation efforts.
CHAPTER 1
33
TABLE 2
Mitigation Strategies
Sector
Energy
supply
Key mitigation technologies

and practices currently
commercially available
U Improved
supply and distribution efciency
of fossil fuel subsidies
U Taxes or carbon charges on fossil fuels

U Feed-in tariffs for renewable energy technologies
U Renewable energy obligations
U Producer subsidies
U More fuel-efcient vehicles

U Hybrid vehicles
U Cleaner diesel vehicles
U Bio-fuels
U Modal shifts from road transport
U Mandatory fuel economy

U Bio-fuel blending and CO2
to rail and
public transport systems
U Non motorized transport (cycling, walking)
U Land-use and transport planning.
Buildings
U Reduction
U Fuel switching from coal to gas

U Nuclear power
U Renewable heat and power (hydropower,
solar,
wind, geothermal, and bio-energy)
U Combined heat and power
U Early applications of CO2 capture and storage
(e.g. storage of removed CO2 from natural gas)
U Taxes or carbon charges on fossil fuels
U Feed-in tariffs for renewable energy technologies
U Renewable energy obligations
U Producer subsidies
Transport
Policies, measures,
and instruments shown
to be environmentally effective
U Efcient lighting and day-lighting

U more efcient electrical appliances
and heating
U Appliance standards and labeling

U Building codes and certication
U Demand-side management programs
U Public sector leadership programs, including
and cooling devices

U improved cook stoves
U improved insulation
U Passive and active solar
standards for road

transport
U Taxes on vehicle purchase, registration, use,
motor fuels, and roads
U Parking pricing
U Mobility inuenced needs through land use
regulations and infrastructure planning
U Investment in attractive public transport facilities and non motorized forms of transport
design for heating and
procurement
for energy service companies
U Incentives
cooling
U Alternative refrigeration uids
U Recovery and recycling of uorinated
Industry
Waste
U More efcient end-use electrical

U Heat and power recovery
gases.
equipment
U Provision of benchmark
U Performance standards
U Material recycling and substitution

U Control of non-CO2 emissions
U Wide array of process specic technologies.
U Subsidies, tax credits

U Tradable permits
U Voluntary agreements
U Landll methane recovery

U Waste incineration with energy recovery
U Composting of organic waste
U Controlled wastewater treatment
U Recycling and waste minimization
U Financial
Source: World Bank, Climate Resilient Cities 2009
information
incentives for improved waste and

wastewater management
U Renewable energy incentives or obligations
U Waste management regulations
34
The Vienna City Council adopted the citys Climate Protection Programme
as a framework for its Eco-Business plan,which result, is that the city has
reduced its solid waste output by 109,300 tonnes, toxic solid wastes by 1,325
tonnes and carbon dioxide emissions by 42,765 tonnes. This Eco-Business
plan has saved a total of 138.7 million KWh of energy and 1, 325,000 cubic
meters of drinking water. The Eco-Business plan is also now being implemented in Chennai, India, and Athens, Greece. The City of Calgary, Canada,
is achieving significant electricity savings and reducing GHG emissions with
the EnviroSmart Retrofit Project. Most of Calgarys residential streetlights are
being changed to more energy efficient flathead lenses. Streetlight wattage is
being reduced from 200W to 100W on residential local roads and from 250W
to 150W on collector roads (United Nations 2008a).
In the building sector, improvements to building codes and certification
processes for greener buildings are being adopted by a number of cities. The
City of Johannesburg, South Africa has implemented mitigation measures that
include retrofitting of council buildings, energy savings in water pump installations, and methane gas recovery. One set of measures already well established
is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating
and certification system that ensures a building is environmentally responsible
by providing independent, third party verification. LEED certification seeks
to ensure that a building project meets the highest green building and performance measures. The average LEED building uses 30% less energy, 30-50% less
water and diverts up to 97% of its waste from the landfill (U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency 2007).
Mexico City has taken various measures to mitigate the effects of climate
change by taking action in the areas of water, energy, transportation and waste
to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. On energy, Mexico City has taken
action to secure more sustainable housing and buildings to reduce energy
consumption. This includes establishing environmental certification systems
for buildings and providing funding for new housing with integrating sustainability criteria. Various energy efficiency programs have been in place to reduce
emissions including efficient lighting in buildings, efficient street lighting and
promoting solar energy in businesses and government buildings. In regards
to the water sector, Mexico City has taken action to reduce emissions from
septic systems by constructing sewerage and water treatment services in areas
of low methane gas. Some of the actions taken in the transportation sector
include an obligatory school transportation system, which will reduce CO2
emissions by 470,958 tons per year by making students take public transportation to school. Mexico City will also expand its transportation system and
the implementation of non-motorized mobility and streetcar corridors as an
effort to reduce emissions. In regards to waste management, the government
CHAPTER 1
35
plans on capturing and exploiting the bio-gas emitted from the Bordo Poniente
State 4 landfill and eventually installing an electrical power plant which will
reduce emissions by 1,400,000 tons annually (Secretaria del Medio Ambiente
del Distrito Federal 2008).
Portland, USA has been a key player in adopting strategies to address climate
change. In 2000, the Portland Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) launched
a program to support the design and development of green buildings in the city.
The program offers technical assistance, education and financial incentives, and
has so far supported more than 300 local buildings. The City of Portland has taken
various measures in order to reduce energy use by using renewable sources and
making technological improvements. Technological improvements made by the
City has reduced energy use by 80%, for example all traffic signals were converted
to highly efficient LED bulbs and by doing so have saved the City almost five
million kWh per year and over $500,000 annually in energy and maintenance
costs (The City of Portland 2005).
When it comes to establishing GHG reduction targets, cities have an important
role to play in helping to determine an equitable distribution of GHG reduction
targets, which will help to frame mitigation strategies on climate change. For
example, current debates between per capita emissions of inner city residents
versus suburban residents, between large city residents versus smaller city
residents, and between wealthy cities versus poorer ones or production versus
consumer cities raises issues of equity in sharing the burden in meeting reduction
targets. Measures are weak and no methodology for determining an equitable
distribution of high-level GHG reduction targets has been established. (Cavens,
Condon, Kellett and Miller 2008).
While it is generally assumed that suburban residents emit significantly more
carbon dioxide than inner city residents, it could thus be concluded that it would be
more equitable to require suburban communities to shoulder the largest burdens
for reductions. However, indicators on this question are still weak. For example,
while some estimate that suburban dwellers produce up to three times more GHGs
per capita than inner city dwellers, recent data (Glaeser and Kahn 2008) suggest
that this dichotomy is not so simple. They report that indeed while per capita
emissions rise as you move away from the urban core of Boston, they level off once
you are more than ten miles from downtown. Another exception they have found
is with respect to Los Angeles where emissions are actually lower in suburban Los
Angeles than they are in the central city of that metropolitan area.
Such issues are complicated further by considering the challenges and opportunities of high-growth versus low-growth communities, as well as questions
of per capita versus total reduction targets. In the case of British Columbia, the
Province plans to negotiate with local governments with the intention of arriving
at an equitable allocation on a municipality by municipality basis.
36
Finally, a new set of indicators on climate change mitigation are also needed
if policy makers are to assess the capacity in communities for GHG reductions and what costs related changes would generate physically, socially and
economically before they can act. Policy makers need to know, for example,
how redesign, urban form and rebuilding of the suburbs might overcome, for
example, car dependency (Cavens, Condon, Kellett and Miller 2008).
2.2.3 City Adaptation Strategies on Climate Change
Indicators can help cities understand the problem of climate change and inform
city managers and leaders in their role in building resilience to its adverse impacts.
A number of adaptation measures to climate change in cities are largely made
up of individual choices so knowledge through public education, research and
publicly accessible data on indicators can assist citizens towards action. Collective action at the community and municipal level carry potential for appropriate
response for climate change adaptation in an urban context.
Adaptation measures can take several forms: actions to reduce vulnerability
to climate change; spread risk among a wider population (insurance); eliminate
activity or behavior that causes climate change; and move vulnerable populations
away from hazards.
UN-Habitat has identified five sectors across which cities can consider climate
change adaptation options and strategies. This list acts as a portfolio of potentially
appropriate adaptation projects and helps to establish a framework for the development of indicators and measurement on adaptation progress.
Many cities are developing strategic plans for climate adaptation. For
example, strategies to adapt New York City to the unavoidable climate shifts
ahead (The City of New York 2007, 136) are included in PlaNYC 2030. New
York Citys plan for climate change adaptation focuses on securing the citys
existing infrastructure, identifying and protecting flood plain zones and specific
at-risk communities, and establishing a citywide strategic planning process
with emphasis on tracking emerging climate change data and its potential
impacts on the city.
New York Citys water, transportation, energy, and waste infrastructure
systems are all vulnerable to climate change impacts. Sea level changes
combined with storm surges of increasing intensity are potential hazards
especially to subterranean facilities and waterfront-situated utilities. Given the
range of facility owners and operators, an intergovernmental Climate Change
Task Force will coordinate the development of adaptation strategies and guidelines for new infrastructure plans (The City of New York 2007). The case of New
York Citys climate plan is further detailed in Part III of this paper, together
with that of London and other cities.
CHAPTER 1
37
TABLE 3
Adaptation Strategies
Sector
Adaptation option/strategy
Underlying policy framework
Water
Water storage and conservation techniques;

incentives for water conservation; water reuse;
water recycling; desalination; increase water
use efciency; public education; ood risk map;
public participation ood adaptation and mitigation programs; greater investment in water
supply systems; controlled use of urban and
rural groundwater.
Urban water policies and integrated

water resources management;
water-related hazards management;
integrating climate change into public
policy; policy to control groundwater
extraction.
Infrastructure
and settlements
Cleaning drainage system and replacement of

primary sewer system; encourage inltration
and increasing depression and street detention
storage; re-designing structures; relocation;
seawalls and storm surge barriers; dune
reinforcement; land acquisition and creation
of wetlands as buffer zone against sea level
rise and ooding; protection of existing natural
barriers; maintaining defensible space around
each building/neighbourhood.
Design standards and codes;

regulations; integrate climate change
considerations into design; land use
policies; insurance; nancial incentives;
public education regarding risk of living
in hazard prone areas.
Human
health
Heat-health action plans; emergency medical

services; access to public cooling centers;
improved climate sensitive disease surveillance
and control; access to safe water and improved
sanitation; greater intergovernmental coordination and cross-boundary coordination
Public health policies that recognize

climate risk; strengthened health
services; intergovernmental, regional
and international cooperation; greater
investment in health services.
Urban
Transport
Environmentally friendly transport system;

energy efcient cars; car pooling; efcient public
transportation system; new design standards
and planning for urban roads, rail, etc., to cope
with warming and drainage; fuel substitution.
Integrating climate change considerations into national transport policy;

investment in R&D; incentives for
energy efcient car industry.
Energy
Strengthening of overhead transmission and

distribution lines; underground cabling for
utilities; increasing energy efciency; emphasis
on renewable resources.
Sustainable urban energy policies;

regulations; scal and nancial incentives
to encourage use of green energy and
building; incorporate climate change in
design standards and codes.
Source: UN-HABITAT, State of the Worlds Cities 2008
2.3 Using Indicators to Assess and Address Deeper and Enduring

Risks and Long-Term Vulnerabilities in Cities
In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by all 191
UN member states, registering a commitment by the international community to
development of the poorest regions of the world and to assist the most vulnerable.
Central to the MDGs are its eight goals, each with a set of quantitative targets and
indicators to ensure a common assessment, and track progress at global, national
and local levels towards achievement of the MDGs.
38
All eight MDGs can be directly connected to the theme of vulnerability

in the worlds cities. Each of the eight goals finds expression in cities as they
relate to poverty, education, gender, child mortality, maternal health, diseases,
environment and global partnerships. In addition, meeting the timeframe and
the numerical targets of the MDGs will require a determined focus on cities since
the majority of affected women, men and children will be living in urban and
peri-urban areas by the target dates of 2015 and 2020.
For example, Goal 7 to Ensure Environmental Sustainability sets out three
targets: to reverse the loss of environmental resources; improve access to safe
drinking water; and, improve the lives of slum dwellers. Linking these three
targets helps to frame the challenges cities face in addressing climate change in a
context of poverty.
The MDG goals and targets are a call to action to assist people living in the
most depressed conditions in the worlds cities. According to UN-HABITAT,
roughly 80% of urban residents in the lowest-income countries already living in
slum conditions and based upon projected demographic trends, slum dwellers
are expected to double by 2030.
UN-HABITATs identification of five conditions characteristic of slums, is
helping to establish the number of slum dwellers in the world, and a set of
indicators to monitor progress towards the goal of improving the lives of slum
dwellers:
t Insecure residential status
t Inadequate access to safe water
t Inadequate access to sanitation
t Poor structural quality of housing
t Overcrowding
Risks associated with each of these conditions are critical factors in the foregoing
discussion on urban risks associated with climate change across the four categories
identified in the foregoing. The situation of poverty in cities worldwide, but in
particular in the less developed regions, must be recognized as a core factor in
addressing climate change and building more climate resilient cities. This means
explicitly recognizing that climate change adaptation must reduce the vulnerability
of the poor in cities. To do so however depends on meaningful data on city slums
and indicators that track density; water and sanitation infrastructure inadequacies
relative to climate change risks, particular alterations in precipitation and sea level
change; and, structural qualities of housing at increased risk from alterations in
storm intensity and temperature change.
CHAPTER 1
39
3. CITIES AT RISK: EMERGING APPROACHES

TO SAFER CITIES
3.1 From Indicators to Governance Evidence Based Policy
Formulation
The World Bank defines indicators as performance measures that aggregate

information into a usable form. Indicators provide a useful tool in the prospective sense for policy making and also in the retrospective sense for assessing
policy implementation. Indicators offer assistance to policy-makers by aiding in
comparison, evaluation and prediction.
Indicators are important as they help inform policy makers by allowing them
to track the problem and provide linkages that are often crowded by statistics
(University of Manchester, 2006). Unlike statistics, indicators are often referred
to as vehicles for understanding as they inform and explain complex socioeconomic phenomena. They are statistical manipulations that provide the public
with a clear picture of the problem at large. Indicators have many different
purposes and it is important to evaluate indicators in respect to the job they are
devised for. Indicators need to be made relevant to climate change and cities so as
to constitute a useful tool for local policy makers. However, indicators, as statistical manipulations, can become increasingly problematic when complexity of
the measures heightens. This holds true for indicators on climate change. The
more complex the indicator, the higher the potential for statistical value being
lost (University of Manchester 2008).
Evidence-based policy making is made possible by advances in information
technologies. Data driven decision-making in the government domain via
quantitative performance metrics can serve to measure implementation success
rates, steer investments and refine policy choices.
Environmental performance measures have improved in recent years and
empirical approaches to global sustainability are being strengthened. The
Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by the Yale Center for
Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and the Center for International Science Information Network at Columbia University has developed 25
indicators across six policy categories that quantitatively measures country-scale
performance on a core set of environmental policy goals.
While country-level data and analysis on climate change have improved in
recent years, serious gaps exist at the city level however. Quantitative city data
on climate change is being developed by cities in some discreet form and often
adapted from broadly accepted national level methods. Serious gaps and the
lack of time series data on cities and climate change hamper efforts to diagnose
emerging risks and problems, to assess policy options in terms of both mitigation
and adaption strategies, and to gauge the effectiveness of their city-level programs.
40
The use of proximity-to-target methodology that quantitatively measures cityscale performance against a core set of goals, while useful in theory for measuring
the distance between a citys targets and current results, and providing an
empirical foundation for policy benchmarking and a context for evaluating city
performance, is as yet under-developed for climate change indicators at the city
level. Nonetheless, it provides a powerful tool for steering policy and assessing
planning and investments in city management.
City indicators also have the potential to exert peer pressure among member
cities to perform better (Hezri and Dovers 2006, p9) and also build in global
learning potential. When indicators are developed and shared across a network
of actors, indicators have a communicative function, enlightening and informing
the worldviews and values of developers and users (p 13).
Globally comparative indicator-based knowledge on cities and climate
change has become increasingly important as national measures evolve and
country-level policy positions emerge. City-level indicators that have a globally
standardized methodology are important, not for purposes of numerical ranking
of cities, but for informing policy decision-making through comparative city data
that provides policy leverage for city leaders locally, nationally and globally. The
World Banks Global City Indicators Program provides a system for cities to use
globally standardized indicators as a tool for informing policy making through
the use of international comparisons. For example, the Secretariat of Finance
in Bogota uses indicators from the Global City Indicators Program as a way to
track the citys investments and to compare their citys performance relative to
other international cities. By using indicators and drawing global comparisons,
the Secretariat of Finance is able to evaluate and monitor performance on their
investments and to benchmark their performance in comparison to other cities.
(City of Bogota - Finance Secretary 20091).
Global comparisons allow for sharing of best practices. Comparative reports
generated from the Global City Indicators Facility website provides a useful tool
for Bogota to view and analyze how other cities in Colombia are performing
relative to their investments. For example, Bogota has 232 sworn police officers
per 100,000 populations while Cali has 248. Nevertheless, there are 19.6 homicides
per 100,000 population in Bogota while Calis figure is around 69.8.
Indicators and reports generated from the Global City Indicators Facility
website are used by Bogotas Secretariat of Finance in negotiations to inform
effective evidence-based policy making. Indicators can provide evidence on
how well the city is performing in terms of city services and where to allocate
investments. During budget negotiations with other Secretariats having information on how other cities provide services and their results has proven to be
useful to try to better allocate resources. For example, health absorbs 23% of
1Interview and case study material gathered from City of Bogota Finance Secretary, 2009
CHAPTER 1
41
the investment budget in the city and even though results are starting to show
up it doesnt seem to be enough for the needs of the population especially
when compared with other cities performance. Therefore, it is clear that we need
to monitor the investment and analyze where we can improve the process of
providing healthcare (City of Bogota Finance Secretary 20092).
The importance of globally standardized city indicators for international city
comparisons is underlined by the City of Bogota: Every year the Secretariat of
Finance publishes as part of its budget, a document that contains the results for
each sector along with the target for the following year. The Global City Indicators
allow us to use other cities as benchmarks in measuring our performance (City
of Bogota - Finance Secretary 20093)
Policy-resonant indicators, those that strike a chord with the intended
audience, improve the accountability and efficiency of local policy processes by
building stakeholders, public, and community understanding of issues and their
solutions. Indicator systems pool enormous amounts of previously inaccessible
data, making possible long-term trend monitoring that is important for governments to prioritize actions (Hezri and Dovers 2006).
As informational policy instruments, indicators provide more and better
knowledge to local decision-makers and offer a evidence-based system of informing
decisions. For example, the City of Sao Paulo, a pilot city of the Global City Indicators
Program, recognizes the need for indicators as a tool for increasing transparency and
accountability within their government. Sao Paulo is an important demonstration
of how municipal governments can use indicators to enhance governance and
institute evidence-based policy development in the City (City of Sao Paulo 20094).
They report the media and civil society are often skeptical of government statistics.
As an active member in this global initiative supported by universities and international organizations, the government of Sao Paulo is hoping to regain legitimacy
and public confidence in government statistics by creating more transparency on
its performance in city services and on improving quality of life. The Government
of Sao Paulo recognizes the growing importance of indicators for planning, evaluating and monitoring municipal services. In addition, use of indicators to assist with
public policy making in Sao Paulo has opened more effective dialogue between civil
society and the local government (City of Sao Paulo 20095).
The City of Sao Paulo has recently prepared its Plan Agenda 2012 and state
that the plan preparation is a concrete example of how indicators improve governance, establish evidence-based policy making and promote civic engagement.
This Agenda derives from a civil society law proposal approved by the City
4Interview and case study material gathered from City of Sao Paulo, 2009
5Interview and case study material gathered from City of Sao Paulo, 2009
42
Council in 2007, which establishes that all elected mayors must present goals and
targets for its administration 90 days after its opening. This document must be
based on the proposals of electoral campaign, and is an instrument that compels
the municipality to make a public commitment to quantitative targets and goals.
The 2012 Agenda identifies priorities, goals and presents 223 targets organized
in six different directions: a social rights city; a sustainable city; a creative city;
an opportunity city; an efficient city and an equal city. Also, the municipality
must report its results periodically and at least every six months. In this sense, the
global city indicators that the City of Sao Paulo collects as part of the Global City
Indicators Program allows the City to measure performance, impacts and policy
effectiveness (City of Sao Paulo 20096).
When indicators are well developed and soundly articulated, they can also
influence how issues are constructed in the public realm. This is an important
lesson related to cities and climate change since information can help to direct
behavior in building climate action. Behavioral change can result from publicly
accessible information by becoming embedded in the thought and practices, and
institutions of users (Innes1998). Hezri and Dovers (2006) argue for example
that as a source of policy change, learning is dependent on the presence of
appropriate information with the capacity to change societys behavior (p 11)
and community indicator programs or state-of-the environment reporting are
usually aimed at influencing the social construction of the policy problem (p 12).
In addition, in a review on urban sustainability indicators, Mega and Pedersen
(1998) suggest that indicators should aid in decision-making at various levels to
promote local information, empowerment and democracy. They should also
contribute to making the citys process of decision-making more visible and transparent. City indicators can be an important instrument for fostering citizen participation. Information provided by city indicators can improve the effectiveness of
active citizen involvement in decision-making and policy development.
City indicators on climate change can therefore enhance understanding of
the risks associated with climate change, influence opinion and behavior, shape
policy, determine priorities, and thereby evaluate how cities contribute to, and are
impacted by global climate change.
3.2 The Role of City Indicators on Climate Change for Effective

Planning and Management
When local government is recognized as a legitimate tier in the governance

structure of a country, and when financial powers to raise revenues and responsibilities to deliver services are commensurate with the growth and expansion of
cities, then the planning and management functions in cities take on meaning,
6Interview
and case study material gathered from City of Sao Paulo, 2009
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43
and develop influence. Cities worldwide are entering into renewed dialogues
with provincial and national governments to discuss this urban agenda. In this
context, more rigorous data-driven policy analysis by cities means leverage in
intergovernmental relations. Moreover, indicators can help to build more effective planning and efficient management for climate action in cities.
Indicators on climate change at the city level can inform city officials and
support their existing, and indeed potentially far-reaching powers of planning,
aimed at climate change adaptation and mitigation. As examples, cities have the
power to pass legislation related to greenhouse gas emissions; to encourage participation and engage with related governmental agencies and local corporate organizations on climate change mitigation; to build more inclusive institutions in cities
for achieving environmental objectives; to plan and design transportation systems
that support access by all citizens and rational choices on where to live and work
that is in keeping with a climate change agenda for the city; to ensure strong and
robust local economic development patterns that build economic opportunity for
all citizens while addressing climate change; to address land tenure and land rights
in the city and can thereby adopt a pro-poor set of policies governing access to and
environmentally safe use of land in the city; to refine building codes, zoning by-laws
and to adopt flexible standards governing safer construction of housing, buildings
and infrastructure that are more resilient to climate change risk; to adopt standards
on greener buildings and sustainable urban infrastructures; and to develop creative
financing tools for mobilizing investments that help to overcome climate-related
threats derived from a lack of basic infrastructure and environmental amenities for
all, and especially the poorest urban residents in cities.
While the planning profession and the planning tools to address safer cities
exist, up-front resource commitments in both plan preparation and implementation are scarce in many cities. Climate change action plans, as indicated
elsewhere in this paper, are often costly. The Chicago Climate Action Plan reveals
the importance of securing a range of sustainable funding sources where a total
of US$2,789,000 was contributed by 14 sources from a variety of non-profit
foundations, funds, trusts and initiatives as well as pro bono services, Illinois and
Chicago government departments, and regional councils (Parzen 2008, 3).
Moreover, there is an information crisis that seriously undermines effective
urban planning on climate action. The lack of monitoring structures and
standardized city indicators weakens the power of good planning decisions in
cities, particularly cities of the developing world concerned with reducing vulnerability to climate change.
The issue of access to land, housing and security of tenure in poorer cities is a
critical challenge for climate action. In cities with large urban poor populations,
security of tenure is generally acknowledged as the critical first step in the social and
spatial integration of slums and low-income settlements. When tenure is in question,
44
slum improvement is politically complex, both for city planners and for residents. Any
intervention on the part of government to take action on climate risks, for example
in infrastructure upgrading, drainage investments in low-lying areas, improving
standards of housing construction and sanitation services, is perceived as a de facto
recognition of legal status and any improvements by residents themselves are regarded
as high-risk investments owing to the lack of property rights and the threat of eviction
without compensation. Hence, in considering effective planning and management
for climate change action in this context, the overarching land policy and legal climate
in the city is paramount. Pro-poor enabling legislation and land regularization instruments are critical components of a citys agenda on climate change.
The rise in extreme weather events associated with climate change places
major cities, particularly those located in coastal areas, in particularly vulnerable
conditions. Global increases in natural disasters associated with climate change
have shown that the nature of disasters in cities have becomes more multifaceted,
and so must the approach to their management. These emerging climate change
risks create new vulnerabilities for cities. Urban health is particularly threatened
under conditions of urban poverty. When basic infrastructure is inadequate, poor
sanitation, drainage and impure drinking water aid in the transmission of infectious diseases, which puts poor urban households at high risk. Flooding causes
infrastructure strain in any city but in poorer cities, sanitation is even more affected.
Flooding often damages pit latrines (most common in Asian and African cities)
and floodwaters are thus contaminated by the overflow from pit latrines and septic
tanks with faecal material. This situation is worsened under circumstances of
higher densities in urban areas. Climate change vulnerabilities thus require sound
urban management and planning practices, and higher levels of investments in
infrastructure, together with better-prepared local governments.
Hazard mapping makes it now possible to classify lands in urban areas by the
degree of vulnerability to landslides, storm floods, sea level changes and other
climate change impacts. Land identified as high-risk can then be zoned for zero
construction or only for buildings of a highly regulated and appropriate standard.
While these regulatory steps might be obvious, their implementation is more
difficult when high risks zones are already occupied, and different uses, densities
and status of occupation exist. Poverty forces many people to settle in areas
of high risk and return to hazard-prone land that have already been struck by
climate change induced events. Planning decisions regarding densely populated
high-risk zones are inevitably contentious, not to mention costly if city governments need to expropriate with compensation.
Regulatory frameworks and compliance with the highest building standards
for vulnerability reduction need to be introduced incrementally and target public
buildings as a matter of priority. These include schools, hospitals and factories
that pose risk to the environment if damaged during a natural disaster. Improve-
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45
ments to existing housing stock on the other hand, need to be dealt with on a
case-by-case basis and strike a balance among compliance, affordability and
relocation. This balance raises the critical issue and debate on how affordability
affects climate action planning.
Indicators on per capita building energy consumption, on urban transport and
urban density for example can help to inform planners and city managers on policy
at several scales. For example, at the regional scale, growth and transportation strategies shape major infrastructural investments that impact decisions to drive or take
transit. At the municipal scale, comprehensive development plans establish density
targets that greatly impact the viability of transit service, district energy systems and
efficient land use. At the neighbourhood scale, development guidelines promoting
mixed-use communities enable opportunities to walk or cycle to meet daily needs,
and at the parcel scale, appropriate building forms and orientation reduce heating
and cooling loads (Cavens, Condon, Kellett and Miller 2008, 3).
Planning and management tools can help to address the critical link between
emissions and urban form, particularly in terms of transportation and building
energy consumption. For example, official plans, development guidelines, development permits, densification plans, transit planning and pricing building codes,
and a number of other planning tools can help to address GHG emissions in cities
as climate change mitigation strategies. However, the need for spatial data that
links GHG emissions with urban form, with city expansion, and both existing
and future proposed development is essential for effective planning. This is also
necessary for locally relevant policy decisions and to build support and understanding by the public (Cavens et al. 2008, 1).
Adaptation strategies have been implemented by a number of cities in order to
reduce vulnerabilities associated with climate change, mainly to protect citizens
from heatwaves, floods and droughts. The following are examples of planning
strategies that London and New York City have introduced in order to address
climate change.
The City of London has detailed three climate impacts in the London Climate
Change Adaptation Strategy: heat waves, floods and droughts, each considered
as having both a high risk of consequence and vulnerability, as well as increasing
probability.
The heat wave of 2003, during which 600 Londoners died, was a motivator
in developing a strategy to adapt to and prepare for rising temperatures in the
London area. Climate change scenarios have been developed by the Hadley
Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (2005) that predict that London will
see the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather, as well as a rise
in the number of very hot summer days. As a result of this data, the mayor of
London has developed strategies to mitigate the effects of heat waves. The mayor
is undertaking an urban greening programme that will utilize green spaces,
46
street trees and urban design to cool the city. The mayor also intends to create an
Urban Heat Island Action Area in which new development will be used to offset
the heat island effect. Facilitating access to cool buildings and developing design
guidelines for developers and architects are also elements of the key action plan
to manage Londons response to heat waves (Greater London Authority 2007).
London is prone to tidal flooding from the sea, fluvial flooding from the Thames
River, surface water flooding due to the inability of the drainage system to handle
heavy rainfall, flooding from sewers and flooding as a result of rising groundwater. Using maps of London that include areas at risk of tidal and fluvial floods
and information from the Environmental Agency, the city of London determined
that nearly 15 per cent of London is as risk from flooding. As a result of this data,
the mayor proposes the review of the London Strategic Flood Response Plan, as
well as improvement on the standard of flood risk management in partnership
with the Environmental Agency. The urban greening programme will also help
reduce flooding, as it will improve the permeability of the urban landscape. With
rising temperatures causing the possibility of drought, and with each Londoner
consuming an average of 168 litres of water per day, the city of London is looking
to promote and facilitate the reduction of leakage from water mains, compulsory
water metering, retrofitting of London homes as well as the encouragement of
rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling. The Mayor proposes publishing
a Water Strategy and a Water Action Framework that will achieve a sustainable
water supply-demand balance (London Climate Change Adaptation 2008).
A second example of a planning and management in response to climate
change that recognized the core requirement of indicators to inform its plan
is embodied in the New York City PlaNYC 2030 plan launched in 2007 and
New York City Climate Risk Information report (2009). Mayor Bloomberg
convened the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) in 2008 as part
of PlaNYC, which established a set of indicators through which climate change
could be measured and progress toward the goal to reduce carbon emissions
by 30% by 2030 could be tracked. The framework includes indicators such as
mean annual temperatures, infrastructure damage from climate-related factors,
combine sewer overflow events and extreme wind events. The NPCC shows that
according to global climate models (GCM), mean temperatures are likely to rise
by 1.5 to 3 F by the 2020s, 3 to 5F by the 2050s, and 4 to 7.5F by the 2080s.
Similarly, extreme hot weather is very likely to increase and extreme cold weather
very likely to decrease. 1-in-10 year and 1-in-100- year floods are expected to
reoccur on average once every 1 to 3 years and 15 to 35 years, respectively, by
the 2080s; with droughts which occur on average every 100 years expected to
occur once every 8 to 100 years (NPCC 2009). As a result, the NPCC concluded
that a rise in temperature, precipitation and sea level would most likely result
in increased strain on materials, increased flooding, reduction of water quality
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47
and increased structural damage. New York City reports having planted more
than 174,189 trees, converted 91 schoolyards into playgrounds and launched
224 city government energy efficient projects, among other developments (The
City of New York 2009). By 2030, the plan aims to have reduced GHG emissions
30% below 2005 levels, organized a long-term effort to develop a comprehensive
climate change adaptation strategy, and reduce its impact through focus on goals
and indicators for five key dimensions of the citys environment- land, water,
transportation, energy, and air (The City of New York 2007).
The planning process undertaken in New York City is instructive, both in terms
of identifying the link between indicators and governance, but also in terms of the
institutional mechanisms employed to implement the plan. For example, the city
is dedicated to ensuring that vulnerable waterfront neighborhoods are involved
in the development of community-specific climate change adaptation plans. A
standardized process is being developed to engage community members, broaden
their awareness of potential climate change impacts, and develop solutions that
acknowledge each neighborhoods unique building type, relationship with the
waterfront, and forthcoming community plans (The City of New York 2007).
A citywide cost-benefit strategic planning framework is also being created that
will guide NYCs climate change adaptation policy. Components of this planning
framework include a Climate Change Advisory Board made up of experts and
government agencies, updated 100-year floodplain maps, aggressive floodplain
management standards to ensure discounted flood insurance, and building code
amendments that address the potential for flooding, droughts, high winds, heat
waves, and utility service failures (The City of New York 2007).
In 2006, NYCs emergency response plan was created in preparation for future
extreme weather events (The City of New York 2007). It takes into account the
predicted impacts of violent storms on the citys airports and tunnels, outlines
the citys flood evacuation zones and coordinates the efforts required to evacuate
up to three million people. Supplemental to the emergency response plan is a
disaster recovery initiative and a 2009 New York City Hazard Mitigation Plan
that recognizes the potential need for rapidly providing large quantities of relief
housing after such an event (The City of New York 2007).
3.3 Addressing Risk and Vulnerability in Cities through a more
Empowered, Cohesive and Inclusive Governance
Over the past few decades, efforts to improve and strengthen urban governance
have focused on the essential first step of decentralization of power, authority
and resources from the central to municipal and neighborhood level. Governed
by the principle of subsidiarity, decentralization processes seek to ensure that
decisions are taken, and services delivered, at the sphere of government closest
48
to the people while remaining consistent with the nature of the decisions and
services involved. The importance of national recognition and engagement with
cities as well as a cooperative and supportive role by provinces/states in urban
development has been underlined in many decentralization strategies. A responsible fiscal federalism that positions cities as critical partners in the governing
relationship is now being recognized as a pivotal policy platform for global action
on climate change and local responsibility for mitigating climate change and
building climate resilient cities.
World trends in urbanization are causing urban populations to spread out
beyond their old city limits, rendering the traditional municipal boundaries,
and by extension, the traditional governing structures and institutions, outdated.
Single city jurisdictions of the past are being made more complex by multiple
city jurisdictions that spread outward and build large and complex metropolitan
governance systems. For example, the metropolitan area of Mexico City (18
million people) extends over the territories of municipalities of two states as well
as the Federal District to include as many as 58 municipalities and the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires covers the territories of the City of Buenos Aires
(3 million people) and the 32 municipalities of the Province of Buenos Aires (9
million people). Similarly, in Africa, Metropolitan Johannesburg (7.2 million
people) encompasses Ekurhuleni (made up of the East Rand), the West Rand
District Municipality (the West Rand) and the City of Johannesburg (Cameron
2005). Abidjan (with a population of 3.5 million) has expanded to encompass
196 local government units that include municipalities and surrounding rural
areas (Stren 2007). In Asia, the Metropolitan Manila Area in the Philippines is
composed of 10 Cities and 7 municipalities, with a total population of approximately 11 million; while Cebu City is comprised of seven cities and six municipalities (with a population of 1,930,096). The Tokyo metropolitan region, with an
estimated population of 35 million, contains 365 municipal areas (Sorensen 2001,
22). In North America, Metropolitan Minneapolis-Saint Paul (with a population
of 3,502,891 people) is composed of 188 cities and townships (Hamilton 1999).
Portland, Oregon, with approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, covers 3 counties
and 24 local governments.
As urban areas around the world continue to expand both in terms of density
and horizontal space (Angel, Sheppard and Civco 2005), there is a need to govern
these large areas in a coherent fashion. Highly fragmented governance arrangements in many metropolitan areas make efficient planning, management and
urban financing for area wide service provision a difficult and on-going challenge
(Klink 2007; Lefvre 2007). Climate change action however requires coherence
and integration across these jurisdictions.
This metropolitan expansion is not just in terms of population settlement
and spatial sprawl but perhaps more importantly, in terms of their social and
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49
economic spheres of influence. The functional area of cities has extended beyond
the jurisdictional boundaries. Cities have extensive labor markets, real estate
markets, financial and business markets and service markets that spread over
the jurisdictional territories of several municipalities and, in some cases, over
more than one state or provincial boundary. In a number of cases, cities have
spread across international boundaries. This expansion is taking place regardless
of municipal jurisdictional boundaries. Increasingly, effective climate change
action demands more integrated planning, service delivery and policy decisions
than these multiple but individually bounded cities can provide. A decision
taken in one municipality that is part of the larger city affects the whole city.
This phenomenon introduces new challenges of governance and in particular,
metropolitan governance on climate change. There is a need to govern these large
areas in a coherent fashion since they are the staging sites for meeting the serious
challenges of climate change in the future.
Building effective and long-term solutions to climate change requires a city
governance approach which acknowledges the respective roles and contributions
of a wide array of actors. An inclusive city government that involves long-term
residents, international migrants, the poor, marginalized groups, national minorities and indigenous peoples is fundamental to building safe, liveable and climate
resilient cities. The development of new policies and mechanisms for local governance is rooted in strong grassroots participation, that citizens and community
groups are equipped with the understanding of democratic governance to hold
local and more senior levels of government accountable, and that the poorest
and most isolated communities are represented in the public debate. Addressing
climate change risk in cities thus depends on the availability and accessibility of
information on climate risks and an engaged, informed urban citizenry involved
in the formulation of climate action plans.
Tanner, et al. (2008) identify specific characteristics of good urban governance
that improve urban climate resilience. The authors stress that improving citizens
access to information and maintaining a relationship of accountability between
local governments and their citizens are key to improving cities climate resilience
(2008, 21).
City indicators that measure the effects of climate change on cities and assess
urban climate risk are crucial to the development of a proactive system for anticipating changing climate conditions and preparing for extreme climate events.
The 2004 Tsunami in Chennai motivated the identification of hazard prone areas
in the citys Draft Master Plan (Tanner 2008, 23). Projections of sea-level rise
and increased intensity of precipitation have been used to inform Cochins infrastructure planning and foster community-centred disaster management policy
(Tanner 2008, 24). Participation and Inclusion is closely related to the need for
transparency, accountability, and information disclosure for good urban gover-
50
nance. Publishing information on official websites and providing procedures for

citizens to request information ensures access to information for urban residents.
Media and internet access, education levels, income levels, and local governments information disclosure culture determine the success of participatory and
inclusive processes (Tanner 2008, 26).
Engaging citizens in the running of their city can take many forms and experiences in cities worldwide are being well documented. Typical steps include public
consultations, public hearings and meetings, appointing citizens to advisory bodies
inside municipal authorities, and designing community councils with stakeholder
voice at municipal council sessions. Valuable research and evaluations have been
undertaken of recent experiments involving citizen engagement in environmental
and neighbourhood impact studies, in the establishment of peoples councils, in
the inclusion of non-governmental organizations and other representatives from
the private sector on local service boards and development councils in preparing
development programs, allocating funds, and participating in planning and design
initiatives for communities, in popular initiatives to put forward urban laws, and in
the practice of participatory budgeting (McCarney 1996).
The case of Chicagos Climate Action Plan is instructive. On September 19,
2008, the City of Chicago released its Climate Action Plan to the public after
a complex development process that incorporated involvement and input from
institutions, businesses and communities throughout the city. The plan is an
example of the merits of evidence-based planning as its goals and actions are
grounded in scientific regional climate impact projections and greenhouse gas
emissions accounting (Parzen 2008, 3).
Although initially Chicagos incomplete knowledge base on climate and
emissions analysis raised challenges for the Action Plans development progress,
solid research into the Citys sources of emissions helped to formulate financially
viable emissions reduction targets, legitimized the overall planning process,
and enhanced participants understanding of Chicagos contribution to and risk
from global climate change impacts. Projecting Chicagos future climate impacts
and adaptation challenges helped to convey the reality of the situation to the
community and participating partners. An emissions inventory for the citys
buildings illustrated the importance of engaging every Chicago household in the
process of emissions reductions. Analysis of a range of potential actions and their
combined ability to achieve Chicagos 2020 emissions reduction goal of 25% off
1990 levels allowed leaders to justify the citys actions to their constituents and
track progress (Parzen 2008, 8).
Generating and maintaining public support was crucial as the Climate Action
Plans development depended upon funding sources from within the community.
As previously noted (on page 19), the Chicago Climate Action Plan reveals
the importance of securing a range of sustainable funding sources to support
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51
the development process from research and planning to implementation. In

total, US$2,789,000 was contributed by 14 sources from a variety of non-profit
foundations, funds, trusts and initiatives as well as pro bono services, Illinois
and Chicago government departments, and regional councils (Parzen 2008,
10). As a model, it must be noted that a city developing its climate action plan
requires funding to manage public communications and engagement, to analyze
its baseline emissions, and to evaluate the GHG emission reduction potential
of various mitigation strategies available within the specific context of that city
(Parzen 2008, 9).
The process of developing Chicagos Climate Action plan led participants
to realize the need for a standard global methodology for measuring different
actions potential to reduce GHG emissions (Parzen 2008, 8). Specific impact
analyses may not be required for every city, thus existing research and a globally
standardized methodology will be useful for the development of other cities
guides and plans for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
4. CONCLUSION
This paper has mapped the core risks for cities associated with climate change
through literature review and city case studies and has examined the use of city
indicators in assessing and addressing these risks and vulnerabilities in cities.
The paper has explored how knowledge derived from city indicators on climate
change could help to direct a more informed set of planning norms and practices,
more effective infrastructure investment and urban management, and a more
inclusive urban governance.
An argument has been put forward that indicators on cities and climate
change can add new policy leverage for local governments, in terms of building
empowered decision-making in this volatile policy field, in developing evidencebased policy-making, and in building strong city governments capable of
performing as new sites of governance in global negotiations on climate change
and in decision-making related to risk assessments.
In building this argument and identifying the potentials and opportunities for
cities to increasingly play an active, and indeed critical, role on the global climate
agenda, a core set of challenges are recognized. First, research challenges in this
emerging field of cities and climate change can be identified. Based on the mapping
of risks in section one of this paper, gaps in city indicators and/or weaknesses
in methodologies for comparative indicators on cities and climate change pose
important challenges for researchers, international agencies and cities and their
communities globally. Second, governance challenges for cities that arise as a result
of new risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change can be identified.
52
Based on the mapping of governance, planning and management responsibilities

in section.... new challenges emerge for city governments in addressing climate
change and developing climate action plans. This dual set of challenges will be
presented here by way of conclusion but more importantly to serve as a roadmap
for next steps if cities are to be successful in confronting climate change risks and
building more climate resilient cities in the future.
4.1 Research Challenges for Improved Measurements, Indicators

and City Data on Climate Change
The vulnerability of cities to climate change is largely underestimated due to a

lack of climate data that is localized and specific to the city level. There is no
established set of city indicators that measures the effects of climate change on
cities and assesses those risks, or is there a comprehensive set of indicators with a
common accepted methodology designed to measure the impact that cities have
on climate change and the role that cities play in contributing to green house gas
emissions. There are a number of research challenges in the field of cities and
climate change that emerge from this paper.
One cluster of challenges relates to how best to localize measurements on climate
change. First, cities are responsible for the majority of the worlds greenhouse gas
emissions yet there is still only a very limited set of comparable measurements
of climate change at the city level. While national and global measurements
have advanced, a credible and globally standardized measurement for how cities
impact climate change is needed. Second, and related to this, is the challenge for
cities to also establish mitigation targets that will help to lessen cities impact on
climate change. Establishing such targets requires sound research by sector that
can help cities to establish benchmarks against which to measure performance
in moving towards these targets. Ideally, these benchmarks are established with a
globally comparative methodology so that global progress can also be measured
in a standard format. A third set of measurement challenges relates to cities and
climate change adaptation. Research on risk and vulnerability of cities to climate
change needs to inform citizens and policy makers across specified categories of
risk at the city level. Data by category of risk and varying degree of vulnerability
can then lead to an informed policy agenda on climate adaptation and emergency
preparedness.
A second set of challenges for research on cities and climate change is associated with establishing a globally comparative, standardized set of measures
through common methodologies. Climate change is often monitored at global
and national levels according to an adopted set of measures globally agreed
CHAPTER 1
53
upon by states. However, similar statistics are rarely collected at the city level
and devising indicators on climate change at the city level is proving difficult.
Furthermore, when individual cities collect and monitor data on climate change,
the information is often collected using methodologies different from other cities
that is analyzed and reported on in different ways. This creates further challenges
for researchers when drawing comparisons across cities globally. The lack of a
standardized methodology for devising indicators on climate change at the city
level greatly affects the quality of research, especially at the city level. Quality
research on the effects of climate change in cities is often difficult to achieve since
comparisons, benchmarks, and indicators across cities are lacking.
A third set of research challenges on cities and climate change is associated with
the complexities of city level politics, multiple and overlapping agency responsibilities for service sectors, and spatial challenges for measurement associated
with municipal jurisdictional boundaries. Conceptualizing vast, and often
diffuse, urban territories and their spread across existing municipal boundaries
and broader jurisdictions are difficult tasks. This conceptual challenge mirrors a
movement in local governance reform that is in a continuous state of flux, experiment and re-formulation.
Metropolitan areas around the world, with a few exceptions, are made up
of more than one urban unit. However most of our comparative statistics on
cities and metropolitan areas are based on data with some limitations in terms
of reliability and comparability due to definition issues on jurisdictional boundaries. For example, urban areas or metropolitan areas made up of more than one
urban area are defined by each country and no consistent definition for what
is urban or what is a municipality throughout the world exist. And because
metropolitan areas are rarely legally defined entities, there may be a number of
different possible boundaries for a commonly understood extended urban area.
For example, there is New York City and the New York Metropolitan Area, and
there is the City of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. In all these cases,
different designations will mean different area measurements, service areas and
populations. Not only do inconsistent definitions pose challenges for research,
but also for performance targets, indicators and measurements in the field of
climate change.
The World Banks Global City Indicators Program provides indicators that can
assist cities with their mitigation and adaptation efforts in climate change but there
are still many gaps in data needed on climate change. The Program has various
indicators that can assist cities with climate change mitigation strategies including
indicators on modal shifts from road transport to rail and public transport and
non motorized transport; waste incineration; wastewater treatment and recycling;
54
etc. Indicators on cities and greenhouse gas emissions are under development
that can help to create a standard and globally recognized index on cities and
GHG emissions. More research on indicators is required that further addresses
mitigation strategies in the energy supply sector including indicators on renewable
energy resources and the monitoring of industry practices in cities. With regard
to mitigation strategies in the buildings sector, LEED, BREEAM, CASBEE, and
GreenStar green building rating systems (to name a few) have provided leadership
in promoting environmentally friendly buildings and has transformed the building
industry. Existing building retrofit strategies through these rating systems in
numerous cities worldwide are now deepening this experience.
Indicators on adaptation strategies can help cities assess progress in addressing
climate change and identify areas requiring improvement. With regard to infrastructure for example, standards and regulations that integrate climate change
considerations into design are as yet underdeveloped and measure on performance are not yet identified. In addition, specific land-use policies for climate
adaptation have not been well addressed. In the health sector, research is required
on climate change health impacts necessary for informing local health policy,
for example in creating heat-health action plans. Indicators are also needed to
monitor climate sensitive diseases. More generally, the ability of health services
to cope with climate change associated health risks is under-researched. The issue
of energy demand (particularly in warmer cities) is shown here to be potentially
very significant, especially in economic terms, and this should also be a priority.
Climate change impact assessments on water scarcity in cities and how cities
can best create adaptation responses warrants further research and the design of
impact measures is then needed. Generally, in this evolving field of climate change
adaption at the city level, much more work is needed on impact assessment and
on the evaluation of adaptation responses including the economics of adaptation.
4.2 Governance Challenges for Building Climate Resilient Cities
in the Future
The governance of cities is pivotal in confronting the challenges of climate change.

City governments are constrained however on a number of fronts when it comes
to formulating and implementing climate action. Many city governments are
weakened due to only limited power and responsibility over key public services,
including planning, housing, roads and transit, water, land-use, drainage, waste
management and building standards. In many of the poorest cities of Asia, Africa
and Latin America, under-serviced informal areas of the city do not have basic
services such as waste collection, piped water, storm and surface drains and
sanitation systems, placing large portions of cities at even higher risk of climate
change impacts, particularly from storms, flooding and heat waves. City govern-
CHAPTER 1
55
ments often lack powers (with respect to higher orders of government state
and national) to raise the revenues required to finance infrastructure investments
and address climate change challenges. When governance capacity is weak and
constrained, cities are limited in their abilities to take action on climate change.
Deficient intergovernmental relations, inadequate popular local representation processes, weak sub-national institutions and poor financing mechanisms
to support these sub-national government forms, pose critical questions for
policy makers and leaders in all level of government, as well as for researchers,
planners and international agencies concerned with climate change.
Addressing climate change risk in cities must also be considered in a broader
framework of risks associated with poverty. Cities in the 21st century are facing
unprecedented challenges. The worlds urban population is likely to reach 4.2
billion by 2020, and the urban slum population is expected to increase to 1.4
billion by 2020, meaning one out of every three people living in cities will live
in impoverished, over-crowded and insecure living conditions. The situation of
poverty in cities worldwide, but in particular in the less developed regions, must
be recognized as a core factor in addressing climate change and building more
climate resilient cities. This means explicitly recognizing that climate change
adaptation must reduce the vulnerability of the poor in cities.
A significant challenge confronting the larger metropolitan centers in
addressing climate change is that associated with fragmentation. As urban
populations grow and spread out beyond the old city limits, the traditional
municipal boundaries, and by extension, the traditional governing structures and
institutions are increasingly outdated. Highly fragmented governance arrangements in many metropolitan areas make efficient planning, management and
urban financing for climate action planning a difficult challenge. Climate change
action requires coherence and integration across these jurisdictions.
When considering climate action in these large metropolitan areas, whether
in terms of measuring risks, establishing indicators, creating mitigation or
adaptation strategies, the challenges of metropolitan governance and the
contexts of administrative, management and political fragmentation are critical
to confront.
Urban metropolitan areas demand and consume vast amounts of energy and
water and other material resources that impact climate change. Cities are both
victims and perpetrators of climate change. They generate the lions share of
solid waste, electricity demand, transport related emissions, and space-heating
and cooling demand. On the other hand, cities and local governments are well
positioned to set the enabling framework for climate change mitigation strategies
and for taking a leadership role in addressing the challenges related to hazard
mitigation and vulnerability assessment as countries adapt to climate change.
For cities to effectively address climate change, coordination and overcoming the
56
problems of fragmentation in political institutions locally is a core requirement.

Five core governance challenges can be identified that are at the base of
successful climate action:
1. Effective leadership is critical for overcoming fragmentation and building
consensus in cities if effective climate action planning is to be achieved. Strong
leadership can overcome individualism and competition across political turf
and build recognition that more metropolitan wide collective action on climate
change is empowering at both a national and international levels. The ability to
build consensus and coordination better facilitates investments in infrastructure
and amenities that make the metropolis more resilient to climate change. Strong
leadership in the affairs of metropolitan governance means not only building
consensus, but also aggregating these fragmented interests in a way that builds
legitimacy and accountability to stakeholders in the process.
2. Efficient financing is a core requirement for climate action by cities. Success to
date with efforts to confront climate change challenges in cities has been hampered
due to deficient financing tools at local levels of government. The redistribution
of responsibilities between different levels of government has not always been
sustained by a corresponding allocation of resources or empowerment to adopt
adequate financing tools needed to raise these resources. If these weaknesses are
common at the level of individual municipalities, then the problems of raising
finance to support the broader metropolitan areas are compounded. Highly
fragmented governance arrangements in many metropolitan areas make efficient
financing for area wide climate mitigation and adaptation strategies a difficult
and on-going challenge. As witnessed in the Chicago Climate Action Plan,
raising funds to support the effort required substantial effort and collaborative
work. Without a clear, permanent and sufficient financial mechanism it is indeed
quite difficult to implement planning for more climate resilient cities.
3. Effective citizen participation and access to information. Improving citizens
access to information and maintaining a relationship of accountability between
local governments and their citizens are critical to improving a citys climate resilience. Principles of transparency and democracy require that the mechanisms
of participation are accessible, easy to be understood and with simple forms of
representation. Addressing climate change risk in cities depends on the availability and accessibility of information on climate risks and an engaged, informed
urban citizenry involved in the formulation of climate action plans.
4. Jurisdictional Coordination is one of the most pressing governance challenges
common to cities worldwide. This challenge takes two forms: multi-level juris-
CHAPTER 1
57
dictional coordination of services vertically across multiple levels of government

and inter-jurisdictional coordination of services horizontally across the metropolitan area. In the case of the former, the inter-governmental relations involved
in the governance of cities are often in flux with extensive and complex decentralization processes in motion in many countries worldwide. Multiple tiers of
government and various levels of state agencies are involved in the climate change
agenda and vertical coordination is often weak or non-existent. In the case of the
latter, existing governing institutions are often horizontally fragmented, uncoordinated and in many cases ad-hoc when it comes to climate change strategy, due
to multiple jurisdictional and electoral boundaries that span the territories of vast
metropolitan areas. Coordination is fundamental not only in basic areas such as
land, transport, energy, emergency preparedness and related fiscal and funding
solutions, but in addressing issues of poverty and social exclusion through
innovative mechanisms of inter-territorial solidarity.
5. Land-use Planning is a key criterion for effective city governance in the arena
of climate change strategies. Territorial and spatial strategies are key to addressing
climate change risks and building effective mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Land use and transport planning in cities at urban and regional levels are core
requirements in addressing climate change in cities worldwide. Managing transportation, land us, and other related infrastructure investments in large metropolitan areas (and their peri-urban areas) is essential for the advancement of the
climate change agenda and addressing GHG emission targets. These investments
and services however are often implemented, financed, managed and regulated
by different governing institutions and levels of government. Coordination of
these processes relies on complex intergovernmental policy networks and organizational management. This coordination is an essential basis for making progress
on the climate change agenda in cities globally.
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60
APPENDIX A
Observed High Temperature Extremes in Central Park, Manhattan
(Based on maximum temperatures exceeding 90F and 100F, and as heat waves,
exceeding 90F for three consecutive days)
CHAPTER 1
61
APPENDIX B
TABLE 1
Measurements of Sea Level Rise in New York City, Miami, Stockholm and Vancouver
Sea level
rise
New York City
Miami
Stockholm
Vancouver
Methodology
Sea level data is

collected at the Battery.
Data available from
NOAA. Water-level
records combine data
on ocean uctuations
and vertical motion of
the land at the station.
The sea-level variations
determined by these
records include the
linear trend, the average
seasonal cycle, and the
interannual variability at
each station. Monthly
data through the end
of 2006 were used in
the calculation, and
all stations had data
spanning a period of 30
years or more.
Sea level rise measured

in Key West, Florida.
Data source: the
Proudman Oceanographic Laboratorys
Permanent Service
for Mean Sea Level
(PSMSL). The monthly
sea level data are
calculated using
daily data. The mean
monthly sea level
data based on four
measurements per
day are very close to
the observations with
1-hour interval. It is
estimated that the error
does not exceed 2
cm with probability of
99.7%. The annual sea
level based on 4-hour
interval observations
coincide with results
based on 1-hour
observing intervals.
Sea level measured

in Stockholm. Data
measured by the
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological
Institute. Sealevel is
measured in relation to
a certain benchmark.
Values are given in cm
above mean sealevel
(MW). Long timeseries of
yearly means are needed
to calculate a regression
line in order to take care
of the land uplift. The
value on the regression
line for a certain year
determines the mean
sea level for that year.
Water levels along the

British Columbia coast
are recorded by tide
gauges at stations
maintained by the
Canadian Hydrographic
Service and the Water
Survey of Canada. This
indicator reports data
from four tide gauge
stations with long
records that broadly
represent three coastal
oceanic regions. Sea
level data were obtained
from the Marine Environmental Data Service
(MEDS) of Fisheries and
Oceans Canada. Trends
were tted to annual
mean values to assess
mean sea level rise.
Trends were determined
using the Microsoft Excel
template MAKESENS,
and statistical analyses
to remove any autocorrelation (using the
prewhitening procedure
described in Wang and
Swail 2001).
Data
Rates of sea level rise

in New York City range
between 0.86 and 1.5
inches per decade, with
a long-term rate since
1900 averaging 1.2
inches per decade.
During the period

19612003, sea levels
rose by 8 cm as a direct
consequence of the
expansion of sea-water
and glaciers melting.
The rise in sea levels
has doubled in speed
compared to the period
of 1961-2003.
For Metro Vancouver the

trend is a 2 centimetre
increase in the mean sea
level every 50 years.
CHAPTER
Detecting Carbon Signatures

of Development Patterns across
a Gradient of Urbanization: Linking
Observations, Models, and Scenarios
Marina Alberti* and Lucy R. Hutyra
SUMMARY
Urbanizing regions are major determinants of global and continental scale
changes in carbon budgets through land transformation and modification of
biogeochemical processes (Pataki et al. 2006). However, direct measurements
of the effects of urbanization on carbon fluxes are extremely limited. In this
paper we discuss a strategy to quantify urban carbon signatures (spatial and
temporal changes in fluxes) through measurements that can more effectively
aid urban carbon emissions reduction scenario and predictive modeling. We
start by articulating an integrated framework that identifies the mechanisms
and interactions that link urban patterns to carbon fluxes along gradients of
urbanization. Building on a synthesis of the current observational studies in
major US metropolitan areas, we develop formal hypotheses on how alternative development patterns (i.e., centralized versus sprawling) produce different
carbon signatures and how these signatures may in turn influence patterns of
urbanization. Finally, we discuss the fusion of observations, scenarios, and
models for strategic carbon assessments.
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
62
CHAPTER 2
63
1. INTRODUCTION
Urbanizing regions are major determinants of global and continental scale changes
in carbon budgets (carbon sources and sinks) through land transformation and
modification of biogeochemical processes (Pataki et al. 2007). Recent studies in
urbanizing regions provide increasing evidence of the complex mechanisms
by which urban activities affect both carbon emissions (Gurney et al. 2009) and
stocks (Hutyra et al. 2011; Churkina et al. 2010). However, scarce empirical data
on the effects of urbanization on carbon fluxes limit our ability to establish the
underlying processes and mechanisms linking urbanization patterns and carbon
fluxes. Further, the exact magnitude of and mechanisms for carbon exchange are
largely uncertain for urbanizing ecosystems (Pataki et al. 2006). Also unknown is
how patterns of urbanization interact with household behaviors and consumption
choices. Typically, quantifications of carbon emissions are based on estimates of
fossil fuel consumption from human activities (Grimmond et al. 2002). Similarly,
changes in carbon uptake of vegetation are often generated from remote sensingbased estimates of biomass stocks (Imhoff et al. 2004) and ecosystem models are
largely parameterized for natural conditions (Churkina 2008). These estimates
are inadequate to understand the relative magnitude of multiple urban activities,
household behaviors, and their variability across alternative development patterns
(i.e. urban form, land use intensity, infrastructure). Predictions of future trajectories of carbon fluxes associated with urbanization require an understanding
and systematic evaluation of how alternative patterns of urban development (i.e.,
centralized versus sprawling) affect the carbon budget over the long term.
United Nations estimates suggest that half the worlds population was living
in urban areas by the end of 2008 and about 70 percent of the global population
is projected to become urbanites by 2050 (UNFPA 2007). The process of urban
expansion results in complex patterns of intermixed high- and low-density built-up
areas and a fragmentation of the natural landscape. Urbanization affects ecological
processes both directly by simplifying habit in human-dominated systems - and
indirectly by changing the biophysical attributes of the landscape that result in
a variety of interrelated local and global effects (Alberti and Marzluff 2004). The
complex interactions among urbanization, carbon fluxes, and ecosystem functions
are influenced by both human and biophysical factors and competing positive
and negative feedbacks between them. The integrated effects of urbanization
(including changing land cover characteristics, land use patterns, pervious surface
fractions, urban heat islands, atmospheric pollution, management activities, etc.)
on land-atmosphere exchange processes for both energy and carbon remain highly
uncertain despite decades of study on elements of the problem. We hypothesize
that in temperate, urban ecosystems key mechanisms that affect vegetative carbon
stocks vary discontinuously across a gradient of urbanization.
64
Imhoff et al. (2004) estimated that urbanization has reduced net primary
production (NPP) by 0.04 Peta grams of carbon per year (a 1.6% overall
reduction) for the USA, but the overall uncertainty remains very high due to
incomplete data and understanding of the feedbacks. Change in NPP due to
urbanization also differs regionally based on the ecosystem and biome. At local
and regional scales, urbanization can increase NPP in resource-limited regions.
Imhoff et al. (2004) show that through localized warming, urban heat islands
can extend the growing season in cooler regions (such as Seattle, WA) and
increase NPP in winter. However, benefits like these may not offset the overall
negative impact of urbanization on NPP for cities in highly productive biomes
(Imhoff et al. 2004). Urbanization also may increase NPP in resource-limited,
low-productivity regions by increasing water availability in arid areas (such as
Phoenix, AZ). For example, Buyantuyev and Wu (2008) showed that urbanization increased regional NPP in central Arizona in dry years. Introduced plant
communities (e.g., urban vegetation and crops) have higher NPP than the natural
desert, and taken together urban and agricultural areas contributed more to the
regional NPP than the desert vegetation in normal, but not in wet years. Because
urbanization disrupts the coupling between vegetation and precipitation and
increases spatial heterogeneity, NPP of this arid urban landscape is only weakly
correlated with rainfall pattern but is strongly correlated with population characteristics (i.e. median family income) (Buyantuyev and Wu 2008).
In this paper, we develop a strategy to quantify urban carbon signatures
(spatial and temporal changes in fluxes) through measurements that can more
effectively aid urban carbon scenario and predictive modeling. We start by
articulating an integrated framework that identifies the mechanisms and interactions that link urban patterns to carbon fluxes along gradients of urbanization.
Building on a synthesis of the current observational studies in major US metropolitan areas, we develop formal hypotheses on how alternative development
patterns produce different carbon signatures and how these signatures may in
turn influence patterns of urbanization. We then identify a set of observations
and research designs to test such hypotheses using the Seattle, WA region as a
case study. Finally, we discuss the fusion of observations, scenarios, and models
for strategic carbon assessments.
2. URBAN CARBON CYCLE

The net carbon balance of an urban region is the results of anthropogenic carbon
emissions and ecosystem exchange processes. Attribution and accounting of
emissions can be difficult in the urban context since emissions can be generated
in one location, but be due to demand at another location (e.g. electricity genera-
CHAPTER 2
65
tion vs. consumption). The discussion which follows is centered on vegetative

carbon fluxes, but anthropogenic emissions and biogenic sources/sinks are both
central to understanding urban carbon dynamics.
In considering the vegetative urban CO2 (C) cycle, it is important to carefully
differentiate the coupled changes in carbon stocks versus changes in carbon
fluxes. A carbon stock is a pool of carbon thatcan be in a solid, liquid, or gaseous
state (e.g. plant woody material). A carbon flux is an addition or subtraction
from a carbon pool (e.g. plant photosynthesis or combustion). Characterizing
carbon stocks in the form of soil carbon, dead woody debris, and live vegetation
is central in determining the net ecosystem productivity (NEP) of an area and
overall habitat characteristics. NEP is the difference between gross primary
productivity (GPP, plant photosynthesis) and ecosystem respiration both in
terms of autotrophic plant maintenance respiration (RA) and heterotrophic
microbial respiration (RH).
NEP = GPP (RH + RA)
(1)
NEP can be directly measured in the field through biometric or micro-meteorological methods. Positive NEP values indicate that an ecosystem is a net
sink of atmospheric CO2, while negative NEP indicates that an ecosystem is
emitting more CO2 through respiration processes to the atmosphere than it is
removing through photosynthesis. NEP differs from net primary productivity
(NPP) in that NEP accounts for total ecosystem respiration process while NPP
only accounts for live plant respiration (NPP = GPP RA). The carbon fluxes of
vegetated terrestrial areas vary on short time scales due to weather conditions
or seasonal changes and on longer time scales due to changes in forest structure
(i.e. carbon stocks). Urban environments have been estimated to be significant
sources of global atmospheric CO2 emissions, with some studies suggesting
that up to 80% of total emissions originate in urban areas (Churkina 2008).
Anthropogenic carbon emissions through activities such as energy generation
or transportation are fluxes to the atmosphere, which affect the quantity of
carbon in the atmosphere and subsequently interact with vegetation.
3. LINKING URBAN PATTERNS TO CARBON FLUXES

To understand mechanisms linking urban patterns and carbon fluxes we build
on theories of complex coupled human-natural systems (Figure 1). In human
dominated ecosystems, human and ecological factors (such as demographics
and economics coupled with geomorphology and climate) affect human and
ecological patterns and processes at multiple scales. Ultimately these interactions
66
affect ecosystem function (both biotic integrity and human well-being) and they
can generate system shifts under alternative scenarios. Changes in ecosystem
functions feed back on human activities and well-being.
FIGURE 1
Conceptual Framework of Coupled Human-Natural Systems
Urbanization can fundamentally alter carbon fluxes and NEP through changes
in land cover and creation of impervious surfaces, filling of wetlands, landscape
fragmentation, and the application of fertilizers. Ecosystem productivity also
should vary in time at a given site as urbanization proceeds, analogous to disturbance and succession in non-urban ecosystems. Following land conversion
(initial disturbance), net biomass accrual should be maximal according to theory
(Odum 1969), slowing as vegetation reaches maturity. Furthermore, waste
emissions from human activities affect vegetation function and health and hence
NEP (e.g., Gregg et al. 2003; Shen et al. 2008).
Research Questions and Hypotheses
We have developed a framework to empirically test hypotheses of how alternative development patterns may impose different carbon signatures (spatial and
temporal changes in stocks and fluxes) and how these signatures may in turn
CHAPTER 2
67
influence patterns of urbanization (Figure 1). This framework can be applied to

questions such as:
t 1. How do urban patterns affect carbon fluxes and stocks along gradients
of urbanization?
t 2. How do changes in ecosystem function feed back onto urbanization
patterns?
t 3. What are the uncertainties, lags, legacies, and feedbacks associated with
urban land use and infrastructure decisions on carbon fluxes and stocks?
t 4. How will the interactions between urbanization patterns and carbon
processes evolve under future scenarios?
In this paper we limit our discussion to two core hypotheses:
HYPOTHESIS 1: Variability in ecosystem productivity across a gradient of
urbanization is controlled by the composition and heterogeneity of the urban
landscape.
HYPOTHESIS 2: Carbon fluxes vary across an urban-to-rural gradient in
relation to land uses through changes in land cover, emissions of pollutants, and
modification of the microclimate. This relationship is not linear due to the differential effects of patterns of urbanization on carbon emissions, sequestration, and
accumulation in soil and vegetation.
Mechanisms Affecting Carbon Stocks and Fluxes Along
an Urban Gradient
Our hypotheses about the variability of carbon stocks and fluxes along an urban
gradient are grounded on mechanisms known to affect carbon stocks and fluxes
(Canadell 2003). The mechanisms influencing carbon stocks (pools of C) can
be distinct from those influencing C fluxes (rates of exchange). We identify four
key mechanisms that affect change in carbon stocks and fluxes along a gradient
of urbanization in temperate ecosystems: land use, organic inputs, temperature,
and nitrogen fertilization. There is increasing evidence that alternative urban
activities and infrastructure do mediate the impact of the patterns of urbanization on carbon fluxes and stocks (Kaye et al. 2006), Hutyra et al. 2011; Churkina
et al. 2010). Here we do not represent these and assume alternative patterns of
urbanization imply alternative types of infrastructure. A discussion of the role of
infrastructure is in Alberti and Hutyra (Forthcoming).
68
Carbon fluxes include both positive (uptake: photosynthesis) and negative (loss:
respiration, combustion) exchange processes. We hypothesize that the rates of per
unit biomass carbon uptake will be higher in the urban core due to favorable growing
conditions (human watering, fertilizer, pruning, replacements of landscaping vegetation in the Seattle region). C losses from ecosystem respiration (RH) in urban core
will be higher per unit mass, due to increased temperatures and adequate moisture,
but the removal of organic inputs (leaf litter and woody debris) will reduce the
amount of substrate (stock) for decomposition and result in an overall decrease in
RH. Higher urban concentrations of ozone will also dampen C uptake rates (GPP),
but increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations will positively impact GPP.
Carbon stocks within vegetation will be higher as we move away from the urban
core, but we hypothesize that the changes will be non-linear. In addition, C fluxes
typically respond and change on much shorter time scales (e.g. hours) than C stock
(results of long-term changes in fluxes, respond on the time scale of years). Urban
carbon stocks will be lowest at the urban core due to a replacement of potential
growing space with buildings and pavement. Organic detrital C stocks are kept
artificially low in urban areas through leaf and debris collection and removal, but
the fluxes (input rates) would be expected to increase linearly across the urban to
rural gradient (directly proportional to biomass and leaf area). The amount of C in
vegetative biomass (and soils) is expected to increase with decreased development
intensity, but fluxes (per unit mass) might be expected to decrease with decreasing
temperatures and decreased nitrogen and CO2 fertilization.
It is worth noting that these hypothesized relationships have been partially
tested, but our understanding is incomplete and we expect mechanistic difference
by biome. Urban regions are rapidly expanding and are in many respects a harbinger
of broader future global change. Integrated measurements and models of these
mechanisms are needed to advance viable scenarios for net emissions reduction.
4. RESEARCH METHODS
To test our methodological framework and better refine our hypotheses, we have
begun efforts in the Seattle, WA region to merge remote sensing and groundbased observations to determine the variability in ecosystem productivity across a
gradient of urbanization and relate it to landscape structure and processes driven
by urbanization. Land cover data provide information on the physical patterns
and land use data provide information about the functional use of the land. We
use remote sensing-based land-cover classifications to characterize changes in
urbanization in the Seattle region. We have produced a systematic classification
of 30-m resolution remote-sensing images for the Central Puget Sound for five
CHAPTER 2
69
time steps (Landsat TM 1986, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002, and 2007) (Alberti
et al. 2004). Parcel-level GIS data and road networks data was obtained from the
counties, and attribute data including land use, building units, and year built of
the existing development are derived from the assessor records (UERL 2006).
An initial field survey was conducted across the Seattle, WA metropolitan statistical area to characterize vegetative carbon stocks with respect to land cover. The
sample transects radiated from the central Seattle urban core (origin UTM Zone
10N: 549518E, 5273765N; following bearings of 43o, 110o, and 300o and extended for
~ 50km) and we applied a stratified random sampling approach to survey 154 plots
across five land cover classes (Figure 2). Each plot had a sample radius of 15 meters.
The land cover classes included: high urban, medium urban, low urban, mixed forest,
and coniferous forest. See Hutyra et al. (2011) for additional methodological details.
Our initial focus was on aboveground biomass (plants with a diameter
greater than 5-cm at a height of 1.3 m, residential yards, and dead woody debris
(diameter greater than 10 cm and length greater than 1 m)). Vegetation carbon
stocks were quantified through biometric methods (Fahey and Knapp 2007).
Using plant-diameter measurements and allometric equations (species specific
where possible), we estimated carbon stocks in the live and dead carbon pools.
In the future we plan to add plant photosynthesis and soil respiration measurements, which will supplement the plot surveys to provide information about
instantaneous flux responses. Soil carbon stocks will be estimated through core
samples and measurements of depth of the litter layer.
FIGURE 2 Three sample transects were established radiating outward
from the Seattle, WA, USA urban core. Transects are overlaid on a 2002
land cover map of the region. Black, red, and pink colors denote high,
medium, and low urban, respectively. Green tones denote vegetation.
70
5. URBAN VEGETATION RESULTS

Our initial observations will provide an empirical basis for refining our framework and hypotheses. We estimated that the mean aboveground live biomass
across the Seattle urbanizing region was 89 22 metric tons of carbon per hectare
in 2002 (including both urban and forest area), with an additional 11.8 4 Mg C
ha-1 of coarse woody debris (CWD) biomass. The average biomass stored within
forests was 140 40 Mg C ha-1. Within urban land covers: 18 13.7 Mg C ha-1
(Hutyra et al. 2011). The distribution of carbon in live biomass across the land
cover classes is shown in Figure 3. As expected, the forested plots have the highest
carbon storage, but we found significant amount of carbon across the different
developed sites and it varied considerably. These results are substantially larger
than the 25.1 Mg C ha-1 (urban forest land only, including both above and belowground carbon) reported by Nowak and Crane (2002) for ten U.S. cities, and
than the average of 53.5 Mg C ha-1 for all U.S. forests (urban and rural) reported
by Birdsey and Heath (1995). While these results only provide data on a portion
of the urban carbon cycle, they highlight the potential of vegetation to play an
important role in offsetting emissions and planning future development.
FIGURE 3
Estimates of carbon stored in live vegetation across the Seattle metropolitan
region (home to over 3 million people). Biomass values are expressed
per soil area in the main plot and per total sample area (inset) to highlight
the difference by land cover class and the potential opportunities for
enhancement vegetative carbon sequestration.
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71
6. FUTURE SCENARIOS & NEXT STEPS

Advancing the study of coupled human-natural systems in urbanizing regions
requires moving beyond idiosyncratic studies towards integrated, cross-regional
comparisons (Grimm et al. 2008). The success of such studies depends on developing a robust comparative framework and common metrics and methods for
identifying and testing hypotheses of similarities and differences in both urbanization patterns and mechanisms governing urban ecosystems dynamics. In our
study we use a gradient approach and field observations to gain insights on the
mechanisms that link urbanization patterns to carbon fluxes in metropolitan
regions by focusing on vegetation dynamics.
Given biophysical and social influences on urbanization, carbon fluxes and
ecosystem responses are likely to exhibit regional differences (Grimm et al. 2008).
Both socio-demographic and socio-economic factors are key drivers of urbanization patterns, but biophysical factors such as climate and geomorphology also
significantly influence these patterns. We expect that differences in socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics among the metropolitan regions will drive
alternative carbon footprints and influence both the nature of the coupling and
strength of feedbacks across a gradient of urbanization.
To build a robust planning strategy to reduce CO2 emissions and test our
hypotheses articulated here we are continuing our efforts to combine biophysical
and social observations across multiple regions. Empirical data that accurately
take into account the diverse sources and sinks of carbon in urban regions are
critical to gain a mechanistic understanding of the urban carbon cycle, and to
guide policy makers and planners in developing carbon-sensitive land use and
transportation strategies. In the longer term, such data will provide the baseline
for assessing the effectiveness of policies and define best development practices.
Monitoring through new refined observations of land cover change and carbon
fluxes, for example by installing flux towers across a gradient of urbanization, is
critical to advance such strategies. In addition we will need to develop scenarios
to explore the most divergent points of uncertainty and important trajectories
of land use land cover change. Through a fusion of observations and increased
mechanistic understanding, we can use scenarios as sets of hypotheses in order
to run predictive models and explore alternative futures (Figure 4). For further
discussion on the these hypotheses see: Alberti and Hutyra 2012 (Forthcoming).
72
FIGURE 4
Schematic for Linking Observations, Models and Scenarios
for Strategic Carbon Assessment
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by the Bullitt Foundation and NSF BE/CHN
0508002. Thanks to Michael Strohback and Bryan Yoon for assistance in the field.
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Pataki D.E., and D.P.C. Peters. 2008. Land Change: Ecosystem Responses to Urbanization and Pollution across Climatic and Societal Gradients. Frontiers in Ecology and
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Grimmond, C.S.B., King T.S. Cropley F.D., Nowak D.J., and C. Souch. 2002. Local-Scale
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Ricketts. 2004. The Consequences of Urban Land Transformation on Net Primary
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CHAPTER
A Critical and Comparative Evaluation

of Co2 Emissions From National
Building Stocks of Developed
and Rapidly-Developing Countries
Case Studies of UK, USA, and India
Rajat Gupta* and Smita Chandiwala
1. INTRODUCTION
In 2002, buildings were responsible for 7.85Gt, or 33% of all energy-related CO2
emissions worldwide (Price et al. 2006), and these emissions are expected to grow
to 11Gt or 15.6Gt by 2030 (IPCC 2007), the two figures are based on different
projected scenarios. In developed countries such as the United States and the
United Kingdom, energy use in the building stock is responsible for about 50%
of national CO2 emissions (Mazria and Kershner 2008; DOE 2006; EPA 2003).
Yet most efforts nationally and internationally have focused on improving the
performance of new buildings (WEC 2004). The UK has set a target of making all
new domestic buildings zero carbon by 2016 and all new non-domestic buildings zero-carbon by 2019 (DCLG 2006). Similarly, in the US the Architecture
2030 campaign calls for the fossil-fuel reduction standard for all new buildings to
be increased to 60% in 2010, 70% in 2015, 80% in 2020, 90% in 2025 and carbon
neutral by 2030 (Mazria and Kershner 2008). Similarly, the Building Energy
Code in India is currently voluntary and applicable for new commercial buildings or building complexes that have a connected load of 500kW or greater, or a
contract demand of 600KVA or greater (Bureau of Energy Efficiency 2006).
74
CHAPTER 3
75
Given that about two-thirds of existing buildings will be standing in 2050,

targeting new buildings only limits the increase in CO2 emissions. To reduce CO2
emissions in the longer-term, the existing building stock needs to be targeted
(Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007). The problem with existing buildings is simple: they
underperform in relation to current building standards because they were
designed and built at a time when sustainability and energy efficiency were not
the imperatives that they are today. To put this in context, a typical UK house built
in 1910 emits in the region of eight tonnes of CO2 per annum, and a house built
in 1995, four tonnes per annum. The existing building stock in both developed
and developing countries offers a sector where reductions in emissions could
be achieved rapidly through technical, educational and other means, leading to
more comfortable environment with lower fuel bills (Bordass et al. 2001).
According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (2007), approximately
29% of CO2 emissions can be saved economically, or at a net benefit to society,
even at a carbon price of zero. The opportunity for very substantial investments
into improving the existing building stock has opened up as the housing markets
in the UK, USA and several other developed countries have gone into deep and
prolonged recession. Mitigation measures in the residential and commercial
sectors can save approximately 1.6 billion and 1.4 billion tons of CO2 emissions
respectively by 2020 (Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007a). While the magnitude of these
large potentials that can be captured has been known for decades, many of these
energy efficiency possibilities have not been realized. This is because of certain
characteristics of markets, user behaviour and a lack of critical evaluation of the
available tools and models that could be used by planners, building designers and
policy-makers to measure, benchmark, target, plan and monitor energy-related
CO2 emissions and forecast reductions from existing buildings.
This paper aims to address this gap by undertaking a critical and comparative evaluation of approaches and policies to measure, benchmark, reduce
and manage CO2 emissions from energy use in the existing building stock in
developed and rapidly-developing countries using case studies of the UK, USA,
and India. The specific objectives are as follows:
t Establish what tools, approaches and methodologies are available for measuring
energy use and CO2 emissions from existing buildings in UK, USA and India.
t Review and compare benchmarks of annual energy consumption intensities
(kWh/m2/year) and CO2 emissions (kgCO2/m2/year) from buildings-in-use
in the case study countries.
t Develop more rigorous standards for existing buildings (to reduce their energy consumption), which could be adopted by developed and rapidly-developing cities taking account of building type, local climate and occupancy.
76
t Evaluate various strategies and measures available for maximizing CO2 emission reductions in existing buildings (above 80% in developed countries)
through improved energy-efficiency, low and zero carbon technologies, as
well as non-technical solutions (education and awareness, behavioral change),
and to identify barriers to their implementation.
t Recommend policy measures which would increase uptake of the selected
CO2 reduction strategies in existing buildings.
1.1 Overview Of Energy Use and CO2 Emissions in the Global
Building Stock
Globally, energy (delivered) use in the built environment, which encompasses

domestic (residential) and non-domestic buildings, will grow by 31% over the
next 20 years, at an average annual rate of 1.5%, according to International
Energy Outlook (EIA 2006). In 2030, consumption attributed to domestic and
non-domestic sectors (commercial) will be approximately 67% and 33% respectively. Industrial energy use is not considered as part of the buildings analysis in
this paper. The growth in population, increasing demand for building services
and comfort levels, together with the rise in time spent inside buildings, assure
that the upward trend in energy demand will continue in the future. Economic,
trading and population growth in rapidly-developing economies will intensify
needs for education, health and other services, together with the consequential
energy consumption. It is expected that energy consumption in the non-domestic
building sector in developing countries will double in the next 25 years, with an
annual average growth rate of 2.8% (Perez-Lombard et al. 2008).
CO2 emissions from the building sector are predominantly a function of
energy consumption and may be either direct (on-site), such as emissions
from fuels combustion, or indirect, such as emissions from electricity use and
district heat consumption. More recently, studies are also including embodied
energy of materials for building construction e.g, cement or concrete. Certain
energy end-use activities such as cooking, air-conditioning, space heating and
refrigeration may generate either direct or indirect emissions depending on the
technology used (Baumert et al. 2005). Broadly, emissions from buildings can be
organized into three broad categories: electricity use, direct fuel combustion, and
district heating (Figure 1).
CHAPTER 3
77
FIGURE 1
CO2 from Building Energy Use
Source: Baumert et al. 2005
Electricity use includes lighting, appliance use, refrigeration, air conditioning,

and to some extent, space heating and cooling. These activities account for 65%
of commercial building emissions and 43% of residential building emissions
(Figure 1). Globally, the building sector including residential and commercial
is responsible for more electricity consumption 42% than any other sector.
Direct fuel combustion results primarily from space heating with modest contributions from food preparation (gas-driven cooking) as well as gas-driven air
conditioning and refrigeration systems. This source accounts for 45% and 31% of
emissions in residential and commercial buildings, respectively.
District heating includes centrally-operated heating (and sometimes cooling)
systems that service entire cities or other large areas.
Emissions from the building sector vary widely by country in both absolute
and per-capita terms (Figure 2), and depend greatly on the degree of electrification, level of urbanization, amount of building area per capita, prevailing
climate, as well as national and local policies to promote efficiency.
78
FIGURE 2
CO2 from Building Energy Use, Total and Per Capita in 2002: Top 25 Emitters
Source: IEA 2004a, 2004b
Within the building sector, it is important to distinguish between domestic

(residential) and non-domestic buildings. The non-domestic (service) building
sector, which covers all commercial and public buildings, includes many types
of buildings (schools, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, museums, etc.) with a wide
variety of uses and energy services (HVAC, domestic hot water (DHW), lighting,
refrigeration, food preparation, etc.). The type of use and activities have a huge
impact on the quality and quantity of energy services needed in non-domestic
buildings. By and large, dwellings in developed countries use more energy than
those in emerging economies and it is expected to continue growing due to the
installation of new appliances (air conditioners, computers, etc.)
2. ENERGY USE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXISTING

BUILDINGS IN UK, USA AND INDIA
2.1 Existing Building Sector in the UK
Energy use in the buildings sector alone generates almost half of all CO2 emissions
in the UK 27% from the 26.4 million residential dwellings, and 18% from the two
million non-domestic buildings (including commercial, public sector, and industrial building use) (All Party Urban Development Group 2007; Pout and MacKenzie
2005). To assess the potential for CO2 emissions reductions from the UK building
CHAPTER 3
79
stock, the energy performance and characteristics of domestic and non-domestic

sectors should be characterized, as discussed in the following sub-sections.
2.1.1
Domestic Building Sector
In the UK, a major use of energy within the built environment is for heating. Gas
currently meets more than two-thirds of this demand through the nationwide
gas grid. Heating is a particularly important part of energy use within homes and
hence a major contributor to CO2 emissions from the domestic sector (Foresight
2008). As a guideline, household energy consumption is in the range of 21-22,000
kWh a year, for all energy use in the home, from all sources of fuel (Boardman
2007b, p. 4). Of this, roughly 60% is for space heating, 21% for hot water and 13%
for lights and appliances (Figure 3).
FIGURE 3
UK Household Energy Consumption by End Use
Wet appliances 2%
2%
eous
ellan
%
g 3
3%
Misc
Co
ns
ec
pli
ni
an
cs
ing
tro
ap
3%
3%
ce
htin
el
ok
ld
Co
er
Co
Lig
um
Hot water
21%
Space heating
60%
Source: DEFRA 2007; SDC 2006
Proportions of CO2 emissions from various activities in housing are shown

in Figure 4, which shows that the major portion of energy consumption is in
space heating and hot water (81%). However, the proportion of CO2 emissions
from those uses is less (74%) due to the lower carbon content of gas compared
to electricity. Over the long term, energy demand has grown fastest from appliances, with energy for heating remaining largely stable, although recent changes
are much smaller (CLG 2006).
80
FIGURE 4
UK Household CO2 Emissions by End Use
Misc
an
ce
4%
an
ce
5%
pli
3%
tin
gh
ap
Cooking 3%
pli
ap
Li
ld
eous
ellan
t
We
Co
5%
Consum
er electr
onics 6%
Space heating
53%
Hot water
21%
Source: DEFRA 2007; SDC 2006
Energy performance of domestic buildings in the UK is measured using the

Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP), which measures the fuel efficiency of the
heating systems and thermal efficiency of the building fabric i.e. how well it retains
heat (BRE 2005). The average SAP of the 2004 stock was 52. Energy performance
varies widely across the domestic stock. The factors that have the greatest correlation with energy performance of the existing stock are age and dwelling type/
size. Modern properties are much more energy efficient and smaller properties
suffer less heat loss. Apart from these more or less immutable factors, the quality
and amount of insulation and efficiency of heating systems also affect energy
performance (CLG 2006). Other factors that are taken into account in the SAP
calculations include building shape, orientation, window sizes and distribution.
The 2009 edition of the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP 2009) was introduced in October 2010 (BRE 2010).
A step change in the energy efficiency of post-1990 stock, since implementation of Part L of the Building Regulations, has progressively raised the energy
efficiency standards for new homes. Improvements in the energy performance of
new build, combined with household improvements, have led to an increase in
the average energy efficiency of the stock. Two-thirds of all properties have SAP
values between 41 and 70. There is a clear trend of older properties having much
lower energy performance: over 40% of properties built before 1919 have SAP
values of less than 41 (Figure 5). By contrast, 60% of properties built since 1990
have SAP ratings above 70.
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81
FIGURE 5
Prole of Energy Performance of Existing Domestic Stock in UK, 2004
Source: CLG, 2006
The total energy consumption in the domestic stock also depends upon the
number of households and population. Of the 26.4 million dwellings in the
UK in 2006 (CLG 2008a), 31% consist of one-person households. This figure is
projected to increase to 38% or nearly 10 million one-person households in 2026.
Such a shift in household size would have significant implications for how energy
is used in homes. At the same time, the UK population is expected to increase
to 67 million by 2050 and net migration to the UK is projected to continue. The
effect of this growth is compounded by declining household size in 2002, the
average household contained 2.3 people, and it is assumed that this will drop
to 2.1 people per household (pph) by 2050. There has also been an increase in
expectations of material comfort over the past century. Desired temperature
levels within the home have increased from 12C in 1970 to 18C in 2002, with
consequent impacts on energy consumption.
82
2.1.2
Non-domestic Building Sector
Non-domestic buildings (primarily commercial and public) account for about

one-sixth of the UKs total CO2 emissions and one-third of the building-related
ones (Committee on Climate Change 2008). Figure 6 shows the split of CO2
emissions within the non-domestic sector, which indicates that the retail sector
is the major contributor, followed by hotels and catering and warehouses (Pout
and MacKenzie 2005).
FIGURE 6
UK Non-domestic CO2 Emissions by Sub-sector in 2002
(Source: Pout and MacKenzie 2005)
Figure 7 shows the breakdown of CO2 emissions by end use and by fuel type
in the non-domestic sector. In terms of end use, it is clear that heating contributes
the most at 37%, followed by lighting at 26%. In terms of emissions by fuel type,
electricity contributes the most, followed by gas, since the carbon emission factor of
electricity in the UK (1kWh of grid electricity = 0.556 kg CO2) is about three times
more that gas (1kWh of natural gas = 0.194 kg CO2) (Pout and MacKenzie 2005).
FIGURE 7
UK Non-domestic CO2 Emissions by Sub-sector in 2002
(Source: Pout and MacKenzie 2005)
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83
Accurate data on total energy use in the non-domestic stock are not available,
but estimates suggest that electricity consumption amounted to about 95GWh in
2004 and gas consumption to about 85GWh (Foresight 2008). Over 1990-2006,
CO2 emissions from commercial buildings grew by 4%. This was primarily due
to a 6% rise in indirect (electricity-related) emissions, with electricity demand
growth more than offsetting the declining carbon intensity of electricity. Public
sector emissions fell 26%, wherein direct emissions fell due to energy efficiency
improvements in heating and a switch to less carbon-intensive fossil fuels.
Indirect emissions fell as the declining carbon intensity of electricity more than
offset rising electricity demand (Committee on Climate Change 2008).
The total floor space of commercial and industrial bulk class properties in
England and Wales was 597 million square meters in 2007, 6% more than in
1998 (Foresight, 2008). Although there is a statistical evidence base covering all
recorded property types, drawn from the Valuation Office Agency database (Ravetz
2008),, this covers hereditaments, fl
floor
oor spaces and rateable values; but not conditions, construction or other finer detail. A major effort was made by the then
Global Atmospheric Division of DETR, to develop a national Non-Domestic
Building Stock (NDBS) database (Bruhns et al. 2000). One result was the National
Non-domestic Buildings Energy and Emissions Model (N-DEEM), which was
used to model energy policy impacts (Pout, 2000). There may be more activity on
this front in the future, as the energy performance of new and existing property is
now emerging as a priority (CLG and UKGBC 2007). The non-domestic stock is
somewhat more modern than the housing stock. Nevertheless, as seen in Figure 8,
just over half of all commercial and industrial properties were built before 1940 and
only 9% after 1990 (CLG 2005a; CLG 2005b). Just over a quarter of commercial
building space by area was built before 1940 and only 15% since 1990 (Figure 9).
FIGURE 8
Age Prole Hereditaments on the Non-domestic Sector
by Bulk Class
Source: Foresight 2008
84
2.1.3
Programmes for Achieving CO2 Reductions

from the Existing Building Sector in the UK
The European Commission is providing a complex framework for carbon reductions in the domestic sector the requirement is to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%
and to have 20% of all energy from renewable sources, both by 2020, for the whole of
Europe (Boardman 2007b). In line with this, the National Energy Efficiency Action
Plan (NEEAP) set a target to reduce emissions from the UKs residential housing
stock to 107.43MtCO2 (a 31% reduction) by 2020 (DEFRA 2007). In February
2009, the UK Government launched a consultation on the Heat and Energy
Saving Strategy (HESS), which sets out an aim for emissions from existing homes
to be approaching zero by 2050 (DECC 2009c) in order for the UK to achieve its
ambitious target of an 80% cut in emissions by 2050. Figure 9 summarizes the CO2
emissions saved as part of these targets and programmes discussed.
FIGURE 9
Summary of UK Residential Sector Emissions Targets (MtCO2e)
Source: Centre for Sustainable Energy et al. 2006
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85
To support HESS, the Government has set out the following key policy
proposals:
t Provide the capacity to deliver comprehensive, whole-house solutions to
400,000 homes a year by 2015.
t By 2020, extend the delivery of whole-house solutions to approximately 7 million homes across the UK.
t Be on the way to making cost-effective energy efficiency measures available to
all households by 2030.
These new ways of using energy in UK homes require a new approach to
delivering the policies. The current delivery model, the Carbon Emissions
Reduction Target (CERT) has seen energy suppliers under an obligation set by the
Government to achieve certain emissions reductions (DECC 2009a). However,
beyond this a more coordinated, community-based approach is used, working
door-to-door and street-to-street to cover the needs of the whole house. The
proposed new Community Energy Savings Programme (CESP), to be launched
this year, will be a pilot for this more coordinated approach (DECC 2009b).
In the meantime, the following policy drivers continue to target energy use in
UK homes (CLG 2006). The Government already has a legal obligation to ensure
that people are not living in fuel poverty1 by 2016, which is caused by a combination of poorly insulated, energy inefficient housing and low incomes. There
were 3.5 million households in fuel poverty in 2006 and this figure increased to
5.5 million in 2009 (DECC,2011; Fuel Poverty Advisory Group 2008). Clearly,
cutting CO2 emissions through energy efficiency in UK homes can help in
tackling fuel poverty, a long-standing problem for vulnerable groups in UK
especially the elderly.
t Decent Homes: The Governments aim is to make all council and housing association housing decent by 2010 by improving the condition of an existing
home to one that is warm, weatherproof and with reasonably modern facilities. It is not intended specifically to improve energy efficiency but, by including a thermal comfort criterion, it is expected to have a significant effect on the
energy performance of those homes. In 2006, 37% of all housing was defined
as non-decent according to current standards (Foresight 2008).
t Warm Front: Governments main grant-funded programme for tackling fuel
poverty, launched in June 2000. The scheme fits packages of measures including insulation and heating systems. Grants of up to 2,700 are offered for families and the disabled and a grant of up to 4,000 where the work approved is
1A household is in fuel poverty if in order to maintain a satisfactory heating regime it would be required to spend more
than 10% of its income (including Housing Benefit or Income Support for Mortgage Interest) on all household fuel use.
86
installation of an oil-fired central heating system. Carbon emission reductions

under Warm Front and other fuel poverty programmes are expected to be
0.4MtC a year by 2010;
t Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) which are required on sale or rent
of buildings. They give potential buyers/tenants information on the current
performance of a house and its cost-effective potential, setting out the costeffective measures relevant to the property;
t Building Regulations: If building work is being carried out on existing buildings, building regulations are likely to apply. This covers work from building
an extension to replacing windows or the boiler. Part L of the building regulations sets standards related to the conservation of fuel and power.
The key policy affecting energy and CO2 performance of non-domestic
buildings is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), part of
European legislation that all member states must adopt. Measures set out by the
Directive include the following (CLG 2008c):
t Introducing energy performance certificates (EPCs);
t Requiring public buildings to display energy certificates (DECs); and
t Requiring inspections for air conditioning systems.
Under the Directive, since October 2008 all buildings homes, commercial
and public buildings when sold, built or rented require an Energy Performance
Certificate (EPC). The certificate provides energy efficiency ratings on a scale from
A to G and recommendations for improvement. The ratings are standard, so that
energy efficiency can easily be compared across different buildings of similar type
(CLG 2008c). Since October 2008 Display Energy Certificates (DECs) are also
required for larger public buildings over 1000m2, so that everyone can see how
efficiently public buildings are using their energy. It is widely known that there
is a gap between buildings energy performance by design (EPCs) and how they
actually operate (DECs). Therefore, both EPCs and DECs are needed in order to
have a holistic picture of a buildings energy performance (CLG 2008b).
On 19 May 2010, a recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive
was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union
in order to strengthen the energy performance requirements and to clarify and
streamline some of the provisions from the 2002 Directive it replaces. One of the
main highlights of the Recast EPBD for existing buildings is that member states
shall develop policies and take measures (such as targets) in order to stimulate the
transformation of buildings that are refurbished into very low energy buildings
(European Commission, 2010).
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87
2.2 Existing Building Sector in the USA
Energy use in the United States (US) rose by almost 50% from 1970 to 2007.
This growth has come through oil, coal and nuclear energy, although the contribution of gas has not changed much (EIA 2008b). Oil was the largest source of
energy in 1970 and still is. Renewable energy provided 6% of energy needs in
both 1970 and 2005. The decreasing importance of natural gas and the increasing
use of coal in the energy mix (especially for electricity generation) is one of the
factors underlying the increasing CO2 emissions (Hillman et al. 2007). This is in
marked contrast to the UK, where the use of coal, especially in power stations, has
dropped sharply and its replacement with natural gas has consequently reduced
CO2 emissions. Changes in the proportion of total (final) energy used by different
sectors of the economy since 1970 are shown in Figure 10. Although energy use
by industry has become less important, commercial energy use has risen by more
than half and residential energy use has gone up by a sixth (EIA 2008b).
FIGURE 10
Changes in the Proportion of Final Energy Demand by End-Use Sector
from 1949 to 2007.
Source: EIA 2008b
Data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) distributes

the various elements of the building sector into several sectors, i.e. industry,
commercial, residential, transportation and so on. The proportion of final energy
demand by the different sectors in 2007 was:
t Residential:
21%
t Commercial:
18%
t Transportation:
29%
t Industrial:
32%
88
To determine the real energy impact of buildings, Architecture 2030 has combined
these various elements into a single sector called Buildings (Mazria and Kershner
2008; Mazria and Kershner 2009)2. Using data drawn from the EIA, it is seen that
buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all energy consumption and GHG
emissions annually; globally the percentage is even greater. Seventy-six percent (76%)
of all power plant-generated electricity is used just to operate buildings. The annual
embodied energy of building materials and the energy used to construct buildings
is estimated at 1.146 MBtu/sf of building for new construction and half of this for
renovation. Residential, commercial and industrial building operations consume
76% of total US electricity generation (Mazria and Kershner 2008).
When building-related energy use (residential, commercial and industry
building use) is split by end use, it is seen that space heating and space cooling are
the major energy requirements (Table 1). However lighting becomes as significant
as space heating when CO2 emissions by end-use are presented, since electricity
has a large CO2 emission factor than gas which is typically used for space heating
(National Energy Technology Laboratory 2008).
TABLE 1
Primary Energy and CO2 Emissions in the US Building Stock
Residential
End Use
Commercial
Total Building Stock
Primary
Energy %
CO2
Emissions
%
Primary
Energy %
CO2
Emissions
%
Primary
Energy %
CO2
Emissions
%
26.4
26
12
12
19.8
20
Space cooling
13
13
13
12
17.7
13
Water heating
12.5
12
9.6
Lighting
11.6
12
25
25
7.8
19
Cooking
4.7
3.3
Wet clean
6.2
3.4
Refrigeration
7.2
5.8
Electronics
8.1
2.8
Computers
1.0
2.3
Other
3.6
13
13
8.5
Adjust to SEDS
5.7
6.3
12.7
Space heating
Ventilation
2To create a US Building Sector percentage for the year 2000, the Residential buildings (operations) sector (20.4
QBtu), Commercial buildings (operations) sector (17.2 QBtu), Industrial sector - buildings operations (2.0 QBtu)
and the Industrial sector annual building construction and materials embodied energy estimate (8.57 QBtu)
were combined. Total annual 2000 Building Sector consumption was 48.17 QBtu and the total annual 2000 US
Energy consumption was 99.38 QBtu. (Source: US Energy Information Administration annual energy review)
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89
2.2.1 Residential Sector
Overall energy use in the residential sector has increased since 1970. Currently,
the residential sector in the U.S. uses approximately 21 EJ (20 Quads) of site energy
per year; this amounts to approximately 21% of all energy use in the nation (Parker
2009). In 2006, the residential sector consumed 37% of all electricity produced in
the United States, making it the largest consuming sector of electricity (National
Energy Technology Laboratory 2008). Average annual energy expenditures per
household have increased by 20 percent from 1990. For every 1kWh used in
the residential sector, another 2.18 kWh is needed to produce and deliver the
electricity. The average price of electricity for residential consumers in 2006 was
10.4 cents per kWh (National Energy Technology Laboratory 2008).
Despite technological improvements in refrigerator, furnace efficiency and
energy codes improving insulation, many American lifestyle changes have put
higher demands on heating and cooling resources. The two-person household
in a large home has become more common, as has central air conditioning:
23% of households had central air conditioning in 1978 while that figure rose
to 55% by 2001. Also, miscellaneous electric end-uses in households since 2000
has been rapidly expanding, largely offsetting efficiency gains in the conventional
end-uses of heating, cooling and water heating. Electricity is expected to be the
fast growing site energy source for residential consumers averaging a 1% growth
rate from 2006 to 2030. On-site renewable energy accounted for approximately
3% of all energy consumed in the residential sector. The majority of this energy
was derived from wood combustion and was used for space heating.
Both the number and size of households influence total energy consumption
in the residential sector. In spite of a fall in energy use in an average household,
the strong increases in population and household numbers have resulted in a
sector-wide increase. The US population has grown considerably and consistently over time: in 1970, the total was just over 200 million and it is shortly to hit
300 million (Hillman et al. 2007). The 1990 to 2000 population increase of 32.7
million at 13% towered over the average of 2.5% for other developed countries.
In 2006, there were approximately 113 million households in the US and by 2030,
there are expected to be 141 million households (National Energy Technology
Laboratory 2008). At the same time, the average size of homes built in the United
States has increased significantly, from 139m2 in 1970 to 214m2 in 2005 (Parker
2009). Recent electricity shortages in California, growing U.S. dependence on
foreign energy supplies with highly volatile oil prices and the greatly expanding
threat of global warming underscore the critical need to address the efficiency of
US homes. Since the twin energy crisis of the 1970s, first passive solar, followed
by super insulation have provided increasingly refined means to improve the
energy performance of existing housing.
90
2.2.2
Commercial Building Sector
The following pieces of information give some insight into general trends in the
commercial sector (National Energy Technology Laboratory 2008):
t Floor space devoted to commercial activity totalled 74.8 billion square feet in
2006. Commercial floor space is expected to reach 100.8 billion square feet by
2030.
t In 2006, lighting used 24.8% of primary energy attributed to the commercial
sector and produced 25% of CO2 emissions. This is approximately twice the
energy used and emissions produced by space cooling.
t Lighting accounts for 42% of a commercial buildings cooling load.
t In 2003, the most energy-intensive buildings were those related to food sales
using 535.5 thousand Btu per square foot. The building type with the lowest
energy intensity (excluding vacant buildings) was religious worship buildings
using 77.0 Btu per square foot.
t Electricity accounted for 74% of all energy expenditures in the commercial
sector. About 80% of all CO2 attributed to the commercial sector comes from
electricity consumption.
t The average price of electricity for a commercial consumer in 2006 was 9.5
cents per kWh.
t In 2003, buildings devoted to office space consumed 19% of primary energy
attributable to commercial buildings, the most of any building type.
2.2.3
Programmes for Achieving CO2 Reductions from Existing Building Stock
According to Mazria and Kershner (2008, 2009), the total US building stock equals
approximately 300 billion square feet, of which approximately 1.75 billion square
feet of buildings is pulled down, 5 billion square feet renovated and 5 billion square
feet built annually. This means by 2035, approximately three-quarters (75%) of the
built environment will be either new or renovated. Clearly, this transformation
over the next 30 years represents a huge opportunity, and immediate action in the
building sector is essential if we are to avoid hazardous climate change. To accomplish this, Architecture 2030 issued the 2030 Challenge calling for all new buildings and renovations to be designed so as to reduce their fossil-fuel, greenhousegas-emitting (CO2) energy consumption by 30% below that required by the latest
IECC 2006 and ASHRAE 90.1-2004 code standards, incrementally increasing the
reductions to carbon neutral by 2030. Apart from improving the fossil-fuel reduction standard of new buildings incrementally every 5 years, 2030 Challenge calls
for an equal amount of existing building area to be renovated annually to meet a
CHAPTER 3
91
GHG-emitting, energy consumption performance standard of 50% of the regional

(or country) average for that building type (Mazria and Kershner 2008).
In addition, there are a range of programs and organizations that are working
to increase the energy efficiency of existing buildings in the US, as follows:
t Building America is a ten-year-old industry-driven research program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The program has produced new
homes on a community scale that use on average 40% to 100% less source
energy. The program also increases the energy efficiency of existing homes by
20-30% (DoE 2004). Lessons learned by one builder are rapidly shared with
other builders throughout the Building America community leading to improved building performance at no added cost.
t The ENERGY STAR program was established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992 for energy-efficient computers. The ENERGY
STAR program works with manufacturers to promote existing energy-efficient products and develop new ones. Manufacturers can affix an easily visible
label to products that meet Energy Star minimum standards (EPA 2003). The
program has been a success and extended to include numerous other electrical appliances such as refrigerators, TVs etc. as well as buildings.
t The ENERGY STAR Building Program is the most widely used building energy
label for existing buildings in the U.S. Developed by the EPA, it makes the
energy performance rating available to users through password-protected accounts in a web-based tool called Portfolio Manager.
2.3 Existing Building Sector in India
India has emerged, both economically and politically, as one of the key global
players. It is already the worlds third largest economy growing recently at an
average of 8.5% a year, and currently ranks sixth in the world in terms of primary
energy demand. Its population has increased from 560 million in 1971 to 1,150
million in 2009, and is expected to be the worlds most populous country by 2035
(Planning Commission 2005). The economy is shifting towards services located
in urban centres with a growing upwardly mobile middle class. The construction
industry in India is growing annually at a rate of 9.2% compared to the global
average of 5.5%. It is predicted that by 2020 about 40% of Indias population will
be living in cities, as against 28% today (McNeil et al. 2008).
As a result of the growing economy and rapid urbanization, India has been
witnessing continued growth in energy consumption. This trend has already
begun to strain the power sector with energy shortages. The Central Electricity
Authority (CEA) has estimated that the country is currently facing electricity
shortage of 9.9% and peak demand shortage of 16.6% (CEA 2009). There are
92
varied energy consumption patterns in different zones in India. The economically prosperous states of Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra, etc., show a high-energy
consumption pattern. Per capita electricity consumption stood highest in Punjab
(861kWh), followed by Gujarat (724 kWh) and Maharashtra (594kWh) against
the national average of 360kWh (Statistical Abstract 2001). The poor regions of
the Northeast, on the other hand, have a very low consumption of energy ranging
between 75 and 185kWh, much lower than the national average.
The building sector in India is currently the second largest consumer of energy,
and building energy use is increasing by over 9% annually, which greatly outpaces
the national energy growth rate of 4.3% (USAID and LBNL 2006). Figure 11 shows
the electricity consumption of various sectors in India (CEA, 2009).
FIGURE 11
Electricity Consumption by Sector in India
Source: CEA 2009
Since the building sector (domestic and commercial) accounts for approximately 33% of electricity consumption and is the fastest growing sector, it is
critical that policies and measures are put in place to improve energy efficiency
in both new construction as well as existing buildings. In fact it is estimated
that 70% of building stock in the year 2030 is yet to come up in the country - a
situation that is fundamentally different from developed countries such as the
UK and US (Kumar et al. 2010).
2.3.1
Residential Building Sector
Residential energy consumption (excluding traditional biomass) per capita rose

the fastest in India, compared to China and the US (CMIE 2001; Reddy and
Balachandra 2006). A switch from traditional biomass to modern fuels, and the
increased use of modern fuels by an expanding urban population are driving
factors behind this increase (Planning Commission 2005).
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93
In developing countries such as India, it is important to divide households into

rural and urban locales due to the different energy consumption patterns found
in these locations. Disparities in household energy use exist between rural and
urban populations and also between high- and low-income groups. In rural areas,
traditional fuels, such as fuelwood, charcoal and agricultural waste, constitute
a major portion of total household energy consumption, while in urban areas
households use kerosene, electricity and LPG (Reddy and Balachandra 2006).
According to analysis by LBNL, electricity consumption per urban household
will increase from 908kWh in 2000 to 2972kWh in 2020 (LBNL 2009).
The type of end uses for energy consumption in urban residential buildings
is shown in Figure 12. Lighting accounts for 28% and air conditioning for 7% of
the total electricity consumed in the sector. Approximately 13% of the electricity
consumed is in refrigerators.
FIGURE 12
Energy Consumption in the Indian Residential Sector, 116 Billion Units
Source: Bureau of Energy Efciency 2006b
Energy use for air conditioning is a growing concern, as the rising middle class
in India is in the process of making the transition into an energy-intensive way of
life. Their new lifestyle aspiration for air conditioned comfort, being met readily
by what is now on offer off the shelf from the air conditioning industry, will
become the largest cause of and contributor to increased energy consumption.
The challenge and the opportunity of this transitional situation is to find those
alternatives to meet legitimate aspirations for better comfort that are inherently
less capital intensive as well as less energy intensive.
94
2.3.2
Commercial Building Sector
Electricity is a major energy form used in the commercial sector in India.

Electricity use in this sector has been growing at about 11-12% annually, which is
much faster than the average electricity growth rate of about 5-6% in the economy
(Bureau of Energy Efficiency 2006b). Approximately 60% of electricity used in
the commercial sector is consumed in lighting and 32% in space conditioning
(as opposed to 7% in residential) (Bureau of Energy Efficiency 2006b). In other
words, in the case of commercial buildings the threshold into air conditioning
dependency has already been crossed and it would be very difficult to reverse the
trend. Whereas in the case of residential buildings there is still the opportunity
and potential of prevention (Lall 2008).
When this large urbanizing population crosses the threshold into a culture
of air conditioned comfort in the home the impact on energy consumption will
be severe. As one shifts from circulating fans and evaporative coolers to an air
conditioner, the peak demand of electricity increases by six to ten times per unit
of conditioned space an increase of about 90 watts per square meter of conditioned space (Lall 2008).
This is even more important since it is estimated that while the building sector
as a whole is poised to grow at a rate of 6.6% annually up to 2030, the commercial
sector is currently growing at a rate of 9% per year. A recent study by McKinsey
(2009) has estimated that by 2030 the built-up area is projected to increase from
one billion square meters to four billion square meters for the commercial sector
and from eight billion square meters to 37 billion square meters for the residential
sector. Notably, 50% of the new construction is taking place in the public sector,
which offers the Government a tremendous opportunity to lead by example in
adopting energy-efficient practices.
2.3.3
Programmes for Improving Energy Efciency in the Indian Building Stock
Building Energy Efficiency is emerging as a priority area for the Government of

India considering the growth that is taking place in the Indian building sector.
Not only will it help in the governments climate change mitigation efforts, but it
will also help reduce the widening gap between the supply and demand of power.
In a major impetus to institutionalize energy efficiency in the country, the
Government of India enacted the Energy Conservation Act in 2001. Under this
Act, the government established the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in March
2002, as a statutory authority under the Ministry of Power (MoP). The BEEs
role is to enact and enforce energy efficiency policies through various regulatory
and promotional measures. BEE estimates the potential for energy saving in
the domestic/commercial building sector to be at least 20% (Bureau of Energy
Efficiency 2006b). In conventional Indian buildings, energy consumption is
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95
200kWh/m2/year, which can be reduced to 120kWh/m2/year by applications of

energy efficient building techniques. BEE also developed an energy efficiency
Action Plan which focused on various thrust areas which include Energy
Efficiency in Commercial Buildings, Energy Conservation Building Code
(ECBC), Energy Managers and Energy Auditors Certification Program, and
others. These are discussed briefly as follows:
Energy Audit of Existing Buildings
BEE launched its first energy efficiency programme for existing buildings in 2002.
Sample studies conducted in a few selected government buildings in Delhi under
the programme, have identified energy savings potential of about 30% on average.
In the following phase, 17 more buildings in Delhi have been audited. Similar initiatives are being considered for public and private buildings in the states, by the
authorities as well as the building owners (USAID ECO-III project 2008a).
2003 Electricity Act
The Indian Parliament also passed the Electricity Act in 2003. It consolidated laws
related to generation, transmission, distribution, trade and use of electricity (USAID
and LBNL 2006). The Act also mandated the creation of regulatory commissions
at the central, regional and state levels. As a consequence, the electric utility system
is being unbundled, tariffs are being rationalized, and regulatory commissions
are playing an active role in enforcement of bill collection and the promotion of
DSM programs in some of the larger states. Under orders from the Maharashtra
Electricity Regulatory Commission, for instance, utility companies in Maharashtra
have initiated a lighting efficiency program in the residential sector, and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company has initiated a similar program in Karnataka state.
Confederation of Indian Industry
Indian industry associations have played an important role in promoting energy
efficiency. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) are engaged in capacity building
through the organization of training programs, workshops, conferences, exhibitions, poster displays, awards, and field visits.
t The Indian Green Business Centre is an example of an institution created by
an industry association; CII jointly with the Andhra Pradesh government and
with technical support from USAID set it up as a public private partnership.
Its building has acquired the LEED platinum rating.
t Private ESCOs have mobilized and recently set up the Indian Council for Energy
Efficiency Business (ICPEEB) to network, provide input to policy-makers, support business development, and disseminate information on energy efficiency.
96
USAIDs Energy Conservation and Commercialization (ECO)

This program has a long history of association with BEE, starting with development of ECBC and continuing with the implementation under the third phase
of the ECO program (ECO-III). BEE, USAID, and Asia-Pacific Partnership are
actively collaborating under the ECO-III project to help with implementation
of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) (Kumar et al. 2010; USAID
ECO-III project 2008c), through the following activities:
t Development of State Level Energy Conservation Action Plans;
t Assisting BEE in building the capacity of practising architects, building designers, energy auditors/consultants, State Designated Agencies and Municipalities to facilitate ECBC implementation;
t Promoting technical assistance to enhance energy efficiency in existing buildings and municipalities, and developing a framework of energy benchmarks
for commercial buildings in India;
t Promoting energy efficiency in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);
t Developing the Energy Efficiency Think Tank to enrich and facilitate energy
efficiency policies and programs with active involvement of industry and other stakeholders;
t Promoting Demand side management (DSM) and Energy Conservation (EC) programs: Developing the Utility/Electricity Regulator driven DSM and EC Programs;
t Establishment of Regional Energy Efficiency Centers to promote energy efficiency
in commercial buildings, domestic appliances, and industrial furnaces in SMEs;
t Building the capacity of architectural institutions and students in the field of
Building Science and Energy Modeling, as a long-term strategy; and
t Promoting the transfer of energy efficiency experiences, knowledge and best
practices between the US and India.
3. MEASURING ENERGY USE IN, AND CO2 EMISSIONS

FROM, EXISTING BUILDINGS IN THE UK, USA AND INDIA
A wide range of tools and checklists are available to measure energy use in buildings and improve their energy efficiency while also addressing wider sustainability issues. These can be used at various stages of building design, construction
and operation to evaluate if targets are being met, or if they need to be reassessed
or redefined.
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97
3.1 Methodology and Outputs for Energy Measurement
Energy assessment tools can be classified based on two main approaches

predicted (simulated) data and actual (metered) energy consumption.
Energy prediction based on modeling is used to predict energy consumption or
carbon emissions using energy models. Models or simulation tools vary in their
scope and outputs but on the whole, allow designers to (USAID ECO-III project
2008b):
t Consider the building as a single integrated system;
t Predict thermal behavior of buildings in relation to their outdoor environment;
t Envisage the impact of daylight and artificial light inside the building;
t Model the impact of wind pattern and ventilation and assess their effect on
energy use;
t Estimate the size/capacity of equipment required for thermal and visual comfort;
t Calculate the effect of various building components on one another and predict resulting conditions and their impact on energy use;
t Assess changes in energy consumption through sensitivity analysis with respect to design changes affecting building geometry, materials, components,
systems, etc.
Energy prediction tools can be further subdivided into three categories:
simulation models, correlation tools and scorecard rating tools (Gupta and
Chandiwala 2007).
I.
Simulation models are computer programs that are used to generate a performance prediction from calculations. A modeled scenario is simulated against
pre-recorded data typically relating to materials, equipment and climate
in order to establish the likely performance and determine the efficiency of a
design, for example, BREDEM for domestic buildings in the UK, EnergyPlus
in the USA etc.
II. Simplified energy models or correlation tools, often referred to as performance-based tools, usually measure a particular element such as energy
efficiency or thermal comfort and focus on providing a quick evaluation of
a proposed design in the form of a simple indicator. These tools have often
been derived from multiple results generated by simulation models, such as
SAP for domestic buildings in the UK.
98
III. Scorecard rating tools provide an assessment where performance is measured

through a point-scoring system. Points are achieved by meeting established
criteria and the level of compliance determines the performance outcome.
Scorecard programs are effectively checklists which focus on a holistic
approach and outline intent and requirements. In addition, they also have
the potential to incorporate possible design solutions by listing suggested
methods to achieve the desired result. Various categories are often weighted
depending on perceived importance and local requirements, and the total
points are calculated to give a final rating eg. LEED, BREEAM, TERI-Griha.
Energy auditing is the second approach which involves collecting actual
(metered) energy data for a representative sample of the building stock. Actual
energy consumption data will generally be available in quite different forms from
that which comes out of design models in general. For a building or premises,
actual data is generally only known by fuel. End-uses (heating, cooling, appliances etc) will not be known unless they are specifically sub-metered (CLG and
UKGBC 2007). Usually, measuring energy consumption of dwellings is much
simpler than that of non-domestic buildings. There are no building services
involved, occupancy patterns are similar from dwelling to dwelling, and homes
come in broadly similar built forms. By contrast, non-domestic buildings come
in all shapes and sizes, they have a range of building services some of them are
complex and require careful commissioning and management, and occupancy
patterns are varied (All Party Urban Development Group 2007).
Both energy prediction and actual energy measurement approaches can lead
to three types of outputs, namely: benchmarking, rating systems and energy
labeling (Perez-Lombard et al. 2009), depending on the nature and purpose of
the expected output.
Energy benchmarking refers to a comparison of an Energy Performance Index
(EPI) for a range of building types and sizes. Commonly used EPI are energy
use per unit area of the building. EPIs can also be based on energy use per
occupant, or per bed space in case of dwellings (Perez-Lombard et al. 2009).
The benchmarking process generally comprises energy auditing (although it
can be combined with prediction tools sometimes) by measuring energy use in
existing buildings to create a database of a significant number of buildings. The
number of parameters that data is collected for varies widely from one country to
another. Benchmarks are generally classified as typical and good practice values
and adjusted for climate and sometimes occupancy-related variations so as to
be applicable for comparison for a substantial number of buildings. Individual
buildings can then be compared to these benchmarks to evaluate their relative
energy performance. Benchmarks are an important tool for any country and
CHAPTER 3
99
generally the first step in energy management strategies, as they provide information about baseline typical energy use in different building types. Benchmarking
is described in detail in the next section.
Energy rating systems may be defined as a method for assessing energy quality
(Perez-Lombard et al. 2009). Unlike benchmarks, which compare the building
performance to national or regional typical/good practice energy use, energy
rating systems provide a definitive value of energy performance against a
pre-defined target to provide a rating. For existing buildings, rating systems
generally are based on auditing of operational energy use. For new buildings,
rating systems include initial predictive energy modeling for new buildings and
may be followed by a process of measuring energy while in use. Energy ratings
can be further classified into standard ratings for common building types within
typical use and climate conditions or bespoke ratings designed individually for a
particular building to take into account its specific requirements.
Energy labeling was commonly applied initially to consumer electronic devices
and lamps as a means to inform consumers about their choices and promote
energy efficiency. This concept has been further extended to include buildings, to
allow users to understand and compare energy use of building types by providing
it a label. Labeling systems generally employ a scale of energy use, classifying
energy use into performance bands or ranges which can be represented graphically. For ease of understanding, the scale may be a numeric measure such as
1-100 or is sometimes represented with letters of the alphabet. Mostly, the label
is also accompanied by detailed energy use information such as energy use per
unit area etc. There are sometimes overlaps in use within the energy rating and
labeling systems, with some tools employing more than one method of measuring
and representing energy use.
Based on the discussions above, the following sections describe the tools,
approaches and methodologies for measuring building energy use in the UK,
USA and India. Not all of these tools or measures are directly comparable for
aims and/or the methodology deployed across each of the case study countries.
3.2 Comparison of Building Energy Use in the UK, USA and India
Table 2 shows the energy use indicators for domestic and non-domestic buildings. For domestic buildings, the energy use per unit area is higher in the UK
than in the USA, while the energy per household is much higher in the USA as
compared to UK. This is probably related to the difference in the average dwelling
size which is 87m2 in the UK and about 200m2 in the USA. Hence, in spite of
100
lesser energy per unit area, the USA uses more energy per household. Domestic
energy use-related data was not available for India. For non-domestic buildings,
the UK and USA both have a relatively similar energy use ranging from 262kWh/
m2/yr to 287.2kWh/m2/yr respectively. For India, this figure derived from some
recent energy audits is estimated to be around 189kWh/m2/yr.
TABLE 2
Building-Related (Domestic and Non-Domestic)
Energy Use in UK, USA and India
Criteria
National Benchmarking Databases
Individual Study Data
BERR
DOE
BEE, LBNL
Domestic
UK (2007)
USA (2005)
India
Total number of
households
26.142 million
111.10 million
232 million (73 million

urban and 159 million rural)
Energy use per unit area
228 kWh/m2/yr
138 kWh/m2/yr
Data unavailable
Energy use per household
19,851 kWh/house/yr
27,815 kWh/
house/yr
Electricity consumption
per urban household will
increase from 908kWh in
2000 to 2972kWh in 2020
Non-domestic*
UK (2005)
USA (2003)
India
Energy per unit area
262.1 kWh/m2/yr
287.2 kWh/m2/yr
189 kWh/m2/yr
*Figure for India is based on an average of recent audits of a representative sample of three types
of commercial buildings; ofces, hotels and hospitals.
3.3 Tools, Methodologies and Outputs

for Building Energy Measurement in the UK
Many databases and tools exist in the UK for building energy measurement. For
example, the recently established Department of Energy and Climate Change
maintains a database of UK energy-related statistics including data for energy
use in buildings, by sector and by end use. Table 3 presents some key tools for
energy measurement, including BREDEM, SAP, SBEM, BREEAM, and the Code
for Sustainable Homes.
CHAPTER 3
101
TABLE 3
Key Approaches for Assessing Predicted and Actual Energy Use from Buildings in UK
Tools -UK
Description
Units
Type of Output
Energy Prediction: Simulation Tools

BREDEM
Building Research
Establishment
Domestic Energy
Model
Estimates energy requirements in different

dwelling types including running cost,
calculating energy efciency savings in up
gradation of existing houses, and calculating
an energy rating for a dwelling.
Annual fuel use,

fuel costs and CO2
emissions
Rating system
Energy Prediction: Simplied Energy Models Or Co-Relation Tools

SAP
Standard Assessment
Procedure
National methodology for calculating the

energy performance of dwellings for building
regulations compliance for new and renovation of existing dwellings.
Energy cost rating

(the SAP rating from
1-100), Environmental
Impact rating based
on CO2 emissions
(the EI rating)
Rating system
Also used for Energy Performance Certication purposes i.e EPCs for new dwellings.
(For existing dwellings, it is accompanied
with an on-site evaluation by assessors)
Energy Efciency
Rating A-G
Labelling system
National methodology for calculating the

energy performance of dwellings for building
regulations compliance for new and renovation of existing non-domestic buildings.
Monthly energy use

and the buildings
carbon dioxide
emissions rate (BER)
Rating system
Also used for Energy Performance

Certication purposes i.e EPCs for NEW
non-domestic buildings. (For existing
buildings, it is accompanied with an on-site
evaluation by assessors)
Energy Efciency
Rating A-G
Labelling system
Simplied model based on BREDEM
SBEM
Simplied Building
Energy Model
Environmental Impact
(CO2) Rating A-G
(CO2) Rating A-G
Energy Prediction: Scorecard Rating Tools

Rating of level 1 - 6,
Building Research
Establishment
Voluntary rating system for new dwellings

based on performance in nine environmental
categories. The code assigns one of the six
predened energy performance levels to a
new dwelling
BREEAM
Building Research
Establishment
Environmental
Assessment Method
Voluntary scheme for environmental rating of

building designs of non-domestic buildings.
Standard BREEAM types exist for common
buildings such as schools, ofces etc.
Bespoke BREEAM for other buildings
Pass, good, very

good and an
excellent rating
Code for Sustainable

Homes (CSH)
Rating system
Level 6 being the

most efcient zero
carbon target
Rating system
Actual Energy Measurement Tools

Display Energy
Certicates (DEC)
European Energy Performance Building

Directive requires Display Energy Certicates
required since October 2008.
It is based on metered energy data for larger
public buildings.
Energy Efciency
Rating A-G
(CO2) Rating A-G
Labelling system
102
Apart from the mandatory tools and compliance rating standards, the UK is at the
forefront of developing area-based methodologies for facilitating rapid and largescale retrofitting of buildings, especially dwellings. In this regard, DECoRuM
the Domestic Energy, Carbon-Counting and Carbon-Reduction Model was
developed as a GIS-based toolkit for carbon emissions reduction planning in
cities, with the capability to estimate current energy-related CO2 emissions from
existing UK dwellings, aggregating them at street, district, sub-urban, and city
levels. DECoRuM can evaluate the potential and financial costs for domestic
CO2 emissions reductions by deploying a whole range of best practice energy
efficiency measures, low carbon systems and renewable energy technologies.
Successful application of the model has been completed in Oxford and parts of
London (Gupta 2005a; 2005b; 2007; 2008). More information about the model
and its methodological approach is available from www.decorum-model.org.uk.
3.4 Tools, Methodologies and Outputs

for Building Energy Measurement in the USA
The Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) are key government departments for all building energy-related policies
in the USA. DOE carries out a periodic national sample survey of commercial
(Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, CBECS) and residential
(Residential Energy Consumption Survey, RECS) buildings. This database is used
to benchmark energy use indicators for different building types, and provides
information on energy use, cost and other energy related building characteristics
(discussed in detail in the next section).
For common commercial building types, the CBECS dataset is linked to
the Target Finder worksheets to set energy targets and rate a building designs
estimated energy use based on building type and climate. For existing commercial
buildings, the Portfolio Manager tool allows online management of buildings
operational energy performance data and provides ratings based on comparison
with the CBECS database. Table 4 presents some of the key tools for energy
measurement, including Energy plus, Energy Star and LEED.
CHAPTER 3
103
TABLE 4
Key Approaches for Assessing Predicted and Actual Energy Use
from Buildings in the USA
Tools -USA
Description
Units
Type of Output
Energy Prediction: Simulation Tools

Energy Plus
Whole building energy analysis including

heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating, and
other energy ows as well as water of
building types based on different climatic
zones
Energy
performance
Rating system
Energy Prediction: Simplied Energy Models Or Co-Relation Tools

Target nder/
Energy performance rating system for design

projects and major building renovations of
common commercial buildings based on
building type and location. It is linked to the
energy database of CBECS.
Energy use
(btu/sq. ft)
Energy star
(Residential buildings)
Environment Protection Agency (EPA)
and Department of
Energy (DOE)
The energy performance of new and existing

commercial facilities is compared to the
CBECS database via the target nder and
portfolio manager. Buildings achieving a
score of 75 or higher are awarded the Energy
Star, indicating that they are among the top
25% of facilities in the country for energy
performance.
Energy star label
Energy star
(Residential buildings)
Environment
Protection Agency
(EPA) and
Department of
Energy (DOE)
New dwellings which incorporate EPA

guidelines for energy efcient details and
specications, qualify for Designed to Earn
the Energy Star. It is followed by an independent onsite inspection by Home Energy
Rater, to verify that a dwelling is awarded
the Energy Star.
Energy star label
LEED
LEED is a third-party voluntary certication program and the nationally accepted

benchmark for the design, construction
and operation of high performance green
buildings.
Portfolio manager
Interactive energy management tool that

allows to track and assess energy and water
consumption across an entire portfolio of
buildings by setting targets, comparing
performance to those in the national CBECS
database, and rate buildings to receive an
EPA recognition for superior performance.
Rating system
Water use
Labelling system
Buildings rated
on
a scale of 1-100
Labelling system
Buildings rated
on
a scale of 1-100
Energy Prediction: Scorecard Rating Tools

4 Levels
Certied, silver,
gold, platinum
Rating system
Actual Energy Measurement Tools

Energy use
(btu/sq. ft)
Water use
Linked to energy
star rating.
Rating system
104
3.5 Tools, Methodologies and Outputs for Building Energy

Measurement In India
Energy measurement in the building sector is at an emerging stage in India,

compared to the USA and the UK. In order to accelerate energy effi
efficiency
ciency activities in commercial buildings, BEE has developed a scheme for star rating of buildings, based on actual performance of the building, called the Energy Performance
Index (EPI). EPI is expressed in terms of kWh/sq.m/year, and measured in terms
of purchased & generated electricity divided by built up area in square meters.
However the total electricity does not include electricity generated from on-site
renewable sources such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines etc.
3.6 Comparative Evaluation of Building Energy and Environmental

Rating Systems
Commonly-used voluntary rating systems for green buildings in the domestic

and the non-domestic sector in all three case study countries vary in their
scope of evaluation, ranging from new builds and major renovations to evaluating buildings while in use for their operation and maintenance.
In the UK, voluntary rating systems have been primarily formulated
and certified by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). The two main
TABLE 5
Comparison of Key Voluntary Rating Systems for Green
Buildings in UK, USA and India
Voluntary
Rating
System
New build/
refurbishment/ both
CSH UK
New build
residential only
(ECOHOMES
for existing
dwellings)
BREEAM UK
New build/ refurbishments of non-domestic buildings

BREEAM In Use for
occupied buildings.
LEED for
Homes USA
New homes
only
(LEED exists for
other building
types)
LEED
Commercial
Buildings
USA
TERI GRIHA
India
LEED
India
New build/refurbishments
Operations and
maintenance
for in use
buildings.
New domestic and

non-domestic
buildings
New
construction,
Core
and shell
Lead
agency
Government,
supported by
BRE and others
BRE
US Green Building Council
US Green
Building
Council
TERI the
Energy
Resource
Institute
Indian Green
Building
Council
Operational
since
Operational
since 2007,
Mandatory evaluation
of new houses
since may 2008
Operational for
homes and ofces
since 1990. Have
been revised and
new building types
added.
2007
Pilot in 1998,
rating system
since 2000.
November 2007,
launched later
in some parts
of India.
2007
CHAPTER 3
105
TABLE 5, continued
Voluntary
Rating
System
Stage
assessment
CSH UK
BREEAM UK
LEED for
Homes USA
LEED
Commercial
Buildings
USA
TERI GRIHA
India
Review at design
stage
Design stage assessment. Post construction review for new

buildings
in some
categories.
Operational energy
use assessment for
occupied
buildings.
Preliminary
rating at design
stage
Preliminary
rating at design
stage
Preliminary
rating at
design stage
Certication on
build completion
Certication on
build completion
Three stage
assessment by
Preliminary,
evaluation
and advisory
committees
Pass. Good, very

good, excellent or
outstanding rating.
4 grades certied, silver, gold,

platinum
4 grades
certied, silver,
gold, platinum
1-5 star
4 grades
certied,
silver, gold,
platinum
Certication on
build completion
Rating levels
1-6 star scoring

system
6 zero carbon
house
LEED
India
Certication
on build
completion
Parameters
considered
1. Energy/CO2
2. Water
3. (Minimum
standards at
each level)
4. Materials
5. Surface
water run-off
6. Waste
7. Pollution
8. Health and
well being
9. Management
and Ecology
1. Management
2. Health and
Wellbeing
3. Energy
4. Transport
5. Water
6. Material and
Waste
7. Landuse and
Ecology
8. Pollution
1. Location and
linkages
2. Sustainable
sites
3. Energy and
atmosphere
4. Materials and
resources
5. Water
efciency
6. Indoor environmental
quality
7. Homeowner
awareness
1. Sustainable
sites
2. Water
efciency
3. Energy and
atmosphere
4. Materials and
resources
5. Indoor
environmental quality
1. Site
selection
and site
planning
2. Building
planning
and construction
3. Building
operation
and maintenance
Areas
covered
U Conservation and
efcient
utilisation
of space
U Health and
well being
U Water use,
recycle
and reuse
U Energy
end use,
embodied,
renewable
1. Sustainable site
development
2. Water
savings
3. Energy
efciency
4. Materials
selection
5. Indoor
environmental
quality
6. Innovation
and design
process
Self rated
or rated by
independent
experts
Independent
assessors
Independent assessors
Performance
test and inspection by LEED for
homes
providers
Performance
test and
inspection by
LEED assessors
Evaluation
and advisory
committee
consisting
of self and
independent
assessments
Performance
test and
inspection by
LEED
assessors
Well
regarded
or known
standard
Aims to lead the

way for building
regulations revisions
Industry standard in
the UK
Industry standard in the USA
Industry
standard in the
USA
First rating
system
developed in
India.
Initial stages
of application
in India.
106
rating systems are BREEAM, BRE Environmental Assessment Method for

non-domestic buildings, and the recently launched Code for Sustainable
Homes (CSH) for new dwellings.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), is a Green Building
Rating System developed by the US Green Building Council. It is the nationally
accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance
green buildings and follows a whole building approach to environmental designs.
India is the latest country to develop its own green building rating systems.
Currently, two rating systems are available, both of which are in their nascent
stage of application:
t GRIHA Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment has been developed by the Energy Research Institute. It can be used to assess offices, retail
spaces, institutional buildings, hotels, hospital buildings, healthcare facilities,
residences, and multi-family high-rise buildings, and was first launched in
parts of the country in 2007. It is closely linked to the requirements of the
new Energy Conservation Building Code in India which is soon expected to
become a mandatory regulation for large commercial buildings.
t The second rating system, LEED-India has been developed by the Indian
Green Building Council. It has been adopted from the LEED-USA standard
and revised to suit Indian requirements. The LEED-India has been adopted
and modified from the US-LEED rating system by the IGBC and the Confederation of Indian Industries. Like the US rating system, it is a voluntary
standard in India and awards four rating types of Certified, Silver, Gold and
Platinum based on an assessment of six environmental categories.
Table 5 compares some essential information about all the above mentioned
rating tools.
CHAPTER 3
107
4. ENERGY/CO2 STANDARDS AND BENCHMARKS

FOR EXISTING BUILDINGS
Several organizations (governments, NGOs, trade organizations) are developing
energy and CO2 standards and benchmarks for existing buildings in the UK, US
and India, which are summarized in Table 6 (as shown below).
TABLE 6
List of Organisations Involved in Developing Energy/CO2
Standards for Existing Buildings in UK, USA and India
Organisations Developing Energy/CO2 Standards
for Existing Buildings in UK, USA and India
UK
USA
India
Building regulations Part

L CO2 emissions
requirements for new (or
extensions to existing)
buildings
Department of Energy,
Energy Information
Administration, and EPA's
Energy Star Benchmarking
programs
BEE's Star Rating EPI

benchmarking program
Chartered Institution of
Building Services Engineers
(CIBSE) - provides
benchmarks for both
Energy use and CO2
emissions for 29 categories
of buildings.
Residential Energy
Consumption Survey
(RECS)
Green Rating for Integrated

Habitat Assessment
(GRIHA)
Home Energy Efciency

Database (HEED)
Commercial Buildings
Energy Consumption
Survey (CBECS)
USAID ECOIII project to

audit and benchmark
energy use in commercial
buildings
Passiv Haus Institute

commonly used European
energy standard called
Passiv Haus
Architecture 2030 net zero

energy buildings (a common
goal endorsed by AIA,
ASHRAE, IESNA, USGBC,
DOE, and Target Finder)
Indian Green Building

Council LEED India
Association of Environment
Conscious Builders (AECB)
National Association of
Home Builders (NAHB)National Green Building
Standard
Energy Saving Trust (EST)
American Society of
Heating, Refrigerating and
Air conditioning Engineers
(ASHRAE) energy
standard for labelling
commercial buildings
108
Table 7 compares the operational energy use benchmarks for a range of

building types in the UK, USA and India. The US energy benchmarks have
been converted into kWh/m2 for ease of comparison between different building
types. Typical figures for buildings are given below. For India, energy (electricity
use) benchmark figures have recently become available for three building types
only, although work is ongoing to establish benchmarks for other building types
(Kumar et al. 2010).
TABLE 7
Benchmarks for Common Building Types in UK, USA and India
USA Average Site EUI
(EIA)
Building use
description
Education
School
UK Benchmarks
(CIBSE TM 46)
India
(USAID-ECO III)
Electricity
(kWh/m2/yr)
Fossil fuel
(kWh/m2/yr)
Electricity
(kWh/m2/yr)
Fossil fuel
(kWh/m2/yr)
Electricity
(kWh/m2/yr)
151
89
40
150
College/university
239
140
80
240
Food sales
610
99
Grocery store/ food

market
400
105
Convenience store
684
76
310
Food service
653
454
Restaurant/cafeteria
505
448
90
370
Fast food
1078
607
Health care: inpatient
337
380
90
420
Health care:
long term care
211
180
65
420
Health care
outpatient
166
64
Clinic
201
64
70
200
Lodging
167
107
Dormitory
60
300
Hotel, motel, inn
105
330
279
240
98
Hospital
Mall
Multi-speciality
hospitals: 378
Government
hospitals: 88
CHAPTER 3
109
TABLE 7, continued
USA Average Site EUI
(EIA)
UK Benchmarks
(CIBSE TM 46)
Ofce
95
120
Bank/nancial
institution
140
India
(USAID-ECO III)
180
One shift
buildings: 149
Three shift
buildings: 349
Public sector
buildings: 115
Private sector
buildings: 258
Public assembly
119
90
Entertainment/ culture
189
111
150
420
Library
194
135
70
200
Recreation
113
92
150
420
Social meeting
94
71
70
200
Public order and

safety
162
122
Fire/police station
138
108
70
390
Service (vehicle
repair, service,
postal service)
153
90
35
180
Storage/ shipping/
non-refrigerated
warehouse
44
35
35
160
145
80
Religious worship
75
70
20
105
Retail (non-mall
stores, vehicle
dealerships)
173
85
165
Others
184
144
Refrigerated
warehouse
*For USA, these benchmarks can be found via the target nder.
110
5. POTENTIAL FOR REDUCING CO2 EMISSIONS FROM

EXISTING BUILDINGS: REVIEW OF STRATEGIES IN UK,
USA AND INDIA
5.1 Overview of Strategies for Reducing CO2 Emissions
from Buildings
Based on a range of literature reviewed (All Party Urban Development Group

2007; ASHRAE, 2008; Boardman 2007a, 2007b; CL, 2006; Creyts et al. 2007;
EPA 2003; Lowe 2007; Majumda 2000; Mazria and Kershne 2008; Parke 2009;
Pout and MacKenzie 2005; Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007a, 2007b; USAID ECO-III
project 2008d), the key principles for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions
from existing buildings include:
t Reducing the demand for energy (heating, cooling, lighting or ventilation)
through a range of end-use energy efficiency measures, which address different end uses of energy in buildings as discussed in sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3;
t Providing the reduced demand through low carbon and/or zero carbon technologies;
t Decarbonizing the electricity supply. For instance, Lowe (2007) concludes that
an increase in the rate of decarbonization from the UK historical figure of just
over 1.5% per annum to just over 2% would be sufficient to reduce the carbon
intensity of UK electricity from its current value of around 0.55 kgCO2/kWh
to 0.2 kgCO2/kWh by 2050;
t Providing feedback on actual energy used in buildings through smart metering to empower building occupants to control and manage their energy use;
and
t Undertaking regular post-occupancy evaluation studies of completed refurbished projects to provide evidence-based lessons for the building community
and users.
To apply these principles of CO2 reduction, a whole building approach should
be deployed, by installing as many energy efficiency improvement measures
as possible and appropriate within a single home. Such an approach is being
promoted in the UK currently through government consultation (DECC 2009b).
Models such as DECoRuM, discussed above, can help in measuring, modeling,
mapping and reducing domestic CO2 emissions (Gupta 2005a, 2007).
Over the years, research on post-occupancy evaluation of buildings have
shown that there is a wide credibility gap between designed energy use versus
CHAPTER 3
111
actual energy consumption, due to (Bordass and Leaman 2005; Gupta 2005c;
Way and Bordass 2005):
t Little monitored information and feedback being available on building performance in use to those who procure and regulate buildings.
t Problems with design, specification, build quality, commissioning, handover,
operation, controls, usability, management and communication.
t More equipment, using more electricity in particular and often requiring yet
more equipment to cope with the consequences.
t Unmanageable complications as we throw more and more technologies into
buildings, when what we really need is to keep it simple and do it well.
A number of monitoring studies and modelling approaches have calculated
the savings associated by several measures taken singly, or in combination. For
example, in a carefully documented retrofit of four representative houses in
the York region of the UK, installation of new window and door wood frames,
sealing of suspended timber ground floors, and repair of defects in plaster
reduced the rate of air leakage by a factor of 2.5-3.0 (Bell and Lowe 2000). This
combined with improved insulation, doors, and windows, reduced the heating
energy required by an average of 35%. Bell and Lowe believe that a reduction of
50% could be achieved at modest cost using well-proven (early 1980s) technologies, and a further 30-40% reduction through additional measures. Similarly,
there are numerous published studies, summarized by Harvey (2006), showing
that energy savings of 50-75% can be achieved in US commercial buildings
through aggressive implementation of integrated sets of retrofit measures. In the
early 1990s, a utility in California sponsored a US$10 million demonstration of
advanced retrofits, whereby six retrofit projects achieved an energy savings of
50%, while in the seventh project, 45% energy savings was achieved.
Standard retrofit measures such as thermal envelope upgrades can be combined
with more radical measures that involve reconfiguring the building so that it can
make direct use of solar energy for heating, cooling, and ventilation. Task 20 of
the IEAs Solar Heating and Cooling (SHC) implementing agreement was devoted
to solar retrofitting techniques. Solar renovation measures that have been used
are installation of roof- or facade-integrated solar air collectors; roof-mounted or
integrated solar hot water heating; transpired solar air collectors; advanced glazing
of balconies; external transparent insulation; and construction of a second-skin
facade over the original facade. Energy savings of 40-70% have been achieved in
this way, as documented by Boonstra and Thijssen (1997) and Voss (2000).
Despite these monitoring studies of retrofits, there has been a general lack of
literature that quantifies the global potential for energy-efficiency improvements
112
in the worlds buildings. To fill this gap, an analysis was conducted in the context
of this study based on national and regional studies, which are more abundant
(Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007a, 2007b). Table 8 provides a summary of the estimates
of different types of CO2 mitigation potential in different world regions and
countries and it ranks the most promising options in terms of the size of potential
and its mitigation cost.
TABLE 8
CO2 Emissions Reduction Potential for the Building Stock in 2020
Economic
Region
Countries/Country
Groups Reviewed
for Region
Potential as a Percentage
of the National Baseline
for Buildings
Measures Covering
the Largest Potential
Measures Providing
the Cheapest Mitigation
Options
Developed
Countries
US, EU-15,
Canada, Greece,
New Zealand,
Australia, Republic
of Korea, UK,
Japan, Germany
Technical: 21-45%
Economic: 12-25%
Market: 15-37%
1. Shell retrot including

insulation especially
windows and walls
2. Space heating systems and standards
for them
3. Efcient lights, especially shift to CFLs
and efcient ballasts
1. Appliances such as
efcient televisions
and peripheries
(both on-mode and
standby), refrigerators
and freezers followed
by ventilators and
air-conditioners
2. Water heating
equipment
3. Lighting best
practices
Economies
in Transition
Hungary, Russia,
Poland, as a group:
Latvia - Lithuania Estonia, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Hungary,
Malta, Cyprus,
Poland, Czech
Republic
Technical: 26 - 47%
Economic: 13 - 37%
Market: 14%
1. Pre- and post- insulation and replacement

of building components, especially
windows
2. Efcient lighting, especially shift to CFLs
3. Efcient appliances
such as refrigerators
and water heaters
1. Efcient lighting and

its controls
2. Water and space
heating control
systems
3. Retrot and replacement of building components, especially
windows
Developing
Countries
India, Indonesia,
Argentina, Brazil,
China, Ecuador,
Thailand, Pakistan,
Middle East as a
group
Technical: 18-41%
Economic: 13-52%
Market: 23%
1. Efcient lights
especially shift to
CFLs, light retrot and
kerosene lamps
2. Various types of improved cook stoves,
especially biomass
stoves, followed by
LPG and kerosene
stoves
3. Efcient appliances
such as air-conditioners and refrigerators
1. Improved lights,
especially shift to
CFLs light retrot,
and efcient kerosene
lamps
2. Various types of improved cook stoves,
especially biomass
based, followed by
kerosene stoves
3. Efcient electric
appliances such as
refrigerators and airconditioners
Source: Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007a.
CHAPTER 3
113
According to Table 8, efficient lighting technologies are among the most

promising measures in buildings, in terms of both cost-effectiveness and size of
potential savings in almost all countries. In developing countries, efficient cooking
stoves rank second, while the second place measures differ in the industrialized
countries by climatic and geographic region. Almost all studies examining
economies in transition (EiT, which have typically cooler climates) have found
heating-related measures to be most cost-effective, including insulation of walls,
roofs, windows and floors, as well as improved heating controls for district heat.
In developed countries, appliance-related measures are typically identified as the
most cost-effective, with cooling-related equipment upgrades ranking high in the
warmer climates. Other measures that rank high in terms of savings potential are
solar water heating, efficient lighting, and efficient appliances, as well as building
energy management systems.
In addition to physical intervention, it is important to provide feedback on
energy use in buildings improved for CO2 reduction to enable occupants to
be part of the solution. Every low carbon refurbished building should have an
electricity and gas monitor to help building occupants understand exactly how
much energy they are using and CO2 they are producing. Smart meters are one
technology, which allow energy suppliers to communicate directly with their
customers, removing the need for meter readings and ensuring entirely accurate
bills with no estimates. Consumption information can be provided to domestic
customers through an integrated, in-home display. Among other potential
benefits, they could offer gas and electricity customers accurate bills and provide
information that could help them use less energy and encourage energy efficiency
(DECC 2009c).
Clearly, a successful strategy for improving the carbon performance of the
existing building stock in the developed and developing worlds will depend on the
participation of occupants/building owners, the source of funding (ideally coupled
with tax incentives) and the most effective technical solution. On completion of a
project to reduce CO2 emissions, extensive feedback consultation ensures that the
project aims have been met and that lessons are learnt for future projects.
5.2 Potential for Reducing CO2 Emissions from Buildings in the UK

5.2.1
Domestic Building Sector
In the UK, a range of studies over the last five years has established the feasibility of
reductions in excess of 60% or 80% by 2050 based on detailed technical scenarios
and models (Johnston 2003; Johnston et al. 2005). Most of the studies conclude
that CO2 emissions from UK housing may initially be reduced through improving
114
the thermal efficiency of the building fabric and improving the efficiency and
controls of boilers and heating. Further savings may be made through installing
efficient appliances, improving control of energy use, and reducing the carbon
content of energy sources by installing micro-generation technologies.
Bottom-up studies using the DECoRuM model on a local scale in Oxford,
covering 318 dwellings, indicate that technically CO2 emission reductions above
60% from the case study dwellings are possible, at a cost of between 6 to 77 per
tonne of CO2 emissions saved, depending upon the package of measures used,
and the scenario of capital costs (low or high) employed (Gupta 2007). Extrapolation of CO2 emission savings from the case study dwellings to the UK housing
stock, taking into account the different proportions of dwelling built forms in
the case study and UK housing stock, shows an overall potential for saving about
92MtCO2 or 25MtC per year, at a capital cost of 150 billion to 234 billion. This
is equivalent to a reduction of 66% of UK housing stock CO2 emissions in 2000
(Gupta 2007).
On a UK housing stock level, studies by the UK Government have estimated
the capital costs, CO2 savings, and payback period of a whole range of domestic
CO2 reduction measures (CLG 2006). The measures in Table 9 are ranked in order
of their cost effectiveness. This is measured by the length of financial payback
how many years it takes for the benefits in terms of energy bill savings to equal the
cost of installation. Cost effectiveness here is related purely to the energy efficiency
element of the measure. Cavity wall insulation currently offers the largest potential
carbon saving per dwelling and across the whole stock within a 3-year payback
period. Other cost effective measures generally offer lower carbon savings. Other
measures, such as micro Combined Heat and Power (CHP), solid wall insulation
and ground source heat pumps, have the potential to achieve relatively large
potential carbon savings. However, a high up-front installation cost means that
these have longer payback periods and, therefore, are not particularly cost-effective
for households without additional support or incentives.
CHAPTER 3
115
TABLE 9
Typical Measures for Reducing CO2 Emissions from UK Domestic Stock
(Potential savings are based on a typical 3-bed semi-detached property)
Measures
Average
Cost ()
Cost
Saved
(.yr)
Carbon
Saved
(kgC/yr)
Payback
(yrs)
Building fabric improvements
Potential Total
Carbon Saving
(MtC/yr)
10.6
Cavity wall insulation
342
133
242
2.6
2.1
Loft insulation (full

and top-up)
284
104
190
2.7
1.2
Draught proong
100
23
43
4.3
0.4
Solid wall insulation
3150
380
694
7.5
5.2
Windows (single to
double glazing)
4000
41
26
97.6
1.7
Improving heating system efciency and related controls
3.3
Hot water cylinder

insulation
14
29
53
0.5
0.1
Improved heating
controls
147
43
77
3.4
0.2
A rated boiler
1500
168
177
8.9
3.0
Micro CHP
1571
230
508
6.8
Micro wind
2363
224
263
10.5
Ground Source Heat

Pump
4725
368
990
12.8
16.8
Photovoltaic
electricity
9844
212
249
46.4
2.5
Solar water heating
2625
48
88
54.7
1.7
Micro generation
27.1
6.1
Source: CLG 2006.
5.2.1
Non-Domestic Building Sector
Studies by BRE (Pout 2000; Pout and MacKenzie 2005) consider a wide range
of energy efficiency measures, and for each one assess the potential carbon
savings and their cost-effectiveness based on discounted cash flow calculations to provide an indication of where the greatest carbon savings are likely
to be realised. The results indicate potential carbon savings around 20% of
the total non-domestic (commercial and public sector) carbon emissions
can be achieved cost-effectively, typically with lighting and heating upgrades.
116
Additional carbon savings could be made with greater use of alternative renewable and low carbon technologies such as PV and heat pumps. At current prices,
these measures are very rarely cost-effective.
A second study identified some key barriers related to the availability of information on energy consumption, the economic costs of retrofitting and coordination between owners and occupiers, and physical constraints that dictate what is
feasible in terms of retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient (All
Party Urban Development Group 2007). Building regulations only started to set
energy efficiency standards in 1985, and an estimated 40% of buildings were built
before this date. In addition, certain buildings may not be suitable for specific types
of improvements, e.g. historic buildings, urban buildings that lack solar access,
sufficient roof, etc. (English Heritage 2004). In particular, existing stock cannot
be retrofitted to comply with new build standards. Therefore, different types of
non-domestic buildings may require different benchmarks albeit along a standard
scale. An approach that rewards relative, rather than absolute, improvements may
be the way forward. Simply rewarding the highest performer may have unintended
consequences if most existing buildings cannot achieve the desired standard.
5.3 Potential for Reducing CO2 Emissions from Buildings
in the USA
Recently, McKinsey & Company led a study to comprehensively understand the

cost of various options for reducing the greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions within
the United States including the building sector. The primary goal of the U.S.
Greenhouse Gas Abatement Mapping Initiative (US GHG AMI) is to create a
consistent, detailed fact base to support policy design and inform economically
sensible strategies on the issue of climate change.
Emissions associated with buildings and appliances are projected to grow
faster than those from any other sector. Emissions from commercial buildings
and their equipment and appliances are expected to grow 1.8% annually, with
those from residential buildings and appliances growing 1.5% (Creyts et al. 2007).
While the commercial building stock is forecast to increase by 48 percent by 2030
(rising from 73 billion to 108 billion square feet), between 2005 and 2030, the
U.S. would see a net increase of 34 million new homes, with the average size of all
homes rising by 14% to approximately 2,000 square feet. This would be the equivalent of adding a room 16 feet long by 15 feet wide to every household. Despite
the increase in the numbers and size, the carbon intensity of U.S. residential
buildings will remain flat through 2030, at nearly 11 tons per household per year.
Residential Buildings: The nations housing stock is forecast to grow from
113 million homes to 147 million by 2030, with most of these houses built to a
CHAPTER 3
117
minimum performance standard below desirable economic and efficiency levels.

As a consequence, any new-build home in the nation regardless of region
represents an opportunity to create long-lasting abatement at negative cost. In
addition, roughly 20 million existing homes (by 2030) would be candidates for
retrofit improvements to the building shell, particularly in areas where heating
prevails and the building stock is older. In such regions as the Northeast, East
North Central and West North Central census divisions, increased attic insulation
would offer the biggest opportunity and could improve heating performance by
nearly 30% from the reference case. Although retrofit improvements typically
deliver substantial abatement, they cost much more than measures delivering
similar impact on new-build construction.
Commercial Buildings: Similar growth is expected in commercial buildings. By
2030, total square footage of commercial buildings is forecast to increase from 73
billion to 108 billion, where more than 56 billion square feet of this commercial space
will have been built new or rebuilt on-site. Although modifications in commercial
building shells will improve heating and cooling efficiency by some 5-7%, there is
significant additional abatement potential. Use of programmable thermostats and
energy management systems reducing thermal shorts, installing reflective roof
coating, improving tightness, and using advanced insulation types may improve
heating and cooling efficiency by an additional 15-20%.
5.4 Potential for Reducing CO2 Emissions from Buildings in India
The Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) was launched by the

Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in 2007, for commercial buildings with
peak demand in excess of 500kW or connected load in excess of 600kVA. In
commercial and office buildings, energy is consumed by a range of appliances
including lighting, HVAC systems, computers, copiers, and water coolers. The
ECBC therefore encourages energy-efficient building systems, such as building
envelope; lighting; HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning); water
heating; and electric power distribution, within the building facilities while
enhancing thermal and visual comfort, and productivity of the occupants.
Analysis undertaken during the development of the ECBC shows that energy
savings in the range of 27-40% are possible for an ECBC-compliant building, in
comparison to a typical commercial building with an annual energy consumption of 200kWh/m2/year (Bureau of Energy Efficiency 2006b).
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has developed the National Building
Code (NBC) as a guiding code to be followed by municipalities and development
authorities in the formulation and adoption of building by-laws. In the latest
edition (2005) of the NBC, some aspects of energy efficiency have been addressed
118
through appropriate design, usage and practices with regard to building materials,
construction technologies, and building and plumbing services, such as:
t Use of pozzolanas (such as fly-ash, rice husk ash, metakaoline, silica fume,
ground granulated blast furnace slag, etc.) in concrete production;
t Daylight integration (indoor lighting levels to be met via day lighting);
t Artificial lighting requirements (levels) for indoor spaces;
t Ventilation standards (natural and mechanical) for optimal human health and
well-being;
t Electrical standards (minimum power factor, allowances for diversity, etc.);
and
t Selected HVAC design norms.
However, about 25-30% of electrical energy in India is consumed by the
domestic building sector, by lighting, refrigerators, ceiling fans, washing machines
and air conditioners. Therefore in 2006, BEE launched the National Energy
Labelling scheme on a voluntary basis for refrigerators and tubular fluorescent
lighting. Labeled products (refrigerators, air conditioners, motors and other appliances) have been in the market since 2006 (Bureau of Energy Efficiency 2006a).
Each appliance is ranked on a scale of five stars, with more stars indicating higher
efficiency and more power savings thus the program motto of More Stars,
More Savings! The labels provide information about the energy consumption of
an appliance, and thus enable consumers to make informed decisions. Almost
all fluorescent tubelights sold in India, and about two-thirds of the refrigerators
and air conditioners, are now covered by the labeling program. The impact of
National Energy Labelling is summarized in Table 10 below.
TABLE 10
CO2 Impact of Energy Labelling
Appliance
CO2 Reduction as an impact of Star labeling
AC
0.106476 Million Tons
Refrigerator
Tubular Fluorescent Lamps
TOTAL
Source: Kumar 2009.
CHAPTER 3
119
To widen the scope for energy savings, BEE has also included several widelyused equipments and appliances such as distribution transformers, motors,
color TVs, ceiling fans, geysers, LPG stoves and agricultural pumps under the
Standards and Labeling program in 2008-09.
On June 30, 2008, the Prime Ministers Council on Climate Change released
Indias National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The NAPCC, along
with its eight missions, serves as the first country-wide framework on climate
change with the approval and support of the Government of India. The National
Mission on Sustainable Habitat comprises three components, namely:
t Promoting energy efficiency in the residential and commercial sector;
t Management of municipal solid wastes; and
t Promotion of urban public transport.
In an attempt to promote energy efficiency in the residential and commercial
sectors, the mission emphasises the extension of the Energy Conservation
Building Code (ECBC), use of energy-efficient appliances, and creation of
mechanisms that would help finance demand-side management.
5.5 Barriers to the Implementation of CO2 Reduction Strategies

and Measures
The previous sections have shown the significant potential for CO2 mitigation in
buildings through energy-efficiency measures, low/zero carbon technologies and
non-technical solutions in the UK, USA and India. Implementing CO2 mitigation
options in buildings is associated with a wide range of ancillary benefits. These
include the creation of jobs and business opportunities, increased economic
competitiveness and energy security, social welfare benefits for low-income
households, increased access to energy services, improved indoor and outdoor
air quality, as well as increased comfort, health and quality of life.
There are, however, substantial barriers that need to be overcome to achieve
these reductions in emissions. Certain characteristics of markets, technologies,
and end-users can inhibit rational, energy-saving choices in building design,
construction, and operation, as well as in the purchase and use of appliances.
Based on an extensive literature review, the most important barriers that pertain
to buildings are discussed (Boardman 2007b; Creyts et al. 2007; Planning
Commission 2005; Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007a). Barriers can range from financial
hurdles such as higher initial costs usually required for energy-efficient products;
hidden costs and benefits of energy-efficient technologies which are not captured
directly in financial flows, and hence do not present a true scenario to the
120
consumer; market failures which might arise due to policies or incentives not
translating into actual benefits; and behavioral constraints of people or organizations that hinder energy efficient practices due to lack of incentives to change
behavior or lifestyle choices (Urge-Vorsatz, D., S Koeppel et al. 2007). The
Carbon Trust in the UK classifies these barriers into four main categories: real
market failures; financial costs/benefits; behavioral/organizational; and hidden
costs/benefits (The Carbon Trust 2005). Key barriers are summarized in Table
11 below.
TABLE 11
Types of Implementation Barriers
Barriers
Description
Financial
Upfront costs of products
Hidden Costs
Time costs; transaction costs with providers; quality of

product/cost differences; Information about suppliers
Lack of Information
Household knowledge on their level of energy expenditure and

regarding how much, and at what cost (investment), energy
can be reduced.
Risks and Uncertainty
Unsure of savings due to uncertainty on future energy prices
Poorly Aligned
Incentives
In rental market, tenants have no incentive to reduce their

energy use as their landlord covers the energy bill
Physchological/
Sociological
Habit and late adopter mentality
Regulatory
Some regulations cause difculties for households to benet

from or consider energy efcient measures.
For developing countries such as India, there may be additional barriers,

including measurement of baseline energy, knowledge gaps, enforcement,
implementation evaluation/monitoring programs, building and urban planning
by-laws, lack of mandatory requirement for minimum energy performance, and
lack of competitive pricing and financial incentives.
Table 12 summarizes the range of policy instruments to overcome major
barriers to implementation. Policy instruments are discussed in greater detail in
the following section.
CHAPTER 3
121
TABLE 12
Barriers to Energy Efciency and Policy Instruments as Remedies
Barrier Category
Instrument Category
Policy Instruments as Remedies
Economic Barriers
Regulatory- normative/
regulatory informative
Appliance standards, building codes, energy efciency obligations,

mandatory labelling, procurement regulation, DSM programs
Economic Instruments
EPC/ESCOs, Cooperative Procurement, Energy Efciency

Certicates
Fiscal Instruments
Taxation, public benet charges, tax exemptions, subsidies/

rebates/grants
Hidden Costs/
Benets
Market Failures
Regulatory-normative
Appliance standards, building codes
Economic instruments
EPC/ESCOs
Support action
Public leadership programs
Regulatory-normative/
regulatory informative
Appliance standards, building codes, energy efciency obligations,

mandatory labelling, procurement regulation, DSM programs
Economic instruments
EPC/ESCOs, cooperative procurement, energy efciency

certicates, Kyoto exibility mechanisms
Fiscal instruments
Support, information,
voluntary action
Taxation, public benet charges, tax exemptions, subsidies/

rebates/grants
Voluntary labelling, voluntary agreement, public leadership
programs, awareness raising, detailed billing
Cultural/
Behavioural Barriers
voluntary action

programs, awareness raising, detailed billing
Information Barriers
voluntary action

programs, awareness raising, detailed billing, mandatory labelling,
procurement regulations, DSM programs, mandatory audits
Regulatory/informative
Structural/Political
Public leadership programs
Source: Kumar 2009 Creyts et al., 2007; The Carbon Trust 2005; Urge-Vorsatz et al., 2007a.
6. MANAGING ENERGY USE AND CO2 EMISSIONS

IN BUILDINGS
Previous research by Urge-Vorsatz, Koeppel, et al. (2007b) broadly categorizes all
policies into four broad policy instruments: control and regulatory instruments,
economic and market-based instruments, financial instruments and information
and voluntary instruments. Within this context, an extensive literature review was
undertaken to compare and evaluate key policies for the three case study countries.
6.1 Control and Regulatory Instruments
Control and regulatory policies which directly influence the environmental

performance by regulating processes and products have been found to be one
of the most effective policy instrument categories. Building codes are generally the foremost control instruments used by countries for increasing energy
122
efficiency of the new building stock as well as major refurbishment projects. To

remain effective, they should be constantly monitored, evaluated and revised in
accordance with technological developments and market trends (Urge-Vorsatz
et al. 2007b). Table 13 compares the commonly used control instruments for the
UK, USA and India, which include: building codes, labeling programs, appliance
standards, energy efficiency obligations and quotas, and mandatory demandside management. Details about each of these can be found in these references:
CLG 2007; Cyrill Sweet 2007; USAID and LBNL 2006; ASHRAE, Indias Bureau
of Energy Efficiency ECBC Codes 2007; EU EPBD; California AB 1132, DECC
2009a; and Foresight 2008.
TABLE 13
Control and regulatory instruments: UK, USA and India
Control and Regulatory Instruments
Policy
UK
Building
codes
Part L - Conservation of Fuel and

Power; Code for Sustainable
Homes (CSH has 1-6 levels of
sustainability with level 6 being the
zero carbon target).
Mandatory
labelling
program/
Energy performance of buildings

directive (EPBD) ; Energy Performance Certicates and Display
Energy Certicates
Appliance
standards
USA
India
Model energy codes

(MEC); Building
Efciency Standards and Codes,
ASHRAE, xxx
Energy Conservation Act

2001 Energy
Conservation building
codes (ECBC)
For appliances and equipment:

EU Energy Labelling Directive
Federal Trade Commissions Appliance

Labelling Rule
Market transformation programme,

Energy Saving Recommended,
Energy Star
Energy Star
labelling
of products
National energy
labelling programme
for appliances
US/EC Agreement on co-ordinated energy labelling of ofce equipment

Energy
efciency
obligations
and quotas
Renewable Obligation Certicate

(ROC) to encourage renewable
electricity generation
Carbon Emissions Reduction Target
(CERT) utility companies to invest
in reducing emissions from homes.
Mandatory
demand-side
management
(DSM)/
Warm Front, Decent Homes for low

income houses
Bachat Lamp Yojna

(Lamp Savings
Project) Provide CFLs
at a reduced price
CHAPTER 3
123
All of the instruments reviewed can achieve significant energy and CO2
emissions savings; however, the costs per ton of CO2-equivalent saved vary
greatly. Based on a study of over 60 ex-post policy evaluation reports from
about 30 countries (Koeppel and rge-Vorsatz 2007), it was found that control
and regulatory mechanisms are generally effective if enforced, and the cost-effectiveness is dependent on the enforcement costs. Building codes and appliance
standards were found to achieve the highest CO2 emissions reductions while
appliance standards and energy-efficiency obligations were found to be among the
most cost-effective policy tools. Regulatory instruments need to be supported by
sound financial incentives to encourage users to take up energy efficiency as well
as economic instruments to drive innovation in the industry. Also, informationbased policies are key to generating awareness, whilst wide-scale acceptance leads
towards positive behavior change.
6.2 Economic and Market-Based Instruments
Various economic, market-based, and fiscal mechanisms often are promoted by

regulatory incentives. The most commonly-used policy is energy performance
contracting whereby an Energy Service Company (ESCO) guarantees certain
energy savings for a location over a specified period, implements the energy
efficiency improvements, and is paid from the actual energy cost reductions
achieved through the savings. ESCOs have been shown to be successful in
achieving energy savings, because they make a life-cycle cost approach to energy
use easier to apply in practice, and offer the opportunity for shared savings by
aggregating users. A summary of economic and market-based instruments for
UK, US, and India is given in Table 14.
In India, six government buildings used ESCOs to carry out retrofits through
performance contracting in an attempt to promote and involve ESCOs. The BEE is
also working on developing model contracts, accreditation, ratings, and financing
to encourage energy service companies. Private ESCOs have also mobilized and
recently set up the Indian Council for Energy Efficiency Business (ICPEEB) to
network, provide input to policy-makers, support business development, and
disseminate information on energy efficiency.
Except for energy performance contracting, most economic or market-based
instruments such as cooperative procurement, energy efficiency certificate
schemes and Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms are relatively new in the
buildings sector and have just been applied for a few years in selected countries
(Urge-Vorsatz et al. 2007b). Energy efficiency certificate schemes are still in
development stages. A key initiative by the EU called the European Union
Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) specifies a limit or cap on emissions
from the power sector as part of the EU Climate Policy. The USA is currently
124
TABLE 14
Economic and Market-Based Instruments: UK, USA and India
Economic and market-based instruments
Policy
UK
USA
India
Six government buildings
used ESCOs to carry out
retrots through
performance contracting
Energy
performance
contracting
ESCO reasonably advanced

in the UK
Energy Savings
Performance Contracts formalised as
part of the Federal
energy management
programme
Energy
efciency
certicate
schemes
European Union Emissions Trading

System (EU ETS) limit or cap on
emissions from the power sector
The Western Climate Initiative; cap

and trade program
for United States
and Canada in the
pipeline
Kyoto
Protocol
exible
mechanisms
Clean Development
Mechanism projects allowing industrialised
countries to invest in
emission reduction projects in developing countries as an alternative
planning to lay the foundation for an international cap and trade program that
would involve both the United States and Canada, called the Western Climate
Initiative (WCI).
6.3 Financial Instruments
Financial instruments include taxation measures, fiscal grant programs, weatherization assistance programs, and others. Some examples of these instruments are
summarized for the UK, US, and India in Table 15.
CHAPTER 3
125
TABLE 15
Financial Instruments: UK, USA and India
Financial Instruments
Policy
UK
Taxation (on
CO2 or household fuels)
Climate Change Levy on the use of

energy in industry, commerce and
the public sector
Tax
exemptions/
reductions
Enhanced Capital Allowances for

energy saving technologies
USA
India
Reduced VAT on energy saving

materials and micro generation
technologies
Capital
subsidies
grants, loans
Warm Front: to tackle fuel poverty

Landlords Energy Saving Allowance
(LESA)
Weatherization
Assistance Program
21 cost-effective
energy efciency
improvements
for low-income
households.
Rajiv Gandhi Gramin

Vidyutikaran Yojna
States to distribute free
CFLs to below poverty
line families.
6.4 Information and Voluntary Instruments
Information-based programs can lead to large savings at low costs in buildings, while information programs can also achieve significant savings and effectively accompany other policy measures. All three case study countries have a
wide range of voluntary rating, awareness and dissemination programmes, as
discussed in Table 16.
Voluntary and negotiated agreements involve a formal quantified agreement
between a government body and a business or organization to increase the energy
use efficiency of the organization. In the UK, Climate Change Agreements provide
an 80% discount from the climate change levy for those sectors that agree to meet
challenging targets for improving energy efficiency or reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. In addition, Display Energy Certificates (DEC) mentioned previously
as part of the EPBD requirement under regulatory instruments, represent a real
opportunity and a visible commitment by the public sector to make the way they
use their buildings more publicly accountable. DECs will allow visitors and staff
to see just how much energy a building is using based on an actual energy audit
of the building.
In the USA, a range of such programs exist to realize energy-saving opportunities provided by advancing a whole-building approach for construction and
126
TABLE 16
Information and Voluntary Instruments: UK, USA and India
Information and Voluntary Instruments
Policy
UK
USA
India
Voluntary
certication
and labelling
Voluntary building certication

system BREEAM ; ECOHOMES
Energy Star; LEED
Voluntary and
negotiated
agreements
Climate Change Agreements (CCA)

provide an 80 per cent discount
from the climate change levy
Programmes to
promote EE. Commercial Building
Integration16
Rebuild America 17
Community-based
partnerships
Build America 18:
Residential building
integration:
Public
leadership
programs
Display Energy Certicates
Federal Energy
Management
Programme 71
Energy audits and retrot

of buildings Central
and State government
buildings
Awareness
raising,
education,
information
campaigns
Key organisations: Carbon trust,

Energy saving trust
ACT on CO2 Calculator to estimate
CO2 emissions for individual users
Key organisation:
Ofce of
Commercial High
Performance Green
Buildings
USAID ECO III

Manuals and codes,
case studies and
software.
School programme
National campaign on
Energy conservation
2005 Award scheme
for government and
commercial buildings
Mandatory
audit & energy
management
requirement
Display Energy Certicates

for operational energy use
Sub-metering of buildings as per
Part L regulations
National
benchmarking
databases
RBECS; CBECS
supported by target
nder and portfolio
manager online
tools
Designated industries to
have energy managers,
Certication and training
of energy auditors
Revised guidelines
for voluntary GHG
Emissions reporting
Bills are based on

individually metered
buildings as a norm.
Detailed billing Promotion of smart meters to see

and disclosure how much energy is being used
programs
TERI- GRIHA; LEED

India
CHAPTER 3
127
major renovation. Notably, programs such as the Commercial Building Integration

program, Rebuild America program for community-based partnerships, and
Residential building Integration: Building America allow DOE to help transfer
the most energy-efficient building techniques and practices through regulatory
activities, such as supporting the upgrade of voluntary (model) building energy
codes. In India, as part of the public leadership program, energy audits and
retrofits of central and state government buildings were carried out to employ
energy reduction recommendations.
These programs are supported by a number of education and information
campaigns in each country. In the UK, the Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon
Trust are two key organizations, which maintain a strong package of support,
advice, and information measures to help businesses improve their energy
efficiency and take up of low carbon technologies. Another important information-based intervention by the government is ACT on CO2 Calculator, an
online tool that allows people to estimate their individual CO2 emissions from
simple house-related data and lifestyle choices.
Apart from the national databases, Voluntary GHG Emissions Reporting
in the USA intends to encourage utilities, industries, farmers, landowners, and
other participants to submit to an online registry comprehensive reports on their
emissions and emissions reductions, including sequestration. In India, designated industries are now required to have energy managers and are encouraged
to get energy audits by trained auditors.
6.5 Comparative Analysis of Policy Instruments for CO2 Reduction
All of the instruments reviewed can achieve significant energy and CO2 emissions
savings; however, the costs per ton of CO2-equivalent saved vary greatly. Based
on a study of over 60 ex-post policy evaluation reports from about 30 countries
(Koeppel and Urge-Vorsatz 2007), it was found that control and regulatory mechanisms are generally effective if enforced and the cost-effectiveness is dependent
on the enforcement costs. Building codes and appliance standards were found
to achieve the highest CO2 emission reductions while appliance standards and
energy-efficiency obligations were found to be among the most cost-effective
policy tools. The UK leads the three countries in terms of regulatory control
policies, while India is still in the process of developing first mandatory requirements for building energy performance.
Economic and market-based mechanisms are relatively new in the buildings
sector. Energy performance contracting, cooperative procurement and energyefficiency certificate schemes all were found to be effective tools in cutting CO2
emissions from buildings at generally low cost.
128
Fiscal instruments and tax exemption policies can play a valuable role in stimulating the introduction of important energy efficiency technologies, new homes
and commercial buildings. The UK has an array of fiscal instruments such as the
climate change levy and enhanced capital allowance for technologies. It also has
a series of fiscal grants, especially to support the fuel poor and elderly. Similarly,
the USA operates a weatherization programme which has been very successful
and has improved energy efficiency of more than 5.5 million homes. Indias fiscal
grant programme is for introduction of low energy lighting in rural areas and
policies are being considered for effective taxation of fuel.
Finally, labeling and voluntary programs can lead to large savings at low costs
in buildings, while information program can also achieve significant savings and
effectively accompany other policy measures. All three case study countries have
a wide range of voluntary rating, awareness and dissemination programs. It has
been found that these policies, while applied in many developed countries with
favourable results, have rarely been pursued aggressively. As a result, in most
developed countries the energy consumption in buildings is still increasing.
Although some of this growth is offset by increased efficiency of major energyconsuming appliances, overall consumption continues to increase due to the
growing demand for amenities, such as new electric appliances and increased
comfort (Koeppel and Urge-Vorsatz 2007).
6.6 Cross-Fertilization of New-Build and Refurbishments
As new developments seek to achieve higher levels of CO2 reduction (zero

carbon buildings in the UK and carbon neutral in the USA), policy groups are
also looking at ways in which new-build programs might cross-fund innovative
steps in the existing stock to benefit both new-build and existing building stock.
The concept is that on more difficult new-build sites, where practical solutions
for zero-carbon or carbon-neutral are not viable, developers would be allowed to
build to a more achievable level (low carbon or Code level 5 of Code for Sustainable Homes in the UK), and invest the savings into an independently-managed
Community Energy Fund. This funding source could help support district-scale
refurbishment activity and the expansion of low carbon community energy
networks from within new developments to existing surrounding buildings. Such
a policy framework could be tested in rapidly-developing countries such as India,
where 70% of the building stock will be built by 2030.
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129
7. CONCLUSIONS AND KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

This paper has comparatively evaluated the building-related CO2 measurement,
benchmarking and reduction approaches available in the USA, UK and India, to
share the lessons learnt in implementing CO2 reduction policies in each of these
countries. A comparative analysis was undertaken to evaluate the strengths and
weakness of methods such as BREEAM/CSH in the UK, LEED in the USA, and
TERI-GRIHA and LEED-India in India. The paper has also recommended robust
performance-based standards (in terms of kWh/m2/year or kgCO2/m2/year) for
reducing the energy consumption of existing buildings present in both developed
and rapidly-urbanizing cities, which could be adopted by any developed or developing country. A range of policy instruments and measures are recommended
to be successful in removing or lowering barriers and encouraging uptake of
various CO2 reduction strategies in existing buildings. Among these are appliance standards, building energy codes, appliance and building labelling, pricing
measures and financial incentives, utility demand-side management programs,
and public sector energy leadership programs including procurement policies.
Because culture and occupant behaviour are major determinants of energy use in
buildings, these policy approaches need to go hand in hand with programs that
increase consumer access to information, awareness and knowledge.
It is realized that the UK is world-leading in its CO2 reduction policy for
buildings, but lacks good-quality bottom-up datasets of real energy consumption
and CO2 emissions in buildings. The USA, on the other hand, has excellent datasets
at the EIA and DoE, but needs to have national-level policies and targets for CO2
reductions from buildings. India is working on both policy and data collection
given that energy data is quite polarized between urban and rural. In fact, the
Bureau of Energy Efficiency is working with USAIDs ECO-III programme to
benchmark a range of commercial and institutional buildings although the
focus is primarily on energy efficiency and not CO2 reduction. Hopefully, robust
targets for CO2 reduction and policies to achieve those targets will be set soon.
There is a broad array of widely accessible and cost-effective technologies and
know-how that can abate CO2 emissions in buildings. Although technologies
have been greatly advanced during the past few decades, our understanding
of the influence of culture, values, behavior or just energy use patterns is still
very limited, and no quantification of the potentials and associated costs with
the reduction opportunities in these areas have been conducted. We know that
identical homes, with different occupants, can vary in energy use by a factor
of two to three. We also know that how occupants make their homes or offices
comfortable, through use of the heating system, doors, windows, lighting, the
clothes they wear, etc. has an enormous effect on energy use. Operating a building
well can reduce its carbon footprint much more than installing wind turbines or
130
solar panels. At present, however, there is a lack of accurate information about

exactly how much variation occupant behavior introduces to a buildings energy
consumption.
Moreover, while policies and projects have focused on climate change
mitigation by reducing greenhouse gases, even the most optimistic projections
indicate that some climate change is inevitable. The impacts of climate change
on the built environment may include increased risks of flooding, overheating,
storm damage and subsidence (IPCC 2007). It is important in this scenario to
work towards adaptation and minimize the consequences of climate change.
There is a need for adaptive policies to be mainstreamed through all development
and environmental policies such as retrofitting existing building stock to ensure
that it remains resilient to climate change impacts. Mitigation and adaptation are
inherently linked processes, and both are essential for avoiding the worst impacts
of climate change.
This paper demonstrates that the building sector must make available comprehensive building energy information to allow suitable analysis and efficiently
plan energy policies for the future. In fact, regularization of data collection and
analysis for the building sector can help quantify technology performance, its
cost-effectiveness, role of barriers, identification of beneficiaries, and targeting
of government and industry policies, programs, and measures. In that respect,
studies developed by the EIA on the energy consumption of residential and
commercial buildings in the USA are a valuable reference (EIA 2001, 2003, 2006,
2008a, 2008b).
It is hoped that the findings from this paper will help to expedite the process
of achieving significant reductions in energy use and CO2 emissions from the
existing building stock by formulating policies which address the conventional
barriers to implementation and increase the uptake of low carbon systems (heat
pumps, solar hot water, solar PV, micro-combined heat and power, micro-wind)
in buildings and cities. In the longer-term, the data archive of this study will be
of immense value to all those with a stake in a low-carbon future be it for policy,
practice or academic understanding. No doubt the ultimate aim is to make the
global building stock become low-energy, low-carbon and more resilient to
climate change effects.
CHAPTER 3
131
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CHAPTER
Energy Consumption and CO2

Emissions in Urban Counties
in the United States with a Case Study
of the New York Metropolitan Area
Lily Parshall,* Stephen A. Hammer, Kevin Robert Gurney
Summary
Urban areas are setting quantitative, time-bound targets for emissions reductions within their territories; designing local policies to encourage shifts toward
cleaner energy supply, higher energy efficiency, and transit-oriented development; and exploring ways to participate in local carbon markets. These efforts
require systematic estimates of energy consumption and emissions presented in
a format and at a spatial resolution relevant for local governance. The Vulcan data
product offers the type of high-resolution, spatial data on energy consumption
and CO2 emissions needed to create a consistent inventory for all localities in
the continental United States. We use Vulcan to analyze patterns of direct fuel
consumption for on-road transportation and in buildings and industry in urban
counties. We include a case study of the New York Metropolitan Area.

136
CHAPTER 4
I.
137
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, research studies on urban energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have multiplied in recognition of the central role that
cities play in shaping global energy demand as well as increasing urban leadership on climate change mitigation. Urban areas are setting quantitative, timebound targets for emissions reductions within their territories; designing local
policies intended to encourage shifts toward cleaner energy supply, higher energy
efficiency, and transit-oriented development; and exploring ways to participate
in local carbon markets. These efforts require systematic estimates of energy
consumption and emissions presented in a format and at a spatial resolution
relevant for local governance. Consistent estimates are also needed to understand
how and why localities differ in their consumption profiles, develop appropriate
benchmarks, analyze how different aspects of the urban environment interact
with socio-demographic and market factors to shape patterns of energy use, and
explore the distributional implications of different emissions-reduction policies.
The Vulcan data product offers the type of high-resolution, spatial data on energy
consumption and CO2 emissions needed to create a consistent inventory for all
localities in the continental United States (Gurney et al. 2008; Gurney et al. 2009).
In Parshall et al. (2009), we describe our methodology for designing a national
inventory at the local scale using Vulcan as the data source. In this paper, we
present our results for urban counties in the continental United States and a case
study of the New York Metropolitan Area (NY Metro Area). Our analysis focuses
on direct final consumption of fossil fuels and associated CO2 emissions, the
portion of total emissions for which we could establish consistent, consumptionbased estimates for both energy and emissions. We cover heating fuels (natural
gas and LPG, distillate and residual fuel oil) and transport fuels (gasoline and
diesel); the exclusion of electricity means that energy consumption and CO2
emissions are highly correlated. We show that there is substantial variation in
consumption patterns, both across urban areas, as well as within them.
II. PREVIOUS STUDIES

A range of different methodological approaches, accounting systems, urban boundaries, and datasets have been employed to study urban consumption patterns, with
continuing disagreement on what portion of global emissions should be attributed to cities and/or urban households and how best to support urban energy
and climate initiatives through local inventories. In the United States, many cities,
towns, and counties have followed protocols established by ICLEILocal Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI 2008). An advantage of ICLEIs approach is that
138
local authorities complete the inventory for their own jurisdictional area using a
consistent, consumption-based approach; on the other hand, it can be difficult to
compare participating localities because they have some latitude in their choice
of data, baseline year, and level of detail, and are free to decide whether and how
to disseminate inventory data and results. Partially in response to this limitation,
Brown et al. (2008) developed a consistent methodology for computing partial
carbon footprints for the 100 largest US metropolitan areas, one of the most
comprehensive consumption-based inventories available. The study, which covered
residential consumption of electricity and heating fuels as well as highway transportation, found that the 100 largest metropolitan areas account for 65% of the US
population, 76% of GDP, and 56% of carbon emissions (Brown et al. 2008).1 The
addition of commercial and industrial emissions might increase the urban share
since the majority of these activities occur within metropolitan area boundaries.
We show in Parshall et al. (2009) that disaggregating US metropolitan areas
into counties reveals substantial differences in the urban and rural portion of
metropolitan areas. VandeWeghe and Kennedy (2007) disaggregate the Toronto
Metropolitan Area into Census tracts and find that per-capita building-related
emissions (electricity and fuel in residential, commercial, and industrial
buildings) dominate within the urban core and transport emissions are higher
outside the urban core. An older study of gasoline consumption found that in
1980 the typical resident of the New York Tristate Region used 335 gallons of
gasoline per person, whereas a resident of New York City (5 boroughs) used 153
gallons per person, and a resident of New York County (Manhattan) used 90
gallons per person (Newman and Kenworthy 1989).
Whereas Brown et al. (2008) covered a few sectors for a large number of
localities, Kennedy et al. (2009) developed complete emissions inventories for a
small number of global cities. The study, which covered 10 major cities, estimates
emissions based on several different accounting frameworks and suggests that
a lifecycle (or industrial ecology) perspective offers a more complete view of
the amount of energy consumed to meet urban demand. Ramaswami et al.
(2008) offers a life-cycle perspective on urban-scale GHG emissions accounting.
Dodman (2009) reviews existing literature on urban emissions, showing the diffi1The
Brookings study attributed emissions associated with electricity production to the point of demand, an
approach consistent with ICLEIs protocols, but one that can present particular methodological challenges
because it requires estimating both total electricity consumption within a locality as well as the local fuel mix.
In general, utility service boundaries do not match geopolitical boundaries, and the local fuel mix may differ
substantially from the state fuel mix. In the Brookings study, a multi-step procedure was followed to derive
consumption in each metropolitan area from data on utility service areas and then a statewide average fuel mix
was applied to derive emissions (Brown et al. 2008).
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139
culty of comparing studies based on differing perspectives and methodologies

and from different parts of the world.
Dodman (2009), Newman and Kenworthy (1989), and Kennedy et al. (2009)
all focus on major, international cities. In the United States, a growing share of the
population lives in smaller and/or less dense urban areas, a trend attributable to
the shift toward a more dispersed, service-oriented economy in the latter half of
the 20th century (Kim, 2000). These urban areas, many of which rely on personal
vehicles as the primary commute mode, are responsible for a growing share
of energy demand. Along with Brown et al. (2008), our work is one of the few
attempts to compare a large number of urban areas in the United States, rather
than focusing on in-depth case studies of a small number of major cities.
Satterthwaite (2008) argues that the goal of urban emissions inventories
should be to understand the role of urban lifestyles in different parts of the world,
so inventories should include emissions embodied in goods and services. Quantifying embodied emissions is difficult, particularly given the globalized nature of
the economy; examples of recent studies include Lenzen et al. (2004) and Weber
and Matthews (2007). Ramaswami et al. (2008) shows that embodied emissions
can be computed for key urban material inputs and that including such emissions
helps to reconcile urban GHG inventories with national inventories.
Given the difficulty of measuring embodied energy, most quantitative studies
estimate CO2 emissions associated with consumption of energy for electricity,
heat and transportation (and, in complete GHG inventories, emissions associated
with waste, material production, etc.) within a territorial boundary. Based on this
approach, the IEA estimated that 80% of primary energy demand in the United
States is attributable to urban areas (IEA, 2008).2 In our previous work, we found
that between 37% and 81% of direct final consumption occurs in urban areas,
depending on how these areas are defined and bounded in space (Parshall et al.,
unpublished manuscript 2009). Our focus on energy consumption within a territorial boundary is consistent with the perspective taken in most local climate,
energy, and sustainability plans in the United States, which tend not to address
embodied energy. Since we focus only on direct final consumption, the spatial
location of energy consumption is the same as the spatial location of combustion,
and thus CO2 emissions. We estimate both energy consumption and emissions
because the ability to distinguish between the energy and carbon intensity of
different sectors can help local authorities analyze trade-offs between policies to
reduce energy consumption and policies to reduce the carbon intensity of fuel use.
2The
IEA methodology for computing US urban energy consumption is available on the World Energy Outlook
website. The Vulcan data product was used in the US analysis, but the methodology was somewhat different
from the methodology employed in Parshall et al. (2009), and the electricity sector was included. See: www.
worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2008/WEO_2008_Energy_Use_In_Cities_Modeling.pdf.
140
III. QUANTIFYING US URBAN ENERGY CONSUMPTION

AND CO2 EMISSIONS
1. Denition of Urban
In Parshall et al. (2009), we evaluated a range of possible definitions of urban for
use in local-scale energy and emissions inventories (see Table 1 below). We found
that the county-based definition described in Isserman (2005) is most appropriate because counties are the highest resolution at which non-point source CO2
emissions data are available, and because Issermans definition incorporates the
US Census thresholds for urban population density and size. Under this definition, the core portions of major cities in the United States tend to be defined as
urban, but smaller cities and suburban regions tend to be excluded. For example,
in California only the urban cores of San Francisco and Los Angeles are classified
as urban, although the majority of Californias counties are in metropolitan areas.
A county-based definition is also appealing because counties are the smallest
political unit into which the entire US population can be divided (versus cities and
towns which represent only a portion of the US population). Unlike counties, which
are a recognized administrative division of state government, metropolitan areas
do not play a formal role in governance, reducing the value of metropolitan-scale
data to local policy makers. In Kennedy et al. (unpublished manuscript 2009a),
the US cities included are defined as either counties (Los Angeles County, Denver
County) or as a collection of counties (e.g. the 5 counties of New York City).
Isserman (2005) classifies 157 counties in the continental United States as urban.
Although this represents just 5% of counties, it encompasses 45% of the population.
By contrast, more than one-third of all counties are in metropolitan areas and more
than 50% of the Census-designated rural population lives in metropolitan areas
(Isserman, 2005). Also, note that 83% of the US population lives in metropolitan
areas and the Census defines 78% of the US population as urban.
Some major US cities are located in counties that do not meet the Isserman
(2005) urban criteria. Most notably, Maricopa County in Arizona, which contains
the city of Phoenix, is not classified as an urban county. Although this county
meets the population density criterion, its sizeable exurban population resulted
in a designation of mixed urban, rather than urban. In the western United States,
counties are less likely to be classified as urban because cities are often embedded
into large counties; in the eastern United States, counties tend to be smaller in
spatial extent, so many cities span multiple counties.
CHAPTER 4
141
TABLE 1
Urban/Rural Denitions in the United States
United States
Urban area
(Census)
Denition
Spatial
Units
Used to
Construct
Boundaries
Urban cluster or
urbanized area
Urbanized
area
>50,000 people,
1000/mi2 (386/km2)
Urban cluster
>2,500 people,
500/mi2 (193/km2)
Advantages
and Disadvantages
of Classication System
Census
block
Most accurate representation of where people live,

but spatial boundaries are not aligned with administrative boundaries. Non-urban settlements not
separated from one another.
Metropolitan
area
Core urban center +

adjacent counties dened
by the U.S. Ofce of
Management
and Budget (OMB)
County
Only scale at which GDP data are available, but

metropolitan areas include the majority of the rural
population and are not irreducible units since they are
composed of counties.
Rural-urban
continuum
Based on metro/
non-metro, adjacent to
metro, and population
County
Improves on metro/non-metro classication of

counties, but does not explicitly separate urban and
rural population.
County
Classies counties as urban or rural using

density and agglomeration thresholds for
Census urban areas as a starting point, so has
the advantage of separating urban and rural
areas at an administrative level, but counties
may include multiple cities or towns.
Rural-urban
density code
(Character)
Based on urban-rural
density mix and urban
agglomeration
Commuting
area
Based on commuting
ow and classication of
destination
Census tract
More accurate than metropolitan areas at separating

integrated urban regions, but dened at the Census
tract level, which is higher resolution than available
energy/emissions data.
Urban inuence
code
Based on metro/micro,
core/non-core, existence
of town, and population
County
Improves on urban/rural continuum, but is a

somewhat cumbersome classication system and still
does not explicitly separate urban and rural counties.
Populated
place
Political boundaries for

cities, towns, and other
incorporated places
based on Census (2000)
Census
block
Smallest unit for local jurisdictions and appealing from

a local governance standpoint, but does not reect
a consistent denition of cities and has a higher
resolution than available energy/emissions data.
Urban land
cover
Areas of built-up land

where large populations
exist based on the urban
layer of the DCW
None
Based on land use, but spatial boundaries are

not aligned with administrative boundaries. Data
on population, income, etc. do not match spatial
boundaries.
International (selected)
United Nations
Accepts urban denition

of each country
Non-spatial
Authoritative international source for urban and rural

population counts, but does not reect a standard,
international denition of urban.
GRUMP urban
Urban extents identied

from night lights, DCW
data, and other sources
Urban
extents
dened by
analysis
Only international, spatial dataset with urban

boundaries, but urban extents do not match other
types of urban boundaries in the US.
The rural-urban density code (in bold) is the denition of urban used in this paper.
Source: Parshall et al. 2009.
142
2. Vulcan Data Product

We used the Vulcan data product, developed at Purdue University, to estimate
energy consumption and related CO2 emissions in each urban county. The Vulcan
United States fossil fuel CO2 emissions inventory covers the continental United
States and contains hourly data for 2002, although we use aggregate annual data.
Vulcan consolidates data from a wide variety of point, non-point, and mobile
sources and quantifies these data in their native resolution (geocoded points,
roads, counties) and on a regular 100-km2 grid over the conterminous United
States. Vulcan was originally conceived of as an inventory of fossil-based sources
of carbon with scientific applications in carbon cycle modeling, so the dataset
does not cover renewable energy or nuclear power, which together comprise
approximately 28% of electricity supply and 5% of direct fuel consumption (e.g.
for heating, industrial processes). Also, because the dataset attributes electricity
emissions to the point of production, rather than the point of consumption,
we exclude the electricity sector from our analysis. Since electricity generation
comprises 34% of US nationwide GHG emissions, it is important to emphasize
that our analysis covers only a portion of total emissions (US EPA 2009). The
complete Vulcan methodology and data sources are described in Gurney et al.
(2008) and Gurney et al. (2009). Our evaluation of the Vulcan data product and
our methodology for extracting and processing relevant data are described in
Parshall et al. (2009).
3. Energy and Emissions Accounting

In our analysis, we focus on direct fuel consumption and associated CO2 emissions
in urban areas. From an energy accounting perspective, we cover direct final
consumption (i.e. delivered energy) within the local territory. From a greenhouse
gas emissions accounting perspective, we cover IPCC Scope 1 CO2 emissions
associated with stationary combustion in the energy sector, but exclude utilityconsumed fuel for electricity/heat generation. This approach is consistent with
ICLEIs community-scale Scope 1, which covers all direct emissions sources
located within the geopolitical boundary of the local government (in this case,
each county) (ICLEI, 2008).
CHAPTER 4
143
4. Sector/fuel Categories
We classified fuel consumption into the following categories: 1) gasoline consumption for on-road transportation, 2) diesel consumption for on-road transportation, 3) direct consumption of natural gas and LPG in buildings and industry, 4)
direct consumption of distillate and residual fuel oil in buildings and industry.
We excluded direct consumption of coal because its contribution to total direct
fuel consumption is ~1%. Direct fuel consumption in the buildings and industry
sector is primarily for heating and hot water, though natural gas also is used for
cooking. In industrial buildings, fuel also is consumed in industrial production,
processing, and assembly of goods. Emissions from Vulcan can be reported by
sectoral (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation) and/or fuel divisions
(coal, oil, natural gas). Rather than employ a dataset with sectoral categories, we
used a dataset that covered all non-electricity emissions and where emissions were
disaggregated by sub-fuel. This allowed us to convert between CO2 emissions and
energy consumption with reasonable accuracy, but it did not allow us to separate
the residential sector from the commercial and industrial sectors.
5. Urban Energy and CO2 Index

We compare urban counties on the basis of per-capita direct fuel consumption
and CO2 emissions, a subset of total urban CO2 emissions. To facilitate rapid
comparisons of groups of counties, we created an index that assigns a value of 100
to average per-capita consumption. The index value for each urban county is the
percent of the average. For example, a county with twice the average per-capita
consumption is assigned an index value of 200. Index values were computed
for each sector/fuel combination based on both energy consumption (in GJ per
capita) and CO2 emissions (in metric tons per capita).
IV. PATTERNS OF US URBAN ENERGY CONSUMPTION

AND CO2 EMISSIONS
1. Total Direct Fuel Consumption
In the United States, 45% of the population lives in urban counties, which account
for 37% of direct fuel consumption for on-road transportation, building heat, and
heat used in industrial processes. Average per-capita CO2 emissions were estimated
to be 5.0 tons per capita for on-road transportation and 4.7 tons per capita for
consumption of natural gas and heating oil in buildings and industry (Table 2).
144
TABLE 2
Average Per-Capita Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions in Urban Counties
Energy Consumption
(GJ/capita)
Emissions
(Mt CO2/capita)
Emissions
(% of per-capital
total)
Natural gas and

LPG
72.2
3.7
38.3%
Fuel oil
14.3
1.0
10.3%
86.5
4.7
48.6%
61.6
4.1
42.5%
Urban Counties
Buildings and
Industry
Gasoline
Diesel
12.4
0.9
8.9%
Transportation
74.0
5.0
51.4%
Direct Fuel
Consumption
160.9
9.7
100%
*Note that the total population in urban counties in 2000 was 125,254,025 people.
Data sources: Vulcan data product for energy and emissions data, US Census 2000 for population data.
In Figure 1, we compare urban counties across the United States. These results
reveal that, on a per-capita basis, southern and urban outskirt counties (i.e. urban
counties that are economically dependent on another countys commercial center)
tend to have the highest gasoline consumption, and southern and midwestern
counties tend to have the highest diesel consumption. Midwestern counties tend
to have the highest natural gas consumption, and northeastern counties tend to
have the highest fuel oil consumption.
In the Appendix, we list index ranges for each urban county for selected
sector/fuel categories.
CHAPTER 4
145
FIGURE 1
CO2 Emissions Associated with Direct Fuel Consumption in US Urban Counties
Only counties classied as urban by Isserman (2005) are shown. Note that each dot represents a single
county. Some urban areas encompass several counties. Data source: Vulcan data product.
146
2. Transportation
In general, transportation results are easier to interpret than results for buildings and industry because they are not affected by regional differences in climate.
Per-capita gasoline consumption is 12% lower in urban counties than the national
average and, unlike some of the other sector/fuel categories, has a normal distribution and a small variance (Figure 2). In other words, urban areas differ less in
their gasoline consumption compared with other fuels.
FIGURE 2
Distribution of CO2 Emissions Index Values
Mean for each variable is 100. Gasoline standard deviation is 66 versus 98 for diesel, 307 for natural gas &
LPG, 863 for fuel oil, and 248 for the total (all fuels). Note that index values above 300 are not shown on the
graph, although the distributions do include outliers with values > 300. Data source: Vulcan data product
Comparing the 157 urban counties reveals no relationship between population

density and per-capita gasoline consumption for counties with fewer than 1000
people per square kilometer, but a relationship does emerge for higher-density
areas (Figure 3). Note that there are just 33 counties with population density above
1000 people per square kilometer, and that 24 of these have an index value of less
than 100. Among these 24 counties are many of the oldest and largest East Coast
cities including New York City (5 boroughs), Philadelphia, Washington D.C. plus
Alexandria and Arlington counties, Suffolk County (Boston), Baltimore City,
and the counties containing Jersey City and Newark, NJ. The list, notably, does
not include any counties in the south, southwest, or west (besides California).
This supports the suggestion that current population density and access to public
transit are an expression of when and why different urban economies developed
CHAPTER 4
147
(Kim 2000), and that cities historical economic development and timing of
expansion have had a substantial impact on current consumption patterns. The
lack of a relationship between population density and per-capita consumption
and emissions at lower densities also suggests that the threshold above which
there is a relationship between urban form and energy consumption may be
relatively high in the United States, but additional, quantitative research is needed
to confirm this preliminary finding.
FIGURE 3
Gasoline CO2 Emissions Index Versus Population Density
a) Urban counties with population density less than 1000 people/km2. b) Urban counties with population
density between 1000 and 4000 people/km2. c) Urban counties with population density greater than
4000 people/km2. Note that the urban county with the lowest population density has 147 people/km2.
Data Sources: Vulcan data product and US Census 2000.
3. Buildings and Industry

Energy demand for space heating and cooling is strongly related to climate, and
the United States spans desert to sub-arctic climate zones. In most cases, electricity
is the primary source of energy for space cooling, but natural gas and fuel oil are
the primary sources of energy for space heating. Since we do not cover electricity,
urban counties in warmer climate zones tend to have lower consumption in buildings and industry compared with counties in cooler climates. Also, since we do not
separate residential, commercial, and industrial consumption, counties with major
commercial centers tend to consume more energy per capita than counties that
are primarily residential. For example, New York County (Manhattan) has higher
per-capita consumption than the outer boroughs of New York City.
Natural gas, which has lower CO2 emissions per unit of energy compared with
fuel oil, is the dominant source of heat in the United States. In some urban areas
in the Northeast (e.g. New York, Boston, New Haven), fuel oil consumption is
148
more than twice the per-capita average across all urban counties. In some cases,
urban areas with high fuel oil consumption have low natural gas consumption
(e.g. areas in Connecticut such as Hartford, Stamford, and New Haven). In other
cases, per-capita natural gas consumption may be higher than per-capita fuel
oil consumption even though the index value for fuel oil is higher (e.g. in the
urban counties surrounding Boston). This is related to the differing distributions
for natural gas and fuel oil (see Figure 2). In urban areas in the North-Midwest
(e.g. Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit), the great majority of heating demand is
met with natural gas. With the exception of Minneapolis, these urban areas have
high index values (>125) for natural gas and low index values (<75) for fuel oil.
These results must be viewed with caution, as electricity is not included in the
analysis and can be used in some states in place of natural gas for water heating
and space heating. Ideally building energy-use from both electricity and natural
gas is summed to assess efficiency.
V. ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND CO2 EMISSIONS

IN THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA
The NY Metro Area, which spans 23 counties in New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania, is one of the oldest, most densely-populated urban areas in the
United States (Figure 4). The areas large population (18.8 million people) and
economy ($1.1 trillion or about 8% of total US GDP in 2006), translate into
higher-than-average total energy consumption and CO2 emissions relative to
other urbanized regions. On the other hand, per-capita emissions in the NY
Metro Areas 19 urban counties are more than 25% lower, on average, than
per-capita emissions in all US urban counties (Figure 5). In the 5 counties of New
York City, per-capita emissions are less than 50% of the US urban average.
The New York Metropolitan Area is highly integrated with several other
adjacent metropolitan areas. Together, this Combined Statistical Area, which
covers the portions of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania
within commuting distance of New York City, encompasses a total population
of 21.9 million and is sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Region. To avoid
confusion between these two designations, we refer to the New York Metropolitan area as the NY Metro Area and the Combined Statistical Area as the
Tri-State Region. Within the Metro Area, 19 out of the 23 counties are classified
as urban; within the Tri-State Region, 22 out of 29 counties are classified as urban.
CHAPTER 4
149
1. Total Direct Fuel Consumption

We estimated total direct fuel consumption of 125.4 GJ/capita in the NY Metro
Area and 78.0 GJ/capita in New York City (Table 3). Associated CO2 emissions
were estimated at 7.8 tons/capita and 4.8 tons per capita respectively. The difference is mainly driven by much lower per-capita gasoline consumption in New
York City compared with the NY Metro Area. Our estimates agree well with
results presented in City of New York (2008), Brown et al. (2008), and Kennedy
et al. (unpublished manuscripts, 2009). In Appendix C, we present detailed
comparisons of our results with these other studies.
In Figure 6, we present total direct fuel consumption (in TJ of energy) in each
county in the NY Metro Area. The counties are organized along the x-axis by
population density, with higher-density counties on the left and lower-density
counties on the right. In higher-density core counties, buildings and industry
account for well over 50% of direct fuel consumption. In lower-density counties,
gasoline consumption accounts for the majority of direct fuel consumption.
Figure 6b shows the ratio between fuel consumption for buildings and fuel
consumption for transportation against population density. In counties where the
ratio is above 100%, building consumption dominates; in other counties, transportation consumption dominates. This effect would be dampened if electricity
consumption were to be included in buildings and industry.
150
Figure 4
NY Metro Area and Tri-State Region
Data sources: Spatial boundaries from Tele Atlas North America, Inc. and ESRI; county character classication from Isserman (2005); population density from US Census 2000.
CHAPTER 4
Figure 5
CO2 Emissions Associated with Direct Fuel Consumption
in Urban Counties in the NY Tri-State Region
Data sources: Vulcan data product.
151
152
Figure 6a
Direct Fuel Consumption in the NY Metro Area
FIGURE 6b
Direct Fuel Consumption in the NY Metro Area
a) Values given are for total fuel consumption. Counties are organized in order of decreasing population
density. All counties in the NY Metro Area are classied as urban with the exception of Putnam, Hunterdon, Sussex, and Pike. b) Values along the y-axis are per-capita buildings and industry fuel consumption
(natural gas + LPG, fuel oil, coal) divided by per-capita transportation fuel consumption (gasoline, diesel).
A value of 100% indicates that per-capita buildings and industry fuel consumption is equal to per-capita
transportation fuel consumption. Data sources: Vulcan data product and US Census 2000.
CHAPTER 4
153
TABLE 3
Average Per-Capita Direct Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions
for Subsets of Counties in the NY Metro Area Compared to the United States
Buildings and Industry
Category
(# of counties)
Transportation
Energy
Consumption
(GJ/capita)
Emissions
(Mt CO2/
capita)
Energy
Consumption
(GJ/capita)
Emissions
(Mt CO2/
capita)
Rural counties (1)
35.1
2.2
121.2
8.2
Mixed rural counties (2)
50.3
3.0
98.5
6.6
Mixed urban counties (1)
32.9
2.2
238.7
15.9
Urban counties (19)
57.3
3.2
56.2
3.8
54.7
3.1
70.7
4.7
Rural counties (1767)
136.7
7.5
147.3
9.9
Mixed rural counties (1013)
143.8
8.0
103.4
7.0
Mixed urban counties (145)
89.4
4.8
86.2
5.8
NY Metro Area (23)
Urban counties (157)
86.5
4.7
74.0
5.0
United States (3108)
133.8
7.4
125.8
8.5
New York State (62)
56.9
3.3
91.5
6.1
Tri-State Area (29)
53.2
3.0
73.1
4.9
New York City (5)
54.1
3.2
23.9
1.6
Data sources: Vulcan data product for energy and emissions data, US Census 2000 for population data. Note
that the buildings and industry category covers only direct fuel consumption, so electricity is excluded.
2. Transportation
New York City has the largest public transit system in the United States and is one
of the few American cities where the majority of the population relies on public
transportation to travel to work (City of New York 2007). Whereas nationally, 90%
of households own one or more private vehicles, in New York City only 44% own
a car (City of New York 2007). Reliance on public transit within the city is reflected
in low per-capita gasoline consumption; outside the city, regional commuter
railroads and bus systems serve densely-populated suburbs, but personal vehicles
are the primary mode of transportation for most people. This is reflected in higher
per-capita gasoline consumption outside the core, for example in Nassau and
Suffolk counties on Long Island. Throughout the NY Metro Area, per-capita diesel
consumption is lower than the national average, perhaps as a result of higher overall
population density and thus fewer freight kilometers driven per person.
As Figure 7 confirms, only a small number of core urban counties are transit-
154
oriented, and it is these counties that drive down the metropolitan areas average
per-capita consumption. All counties, both urban and rural, in New York State,
and the Tri-State Region (expanded metropolitan area) are shown on this plot to
emphasize the distinction of a small sub-set of urban counties.
FIGURE 7
Population Density And Per-Capita CO2 Emissions for Transportation
All counties in New York State and the Tri-State Region are Shown
Data sources: Vulcan data product and US Census 2000.
FIGURE 8
Population Density and Per-Capita CO2 Emissions for Buildings and Industry.
All Counties in New York State and the Tri-State Region are Shown
Data sources: Vulcan data product and US Census 2000.
CHAPTER 4
155
3. Buildings and Industry

A number of factors shape the regions energy consumption and emissions for
buildings and industry. These include the regions temperate climate and servicebased economy as well as high energy prices. Among the 50 largest metropolitan
areas in the United States, New York ranks 20th in terms of heating-degree days
(Siviak 2008) and has the largest regional economy, both of which have an upward
effect on per-capita emissions from heating fuel. Nonetheless, the area has lowerthan-average per-capita natural gas and fuel oil consumption in all (natural gas)
and most (fuel oil) urban counties. With the exception of New York County
(Manhattan), counties within the urban core (New York City plus Newark and
Jersey City) have high population density and low per-capita consumption (Figure
8), indicating the possible importance of multi-family housing stock and smallerthan-average residential housing units. High energy prices and reduced demand
for space heating associated with the urban heat island effect may also have a
downward effect on per-capita heating fuel consumption, whereas small household
size and high per-capita income may have an upward effect on per-capita consumption. Further research is needed to analyze interactions between these factors.
156
BOX 1
Comparison of New York City and NY Metro Area

Estimates with Other Studies
Using the Vulcan data product, we estimated on-road transport emissions to
be 1.6 tons per capita in New York City (5 boroughs) and building and industry
emissions to be 3.2 tons per capita in 2002. These numbers agree well with
the results of New York Citys greenhouse gas emissions inventory (City of New
York, 2008). Based on data in this report, New York Citys on-road transport
emissions were estimated to be 1.4 tons per capita. Building and industry
emissions were estimated to be 5.9 tons per capita, including electricity (City
of New York, 2008). The report indicates that 41% of city-wide emissions
were associated with electricity versus 37% for heating fuels (including steam
production); based on these gures, heating fuels account for approximately
2.8 tons of CO2 emissions per capita. This estimate is 15% lower than our
estimate, a reasonable discrepancy given the differing methodologies and
baseline years. Our numbers also agree well with fuel consumption data
received from the City of New York (personal communication, 2008), and the
New York City estimates in Kennedy et al. (unpublished manuscripts, 2009),
which were also derived from City of New York data. Using data provided
by the City of New York (personal communication, 2008), we estimated onground transportation consumption to be 22.1 GJ/capita; using the Vulcan
data product, we estimated emissions to be 23.9 GJ/capita. For buildings and
industry, we estimated heating fuel consumption of 50.2 GJ/capita and 54.1
GJ/capita using City of New York and Vulcan data, respectively.
Brown et al. (2008) estimated CO2 emissions associated with residential
heating fuel to be 0.4 tons of carbon per capita, which is equivalent to 1.6
tons of CO2 per capita. In New York City, the residential sector accounts for
approximately 52% of heating fuel consumption. Assuming a similar ratio for
the NY Metro Area, total heating fuel emissions might be approximately 3.2
tons/capita, an estimate that agrees well with our estimate of 3.1 tons/capita
based on Vulcan data. Transportation estimates are not as close: Brown et
al. (2008) estimate 3.0 tons/capita, and we estimate 4.7 tons/capita. A large
part of this discrepancy is likely explained by the exclusion of non-highway
transportation in Brown et al. (2008).
CHAPTER 4
157
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Urban energy consumption is shaped by local geography and economic development, and by the history and culture of individual cities. A better understanding
of consumption patterns can help individual urban areas move forward with
locally-tailored energy efficiency and climate mitigation policy. A national inventory could also aid efforts to establish a formal role for local authorities in US
energy and climate policy, which is currently dominated by federal and state
governments.
Many cities have ambitious goals. For example, through PlaNYC, New York
City has set a target of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
(City of New York 2007). The city is pursuing a variety of technology shifts (e.g.
promotion of combined heat and power and renewables) and policy changes (e.g.
adaptation of the citys building code). The city is also attempting to strengthen
local energy governance (e.g. arguing for more direct control over energy
efficiency funding traditionally controlled by the state). Policies currently under
debate at the federal and state level focus most heavily on the power sector and
on vehicle fuel efficiency standards. Therefore, there is an opening for urban areas
to target consumption of heating fuels, which are the largest source of energy
demand in many cities in the northern half of the United States, and to promote
building-level energy efficiency measures as a complement to national and state
measures targeting power generation and/or distribution utilities.
A complete and regularly updated inventory could help to quantify the
potential contribution of these and other urban initiatives. The Vulcan data
product could become the basis of an effort to develop and institutionalize a
national inventory at the local scale, although further research is needed to
address some the limitations of Vulcan. For example, since Vulcan was originally
intended to be a production-based inventory of carbon emissions, currently it is
not possible to estimate urban electricity consumption, just electricity production.
Because electricity use in buildings and in the urban rail transport sector is not
incorporated, the Vulcan data product presents an incomplete picture of these
sectors. A more wide-reaching eff
effort
ort would involve the development of internationally recognized standards for local-scale energy and emissions inventories,
which could help to identify low-energy and low-carbon pathways in a range of
different local settings.
158
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160
APPENDIX
Urban Index Results by County
Total
Urban County
State
Bldgs & Industry

(CO2)
Natural
Fuel Oil
Gas
Transportation (CO2)
Diesel
Density
Total
<50
<50
13,922
2,465,326
<50
<50
11,991
1,332,650
101-125
<50
<50
8,056
2,229,379
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
4,647
608,975
<50
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
2,939
443,728
<50
<50
<50
<50
<50
<50
294
11,566
NY
51-75
51-75
51-75
>150
<50
<50
20,943
1,537,195
San Francisco
CA
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
51-75
76-100
6,447
776,733
Suffolk
MA
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
51-75
51-75
4,467
689,807
Washington
DC
51-75
51-75
76-100
51-75
76-100
51-75
3,267
572,059
Alexandria
VA
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
76-100
51-75
3,258
128,283
Baltimore City
MD
51-75
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
3,134
651,154
Essex
NJ
51-75
51-75
51-75
76-100
51-75
<50
2,419
793,633
Nassau
NY
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
76-100
51-75
1,881
1,334,544
Orange
CA
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
76-100
51-75
1,378
2,846,289
Delaware
PA
51-75
51-75
51-75
101-125
51-75
51-75
1,127
550,864
Passaic
NJ
51-75
51-75
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
968
489,049
Los Angeles
CA
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
51-75
903
9,519,338
Camden
NJ
51-75
51-75
51-75
51-75
76-100
76-100
873
508,932
Bristol
RI
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
51-75
<50
790
50,648
Alameda
CA
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
76-100
101-125
757
1,443,741
Montgomery
MD
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
51-75
673
873,341
Virginia Beach
VA
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
76-100
<50
642
425,257
Providence
RI
51-75
51-75
51-75
>150
76-100
<50
563
621,602
Faireld
CT
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
76-100
51-75
533
882,567
New Haven
CT
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
76-100
51-75
518
824,008
Broward
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
101-125
76-100
495
1,623,018
Sacramento
CA
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
76-100
101-125
480
1,223,499
Hartford
CT
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
101-125
51-75
445
857,183
Bexar
TX
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
76-100
126-150
421
1,392,931
Miami-Dade
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
76-100
76-100
420
2,253,362
Kent
RI
51-75
51-75
<50
>150
76-100
<50
374
167,090
Hillsborough
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
101-125
101-125
350
998,948
Orange
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
126-150
101-125
337
896,344
Prince William
VA
51-75
51-75
<50
51-75
101-125
76-100
314
280,813
Ocean
NJ
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
<50
312
510,916
El Paso
TX
51-75
51-75
76-100
<50
51-75
51-75
257
679,622
Arapahoe
CO
51-75
51-75
51-75
<50
76-100
76-100
236
487,967
Sarasota
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
101-125
126-150
211
325,957
Palm Beach
FL
51-75
51-75
<50
<50
101-125
76-100
190
1,131,184
CO2
Energy
Kings
NY
<50
<50
<50
76-100
Bronx
NY
<50
<50
<50
126-150
Queens
NY
<50
<50
<50
Hudson
NJ
<50
51-75
Richmond
NY
<50
Poquoson City
VA
New York
Gasoline
Population (2000)
CHAPTER 4
161
Urban Index Results by County, continued

Total
Urban County
State
Bldgs & Industry

(CO2)
Natural
Fuel Oil
Gas
Diesel
Density
Total
<50
<50
4,151
1,517,550
76-100
76-100
2,848
189,453
76-100
2,186
5,376,741
76-100
<50
1,962
522,541
76-100
76-100
1,504
940,164
<50
101-125
76-100
1,402
554,636
76-100
51-75
101-125
<50
1,397
884,118
76-100
<50
>150
101-125
76-100
1,191
921,482
76-100
76-100
<50
51-75
76-100
<50
101-125
126-150
51-75
>150
1,079
146,437
GA
76-100
76-100
951
665,865
TX
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
101-125
942
2,218,899
CO2
Energy
Gasoline
Population (2000)
Philadelphia
PA
76-100
76-100
>150
76-100
Arlington
VA
76-100
51-75
<50
76-100
Cook
IL
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
51-75
Union
NJ
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
Milwaukee
WI
76-100
76-100
101-125
76-100
Denver
CO
76-100
76-100
76-100
Bergen
NJ
76-100
76-100
Pinellas
FL
76-100
Hampton City
VA
De Kalb
Dallas
Fairfax
VA
76-100
76-100
<50
76-100
101-125
101-125
931
969,749
Middlesex
NJ
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
76-100
926
750,162
Marion
IN
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
101-125
101-125
833
860,454
Hamilton
OH
76-100
76-100
76-100
<50
76-100
101-125
799
845,303
Franklin
OH
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
101-125
768
1,068,978
Westchester
NY
76-100
76-100
<50
>150
101-125
51-75
757
923,459
Cobb
GA
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
>150
683
607,751
Allegheny
PA
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
51-75
671
1,281,666
Macomb
MI
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
126-150
635
788,149
Clayton
GA
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
126-150
>150
634
236,517
Prince Georges
MD
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
76-100
629
801,515
Tarrant
TX
76-100
51-75
<50
51-75
101-125
101-125
622
1,446,219
San Mateo
CA
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
126-150
76-100
607
707,161
Montgomery
PA
76-100
76-100
76-100
>150
101-125
76-100
601
750,097
Suffolk
NY
76-100
76-100
<50
>150
>150
51-75
599
1,419,369
Mercer
NJ
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
101-125
101-125
598
350,761
Rockland
NY
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
51-75
561
286,753
Multnomah
OR
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
76-100
101-125
546
660,486
Essex
MA
76-100
76-100
101-125
>150
51-75
51-75
544
723,419
Douglas
NE
76-100
76-100
101-125
101-125
76-100
76-100
532
463,585
Orleans
LA
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
51-75
51-75
529
484,674
Gwinnett
GA
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
>150
522
588,448
Summit
OH
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
101-125
504
542,899
Monmouth
NJ
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
51-75
503
615,301
Mecklenburg
NC
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
76-100
126-150
492
695,454
Baltimore
MD
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
76-100
485
754,292
Montgomery
OH
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
101-125
470
559,062
Anne Arundel
MD
76-100
76-100
<50
76-100
126-150
76-100
457
489,656
Shelby
TN
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
126-150
445
897,472
162

Total
Urban County
State
CO2
Energy
Bldgs & Industry

(CO2)
Natural
Fuel Oil
Gas
Population (2000)
Gasoline
Diesel
Density
Total
Salt Lake
UT
76-100
76-100
76-100
<50
76-100
76-100
434
898,387
Monroe
NY
76-100
76-100
51-75
76-100
101-125
51-75
428
735,343
Jackson
MO
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
101-125
415
654,880
Seminole
FL
76-100
76-100
<50
<50
126-150
126-150
401
365,196
Lake
OH
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
101-125
382
227,511
Morris
NJ
76-100
76-100
51-75
76-100
126-150
76-100
381
470,212
Somerset
NJ
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
101-125
51-75
380
297,490
Bucks
PA
76-100
76-100
51-75
>150
76-100
76-100
375
597,635
Kenton
KY
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
126-150
358
151,464
Jefferson
LA
76-100
76-100
>150
<50
51-75
51-75
355
455,466
Duval
FL
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
126-150
126-150
351
778,879
Muscogee
GA
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
76-100
76-100
325
186,291
Clarke
GA
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
101-125
101-125
324
101,489
Travis
TX
76-100
76-100
<50
<50
101-125
126-150
303
812,280
King
WA
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
>150
303
1,737,034
New Hanover
NC
76-100
76-100
<50
>150
76-100
76-100
301
160,307
Kane
IL
76-100
101-125
126-150
<50
76-100
101-125
300
404,119
Schenectady
NY
76-100
76-100
51-75
101-125
101-125
51-75
272
146,555
Jefferson
CO
76-100
76-100
51-75
<50
76-100
101-125
264
527,056
San Diego
CA
76-100
76-100
76-100
<50
101-125
76-100
256
2,813,833
Washington
OR
76-100
76-100
76-100
51-75
76-100
76-100
236
445,342
St Joseph
IN
76-100
76-100
101-125
<50
76-100
76-100
224
265,559
Chesapeake
VA
76-100
76-100
<50
76-100
101-125
51-75
222
199,184
Barnstable
MA
76-100
76-100
51-75
>150
101-125
101-125
208
222,230
Burlington
NJ
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
101-125
126-150
202
423,394
Sarpy
NE
76-100
76-100
51-75
51-75
76-100
101-125
193
122,595
St Charles
MO
76-100
76-100
76-100
<50
101-125
>150
187
283,883
St Louis City
MO
101-125
101-125
126-150
51-75
101-125
>150
2,055
348,189
Norfolk City
VA
101-125
76-100
51-75
126-150
76-100
51-75
1,628
234,403
Portsmouth
VA
101-125
76-100
<50
126-150
51-75
<50
1,387
100,565
Wayne
MI
101-125
101-125
126-150
<50
76-100
126-150
1,300
2,061,162
Du Page
IL
101-125
101-125
126-150
<50
101-125
126-150
1,045
904,161
Jefferson
KY
101-125
101-125
76-100
76-100
101-125
>150
679
693,604
Norfolk
MA
101-125
101-125
76-100
>150
126-150
126-150
619
650,308
Fulton
GA
101-125
101-125
76-100
<50
>150
>150
591
816,006
Petersburg
VA
101-125
101-125
<50
101-125
101-125
>150
567
33,740
Lake
IL
101-125
101-125
126-150
<50
76-100
126-150
534
644,356
Oakland
MI
101-125
101-125
101-125
<50
101-125
>150
511
1,194,156
Davidson
TN
101-125
101-125
76-100
<50
126-150
>150
422
569,891
Henrico
VA
101-125
76-100
<50
101-125
126-150
76-100
421
262,300
New Castle
DE
101-125
101-125
76-100
>150
101-125
101-125
416
500,265
CHAPTER 4
163

Total
Urban County
State
CO2
Energy
Bldgs & Industry

(CO2)
Natural
Fuel Oil
Gas
Population (2000)
Gasoline
Diesel
Density
Total
Wyandotte
KS
101-125
101-125
126-150
101-125
101-125
101-125
396
157,882
Johnson
KS
101-125
101-125
101-125
51-75
101-125
101-125
367
451,086
Oklahoma
OK
101-125
101-125
101-125
<50
126-150
126-150
357
660,448
Fayette
KY
101-125
76-100
76-100
51-75
101-125
101-125
356
260,512
Erie
NY
101-125
101-125
126-150
>150
101-125
76-100
353
950,265
Durham
NC
101-125
101-125
51-75
51-75
126-150
>150
292
223,314
Forsyth
NC
101-125
76-100
<50
51-75
126-150
>150
289
306,067
Hampden
MA
101-125
101-125
76-100
>150
76-100
101-125
280
456,228
Polk
IA
101-125
101-125
101-125
51-75
101-125
>150
247
374,601
Will
IL
101-125
101-125
>150
<50
76-100
126-150
230
502,266
Albany
NY
101-125
101-125
76-100
>150
126-150
76-100
215
294,565
Winnebago
IL
101-125
101-125
>150
<50
76-100
126-150
209
278,418
Chatham
GA
101-125
101-125
76-100
51-75
101-125
101-125
185
232,048
Richmond City
VA
126-150
126-150
76-100
126-150
101-125
76-100
1,232
197,790
Newport News
VA
126-150
101-125
51-75
>150
101-125
51-75
1,006
180,150
St Louis County
MO
126-150
126-150
101-125
<50
126-150
>150
758
1,016,315
Middlesex
MA
126-150
>150
>150
>150
76-100
76-100
673
1,465,396
Contra Costa
CA
126-150
126-150
>150
51-75
101-125
51-75
495
948,816
Lehigh
PA
126-150
101-125
51-75
>150
101-125
101-125
350
312,090
Richmond
GA
126-150
>150
>150
101-125
101-125
101-125
235
199,775
Hamilton
TN
126-150
126-150
51-75
>150
126-150
>150
208
307,896
York
VA
126-150
126-150
>150
51-75
126-150
76-100
202
56,297
Cuyahoga
OH
>150
>150
>150
<50
76-100
76-100
1,183
1,393,978
Ramsey
MN
>150
>150
101-125
>150
101-125
126-150
1,160
511,035
Harris
TX
>150
>150
>150
<50
101-125
126-150
730
3,400,578
Hennepin
MN
>150
>150
126-150
>150
101-125
126-150
711
1,116,200
Lynchburg City
VA
>150
>150
76-100
>150
76-100
126-150
512
65,269
Lucas
OH
>150
>150
>150
<50
101-125
101-125
511
455,054
Santa Clara
CA
>150
126-150
51-75
51-75
101-125
76-100
505
1,682,585
Danville City
VA
>150
126-150
51-75
>150
76-100
126-150
429
48,411
Lake
IN
>150
>150
>150
51-75
101-125
101-125
376
484,564
Tulsa
OK
>150
>150
>150
76-100
126-150
101-125
374
563,299
E Baton Rouge
LA
>150
>150
>150
<50
76-100
76-100
335
412,852
Galveston
TX
>150
>150
>150
>150
76-100
101-125
235
250,158
Dakota
MN
>150
>150
>150
>150
101-125
126-150
235
355,904
Davis
UT
>150
>150
>150
<50
101-125
76-100
147
238,994
Bold counties are in the NY Metro Area. Bold, italic counties are in the Tri-State Region but not the
NY Metro Area. With the exception of total energy, all index values were computed on the basis of
per-capita emissions of CO2 associated with direct fuel consumption. Total energy was computed on
the basis of per-capita direct fuel consumption (measured in GJ). Data sources: Vulcan data product
and US Census 2000.
CHAPTER
Mitigating Urban Heat Island

Effect by Urban Design:
Forms and Materials
Julien Bouyer,* Marjorie Musy, Yuan Huang, Khaled Athamena
Summary
This paper provides a synthesis of three complementary research works that
contribute to the same objective: proposing solutions to reduce building energy
consumption by modifying local climate. The first work explores urban forms: it
proposes methods to describe them and analyze the climatic performances of classified urban forms. The second one focuses on one parameter of direct relevance to
urban heat island phenomenon: the surface albedo. The albedo of a city or a district
depends on surfaces arrangement, materials used for roofs, paving, coatings,
etc., and solar position. The third one proposes a simulation tool that permits to
evaluate the impact outdoor urban environment on buildings energy consumption. This analysis permits us to propose morphology indicators to compare the
relative efficiencies of different typologies. The conclusion discusses the relevance
of using indicators (based on physics or morphology, related to site or to built form)
in urban design process and proposes a methodology to produce indicators.

164
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165
1. INTRODUCTION
In most countries, thermal regulations may enable to control building energy
consumption. However, we sometimes dispose of efficient techniques adapted to
climate and to architectural culture. For example, buildings envelopes are designed
to better insulate indoor climate from outdoor climate by controlling heat and mass
transfers between them, yet these practices sometimes omit to consider the indirect
effect that envelopes have on building energy consumption. Indeed, the radiative
characteristics of the buildings envelope and the geometrical arrangement of them
in the city play an important role in the urban heat island phenomenon. This one
factor may impact building energy consumption, because of the increase of air and
surface temperatures. In addition, this may lead to uncomfortable and unhealthy
situations for inhabitants in summer. The causes and effects of urban climates and
heat islands are diverse (Akbari 2001; Oke 1987; Santamouris 2001):
t less evapotranspiration because of mineralization of cities,
t more solar energy absorption due to lower albedo,
t less nocturnal infrared radiative loss due to the building density,
t less convection because of reduced air velocity caused by higher urban surface
roughness,
t higher anthropogenic loads partly due to air conditioner rejects.
Their interactions are complex and the effect of the different design parameters that play a role in these phenomena, in particular urban form, can be
contradictory.
This paper gives a synthesis of three complementary research works in progress
that are contributing to the same objective: proposing solutions to reduce building
energy consumption by corrective actions that modify the local climate.
The first work explores classified urban forms. It proposes methods to describe
urban forms and then analyze the climatic performances of those classified forms.
Based on this study, it is possible to propose morphology indicators that compare
the relative efficiencies of different typologies. The urban form typologies described
and the climatic performance indicators developed can become beneficial tools and
references to assist urban design. As such, research results are translated into design
guidelines in order to express optimal urban form guidelines based on typology
and morphology indicators. This is an important process that allows for designers
to more-easily understand research results and applications of the research.
The second one focuses on solar energy absorption and surface albedo. The
albedo of a city or a district depends on the surfaces arrangement, materials used for
166
roofs, paving, coatings, and solar position. We study these dependencies through the
calculation of the albedo for different urban blocks in the case of a real urban project
located in Lyon, France. This study can be used to increase the awareness of urban
planners, designers and decision makers on the importance of the choice of coating,
paving and roof materials not only for their aesthetics but also for their function - i.e.
their effect on local climate and indirectly on building energy consumption.
For these urban blocks, several morphology parameters have been evaluated
and correlations drawn between them through calculated albedos. From these
correlations, we propose a simple indicator that can be used to characterize the
radiative contribution of a district to urban heat island effect. This indicator, due
to its simplified formulation, could be classified as a decision-support tool for
early stages of the project. The tool allows to compare different projects with an
objective criterion, eventually integrated in a multi-criteria approach.
The third work proposes a complete simulation tool that permits to evaluate
the impact of outdoor urban environment on buildings energy consumption. The
simulation tool is a physics based code that includes models for thermal and hydrous
behavior of walls, grounds, trees and water ponds. The model permits simulation
of airflows, including thermal and hydrous effects and evaluates the energy balance
in buildings taking into account the local climate contrary to what is usually done
when using climate data from weather stations (often located near airports). This
tool, dedicated to research, allows to study the complex interactions between the
phenomena implied in Urban Heat Island (UHI), the buildings construction and
use, and their related impact on the energy demand and consumption.
The conclusion integrates the three study results to discuss the cumulative
intake of the used methods and indicators, which deal with different degrees of
knowledge (based on physics or morphology, related to site or to built form) in the
urban design process.
2. URBAN FORM AND ENERGY PERFORMANCE

It has been proved that urban forms affect urban microclimate (Givoni 1989),
and that these changes in the urban environment result in modified building
energy consumption (Santamouris 2001). As Oke (1984) argued, urban climatology can become a more predictive science in which findings can be of direct
value in urban planning and design. Mills (1999) proposed that by examining
the relationship between urban forms and climate, one could employ the results
of urban climatology into urban design guidelines. Therefore, for mitigating
urban heat island effect by urban design, our primary work on the research of
urban forms is to systematically collect and comb all urban form factors that may
impact building energy consumption through microclimate.
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167
2.1 Method
Based on literature review, we collect studies that have proved the impact of urban
forms on climatic parameters and on building energy consumption. Then we extract
the part of urban form analysis from these studies, and classify the urban form
factors with different scales. This is followed by analysis and introduction through
two methods: 1) urban form typology and 2) morphological indicators. Then we
study and explore the derivative urban form patterns and compare/quantify these
urban forms patterns with the corresponding morphological indicators.
2.2 Results
The framework established for the urban form factors covers the scales from single
building to urban block. We establish an elementary framework (Table 1) that is
TABLE 1
Basic Frame of the Proposed Urban Form Factors
168
composed of basic urban form patterns and morphological indicators at different

scales. Data is then cited and analyzed to accurately represent derivative urban form
patterns and morphological indicators as a result of this basic framework.
2.2.1 Single Building
Taking rectangular shape as the basic form pattern, we proposed shape ratio
(S/V), main faade orientation and glazing ratio as the basic morphological
indicators. They have been proved their importance for building energy
consumption impact (Fu 2002).
2.2.2 Generic Built Form
Generic built form is a basic single building on a little plot for an urban block
arrangement. The study of Ratti (2003) presented that the generic built forms are
from simplified synthetic urban fabric. Under the same plot ratio, he proposed
six archetypal forms linking with several basic indicators (Table 1); especially the
ratio of passive to non-passive floor area that indicated the impact on building
energy consumption. Brown (2001) defined directional space ratio (H1/W1, H2/
W2 etc.) for court space to analyze the relation between directional H/W and
court wind, incident solar radiation. Ratti (2003) set up three generic built forms
(Fig.1) for the research in an arid climate based on the six archetypal forms.
2.2.3 Street
Arnfield (1990) studied the solar access index of street canyon in the form of
H/W in variable value with E-W and N-S street orientations. They are the basic
street form pattern and morphological indicators. After that, Ali-Toudert (2006)
used these two basic indicators to set up the systematic case studied with H/
W=0.5, 1, 2, 4, and orientation= E-W, N-S, NE-SW, NW-SE. There are three
typical street form patterns that presented by Shashua-Bar (2006): separated
form, continuous form and colonnaded form (Fig.2). He then introduced the
spacing ratio (buildings distance parallel to street/building length parallel to
street orientation) to quantify the separated form.
Many studies that deal with urban wind effects are also using aspect ratio as
the main canopy layer morphological indicator. Okes basic patterns, highlighting
three main situations (isolated roughness, wake interference and skimming flow),
is an initiatory example (Oke 1987).
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169
2.2.4 Urban Block/Urban District
In our research, we take the grid aligned arrangement (Pano 2008) as the basic
form pattern. Although the morphological indicators presented by Pano are not
exhaustive (Table 1), he combines variable values of each indicator to explore the
optimum urban building efficiency potential. The study usually focuses on the
exploration of horizontal arrangement. Fu (2002) concluded that the residential
blocks in general follow five patterns: 1) Parallel columns and rows, 2) staggered
rows, 3) staggered columns, 4) oblique rows, 5) surrounding-style and free-style
(Fig.3). It is a simplified method to represent a diffuse urban morphology with
sraight elements.
One parameter of direct relevance to the UHI phenomenon is albedo of
an urban surface. Urban surface albedo is evaluated by the ratio of reflected
and incident solar energies. The greater the albedo, the smaller the solar
energy stored by the urban surface. The albedo of a city or a district (scale
more pertinent at design process) depends on the surface arrangements (e.g.
density, orientation, homogeneity, etc.), on the materials used for roofs, paving,
coatings, etc., and on the solar position (e.g. site latitude, date and hour). The
prediction of the urban energy budget and mesoscale climate involves the
study of radiative exchanges within the urban canopy (Miguet 1996). Because
these calculations cannot be carried in detail at mesoscale, taking into account
real materials and urban forms data, the equivalent surface albedo is used in
mesoscale models. This is the main application of the urban surface albedo.
However, it is difficult to use this kind of model to calculate albedo of real urban
fabrics that are not like checked frames. Starting from prior results obtained
(Groleau 2003), this study proposes to calculate albedo for every kind of urban
form, including street, single building, and urban block.
FIGURES 1, 2 and 3
170
3.1 Albedo Calculation: Application to Lyon Conuence

3.1.1 Method
We study surface albedo for different urban blocks in the case of a real urban project
that takes place in France: the Lyon Confluence project. After having grouped the
radiative characteristics of materials used in this project, we have performed simulations with SOLENE. This simulation tool is able to compute a comprehensive solar
and thermoradiative balance of the urban surfaces, thanks to detailed sky vault
model and radiosity algorithm (Miguet et al. 1996). Post-processing facilities allow
users to analyze accurately the physical variables and fluxes. The first stage relies
on 3D modelling of the district as a set of polygonal planar facets of the external
surfaces constituting the urban site: roofs, facades, courtyards and streets. A triangular mesh is applied to these facets and calculations take place at the center of each
mesh element. The second stage is to assign radiative properties to surfaces.
The first calculation stage, based on geometric procedures, determines the
visibility between mesh elements or between a mesh element and a sun location
or a sky patch of the geodesic sky model, considering masks. It results in form
factors. The second calculation stage examines the solar energy received by
each mesh element. The sun and sky irradiation are computed separately; the
direct component is evaluated over time (for each sunlit element); and the sky
contribution is calculated according to a type of sky (clear, overcast or other)
and location of the sun at the considered time. The time-dependent global solar
energy received on each mesh element is the first result to be used.
Then, the inter-reflections between surfaces are calculated by a radiosity
method that leads to knowledge of net flux received by each facet and the parts
that are absorbed or reflected.
At the end, we sum the fluxes absorbed by all the surfaces and the fluxes
received directly (not including flux received after reflection) and the albedo is:
(eq. 1)
Absorbed and global incident fluxes are calculated for three different days: the
winter and summer solstices and the equinox so that we can measure the impact
of solar azimuth on the albedo.
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171
3.1.2 Results
We studied different blocks of the first stage of the Lyon Confluence project. They
are compared to an existing district the cit jardin (Fig. 4). In table 2, the
characteristics of the blocks and the simulation results have been grouped.
The analysis of results shows that:
t In summer, the horizontal surfaces, including roofs participate fully in the reflection of sunlight. According to materials, there are keys to decrease the UHI
effect.
t In order to better exploit the benefits of the UHI effect during the winter period and in particular in reducing energy consumption, it is advisable to use
low reflective coatings for the facades of buildings.
t Albedo impact has to be considered carefully when photovoltaic arrays are used.
In these cases, heat is not stored in the materials but converted into electricity, so
the low albedo property does not really participate in the UHI causes.
A limitation of these results is that the specular reflection of metallic materials
could not be taken into account. However, attention must be paid to this high
albedo surface because they reflect energy to ground surfaces which are often
made with low albedo materials.
FIGURE 4
Aerial view of Lyon Conuence District: Location of the Studied Blocks
Source: www.Lyon-conuence.fr http://photos.pagesjaunes.fr.
172
TABLE 2
Building Envelope Materials, Computation Results for Incident and Absorbed Solar Energy
and Albedo of the Different Blocks
Materials
Blocks
A North
A South
B North
B South
Lyon
conuence
Cit Jardin
Number of concerned Buildings / Faade

Materials (Mean Albedo) / Roof Materials
(mean albedo)
3 / Glazing + metallic frame (0.16) / Photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / concrete + glazing (0.26) / Green roof (0.33)
2 / Concrete + glazing (0.22) / Green roof (0.33)
2 / Aluminum + glazing (0/69) / Green roof (0.33)

2 / Aluminum + glazing (0.67) / Photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / Polycarbonate + glazing, (0.18) / Photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / Stainless-steel + glazing (0.67) / photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / Stainless-steel + glazing (0.81) / photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / Concrete + glazing (0.24); Green Roof (0.33)
1 / Stainless-steel + glazing (0.77) / Green Roof
(0.33)
2 / Aluminum + glazing (0.67) / Green roof (0.33)
1 / Copper + wood + glazing (0.65) / Green roof
(0.33)
1 / Copper + wood + glazing (0.65) / Photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
1 / Stainless-steel + glazing (0.75) / Photovoltaic
arrays (0.05)
Part 1 / Wood + glazing (0.24) / Wood (0.4)
Part 2 & 4 / Concrete + glazing (0.22) / Concrete
(0.22)
Part 3 / Stainless steal + glazing (0.45) / Stainless
steal (0.95)
Part 5 / Glass + glazing (0.22) / Glass (0.35)
A+B+C
6 / Concrete + glazing (0.35) / Asphalt (0.2)
Simulation
date
Global
Energy
incident
(KWh)
Solar
Energy
Absorbed
(KWh)
Albedo
21-6
1834
1570
0.14
21-3
1192
1024
0.14
21-12
446
380
0.15
21-6
1947
1341
0.22
21-3
1259
922
0.19
21-12
475
374
0.19
21-6
3563
2574
0.27
21-3
2083
1501
0.28
21-12
562
389
0.30
21-6
2694
1675
0.37
21-3
1785
1011
0.43
21-12
668
355
0.50
21-6
4589
3561
0.22
21-3
2822
2181
0.23
21-12
871
671
0.23
21-6
11101
8656
0.22
21-3
6202
4713
0.24
21-12
2001
1524
0.24
21-6
6356
4943
0.22
21-3
3770
2914
0.24
21-12
1146
871
0.26
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173
3.2 Albedo Indicator
For these urban blocks, several morphology parameters have been evaluated and
correlations examined between them and calculated albedos. The most interesting correlated parameter is the sky view factor (SVF) that corresponds to the
percentage (0% to 100%) of the sky vault surface visible from a point in the urban
scene. It helps to identify the preferred exchange areas between the considered
surfaces and the sky. This indicator is evaluated for each facet of the meshing
and a weighted value is calculated for each block. We conducted the analysis
separately for horizontal and vertical surfaces.
The histogram analysis (Fig. 5) shows that the horizontal surfaces and particularly roofs have a large SVF. A geometry that presents a large ratio of horizontal
surface, including a large proportion of roof shows quite large SVF. We also
remark that the vertical surfaces have almost similar SVF than the whole blocks,
except for A north and C blocks. This is probably due to the size of their roofs
compared to other blocks. Therefore we conclude that the vertical geometry ratio
greatly affects the SVF: the greater this ratio, the lower the SVF is.
SVF is a relevant indicator because if we consider a diffuse radiative behavior
for any urban facet, the flux reflected out from the city (to the sky) is directly
dependent of its SVF.
FIGURE 5
Mean Sky View Factor of Each Studied Block
Whole block
0,94
0,82
Horizontal surfaces
0,71
0,68
0,7
0,81
0,78
0,8
Sky View Factor
0,93
Vertical surfaces
0,9
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,46
0,43
0,41
0,34
0,36
0,3
0,37
0,36
0,3
0,3
North Block B
South Block B
0,32
0,36 0,36
0,38
0,28
0,2
0,1
0
North Block A
South Block A
Block C
Lyon Confluence
Garden City
The initial objective was to propose a simple indicator estimate the radiative
contribution of a district (real or at design stage) to the UHI effect. Contrary
to the strict computation of the albedo that involves important time cost and
physical models (sky irradiance model, radiosity algorithm for urban inter-
174
reflexions), the indicator computation has to be straightforward in order to be

dedicated to retroactive decision process at the early stage of projects. The results
of the crossing analysis between the surface albedo, geometry and morphology
indicators showed that the factors that most impact the value of the district
albedo were the average reflection coefficient of the urban fabric and the SVF. We
defined the Albedo index denoted A, is defined as follows:
(eq. 2)
with i, SVFi and Si, the albedo, SVF and area of the facet number i, respectively.
In Fig. 6, we have represented for each part of the district both calculated
district albedo (district) and the albedo index (A). We can see that the indicator
reflects the general trend in the albedo, although there is a little bit of bias. The
indicator that we propose widens the role of solar material characteristics and the
urban form in the evaluation of the phenomenon of the UHI. Nonetheless it will
operate as a kind of pre-diagnosis of the quality of the elements of urban form
that will be complemented by computer simulations of physical phenomenon.
FIGURE 6
Albedo Index (A) versus Theoretical Albedo Computation () on x-Axis
CHAPTER 5
175
This study can be used to increase the awareness of urban planners, designers
and decision makers on the importance of the choice of coating, paving and
roof materials not only for their aesthetics, but also their function, specifically
in terms of their effect on local climate and indirectly on energy consumption of
buildings. It is worth noting this study could be enhanced by site experiments,
in addition to computer simulations, especially as albedo indicator values are all
quite far from the real albedo values.
4. MICROCLIMATE ENERGY CONSUMPTION SIMULATION

The previous approach points out the role the urban surface based on a single
phenomenon: the solar radiation. This is important to measure the impact of
materials on urban form and on the UHI, but at lower scales, it is necessary to
evaluate the impact of local urban design on outdoor thermal comfort and buildings energy consumption. Currently, there is a lack of efficient tool appropriate to
the designer needs. The approach is to develop a research tool that allows to test
configurations and learning about the physical phenomenon taking place in an
urban space and their impact on building energy consumption.
4.1 Method
Our tool has to take into account the different energy transfer processes:
t evapotranspiration from the vegetation and soil;
t solar radiation from sun and sky vault and reflection between surfaces;
t infra-red exchanges between urban surfaces and sky;
t convective transfer between surfaces and air with an explicit computation of
wind flow;
t conductive transfer of heat stored in buildings and ground.
It relies on a dynamic computation integrating three coupled modules:
t An industrial computation fluid dynamics (CFD) tool, FLUENT, customized
by specific functions, allows the model to obtain precisely the outdoor aerodynamic, thermal and hydrous conditions near the building;
t The thermoradiative model, named SOLENE (see Part 3.1.1.), which computes the solar and infra red balance and gives the temperature of the surfaces
according to the urban layout and the material characteristics; and
176
t A thermal model of the building specially developed for this study and integrated to, which is able to compute indoor thermal conditions according to
the physical environment given by the two previous models.
The first two modules evaluate the time-dependant spatial distribution of the
climatic variables according to a fine 3D mesh (Fig.7), while the third module
computes the mean thermal variables of the different building floors.
FIGURE 7
Simulation 3D Model and Surface Meshing Generation
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177
4.2 Results
An application in the real urban context of Lyon Confluence presented above

was carried out aiming to compare two kinds of urban design: a mineralized
one (Case A) and natural one (Case B) (Fig. 8). Four target office buildings have
been studied. Geometry, occupancy and building envelope materials were the
same, but compactness, glazing and orientation were different. Note that shading
devices are integrated for building 1 and 2.
FIGURE 8
The Two Studied Surroundings, Mineralized (Case A)
and Green (Case B)
178
FIGURE 9
Energy Consumption for Different Kind of Building Respecting French Thermal
Standards for a Winter Week and According to the Two Design Cases
The winter results show that buildings 1, 2 and 3 have almost the same energy
consumption during the simulation week. Only building 4, which is more exposed
to the solar radiation, does not have the same heating needs. The vegetated design
of outdoor space do not strongly modify the consumptions except for building 4,
where there remain a residual mask effect due to the branches (deciduous trees),
taken equivalent to 70% transmissivity of the virtual modeled 3D tree crown.
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179
FIGURE 10
Energy Consumption for Different Kind of Building Respecting French Thermal
Standards for a Summer Week and According to the Two Design Cases
The summer results show that buildings 1 and 2 confirmed the advantage of
integrated shading to save cooling needs. The impact of the green design can
be observed for building 3 and 4, for which the savings reach respectively 8.7%
and 11.6%.
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

We have shown how urban forms can be classified and how proposed morphology
indicators can help to characterize them with regard to their energy performance.
The use of morphology indicators needs to be validated. In this paper, we have
illustrated how a new indicator, the albedo indicator, is built starting from urban
form considerations. We have thus applied to a real project in terms of the stages
of albedo indicator validation. For this purpose, we have compared the values
of the albedo indicator to the values obtained when proceeding to complete
albedo calculation using computer intensive calculations. The results show, in
the studied case a bias between the two coefficients but a similar general trend.
180
So the proposed indicator can be used as a first approach for contribution to a

project regarding UHI by evaluating its surface albedo and comparing different
strategies of materials and buildings forms and arrangements.
However, for fine material arrangement decisions, we propose to use the
complete albedo calculation because in the indicator, the effect of geometry is
incomplete. Indeed, the effect of geometry is taken into account by the SVF that
permits to render the exchanges that the surfaces are liable to have with the sky,
but not their orientation with regard to the sun course. We will soon propose a
new simplified indicator better adapted for this kind of studies.
We have also presented a set of tools developed that allows for examination
of thermal phenomena that occur in a complex urban scene and analyzing of
the effect of different urban designs on microclimate (comfort purposes) and on
buildings energy consumption. We are able to simulate an urban scene taking
into account the presence of grass, trees, and water ponds, and obtain the wind
velocity, air temperature and humidity, surfaces temperatures and evaluate the
energy balance of a building. Results obtained with this tool have been presented.
Their consistency has been verified, but results still need to be validated with
regard to experimental data, which will be the next stage of the work.
Tools being almost mature, our aim is to use them in a methodical way in order
to produce guidelines for designers. The parameters concerned with urban design
that affect microclimate and energy consumption are numerous: urban forms,
surface materials, vegetation and water presence, and buildings use. Moreover,
as we pointed out in the introduction, their effect on different phenomena can be
antagonist. The first step is to analyze, for one particular urban project, the effect
of form, studying the different classes of the typology and varying the morphology
indicators, as illustrated in this paper. This is followed by study of the surface design
strategies, for buildings envelope and for public space between buildings.
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CHAPTER
Framework for City

Climate Risk Assessment
Shagun Mehrotra,* Claudia E. Natenzon, Ademola Omojola,
Regina Folorunsho, Joseph Gilbride, Cynthia Rosenzweig
Abstract
Estimation of spatially and temporally disaggregated climate risks is a critical
prerequisite for the assessment of effective and efficient adaptation and mitigation climate change strategies and policies in complex urban areas. This interdisciplinary research reviews current literature and practices, identifies knowledge gaps, and defines future research directions for creating a risk-based climate
change adaptation framework for climate and cities programs. The focus is on
cities in developing and emerging economies. The framework developed by
Mehrotra unpacks risk into three vectorshazards, vulnerabilities, and adaptive
capacity. These vectors consist of a combination of physical science, geographical, and socioeconomic elements that can be used by municipal governments
to create and carry out climate change action plans. Some of these elements
include climate indicators, global climate change scenarios, downscaled regional
scenarios, change anticipated in extreme events, qualitative assessment of highimpact and low-probability events, associated vulnerabilities, and the ability and
willingness to respond. The gap between existing responses and the flexible
mitigation and adaptation pathways needed is also explored. To enhance robustness, the framework components have been developed and tested in several
case study cities: Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lagos, and New York. The focus is on
articulating differential impacts on poor and non-poor urban residents as well
182
CHAPTER 6
183
as sectorally disaggregating implications for infrastructure and social well-being,

including health. Finally, some practical lessons are drawn for successful policies
and programs at the city level that aim to reduce systemic climate risks especially
for the most vulnerable population. Additionally, a programmatic response is
articulated with a four-track approach to risk assessment and crafting of adaptation mechanisms that leverages existing and planned investments in cities so that
city governments can respond to climate change effectively, yet efficiently.
INTRODUCTION1
Local governments are beginning to put a greater focus on adapting their cities
to the inevitable effects of climate change. This is a result of the lag between when
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will occur and the time it takes for those
effects to be felt in the climate system. Overall, climate change and increased
climate variability will alter the environmental baselines of urban locales, such
as the temperature regimes and precipitation patterns. Shifts in climate and
increased frequency of extreme events have direct impacts on water availability
and quality, flooding and drought periodicity, and water demand amongst a
host of conditions. These dynamic changes will affect system processes within
multiple sectors in cities interactively, increasing the uncertainty under which
urban managers and decision-makers must operate.
In response, this paper focuses on developing a new framework for urban risk
assessment, thus laying emphasis on how cities are affected by climate change
as opposed to the impact of cities on climate change through greenhouse gas
emissions. This paper focuses on adaptation aspects of climate change and not
mitigation, particularly because adaptation has been neglected until recently
both in developed and developing-country cities alike (IPCC 2007a). Further,
adaptation remains a critical concern in most developing country cities where
per capita emissions are already at relatively low levels2. The purpose of this
paper is to fill this critical gap by crafting a risk assessment framework for
cities that synthesizes existing local information, testing the framework on four
geographically-diverse large cities, and identifying a programmatic response
to the development of climate change risk assessment and adaptation planning
pathways, which are effective, efficient, and necessary responses to climate
change at the city-level.
1The ideas outlined in this paper have been further developed in Climate Risk, Disasters, and Cities Mehrotra, et
al., 2011) as well as an academic journal (Mehrotra, forthcomming).
2Large cities in seventeen major economies account for most GHG emissions: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China,
the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.
184
Understanding how cities craft institutional mechanisms to respond is an

important complement to this risk assessment framework. This has been briefly
explored where relevant, for detailed case studies on Quito and Durban (see
Carmin and Roberts 2009) and the eight-stage risk, uncertainty and decisionmaking framework developed by UK Climate Impacts Programme (2009), which
aims to help decision-makers identify and manage their climate risks in the face
of uncertainty.
For the purposes of policymakers, this framework looks at the projected
impacts of climate change through the end of the twenty-first century. Climate
projections for the twenty-second century have even larger uncertainties and
lie beyond the likely planning horizons for most urban development and thus
are not addressed here. Despite the uneven availability of data for developingcountry cities, research done for this paper suggests that time-series of observed
climate parameters are readily available for hundreds of cities and that gaps in
data do not limit use of climate models for projections. Further, we find that
relatively straightforward downscaling of global climate model simulations
provides ample information for assessing urban-scale vulnerability and risks, at
least in initial stages. Finally, data on city characteristics through the global urban
observatory of UN-Habitat are also available. By complementing these metrics
with city-specific analysis by local experts and existing studies, we find that it is
feasible to conduct substantive climate change vulnerability and risk assessments
for cities around the world, as demonstrated in this paper.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This review articulates the implications of climate risks as they pertain to cities with
a focus on differential impacts on the poor and the non-poor as well as on a range of
urban sectorstransport, water and sanitation, energy, and health. Highlights from
the relevant climate change studies are discussed in the section on case studies. The
emphasis is on the enhanced vulnerability of the poor in most future scenarios, and
the lack of capacity to mitigate and adapt to short and long-term climate risks is
articulated. From the literature review, we identify useful attributes of a climate risk
framework, some of which are addressed in the research.
At the global-level, the IPCC Working Group I identified four major aspects
of climate change relevant to cities in its synthesis report (IPCC 2007a). First, heat
waves are very likely to increase in frequency over most land areas. Second, heavy
precipitation events are very likely to increase in frequency over most areas; available
data suggest that a significant current increase in heavy rainfall events is already
occurring in many regions. The resulting risk poses challenges to urban society,
physical infrastructure, and water quantity and quality. Third, the area affected by
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drought is likely to increase. There is high confidence that many semi-arid areas will
suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change. Drought-affected areas
are projected to increase in extent, with the potential for adverse impacts on multiple
sectors, including food production, water supply, energy supply, and health. Fourth,
it is likely that intense tropical cyclone activity will increase. It is also likely that there
will be an increased incidence of extreme high sea level (excluding tsunamis).
Further, the IPCC (2007b) Working Group II lays emphasis on conceptual
issues regarding urban climate change with a focus on economic and social
sectors in Chapter 7 on Industry, Settlements, and Society. The review identifies
four key findings with very high or high confidence. First, climate change effects
can amplify the risks that cities face from non-climate stresses. These non-climate
stresses include large slum populations that live in low-quality housing lacking
access to basic social services; city-wide lack of access to effective and efficient
physical infrastructure; often-poor quality of urban air, water, and waste disposal
systems; lack of land-use planning and other urban governance systems, among
others. Further, the climate change associated risks for cities stem primarily from
extreme eventsimplying that cities need to assess risk for droughts, floods,
storms, and heat waves, in order to plan and implement adaptation strategies.
However, gradual changes such as rise in mean temperature do affect cities in at
least two significant ways: by increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme
events and burdening the existing infrastructure.
Second, vulnerability of a city depends on geographic, sectoral, and social
attributes. For instance, the risk to a citys infrastructure, firms, and households
is greater in coastal and other flood-prone areas or in economic sectors that are
vulnerable to climate variability, like tourism. Likewise, in developing countries, an
increasing proportion of the urban population and local economies are at risk as
cities are rapidly growing on susceptible land. Poor households in cities are particularly vulnerable because they tend to occupy high-risk areas (such as riverbeds,
and flood plains), their communities lack resources to adapt, and they rely extensively on local climate-sensitive resources such as water and food supplies.
Third, disaster managementprevention, preparedness, and response
are intrinsically related to climate change management because in cities where
climate-induced extreme events become more frequent and intense, the costs
can range from a small fraction of the regional economy in large regions with
big economies to as much as a quarter in small regions with small economies.
Further, through organic linkages, the impacts from climate change can spread
across urban regions and sectors, posing systemic risks.
Fourth, cities have a certain degree of resilience to climate change and embody
adaptive capacities, although within limits. And while adaptation responses for
cities are locally grounded, regional, national, and global linkages can enhance
adaptive capacities through resource transfers and knowledge exchange.
186
The impacts of climate change will vary across cities as well as among
households and sectors within cities. In this regard, scholars and practitioners
concerned with urban development argue for the need to focus on the poor, as
they are more vulnerable due to their lack of access to infrastructure and their
relative inability to hedge against risks. UN-Habitat (2008a, 2008b), the United
Nations agency for human settlements, as well as the International Institute for
Environment and Development (Satterthwaite et al. 2007), among others, have
articulated the need to focus attention on developing country cities due to several
interrelated factors. Half the worlds population is urban, and cities, which are
the engines of economic growth, are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
This is particularly so in developing countries where most coastal mega-cities are
located and that are home to rapidly growing population centers (UN-Habitat
2008a). The challenge posed by climate change for African cities is particularly
alarming (UN-Habitat 2008b).
Developing country cities face more risks of economic and social catastrophes
due to their relative lack of resources to adapt and mitigate. These cities also
offer opportunities to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable urban
populations of the worldessentially about a billion slum dwellers, a section of
the urban population that is projected to grow to two billion by 2020. As poverty
has often been primarily associated with rural areas, this population has received
relatively less attention. However, there an increasing recognition of the urbanization of poverty (UN-Habitat 2003).
There is a critical need for sectorally-tailored analysis of climate hazards, sectorspecific vulnerabilities, and location-specific adaptive capacities, as has been
highlighted by the most recent IPCC Working Group III AR4 (2007c) and the
World Resource Institute, which focuses on sectorally-disaggregated mitigation
strategies (see Baumert et al. 2005; Bradley et al. 2007). OECD, in a literature
review on climate impacts on cities also identifies such gaps, concluding, for
example, that most analysis on climate impact assessments and cities has neglected
non-coastal cities and that uncertainties in assessing the economic impacts need
to be incorporated, particularly for developing-country cities where variances are
likely to be higher (Hunt and Watkiss 2007; Hallegatte et al. 2008). Further, there
is a need for city-specific efforts to graduate from awareness-raising to impact
assessmentsincluding costing impacts and identifying co-benefits-and-costs
and adaptation analysis so that no-regret adaptation options can be adopted to
increase resilience of cities to climate change. Economic costs of climate change
in cities need to bracket for uncertainty and assess both intra-and-inter sectoral
and systemic risks to address direct and indirect economic impacts.
Risk frameworks tend to fall broadly into three categories or groups. The first
group of risk frameworks stems from the work of climate scientists associated
with the IPCC and focuses primarily on climate hazardsvariances in mean
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187
and extreme climate parameters, collectively referred to as climate hazards.

The second group emerges from the work of planners and policymakers, such
as those associated with UN-Habitats The Cities in Climate Change Initiative
(CCCI) or the World Bank, East Asia Units recent analysis summarized in the
Climate Resilient Cities: A Primer on Reducing Vulnerabilities to Disasters, focus
on vulnerabilitiesessentially city characteristics that determine the susceptibility of a city to climate change. The third group of risk frameworks focuses
on economic analysis of climate impacts, such as the OECD reports (Hunt and
Watkiss 2007 and Hallegatte et al. 2008) or the Stern Review on the Economics of
Climate Change (Stern 2007). These cost-accounting exercises define risk as the
cost of catastrophe weighted by the probability of extreme events.
In sum, the literature points to the pressing need for understanding risks
associated with climate change as they pertain to different types of citiescoastal
versus non-coastal and developed versus developing; different sectorsphysical
infrastructure such as energy, transport, water supply, as well as social services
such as health and environmental management (and the complex interactions
among these sectors); and differential impacts on the poor or the young and old,
who are more vulnerable than the rest of the urban population. The goal of this
paper is to develop and test a climate change risk framework that captures the
complexities resulting from the interactions of these factors, thus filling a critical
gap in research as well as practice.
FRAMEWORK FOR RISK ASSESSMENT
Climate change assessments have focused at the country-level and therefore lack
a city-specific emphasis. Further, many city managers are yet to address climate
change in their management strategies largely because city-specific risks remain
undefined and more short-term problems such as lack of basic services or aging
infrastructure take precedence. However, even when climate risk is identified
at the local scale the focus is on climate hazards. Two additional vectors are
critical and often neglected in citiesnamely vulnerability and adaptive capacity.
Vulnerability of a city is determined by a host of internal characteristics of the
city. Adaptive capacity is a function of the ability and willingness of the city stakeholders to respond to and prepare for future climate-induced stresses.
To address this critical gap, the aim of this new framework developed by
Mehrotra for urban climate risk assessment is to unpack, or deconstruct risk, into
three elements: hazards, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity. Similar frameworks
have evolved in disaster risk reduction, however they use different indicators
(for instance see Shook 1997). However, these conceptual frameworks owe their
roots to the evolution of concepts of development economics from the Rawlsian
188
notions of development (1971) to that of Sens (1999) capability-based approach,

which accounts for both internal constraints and degrees of agency, in addition to
constraints due to external conditions (Mehrotra, forthcoming).
The challenge is to translate information from climate science into knowledge
that triggers a realistic assessment of the vulnerability of the city and its systems,
so as to facilitate the development of pragmatic adaptation strategies. The goal
of this Urban Climate Risk Framework is to assist policymakers in assessing and
responding to the risks associated with climate change in cities. The specific
objectives of the framework are three-fold:
1. Characterize the hazards associated with climate change at the city-level;
2. Identify the most vulnerable segments (people, locations, sectors) of the city;
and
3. Assess the citys ability to adapt to anticipated changes in climate.
Risk is defined by Mehrotra as the product of the three vectors: hazards, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity (Figure 1, adapted from Mehrotra 2003; Rosenzweig and Hillel 2008).
FIGURE 1
Framework for Urban Climate Risk Assessment
Hazards
Heat waves
Coastal
Storms
Floods
Vulnerability
Size and densty
Topography
% of poor
% of GDP
Risk
Adaptive capacity
Information
and Resources
Institutions
and governance
Change agents
Source: Adapted from Mehrotra (2003) and Rosenzweig and Hillel (2008)
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189
Hazards: These are defined as the climate-induced stresses on the city and are identified through observed trends and projections derived from global climate models
(GCMs) and regional downscaling. Extreme events affected by climate change
include heat waves, droughts, inland floods, accelerated sea level rise, and floods for
coastal cities. The variables examined to track these hazards are temperature, precipitation, and sea level. In essence, the hazard element of the framework structures the
array of climate change information into the key stresses that potentially have the
greatest consequence for the specific city under consideration. In this regard, it is
critical to draw attention to both the variation in climate means and the change in
frequency and intensity of extreme events. The latter offers opportunities for linkages
with disaster risk reduction programs and has received perhaps more attention, while
the former has critical long-term implications for city infrastructure and development, and tends to receive less attention because the mean changes are gradual.
Vulnerability: These are physical attributes of the city and its socio-economic
composition that determine the degree of its susceptibility. The variables affecting
vulnerability include flood-proneness (proximity to coast or river), land area, elevation, population density, percentage of poor, and quality of infrastructure. OECDs
work on city vulnerability in the context of climate change points to such variables as
location, economy, and size as well (Hunt and Watkiss 2007). More detailed indicators such as composition of the poor populationage, gender, labor force composition and the likeneed to be taken into consideration when in-depth city vulnerability analysis is conducted, but for the purpose of this study a more restricted set
of variables that are readily available for most cities is utilized, essentially to illustrate
that such physical and socio-economic characteristics affect a citys risk.
Adaptive Capacity: These are institutional attributes of the city and its actors that
determine the degree of its capability to respond to potential climate change
impacts. Thus they provide measures of the ability (institutional structure, caliber,
resources, information, analysis), and willingness (of actorslocal governments,
their constituent departments, private sector, civil societyNGOs, academics) to
adapt to climate change. Variables that can determine the extent of a citys ability to
adapt include the structure and capacity of institutions, presence of adaptation and
mitigation programs, and motivation of change agents. Here it is critical to draw
a distinction with the term resilience3 that the IPCC (2001b) Working Group II
assessment defined as amount of change a system can undergo without changing
state. In contrast, adaptive capacity does not assume a steady state of a city and its
integrated systems; rather it measures the ability and willingness to not only cope
but to respond positively to the stresses that climate change imposes.
3Coping Range and Exposure are two related concepts that climate change scientists often include within
vulnerability that are germane to the framework described here. IPCC (2007) defines coping range as variation
in climatic stimuli that a system can absorb without producing significant impacts while exposure is nature and
degree to which a system is exposed to significant climatic variations.
190
3.1 Measuring Hazards through Climate Change Scenarios
Analysis of hazards specific to a particular city should include observed and

projected data on key climate parameterstemperature, precipitation, and
sea-level rise, among others. Further, each hazard4 needs to be analyzed for
variance in climate parameter over the short- and long-term and where relevant
for frequency as well as intensity of extreme events. Climate change scenarios
provide a reasonable understanding of potential future climate conditions
(Parsons et al. 2007). It is not expected that a single climate model will project
exactly what will happen in the future, but by using a range of climate model
simulations along with scenarios incorporating different atmospheric concentrations
of greenhouse gases, a range of possible climate outcomes are produced and can
be presented as projections that demonstrate the current expert knowledge.
Local climate change information is derived from the scenarios of greenhouse
gas emissions and global climate model simulations described above. Quantitative projections are made for key climate variables such as the change in mean
temperature that reflect a model-based range of values for the model grid boxes
covering Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lagos, and New York City. Further, there is need for
a nuanced understanding of the complex interactions between hazards and the city.
This is because the city can be both a producer as well as a receiver of these hazards.
For instance, New York City alone contributes about 0.25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (The City of New York 2007). On the other hand, an increase
in sea level also increases the citys susceptibility to flooding. Furthermore, while
both the urban heat island and global warming increase the ambient temperature
of the city, one is internally generated while the other is externally induced.
3.2 Measuring Vulnerability
Vulnerability is defined as the extent to which a city is predisposed to adverse

effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes (IPCC
2007d). However, unlike the IPCC definition of vulnerability that includes
adaptive capacity, we decouple the two and address them individually, considering vulnerability to be determined by the physical and underlying social
conditions of the city while adaptive capacity is determined predominantly by
the change agents. Vulnerability is a function of a host of city characteristics,
4Defining Climate Risk Factors: Climate change (or climate variability) affects hazard, vulnerability and adaptive
capacity through a variety of direct and indirect relationships, although the most direct, well-understood effect
is on hazard. Climate change manifests itself in changing temperatures and changing temporal and spatial
atmospheric circulation patterns. Increasing temperatures are very likely to result in continuing sea level rise,
which increases the likelihood of flooding of coastal regions. Rising sea levels also increase storm surge, wave
damage, and coastal erosionparticularly significant effects considering that population and other assets are
becoming ever-more concentrated in coastal regions. Changes in rainfall will mean increased flooding and water
shortages, in some cases for the same region. Changing patterns of tropical storms are likely to bring higher
winds and more intense rainfall affecting buildings and infrastructure not designed for these impacts.
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191
including but not limited to the location of a city, particularly its proximity to
the sea, topography, or any other physical attributes of the landscape or physical
geography that make the city susceptible to climate variations.
Social factors that determine the degree of vulnerability of a city include its
population size and composition, density, size, quality of infrastructure, type
and quality of its built environment and its regulation, land use, governance
structure, and the like. A critical factor determining the vulnerability of the
poor, as opposed to the non-poor population of the city, is the percentage of the
population living in slums. These are households that lack access to one or more
of the following: improved water supply, improved sanitation, sufficient livingspace, structurally sound dwellings, and security of tenure (UN-Habitat 2003).
The contrast between the formally planned part of the city and the slums is stark
and is a key determinant of the differential vulnerability of the poor as opposed
to the non-poor (UN-Habitat 2008a).
3.3 Measuring Adaptive Capacity
Adaptive capacity is the ability and willingness of the citys key stakeholders to
cope with the adverse impacts of climate change, and depends on the awareness,
capacity, and willingness of the change agents. A quick measure of institutional
awareness is the presence of a comprehensive analysis of climate risks for the city
and corresponding adaptation and mitigation initiatives. Capacity here refers to
the quality of institutions at various levels of governmentslocal, regional, and
nationaland within local government, across various departments. Further,
the capacity of the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and community groups to respond also matters. Finally, the willingness to act is of essence.
In this regard, identifying in substantial detail the leading actors for climate
responsegovernment, private sector, and civil societyand mapping their
initiatives is essential for estimating the adaptive capacity of a city.
3.4 Data Sources and Uncertainties
The indicators selected (see Table 1) are based on comparable data compiled
in readily accessible databases like the United Nations Population Statistics,
UN-Habitats Global Urban Observatory databases, the World Development
Indicators of the World Bank, and other international data sets. For a comprehensive review of available and planned urban indicators see Hoornweg et al. (2007).
192
TABLE 1
Three Vectors of Urban Climate Risk
Hazards
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Temperature
Precipitation
Sea-level
Tropical cyclone
Drought
Heat waves
Vulnerability
1. Population
2. Density
3. Percent of slum
population
4. Percent of urban area
susceptible to ooding
Adaptive Capacity
Institutions and Governance
1. Urban governance (corruption
index ranking for city)
2. City leadership is willing to
address climate change
Information and Resources
3. Comprehensive analysis of
climate risks for the city
4. Administrative unit assigned to
address climate change
Source: Mehrotra
The aim is to create straightforward indicators and communication tools

that will provide timely and ongoing assessments of climate risks to inform the
adoption of appropriate adaptation programs and policies in urban areas. An
uncertainty rating similar to that employed by the IPCC (IPCC 2007a) has
been utilized for the climate projections, and is based on the correspondence
between the observations and model projections (either existing or modified),
the agreement among models, and expert judgment. However, as the framework
is applied to cities, higher-quality locally available data will often allow for further
analysis as illustrated through the case study cities. While sensitivity analysis
to capture uncertainty is a useful concept to apply to vulnerability and adaptive
capacity indicators as well, it is beyond the scope of this paper.
METHODOLOGY: FRAMEWORK APPLIED TO FOUR CITIES
To test the framework developed by Mehrotra, the co-authors conducted case

studies for the metropolitan areas of several cities5Buenos Aires, Delhi,
Lagos, and New York. The primary criterion for selecting these cities is that
all four have leadership that is committed to addressing the issue of climate
change6 and thus the risk analysis is expected to inform policymakers as well
as yield response through the creation of programmatic responses needed to
5The unit of analysis for this paper is the city. The city is defined as the urban agglomeration that constitutes
the broader metropolitan area and has overlapping jurisdictions. While every effort has been made to maintain
consistency across the four cities, due to varying legal traditions and related local administrative differences the
units are not strictly identical, but are broadly comparable.
6All cities are members of the C40 Large Cities, Climate Leadership Group, http://www.c40cities.org/ and all coauthors are members of the Urban Climate Change Research Network http://www.uccrn.org
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193
create flexible climate adaptation pathways. Further, these cities are located
on four different continents and have a range of socioeconomic conditions
and vulnerability to climate hazards. As these are all megacities and important
national urban centers in their respective countries, not only do they constitute
a significant share of the national GDP but also help to shape the direction of
national urban development policies. See Table 2 for demographic parameters
for the case study cities.
TABLE 2
Demographics for the Case Study Cities (Metropolitan Area)
Metropolitan
Area
Population
Area
Population
Density
Slum Population As A
Percentage Of National
Urban Population
Buenos
Aires
12.0 million
3,833 km2
3,131 people
per km2
26.2 percent
7.9 million
1,000 km2
7,941 people
per km2
65.8 percent
New Delhi
12.9 million
9,745 km2
1,324 people
per km2
34.8 percent
New York
8.2 million
10,380 people
per km2
N.A.
Lagos
790 km2
Sources: Authors compilation from city, state, and national statistics and census bureaus of Argentina, India,
Nigeria, and United States; slum data from UN Habitat 2008.
Most aspects of the risk framework articulated in this paper are equally
applicable to smaller cities, as in many cases time-series data on climate parameters
are available. Smaller cities may have fewer resources to apply to the development
of climate risk responses and thus may have additional needs for national and
international guidance and support. However, the diverse urban conditions in the
case study cities allow for some generalized lessons to be drawn regarding effective
and efficient urban responses to climate change. The combination of city cases
allows for a comparison among developing countries as well as contrasts between
developed and developing country cities, their challenges, and responses.
For each city, available knowledge is analyzed for various aspects of climate
risks, including uncertainty.
Background information from the case study cities has been evaluated and
selected variables have been assigned to the framework components. The
case studies allow for preliminary tests of the transferability of the climate risk
framework to a variety of cities and to explore what climate services of data
analysis, access, and processing need to be provided at the international level.
194
To provide concrete examples of how climate risk information can be

communicated, current trends in key climate variables (including temperature,
precipitation, and the incidence of extreme events) for each of the case study
cities have been determined, and recent IPCC 2007 projections (up to sixteen
models and three emissions scenarios) have been used to create city-focused
downscaled climate model projections. The degree to which these models are
able to replicate observed climate and climate trends in the past several decades is
described. We also explore discrepancies, if any, between the identified risks and
vulnerabilities and the current responses of cities to climate-related hazards. This
addresses the important question of real-versus-perceived needs. Finally, how
such information contributes to urban vulnerability assessments, quantification
of the range of potential impacts, and formulation of practical, user-relevant
adaptation strategies is explored.
4.1 Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the third largest city in Latin America, and is the political and
financial capital of Argentina. The city is composed of several sub-jurisdictions that were added as the city expanded since its inception in the fifteenth
century as a Spanish port. The Greater Buenos Aires Agglomeration (AGBA)
is the largest in Argentina, with over 12 million inhabitants (National Population Census 2001), with 77 percent of the population living in the surrounding
provincial boroughs, and 23 percent in the central urban core of Buenos Aires
City (Instituto Nacional de Estadstica y Censos [INDEC] 2003). Buenos Aires
City (CABA) is administered by an autonomous government elected directly by
its citizens. With less than 10 percent of the Argentinean population, the CABA
produces around 24 percent of the GDP. The Geographic Gross Product of the
city in 2006 was about US $50 billion (Directorate for Statistics and Census 2007).
Service sectors account for 80 percent of the local economy.
Hazards
Increases in sea and river levels, rising temperature and precipitation, along with
increased frequency of extreme events like flooding caused by heavy (convective) rains and storm surges, as well as droughts are the primary climate-induced
hazards for Buenos Aires. The city has a humid subtropical climate with long hot
summers, and winters with low precipitation caused by the central semi-permanent high pressure center in the South Atlantic. This pressure system can cause
strong south-southeast winds in the autumn and summer causing floods along
the shores (Camillioni and Barros 2008).
Since the 1900s, the mean temperature has steadily increased on average by
0.2C per decade. Likewise, over the last century, the precipitation in Buenos
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195
Aires has increased on average by 22.8 millimeters per decade. For details on
observed and projected temperature and precipitation trends for Buenos Aires
see Figures 2 and 3. Regarding extreme events, there is an increase in frequency
of extreme precipitation and associated city floods, see Table 3. Further, occurrences of precipitation events of more than 100 millimeters within 24 hours have
nearly doubledfrom 19 times between 1911 and 1970 to 32 times between 1980
FIGURE 2
Projected Temperatures Buenos Aires
FIGURE 3
Projected Precipitation Buenos Aires
Source: Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
196
TABLE 3
Extreme Events in Buenos Aires1
City
Extreme Temperatures
Extreme Precipitation
Buenos
Aires
January & February 1987; December & January

1988; December & January 199697; January
& February 2001; January 2002; January 2003;
January 2004; December 2004
March 1988; May 2000;

February 2003
Source: Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University

1Temperature extreme events (warm spells) were selected by finding the months that were over 1.5 standard
deviations (2.0 for Lagos) from the full time series mean temperature for each city (the dataset was standardized).
In case sufficient data is unavailable, a simple ranking procedure can be used to select the warmest months. This
procedure would involve sorting and ranking the months and selecting the highest values.
The method used to select extreme precipitation events was similar to that used for temperature extremes. In this
case, wet periods were selected by finding the months that were over 4 standard deviations from the 19002005
mean precipitation for each city. Lagos was the only city that had months that met the criteria for dry spells,
which was greater than 1 standard deviation below the 19002005 mean. Again, a ranking procedure may be
used for a quick assessment.
and 2000. Such observed increases in the quantity and frequency of extreme
precipitation not only adversely affect urban infrastructure, but also damages
private property and disrupts the economic and social functioning of the city.
Moreover, floods have become more frequent in the low-lying coastal zones
since 1960 when the south Atlantic anticyclone was displaced southward bringing
an increased frequency of easterly winds over the La Plata River. Storms with
southeasterly winds, locally known as sudestadas, cause the River to swell, and
result in the flooding of coastal zones that lie up to 2.85 meters above mean sea
level, see Table 4.
TABLE 4
Frequency of Water Levels Above Mean Sea Level at the Buenos Aires Port
Frequency (years)
2.5
5
11
27.5
79
366
Source: Barros et al., 2008.
Height (meters)
2.50
2.80
3.10
3.40
3.70
4.00
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BOX 1
Coast of the La Plata River

The La Plata River, an estuary, widens gradually from 50 kilometers at its
source to 200 kilometers at its mouth; the river also increases in salinity along
its exterior boundary towards the Atlantic Ocean. The riverbed has a gradual
gradient (0.01 meter per kilometer), which favors maritime-type dynamics, with
both lunar and wind-induced tides from the ocean. The sudestadas are local
storms that can last from a few hours to two or three days, with strong winds
from the southeast that push water towards the interior of the river and cause
oods along the low Argentinean bank.
Source: Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change 2005.
Additionally, contributing to flood proneness, over the last century the average
water level of the La Plata River has increased by 1.7 millimeters per year. If this
trend continues, the coastal areas in and around the metropolitan agglomeration
will experience frequent flooding as well as erosion along the coast (Camillioni
and Barros 2008). A less likely, yet catastrophic climate-associated hazard is the
salinization of the inner waters of the La Plata River, and the consequent contamination of the aquifers (Menndez 2005).
Droughts caused by long dry spells in the La Plata River basin occasionally
occur. However, these droughts affect cities located in the center and northwestern areas of the Basin more than Buenos Aires. This is because the section
of the river along Buenos Aires has an average annual flow rate of 22,000 cubic
meters per second. Thus, droughts were not considered a hazard for the city until
2008, when a surprising environmental problem with dry conditions emerged.
That autumn, smoke from forest fires covered the city with soot for several weeks,
posing a health hazard for the people of Buenos Aires.
Vulnerability
Buenos Aires is located along the shores of the La Plata River, spreading out over
the pampa, a wide fertile plain, and the adjoining Parana river delta. As a result,
the entire metropolitan area is less than 30 meters above mean sea level. As the
city grew, several rivulets that formed the natural drainage system were replaced
with a system of underground storm water drains (Falczuk 2008).
Spatial Distribution of Poor Versus Non-poor: During the 1990s the city experienced sprawl with developers building gated communities on the periphery of
198
the metropolitan area, thereby extending the city over an area one and a half times
the size of the CABA (Prez 2002). With disparity on the rise and the migration
of the non-poor from the city center to the periphery, the city has been further
spatially segregated by income groups. This condition was further intensified
with the economic crisis of 2001, which created the new poor consisting of the
middle class that now lacked incomes.
The precise distribution and enumeration of the slums in Buenos Aires is
complicated by two additional factors. First is the process of urban invasions
whereby squatter settlements crop up sporadically across the city. Second, like
all other urban data for AGBA, information on the poor is parsed into 30 administrative units. For this research, data for slums and other dilapidated housing
in the CABA were derived from an Ombudsman survey in 2006 (see Table 5 for
quantification of low-income housing), which found that about 20 percent of all
households in the urban core of the AGBA live in poor housing conditions.
TABLE 5
Slum Population in Buenos Aires City (CABA)
Housing Types by Building Quality
Slums (villas miseria)
Properties of other people (inmuebles tomados)
Number
of Units
< 120,000
200,000
Tenement house (casas de inquilinato)
70,000
Lodges
70,000
Rooms in relatives houses, rental rooms, or overcrowded houses
120,000
Source: Ofce of the National Ombudsman, Buenos Aires 2006.
Additionally, the survey identified 24 new settlements with 13,000 inhabitants

located under bridges or simply under the sky (Defensora del Pueblo de la Ciudad
de Buenos Aires 2006). However, unlike developing-country slums, most households have land tenure and property rights related to their homes due to a wellestablished public housing program in Argentina. Mapping the spatial distribution
of differential vulnerability of the poor and non-poor to floods and other hazards is
critical to crafting a climate-risk assessment of Buenos Aires (see Figure 4).
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FIGURE 4
Source: Silvia G. Gonzlez adapted from Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change (2005).
Low elevation urban areas: In its present configuration, a quarter of the

metropolitan area is susceptible to floods (Clichevsky 2002; Menndez
2005). Urban expansion continues over the basins of the Matanza-Riachuelo,
Reconquista, and Lujn rivers, as well as the estuary of the La Plata River. These
areas consist of a combination of new gated communities, real estate speculation
sites, as well as illegal plots in the flood plain targeted toward the housing needs
of the poor. With a lack of regulation governing such urban development and the
creation of unprotected infrastructure in the flood plain, the vulnerability of this
part of the city is increasing (Ros and Gonzlez 2005).
To assess the vulnerability of the low-elevation areas of the city a review
of past urban floods was undertaken. As reported in newspapers and official
assessments, floods impaired all modes of public and private transportation,
including domestic flights, road, and rail; disrupted energy supplies, telephone
lines and traffic lights; flooded buildings; and created an overall disruption of
city life. Streets and cellars were waterlogged and people living in low-elevation
neighborhoods in the suburbs were evacuated (Gonzlez 2005). In sum, the
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economic costs were high. Unlike urban disasters in other developing countries,
the death toll in Buenos Aires related to flooding disasters tends to be low. The
primary costs are the disruption of the economic activity of the city and damage
to public and private property.
As the metropolitan area has been expanding into the flood plain, a simulation
to quantify the population vulnerable to sea level rise was conducted. Barros et
al. (2008) observed that Assuming little change in population density and distribution, under the scenario of maximum sea-level rise during the 2070 decade
the number of people living in areas at flood risk with a return period of 100 years
is expected to be about 900,000, almost double the present at-risk population.
The potential damage to public and private assets can be assessed from a recent
survey that estimated that 125 public offices, 17 social security offices, 205 health
centers, 928 educational buildings, 306 recreational areas and 1,046 private
industrial complexes are currently at risk to floods.
A conservative estimate by Barros et al. (2008) states that at present the
damage to real estate from floods is about US $30 million per year. Assuming a
business-as-usual scenario, which includes a 1.5 percent annual growth in infrastructure and construction and no adoption of flood-protection measures, the
projected annual cost of damages is US $80 and US $300 million by 2030 and
2070 respectively. These estimates do not include the losses to gated communities of the non-poor being built in the coastal area, largely located less than 4.4
meters above mean sea-level. Nor does this account for the loss in productivity
of the labor force, which can be significant given the size of the population likely
to be affected. Thus, the costs of not responding to climate change in the course
of urban development are projected to be significant and disruptive.
Adaptive Capacity
The Argentinean governments response to global climate change has been

dominated by mitigation efforts related to policies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Pochat et al. 2006), with relatively little attention to adaptation. The lead national agency to address climate issues is the Secretariat for
Environmental and Sustainable Development.
In 1993 Argentina became a signatory to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. In response, the federal government established
the Office for Joint Implementation, but in 1998 this was renamed the Office for
Clean Development Mechanisms. Further, in 1999 Argentina adopted the objectives of the Greenhouse Gases Reduction Programme, and in 2001 signed on to
the Kyoto Protocol. To institutionalize the response to climate change, in 2003
a Climate Change Unit was established within the Secretariat for Environmental
and Sustainable Development. In 2007, this evolved into the Climate Change
Office. In addition, the government has been supporting a range of research
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programs, such as the National Programme on Climate Scenarios, which was

initated in 2005. Through these institutional arrangements, first and second
national reports were prepared in 1997 and 2006 respectively. The third version
is under preparation (Pochat et al. 2006).
However, the roles and responsibilities of governmental agencies in regard to
climate change remain fragmented, while adaptation responses, specifically at
the city level, remain to be addressed. In addition, four ministries with a dozen
departments and institutions are involved in flood monitoring and broader
disaster management systems (Natenzon and Viand 2008). Gradually, lower
levels of government such as the states and local authorities are taking an interest
in addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation, and a range of stakeholders such as NGOs, the media, and citizen groups are participating.
Emerging Issues
Conflicting plans and multiple jurisdictions reduce the efficacy of climate change
response plans at the city level as well (Murgida and Gonzlez 2005). For example,
in 2007 an office for Climatic Protection and Energy Efficiency was established
within the Ministry for Environment of Buenos Aires City. With the arrival of
a new administration in December 2007 this ministry was restructured into the
Ministry of Environment and Public Space, with a new Environmental Protection
Agency. The Office of Climate Protection and Energy Efficiency was dismantled
despite the fact that previously initiated programs and projects like Clean Production and Air Quality continue to be implemented (Murgida 2007).
The primary obstacles to institutional action at the metropolitan level are lack
of actionable climate information, as well as vertical and horizontal fragmentation of jurisdictions with divergent interests and responses. Administrative
units within the AGBA address flood management but lack an integrated strategy.
For example, within Buenos Aires City two different plansthe Urban Environmental Plan and the Buenos Aires 2015 Strategic Planare being implemented
simultaneously but with a lack of effective coordination. Further, in practice
there are two critical legislative instruments to regulate urban development in the
citynamely the Building Code enacted in 1944 and the Urban Planning Code
enacted in 1977. These are complemented by additional measures such as the
Flood Control Plan, and post-2001 flood tax rebates for affected communities.
However, these plans, codes, and norms are inconsistent. For instance, the Urban
Planning Code incentivizes the occupation of vulnerable low-lying areas within
the city, contradicting the flood prevention plans (Gonzlez 2005).
Moreover, constantly changing organizational roles and responsibilities of
government agencies tasked to address climate change pose a challenge. For
instance, in 2005, the Buenos Aires State Government created a unit to address
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climate change within the provincial Ministry for Environmental Policy. This
office continues to be operational under the new local government that was elected
in 2007, but the unit has been moved to the Ministry of Social Development
and has a reduced mandate. This lack of action orientation is compounded by
a general lack of public awareness of the risks associated with climate change
(Assessment of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change 2005).
Additionally, there is a mismatch in terms and scales. While the climate
adaptation strategies like flood prevention and management need to take a
long-term view and plan for the metropolitan region as a whole, most planning
interventions address short-term needs and do not take a city-wide view (Murgida
and Natenzon 2007). By analyzing who participated in the planning process and
in which areas they did so, it becomes evident that the vast majority of interventions were partial, some were very specific, and a few encompass different
areas and spheres (Prez 2008). These issues become further complicated for the
metropolitan region due to the overlap and aggregation of administrative units
that lack a central governing authority.
The community of scientists and researchers has taken on an unusual task of
coordinating climate-related programs and policies. A leading example of this
effort was the launch of the Global Climate Change Research Program at Buenos
Aires University (PIUBACC) in May 2007. The objective of this program is to
map and link all research as well as city development projects within the metropolitan area so as to provide the government, civil society, and more specifically interested groups directly involved in climate change programs a holistic
and scientific assessment of climate change risks. Additionally, the scientists are
drawing transferable lessons from community knowledge on flood management
along the La Plata River coast with a dual focus on the vulnerability of the poor
and on adaptation to storm-surge floods (Barros et al. 2005).
4.2 Delhi7
Delhi has a population of 16 million inhabitants, and is rapidly urbanizing with

a 3.85 percent annual growth rate over the 1990s, amounting to half a million
migrants each year. In 1901 Delhi had 400,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, rising per
capita incomes are increasing energy consumption, and over-stretching infrastructure. Delhi is a city of contrastsin 2000, 1.15 million people were living below the
National Poverty line. On the other hand, Delhis Gross State Domestic Product
at current prices was about US $27 billion during 2007 (Department of Planning
2008). At its widest dimensions, Delhi stretches 50 kilometers and occupies an area
7This response is primarily based on feedback and documents provided by the Department of Environment,
Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. In particular, summarized here are some pivotal
actions taken by the government of Delhi under the leadership of the Chief Minister of Delhi including issues
raised during her participation at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in New York in 2007.
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of 1,400 square kilometers. To compound the challenges of rapid urban expansion

and associated environmental risks, Delhilike many Indian citiesfaces several
climate-related challenges and opportunities.8
Delhi has three distinct seasonssummer, winter, and monsoons with extreme
temperatures and concentrated precipitation. Summers begin in mid-March
lasting for three months and are dry and hot with temperatures peaking at about
40C in the months of May and June. Monsoons are between mid-June and
September; during which period Delhi receives most of its 600 millimeters of
annual rainfall, with July and August getting as much as 225 millimeters each.
Winters are dry and last from November to mid-March with December and
January being the coldest months with temperatures as low as 7C (Delhi 2009).
Hazards
The National Action Plan for Climate Change and related analysis provides an
overview of climate change issues confronting India as recognized by the federal
government (see Government of India 2002, 2008). Revi (2007) provides an
overview of direct and derived climate-induced hazards in the context of urban India.
Through a review of research on climate science, policy papers, and practitioner notes
five hazards are identified. First, although there are uncertainties with scaling down
global models such that they reflect regional climate conditions (like the Indian
monsoon), temperature, precipitation, and sea-level are likely to rise. Mean extreme
temperature, as well as maxima and minima, are expected to increase by 2 to 4C, and
are likely to result in an average surface warming of 3.5 to 5C within this century.
Second, average mean rainfall is projected to increase by 7 to 20 percent due to the
increase in mean temperature and its impact on the Indian monsoon cycles within
the latter half of this century. However, some drought-prone areas are expected to
get dryer and flood-prone areas will very likely experience more intense periods of
precipitation. Third, 0.8 meters is the projected centennial rise in mean sea level.
Fourth, extreme events like the Mumbai flood of 2005 are expected to be more
frequent in western and central India. A combination of these hazards expose the
cities in this region to a range of other climate-induced extreme events like droughts,
temporary and permanent flooding, both inland and in coastal areas, and cyclones.
For a summary of observed and projected temperature and precipitation for
Delhi see Figures 5 and 6. Extreme minimum and maximum temperature events
appear to be increasing. In December of 2006, Delhi had the lowest temperature
since 1935 (0.2C), and the media reported the death toll from the cold wave
in north India to be over a 100 people in and around the region. The following
summer in June 2007, Delhi had a maximum temperature of 44.9C, once again
taking a toll on the people of the city. While these extreme temperatures cannot
8To address similar issues in a global context, in February 2008 Delhi hosted the Delhi Sustainable Development
Summit, which was attended by several world leaders. The summit explored links between sustainable
development and climate change. Similarly, in 2002 Delhi hosted the United Nations Conference on Climate
Change. The Delhi Declaration of 2002 was signed by representatives of 185 countries.
204
be directly linked to climate change, the challenge facing Delhi is variability in

weather patterns and the potential for exacerbated extreme events due to climate
change. Table 6 summarizes some of the months when temperature and precipitation were greater than 1.5 standard deviations from the mean, the hottest
summer was in 1944, the coldest winter in 1935, and the wettest monsoon in
1958 (see Table 7), however recent years have seen similar extremes in temperature in 1978, 1988 and 1996 and precipitation in 1994, 1995, and 2003.
FIGURE 5
Projected Temperatures Delhi
Source: Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University.
FIGURE 6
Projected Precipitation in Delhi
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205
TABLE 6
Past Extreme Events in Delhi
City
New Delhi
May 1978, April 1988, May 1996
Extreme Precipitation
July 1994, July 1995, June 2003
TABLE 7
Extreme Temperature and Precipitation in Delhi
Maximum recorded
temperature
Delhi
47.2 C May 29, 1944
Lowest recorded
temperature
00.6
January, 16, 1935
Maximum rainfall
in 24 hours
266.2 mm
July 21, 1958
Source: Indian Meteorological Department, Regional Meteorological Center, Delhi.
Vulnerability
Delhis physical infrastructure, social services, and slum populations make the
city highly vulnerable. Demand for basic infrastructure services like water,
electricity, and public transport far exceeds supply (Delhi Development Authority
2005). To add to the existing conditions, climate change induced variability in
rains could worsen the severe shortage of drinking water in summers and aggravate floods during the monsoon season, making the existing energy shortage
more challenging to address. With regard to transportation, Delhi has the
highest per capita vehicular population in India5.4 million automobiles for
15 million people. This poses a challenge for a city with mixed land use and
varying urban densities within the metropolitan region to introduce effective
modes of public transport. Carbon emissions from vehicles, traffic congestion,
and increasing particulate matter all pose challenges. These and other challenges
pose widespread public health risks to the inhabitants of Delhi. For example,
lack of adequate sanitation facilities for the poor poses a problem for a rapidly
growing city where a large proportion of population lives in slums.
The hyper-dense nature of the slums, despite Delhis relatively low population
density and the centrality of the poor in provision of servicesfrom household
help to a range of labor-intensive and low-wage tasksposes an enormous
challenge. The access to basic services is uneven across the city. While many
parts of Delhi have high-quality infrastructure compared to other Indian cities,
the slum dwellers lack access to many of these services. The extent of the vulnerability of the poor within the city is captured in the statistics offered by the
Yamuna Action Plan, a river revitalization effort of the Government of India.
206
They observe that about 45 percent of the citys population live in a combination of unregulated settlements, including unauthorized colonies, villages,
slums, and the like. Further, three million people live along the Yamuna River,
which is prone to flooding, where 600,000 dwellings are classified as slums.
Further, they observe that:
. . . nearly 62,000 units are estimated to be located in the river bed of
Yamuna on both sides of its stretch along Delhi and on the embankments
of a few major storm water drains such as Najafgarh drain, Barapulla
drain etc. During dry weather these slum dwellers use open areas
around their units for defecation. In this way, the entire human waste
generated from these 62,000 units along with the additional wastewater
generated from their household is discharged untreated into the river
Yamuna.
Moreover, increasing competition for scarce basic services caused by the
rapidly growing population of Delhi poses public heath as well as quality-of-life
challenges. For example, some poor settlements lack basic amenities resulting
in open defecation. Although the extent of the impacts remains to be assessed,
potential climate change impacts added to current local environmental stresses
are likely to intensify this crisis. Moreover, the low quality of housing in slums
and their proximity to environmentally degraded land and flood-prone areas
further exacerbate the vulnerability of the poor. Within the slums, climateinduced stress is likely to affect certain social groups more than others,
particularly the elderly, women, and children.
Adaptive Capacity
The government of Delhi has made many efforts towards climate change mitigation, but there is lesser emphasis on adaptation. In addition to the issues of
energy, water, and transportation, mitigation projects also encompass public
health and other social and economic development efforts. Climate change
mitigation efforts by the Government of Delhi were introduced first in the
government departments and are being gradually expanded to include other
stakeholdersschools, households, and firms. As seen below, most initiatives
remain project-oriented (Department of Environment 2008). Some projects,
such as the Bhagidari program, seek participation from neighborhood groups,
private-sector associations, schools, and non-governmental organizations to
enhance civil society engagement in environmental management, creating an
expanded policy space for addressing climate change. Such collaboration holds
the potential to address broader issues of climate adaptation by building awareness as well as capacity of stakeholders to respond. However, the most striking of
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all climate mitigation initiatives in Delhi so far is the establishment of the worlds
largest fleet of compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled public transport in response
to a Supreme Court order.
This has resulted in 130,000 CNG-powered vehicles, 145 CNG fuel stations, as
well as improved vehicular emission standards like those adopted by the European
Union. The fuel quality has been improved with respect to benzene, sulphur, and
lead content. Yet the greatest lesson from this initiative is recognizing the diverse
set of triggers and actors that can initiate adaptation and mitigation programs
(see Box 2).
Some mitigation measures have co-benefits for adaptation as well. For instance,
adoption of green building technology that is mandatory for the Public Works
Department and the Airport Authority was introduced to address mitigation, but
has adaptation benefits as well. Building guidelines include: (a) optimum energy
efficiency in lighting, air-conditioning, and water systems; (b) eco-friendly
heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems; (c) green screens for east
and west building walls as well as for the roof; (d) maximizing natural lighting
in buildings and using energy-graded glass; (e) use of certified eco-friendly
building materials; (f) efficient water-dispensing technologies for kitchenware,
toilets, and irrigation systems; (g) construction material from recycled products
like fly ash bricks, recycled material in false ceilings, and recycled asphalt for
roads; (h) landscape design to minimize soil erosion, reduce water usage, and
ensure natural drainage systems. Expected greenhouse gas emissions reductions
are 35 to 50 percent in general energy consumption and 100 percent in energy
for water heating. Moreover, the New Delhi Municipal Council aims to reduce
demand for energy by 15,000 kilowatts by 2009 and the Municipal Corporation
of Delhi is making efforts to install compact fluorescent lamps, and capacitor
banks to increase energy efficiency. Further, the government has a program that
subsidizes electric vehicles and is encouraging the introduction of the Reva car,
as well as battery-operated two and three-wheelers.
Delhi has expanded its forest cover over the past ten years. The citys greening
program is considered to be one of the largest in the world. The forest cover has
grown from 3 percent in 1998, to 19 percent in 2005. The city planted 1.7 million
trees in 2007 and the forest cover grew to 300 square kilometers. To maintain
the momentum, the city had plans to plant 1.8 million saplings in the fiscal year
2009, increasing the greenery cover to a total of 326 square kilometers. The city
also has a policy to plant ten trees for every tree chopped down. This project is
in collaboration with several stakeholders including school children, housewives,
and neighborhood associations. The saplings are distributed gratis through a
host of vendors. This afforestation effort is part of a CDM project proposal. To
scale-up mitigation efforts, the Delhi government has established a program to
raise awareness about carbon credits and clean development mechanisms among
208
BOX 2
Change Agents for CNG-Operated Public Transport in Delhi

In 1995 a World Bank study found that poor air quality posed health hazards
for households in Delhi. The study estimated that air pollution caused 1 death
every 70 minutes in Delhi, and branded Delhi as one of the most polluted cities
in the world (Brandon and Hommann 1995). Subsequently, Cropper et al. also
a World Bank study, argued that these death tolls may have been overestimated
(1997), however the initial report generated public outrage in the city, and the
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE 2009) started a campaign demanding
clean air. The health impacts of suspended particulate matter (SPM) on lungs
became apparent, and emissions from poorly managed polluting public transport were identied as one of the main causes of poor air quality.
The campaign mustered citizen support through involvement of professional
associations, media, academia, and other stakeholders. The advocacy campaign involved bringing the message directly to the attention of the national political leadership. In response to the public outrage, the Supreme Court issued
a judgment in 1998 requiring the government of Delhi to stem air pollution by
introducing CNG-operated public transport, and to augment the supply of mass
transit within a prescribed timeframe of 3 years, as well as required adoption of
stringent emission standards within 5 years.
Automobile rms resisted the change and found some support within the
government that raised safety and viability concerns. In response, the Supreme
Court issued stringent directives including appointing a CNG czar to ensure
compliance of new regulations, instituted large penalties for defaultersincluding state and federal agenciesand increased funding of research and development. The Supreme Court, by now the principal driver of change, followed up
with further directives. Both supply and demand for CNG and safety regulations
were addressed through institutional mechanisms.
In about ve years (1998-2002) all public transport in Delhi was converted to
CNG-operated retrotted buses. Further, this effort triggered several projects
to increase supply of efcient and clean public transport systems like the Delhi
metro and the Bus Rapid Transport all contributing to emission reductions as
part of climate change mitigation efforts within the city. However, the key lesson
illustrated here is that change agents are diverselike in this case researchers,
civil society, and the supreme courtand require creative and persistent efforts
as well as the willingness to learn by doing.
Author: Herrera-Sosa, K.; Reference: Centre for Science and Environment (www.cseindia.org),
and C40 Cities (www.c40cities.org).
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209
various departments. The objective is to develop a holistic approach towards

reducing green house gas emissions and developing projects that can redeem
carbon credits. These mitigation projects can prove vital for adaptive capacity as
well. For example, green roofs and walls, and tree-planting help to cool the urban
environment and reduce heat island effects, as do many of the energy-efficiency
projects related to buildings.
While the neglect of adaptation remains a concern, another co-benefit to
mitigation efforts in Delhi is the climate change awareness and administrative
capacity being built as a result of mitigation projects that may help as adaptation
projects and policy measures are introduced. Not only is the government developing financial incentives to introduce programs and adopting a multi-sectoral
approach that involves various departments within the city jusrisdiction, they
are also learning to utilize mechanisms like the UNFCCs Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) funds that will be equally relevant for adaptation. Illustrations of such efforts are the CDM projects and certified emission reductions
(CERs) in the water, energy, and transport sectors.
Delhi Jal Boardthe department in charge of Delhis Water and Sanitation
servicehas energy-efficiency improvement programs in water supply, wastewater
treatment, and methane recovery. Delhi Jal Board has proposed a project under the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with the objective to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi also has an ongoing project,
sanctioned by the World Bank, for methane recovery and reuse from three landfill
sites. The project involves landfill gas extraction, gas testing, a feasibility study, and
technical design of the project. Expected emission reduction from this project is
three million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. Further, electricity generating
companies are taking initiatives to enhance efficiency of power plants through
improvement in heat rates. Renovation of 210 megawatt units under a proposed
CDM project is expected to improve heat rates by 25 percentfrom 200 to 250
kilocalories per kilowatt hour. The expected emissions reductions are 128,000 tons
of carbon dioxide per unit.
Efforts by the electricity distribution companies include: (a) installation
of electronic chokes and compact fluorescent lamps (CFL)installing CFLs
in homes can earn 1.22 million tons of CERs annually; (b) mandatory installation of solar water heating systems in buildings that are 500 square meters
and more; (c) installation of energy-efficient water pumps, power capacitors,
as well as foot and reflex valves for farmers; (d) promotion of low energy
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) at traffic lights; and (e) performance ranking
among power distribution companies. Likewise, the Municipal Corporation
of Delhis integrated waste-management projectwaste to energyproposes
to convert 2,050 million tons of municipal solid waste into 16 megawatts of
power. The anticipated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from this project
210
are substantial. The project is registered with UNFCCC to earn 2.6 million
CERs over ten years.
In the transport sector, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has provided the
city with a subway system. Its efforts to mitigate emissions include: reduction
in net energy consumption through introduction of regressive brakes that
convert kinetic energy released during deceleration of the train and generate
electricity that is supplied to the overhead electric supply lines. The expected
emission reduction as registered with the UNFCCC is 400,000 CERs over ten
years and is the worlds first railroad project that includes carbon credits.
Finally, the government has several schemes through which it gives
subsidies, low-interest loans, matching grantslike, buy one-get one freeto
promote the use of less energy-intensive technologies. Although these instruments work well for capital investment like installing a solar heater or roof-top
water harvesting system, these incentives often fail to sustain the projects over
time because operation and maintenance are ignored. Thus, the net impact of
such programs is often low.
Emerging Issues
While Delhi is making major efforts towards mitigation of climate change

through carbon emission reductions and other environmental improvements,
there is a significant lack of awareness about the need for adaptation to climate
change. Therefore, the city has not yet planned for adaptation.
Further, Delhis response to climate change is often less than effective as well as
piecemeal because its efforts are primarily project-oriented. In the experience of
the Delhi government, incentivessubsidies and grantshave been effective for
initiating projects, but operation and management frequently remain neglected.
For instance, subsidies to install rainwater-harvesting systems have created
demand but subsequent maintenance is too often ignored and many systems fall
into disrepair. Such experiences hold the potential to inform adaptation efforts
as well.
Gradually the city is developing a programmatic approach, but there is a
need to coordinate between departments and among levels of government. For
example, while the Prime Minister of India has recently released the National
Action Plan for Climate Change, Delhis local efforts will need to be reconciled
with regional and national priorities.
4.3 Lagos
Lagos is Africas second most populous city, which grew explosively, from
300,000 in 1950 to an expected 18 million by 2010, when it will be ranked as one
of the worlds ten largest cities. The metropolitan area, an estimated 1,000 square
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kilometers, is a group of islands surrounded by creeks and lagoons and bordered

by the Atlantic Ocean. With a GDP triple that of any other West African country,
Lagos is the commercial and industrial hub of Nigeria. Lagos is home to many
industries, and critical infrastructure, and has greatly benefited from Nigerias
natural resources of oil, natural gas, coal, fuel wood, and water. For an overview
of the state of Nigerian cities see UN-Habitat (2004).
The climate of Lagos is affected by oceanic and atmospheric interactions both
within and outside its environment, in which the Inter-Tropical Convergence
Zone (ITCZ) plays a controlling factor. The movement of the ITCZ is associated
with the warm humid maritime Tropical air mass with its southwestern winds
and the hot and dry continental air mass with its dry northeasterly winds.
Maximum temperatures recorded during the dry season are high and range
from 2833C when the region is dominated by the dry northeast trade winds.
Minimum temperature of about 2426C is experienced during the wet season
of May to September.
The city of Lagos experiences relatively high to very high temperatures
throughout the year. The mean annual temperature is about 28C and the
maximum and minimum temperature is 33C and 26C respectively. High to
very high monthly rainfall is also experienced between May and November,
although significant variations in monthly rainfall peak values are experienced.
For example, between 1950 and 2006, more than 10 instances were recorded with
a maximum rainfall of over 700 millimeters. Minimum monthly rainfall of less
than 50 millimeters is experienced between December and March. Occasionally,
extreme precipitation events are experienced in June. On June 17, 2004, for
example, 243 millimeters of rain was experienced in Victoria Island and the Lagos
environs. This resulted in flooding of streets and homes, collapsing of bridges,
and massive erosion of the main road linking Lekki to Lagos Island. About 78
percent of the total rainfall amount for the month was experienced in one day in
June. The city was ill-prepared for that amount of rainfall.
Hazards
This trans-administration megacity is bounded in the south by the Atlantic

Ocean (Bight of Benin), in the east by the Lagos Lagoon and the southwest
by the Badagry Creek. The western and northern limits merge into the gently
undulating agricultural lands of Ado Odo/Ota local government area, and the
north-central edge of the city is located in the Ogun River flood plain (see
Figure 7 for topography identifying low lying areas that overlap with built-up
areas and are prone to flooding).
A study by Ekanade et al. (2008) has localized the nature and magnitude of
climate change hazards at the city level using different (GHG) emission scenario
models. The IPCC (2001a) Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 and B1
212
FIGURE 7
Lagos TopographyLow Lying Areas Overlap With Built-Up Areas,
Particularly Slums
Source: Authors analysis, derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Terrain
Model (DTM) data. The DTM data was color-coded, clipped for the study area, and the administrative
map superimposed.
climate change scenarios were utilized to project 30-year time-slices for temperature and rainfall values for the City of Lagos and Port-Harcourt and the coastal
areas of Nigeria. This study did not, however, project sea level rise.
Temperature: Records from two stations (Ikeja and Lagos) used in this analysis
show that monthly maximum temperatures are increasing at about 0.1C per
decade from 1952 to 2006, while monthly minimums are decreasing at about
0.5C per decade; since the 1900s average temperature has increased 0.07C per
decade (Figure 8). At the extremes, monthly maximum temperatures for Lagos
have reached above 34C during seven of the last twenty years. The number
of heat waves in Lagos has also increased since the 1980s (see Table 8). There
are very few incidences of unusually cold months of less than 20C since 1995.
Projected temperature for Lagos for 2050s anticipates a 1 to 2C warming (see
Figure 8).
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213
TABLE 8
Extreme Events in Lagos
City
Lagos
March 1988, March 1990, February 1998,
March 1988, March 2001, March 2002,
February 2003, March 2003, August 2004
Extreme
Precipitation
May 1958, June 1962,
July 1968, August 1998,
November 1998
FIGURE 8
Projected Temperatures Lagos
Precipitation: According to historical records, the total annual precipitation in

Lagos has decreased by 8 millimeters per decade since 1900 (see Figure 9). In
keeping with the overall precipitation trends, most of Lagos has experienced
decreases in rainfall amounts during the rainy season. For example, between 1950
and 1989 more than 20 months experienced rainfall amounts of over 400 millimeters. In the recent period between 1990 and 2006 however, very few (4) rainy
months recorded over 400 millimeters of rain. In the 21st century, precipitation in
Lagos is expected to be less frequent but more intense, projected precipitation for
Lagos for 2050s anticipates an uncertain 5 percent change in mean precipitation.
214
FIGURE 9
Projected Precipitation Lagos
Storm surge is a concern. Lagos, as well as the entire Nigerian coast is projected
to experience more storm surges in the months of April to June and September to
October annually. This increase in storm surges is projected to be accompanied
by greater extreme wave heights along the coasts. According to Folorunsho and
Awosika (1995) the months of April and August are usually associated with the
development of low-pressure systems far out in the Atlantic Ocean (in the region
known as the roaring forties). Normal wave heights along the Victoria beach
range from 0.9m to 2m. However, during these swells, wave heights can exceed
4m. The average high high-water (HHW) level for Victoria Island is about 0.9m
above the zero tide gauge with tidal range of about 1m. However, high water that
occurs as surges during these swells has been observed to reach well over 2m
above the zero tide gauge. These oceanographic conditions are aggravated when
the swells coincide with high tides and the spring tide.
An extreme event, which can be considered a case study for future threats, was
observed between August 16 and 17, 1995, when a series of violent swells in the
form of surges were unleashed on the whole of Victoria Beach in Lagos. The most
devastating of these swells occurred on August 17, 1995, between 06.00 to 10.00
GMT. The surge coincided with high tide thus producing waves over 4 meters
high flooding large parts of Victoria Island. Large volumes of water topped the
beach and the Kuramo waters, a small lagoon separated from the ocean by a
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215
narrowfifty meters widestrip of beach, was virtually joined to the Atlantic

Ocean. Many of the streets and drainage channels were flooded resulting in an
abrupt dislocation of socio-economic activities in Victoria and Ikoyi Islands for
the period of the flood.
Sea Level Rise: Coastal erosion is very prevalent along the Lagos coast. The
Bar beach in Lagos has an annual erosion rate of 25 to 30m. Earlier IPCC
scenarios have been used to estimate the effects of 0.2, 0.5, 1 and 2.0m sea level
rise for Lagos. Along with coastal flooding, and erosion, another adverse effect of
sea level rise on the Lagos coastal zone as earlier assessed by Awosika et al. (1992,
1993a, 1993b) is increased salinization of both ground and surface water. The
intrusion of saline water into groundwater supplies is likely to adversely affect
water quality, which could impose enormous costs on water treatment infrastructure.
Vulnerability
As a group of islands, Lagos is bordered by mainland Nigeria to the north and west,
other islands to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Lagos has an extremely
dense slum population, many of whom live in floating slums. These are neighborhoods that extend out into the lagoons scattered throughout the city. The Barrier
Lagoon system in Lagos, which comprises Lagos, Ikoyi, Victoria and Lekki, will be
adversely affected through the estimated displacement of between 0.6 to 6 million
people as a result of sea level rise of between 0.2 to 2m (Awosika et al. 1993a).
In their study of the impacts and consequences of sea level rise in Nigeria,
French et al. (1995) recommended that buffer zones be created between the
shoreline and the new coastal developments. A more generalized multi-sectoral
survey of Nigerias vulnerability and adaptation to climate change was funded by
the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through its Climate
Change Capacity Development Fund (CCCDF). This study has served to create
awareness of climate change issues and of the need for manpower development.
Even more worrisome is the general sensitivity of the megacity to climate
change due to its flat topography and low elevation location, high population,
widespread poverty, and weak institutional structures. Many more vulnerabilities stem from these characteristics including the high potential for backing
up of water in drainage channels, inundation of roadways, and severe erosion.
The barrier lagoon coastline in the western extremity, including the high-value
real estate at Victoria Island and Lekki in Lagos, could lose well over 584 and
602 square kilometers of land respectively from erosion, while inundation could
completely submerge the entire Lekki barrier system (Awosika et al. 1993a,
1993b), (see Figure 10). Moreover, flooding poses greater threats to the urban
poor in several African cities (Douglas and Alam 2006).
216
FIGURE 10
Lekki Phase I Afuent Neighborhood (sand lled)
Source: IKONOS satellite imagery.
Intense episodes of heat waves will likely severely strain urban systems in Lagos,
by inflicting environmental health hazards on the more vulnerable segments of
the population, imposing extraordinary consumptions of energy for heating and
air conditioning where available, and disrupting ordinary urban activities.
It is very likely that heat-related morbidity and mortality will increase over
the coming decades; however, net changes in mortality are difficult to estimate
because, in part, much depends on complexities in the relationships among
mortality, heat, and other stresses. High temperatures tend to exacerbate chronic
health conditions. An increased frequency and severity of heat waves is expected,
leading to more illness and death, particularly among the young, elderly, frail,
and poor. In many cases, the urban heat island effect may increase heat-related
mortality. High temperatures and exacerbated air pollution can interact to result
in additional health impacts.
Impacts are projected to be widespread as urban economic activities will be
likely affected by the physical damages caused to infrastructure, services, and
businesses, with repercussions on overall productivity, trade, tourism, and on the
provision of public services.
Built-up Area and Population Density: The contiguously built-up area of Lagos
megacity is about 872 square kilometers. This is located within 17 local government areas in Lagos State with a total of 642.22 square kilometers (73.6 percent)
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217
and 4 local government areas in Ogun State with 229.8 square kilometers (26.4
percent). The Alimosho local government area has the largest built-up area of
about 144 square kilometers while Lagos Island, also in the Lagos State sector
has the smallest built-up area of about five square kilometers. Most of the local
government areas in Lagos are almost completely built with virtually no further
space to grow.
Lagos megacity is one of the worlds fastest growing urban centers. The
UN-Habitat (2006) estimated the citys population to be about 15 million in 2006
with 600,000 additional migrants added each year, and projected its population
to reach 20.2 million by 2010.
The citys high aggregate population is an indication of its enhanced sensitivity
to hazards. Thus, the effects of any negative consequences of climate change and
climate variability extremes are likely to be felt by a large number of people, most
especially the urban poor living on the marginal flood-prone areas of the city
(see Table 9 and Figure 7). The built-up area breakdown shows that the Lagos
State side of the megacity, which is made up of about 74 percent of the built-up
area, has about 85 percent of the megacitys population, while Ogun state, with
26 percent of the built-up area, accounts for about 15 percent of the megacitys
population. The elevation of the built-up area of the city ranges between 1m in
the coastal areas to about 75 meters above sea level at its northern fringes (Ogun
State Government 2005).
TABLE 9
Estimation of Internally Displaced People by Sea Level Rise
Scenarios in Lagos
(in meters)
Sea Level Rise Scenarios
0.2 m
0.5 m
1.0 m
2.0 m
By shoreline types, number of people displaced (in millions)

Barrier
0.6
1.5
3.0
6.0
Mud
0.032
0.071
0.140
0.180
Delta
0.10
0.25
0.47
0.21
Strand
0.014
0.034
0.069
0.610
Total
0.75
1.86
3.68
10.00
Percentage
of Total Population
0.07
1.61
3.20
8.70
Source: Awosika et al. 1992.
218
The average population density of the citys constituting local government areas
is about 2,094 per square kilometer with a minimum of 164 per square kilometer
in Owode Obafemi local government area of Ogun State and a maximum of
55,939 per square kilometer in Ajeromi Ifelodun local government area in Lagos
State. A better picture of the citys high population density can be inferred by a
breakdown of each local government areas population density by the built-up
areas. The local government areas in the Lagos State side have an average density
of 13,194 per square kilometer. Ajeromi, Ifelodun local government area has a
staggering density of 60,204 per square kilometer.
Lagos City, Urban Form, and Poverty: In 1983, 42 slums or blighted areas covering
1,622 hectares were officially documented by Lagos State. The number rose to
about 62 out of the 2,600 communities in the state in 1995 (UN-Habitat 2006).
Due to the lack of secure land tenure slum communities are vulnerable to the threat
of eviction (Morka 2007). More recently, the Report of the Presidential Committee
Redevelopment of Lagos Mega-City (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2006) put the
number of slum or blighted areas at over 100 in the Lagos portion with another
31 areas in the Ogun State portion of the megacity. The growth of the slums was
also described in the report as a testimony to the citys difficulties in producing
affordable housing for the urban poor. A 2002 survey in the megacity by Nubi and
Omirin (2006) similarly revealed that over 70 percent of the built-up area of the
metropolis is blighted. Most of the slums are located on marginal lands that are
mainly flood-prone with virtually no physical and social infrastructure (see Figure
7). Lagos State government has, however, been making attempts at the inventory,
management and upgrade of some of the slums through the Lagos State Urban
Renewal Authority (LASURA) and the World Bank (IDA)-assisted Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP).
Some of the planned and affluent neighborhoods in many parts of the city
still experience flooding during normal rainfall. This may be attributed to
the little-to-no attention often given to the provision and maintenance of sewer
and storm drains in these supposedly planned affluent neighborhoods. For
instance, Ikoyi, one of the most highly priced neighborhoods in the city, was
actually developed from an area originally covered by about 60 percent wetland.
Also, Victoria Island and Lekki neighborhoods were formally low-lying barrier
lagoon systems interspersed by wetlands and tidal flats with an elevation of about
0-3 meters before they were developed (see Figure 10).
Urban poverty has been described as one of the most daunting challenges
currently facing the citys administrators (UN-Habitat 2006). The average
monthly household income for the 1.1 million inhabitants of the 158,000 households in the LMDGP project was about US $170 (Abosede 2006, 2008). Also,
despite the city contributing more than 60 percent of Nigerias Gross Domestic
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219
Product, 65 percent of national investments and 65 percent of the nations Value

Added Tax (VAT), about 65 percent of the residents are estimated to live below
the poverty level. The deplorable state of the urban form and poverty is indicative
of the expected low resilience of most of the inhabitants of the city to external
hazard stressors such as those often associated with climate extreme events.
Adaptive Capacity
Even with active membership in the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership
network, Lagos megacity still does not have a comprehensive analysis of the
possible climate risks facing it. The Goethe Institute and the Heirich Boll
Stiftung Foundation, Lagos were NGOs at the fore of raising the alarm specifically on the vulnerability of the city to inundation due to the sea level rise
associated with climate change.
It would be untrue to say that there are no activities on climate change in
Nigeria, most especially by the scientific community, but a disconnect does
exist between the scientists, the people, and the political class. The implication is that there is an urgent need to address the obvious lack of awareness
of the vulnerability of Lagos to climate change and the need to begin to plan
adaptation strategies. Recently, tackling the problem of flooding and coastal
erosion has been given more attention by the Lagos State government in the
form of a sea wall along Bar Beach in Victoria Island. This activity, however, is
evidence that local awareness appears to be lacking of the full scope of the citys
vulnerability to climate change.
Although the attention of city managers is more focused on filling its long
physical infrastructural gap due to years of neglect, the lack of concern or
awareness of likely sea level rise in Lagos is worrisome. There continues to be
sand-filling of both the Lagos Lagoon and the Ogun River flood plain in the
Kosofe local government area to about 2 meters above sea level for housing
developments. Such activities need to be done with projections of sea level rise
due to climate change as part of the planning process.
Emerging Issues
Currently, the leading actor on climate change issues in the city is the Lagos State
Government, which has been influenced by its membership in the C40 Large
Cities Climate Summit. Some of the mitigation actions being pursued by the
Lagos State Government in the city include:
1. Improvement of the solid waste dump sites that are notable point sources of
methanea greenhouse gasemissions in the city.
2. The new bus rapid transport (BRT) mass transit system is already shopping
for green technology to power vehicles in its fleet.
220
3. Commencement of tree planting and city greening projects around the city.
4. Proposed provision of 3 air quality monitoring sites for the city.
The full picture of the nature of climate change and variability, its magnitude, and
how it will affect the city is yet to be analyzed to support any informed adaptation
actions. Thus, the climate risk reduction adaptation actions presently taken in
the city are primarily spin-offs from the renewed interest of the citys management in reducing other risks and taking care of developmental and infrastructural lapses, rather than being climate change-driven. Some of these adaptation
activities include:
1. The sea wall protection at Bar Beach on Victoria Island to protect against
coastal flooding and erosion due to storm surges.
2. Primary and secondary drainage channel construction and improvement to
alleviate flooding in many parts of the city.
3. Cleaning of open drains and gutters to permit easy flow of water and reduce
flooding by the Lagos State Ministry of Environment Task Force locally referred to as Drain Ducks.
4. Slum upgrade projects by the Lagos Metropolitan Development and
Governance Project.
5. Awareness and education campaigns such as the formation of Climate Clubs
in Primary and Secondary Schools in Lagos, and the organization of training
sessions and workshops on climate change issues.
Due to the increasing activity in the Ogun State sector of the city, a regional
master plan for the years 20052025 (Ogun State Government 2005) has been
developed for its management. However, the issue of climate change risks to
infrastructures and the different sectors such as water and wastewater (Iwugo et
al. 2003), health, energy and the like is not yet reflected in the report.
Normal rainfalls are known to generate extensive flooding in the city largely
because of inadequacies in the provision of sewers, drains, and wastewater
management even in government-approved developed areas. Consequently,
an increase in the intensity of storms and storm surges is likely to worsen the
citys flood risks. Since the local governments are very close to the people and
the communities threatened by climate risks, there is the need to create the
awareness at the local government level. There is an urgent need to empower
them intellectually, technically, and financially to identify, formulate, and
manage the climate-related emergencies and disasters, as well as longer-term
risks more proactively.
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4.4 New York
With 8.2 million people, a $1.1 trillion GDP (Bureau of Economic Analysis,
2008) and an operating budget of over $40 billion, New York City is the largest
city in the United States both in population and economic productivity (The City
of New York, 2007, 2009). The distribution of wealth within the City, however,
has been described as an hourglass economy where there is a shrinking of
the middle class and growth in both the upper- and lower-income populations
(Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001).
New York City is an archipelago with five boroughs spread out over three
islandsLong Island, Manhattan and Staten Islandand the mainland of the
United States. Once a major manufacturing center, New York is now one of the
worlds most important international financial hubs. As a coastal city, most of New
York City sits at a relatively low elevation with approximately 1 percent of the city
below 3 meters (10 feet) (Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001). Much of Manhattans very
low-lying land is home to some of the most important economic infrastructure
in the world. Lower Manhattan, including the Wall Street financial district, and
portions of both LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports sit at this low elevation.
New York City has a temperate, continental climate characterized by hot and
humid summers as well as cold winters and consistent precipitation year round.
Using a baseline period of 19712000, records show an average temperature of
12.7C with precipitation averaging 109 to 127 centimeters per year during the
period 1900-2005. Recent climate trends show an increase in average temperature of 1.4C since 1900 and a slight increase in mean annual precipitation (New
York City Panel on Climate Change [NPCC] 2009).
As with other cities, climate change risks in New York City are a function
of the hazards that the city faces, the vulnerability of its population and infrastructure to those hazards, and the adaptive capacity of the city to address climate
change mitigation and adaptation needs. Hazards come in the form of increasing
incidence of heat waves, droughts and floods, and sea-level rise and associated
storm surges. Adaptive capacity in New York City has been bolstered by the highlevel adoption at the Mayoral and the State levels of the need to develop climate
change adaptation strategies. Agencies, departments, and public authorities
are now developing and being provided with the tools necessary to undertake
climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Hazards
Each year New York City is susceptible to mid-latitude cyclones and noreasters,
which peak from November to April. These storms contribute greatly to coastal
erosion of vital wetlands that help defend areas of the city from coastal flooding.
Tropical cyclones (hurricanes) also have the potential to reach New York City
222
usually during the months of August to September. There is some indication that
intense hurricanes will occur more frequently in the future, but this is an area of
active scientific research.
Based on climate model projections and local conditions, sea level is expected
to increase by 4 to 12 centimeters by the 2020s, and 30 to 56 centimeters by the
2080s (see Figure 11); when the potential for rapid polar ice melt is taken into
account based on current trends and paleoclimate studies, sea level rise projections increase to between 104 to 140 centimeters (NPCC 2010). With some
of the worlds most valuable and important economic activity taking place on
Wall Street, the economy of the City, the United States, and arguably the world
is vulnerable to the effects of enhanced coastal flooding due to sea level rise (See
Figure 12). The New York Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in the
world (NYSE Euronext 2009) and sits at an elevation of less than three meters
(Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001). The possibility of inundation during coastal
storms is greatly enhanced with the projected effects of sea level rise.
FIGURE 11
Projected Sea Level Rise New York City
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223
FIGURE 12
Potential Future 1-in-100 Year Flood Zones for New York City Using Rapid
Ice Melt Model-Based Sea Level Rise Projections
Another hazard to New York City as a result of climate change is rising mean
temperature, along with the associated increase in heat waves. The annual mean
temperature in New York City has increased nearly 2C since 1900 (NPCC 2010).
Climate models predict that the average temperature will increase between 1 to
1.5C by 2020 and 2 to 4C by the 2080s as seen in Figure 13 (NPCC 2010). As
defined by the New York Climate Change Task Force, a heat wave is any period
of three straight days with a temperature over 32C. The frequency of heat waves
224
is projected to increase as the number of days over 32C increases. These higher
temperatures will also intensify the urban heat island in New York City, because
urban materials absorb radiation throughout the daytime and release it during
the night causing minimum temperatures to rise (Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001;
Kinney et al. 2008). These sustained, higher temperatures exacerbate the effects
of heat on humans (Basu and Samet 2002).
FIGURE 13
Projected Temperatures New York City
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225
FIGURE 14
Projected Precipitation New York City
Inland floods and droughts are two more hazards that confront New York
City. Climate models indicate that precipitation in New York City is likely to
increase up to 5 percent by the 2020s and between 5 and 10 percent by the 2080s
as seen in Figure 14 (NPCC 2010). These increases are projected to come in the
form of more intense rain events. This means more days without precipitation
between larger and more intense storms. As extreme rain events are expected
to increase in intensity while decreasing in frequency, many of the rivers and
tributaries that flow through New York City and feed into the bodies of water that
surround the city may breech their banks more frequently as they will likely be
unable to handle the volume of water flowing into them as runoff.
Droughts may also prove to be a hazard as a result of climate change if the
period between rain events increases. A major concern is the New York City
water supply, which is drawn from up to 100 miles north of the City. The higher
levels of precipitation associated with climate change are expected to be offset
by the greater rates of evaporation associated with temperature increase, thus
increasing the likelihood of drought (NPCC 2010).
226
Vulnerability
The impacts of these climate hazards are interconnected and affect many systems
in New York City differently but simultaneously. Roadways and subways, as
well as ferry ports, industries located along the coast, and wastewater treatment
facilities are susceptible to inundation. More hot days will increase electricity
demand to run cooling systems, thereby increasing CO2 emissions. The erosion
of natural defenses like coastal wetlands increases the likelihood of flooding of
nearby neighborhoods and industries.
Different populations are more vulnerable than others and these vulnerabilities are frequently differentiated along the lines of inland vs. proximity to coast,
young vs. old, and rich vs. poor. One key climate change vulnerability is related
to air quality and human health, since degradation of air quality is linked with
warmer temperatures. The production of ozone (O3) and particulate matter with
diameters below 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) in the atmosphere is highly dependent
on temperature (Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001). Therefore, increased temperatures are likely to make managing these pollutants more difficult. Both of these
pollutants affect lung functioning with higher ozone levels being associated with
increased hospital admissions for asthma. Further, the elderly and those suffering
from heart and lung-related diseases have been shown to be more susceptible to
the effects of heat, often resulting in death from heat stroke and heat -related
causes (Knowlton et al. 2007).
New York City is vulnerable to heat waves and, as an archipelago, is particularly vulnerable to the effects of storm surge as a result of sea level rise. Projected
sea level rise of 30 to 58 centimetersor 104 to 140 centimeters, if rapid polar ice
melt is consideredis not expected to inundate the city extensively; rather, the
problem emerges when larger storms such as the 1-in-100 year storm, which are
expected to become more frequent, produce a greater storm surge that will likely
cause damaging floods (NPCC 2010).
Certain populations are more vulnerable to the effects of heat and higher sea
levels. Approximately 967,022 people in New York City are 65 or older and of
those it is estimated that 43 percent are living with some sort of disability (US
Census Bureau 2008). These two factors contribute to the extreme vulnerability
to heat of the elderly (Basu and Samet 2002). According to the Department of
Health for the City of New York, during the heatwave of 2006 over half of those
who died in New York City were over age 65 and all but five people were known
to have suffered from some type of medical condition (Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene [DOHMH] 2006).
New York City is a densely city with approximately 10,380 people in each of its
305 square miles or 790 square kilometers (Department of City Planning 2009).
Within this area there are clear pockets of wealth and poverty. The majority of
high per capita income households are concentrated along the eastern border of
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227
Central Park with other areas of high per capita income households located along
the western edge of the Park and the western shore along the southern part of
Manhattan. The shore areas are primarily vulnerable to coastal flooding caused
by the storm surge associated with the combined effects of an increased sea level
and an extreme rain event.
The areas of low per capita income are in northern Manhattan, above Central
Park, the borough of the Bronx and parts of Brooklyn. Sea level rise and coastal
flooding are concerns for certain parts of these areas including Coney Island,
Brighton Beach, and Jamaica Bay (See Figure 12). One of the more recurring
vulnerabilities for these populations is extreme heat and the diminished air
quality that accompanies the heating trend that New York City has seen over
the last 100 years and that is projected to continue. The US Census Bureau has
estimated that for the period 20052007 about twenty percent of those in New
York City were living below the poverty line as established by the US Government
(US Census Bureau 2008). During the heat wave of 2006, thirty-eight of those
who died of heat stroke did not have a functioning air conditioning in their
apartment (DOHMH 2006).
Adaptive Capacity
The environment in which New York City makes climate change adaptation and
mitigation decisions is highly complex. Due to shared regional transportation,
water, and energy systems, the stakeholders in any decision include numerous local
governments, multiple state governments, businesses, and public authorities.
The foundation for tackling the challenges of climate change in New York City
began in the mid-90s when the New York Academies of Science published, The
Baked Apple? Metropolitan New York in the Greenhouse in 1996. Shortly thereafter,
The Earth Institute at Columbia University, through the Center for Climate Systems
Research (CCSR) released Climate Change and a Global City: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (Rosenzweig and Solecki 2001). This
report covered the Metro-East Coast Region and served as the first assessment of
climate change and cities in the United States. In 2008, CCSR worked with the New
York City Department of Environmental Protection to develop a sector specific
climate assessment and action plan for New York Citys water system (New York
City Department of Environmental Protection 2008).
The New York City administration through its Office of Long-Term Planning
and Sustainability created the NYC Climate Change Adaptation Task Force in
2008, which is now working with local experts, city departments and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive, integrated climate change risk assessment
and adaptation plan for the critical infrastructure of the metropolitan region. The
NYC Climate Change Adaptation Task Force is made up of representatives from
over 30 city and regional departments and industries. The City administration
228
also convened the New York Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) to provide expert
information about climate change risks and adaptation. The NPCC is made up
of climate change scientists, and experts from the legal field, insurance, telecommunications and transportation, and has provided the climate risk information
needed to create actionable guidelines and plans for adapting the citys critical
infrastructure for the projected effects of climate change (NPCC, 2010). The
NPCC has also worked with the NYC Climate Change Adaptation Task Force to
develop a common set of definitions for adaptation assessment.
The next step is to begin planning and making specific adaptation investments
across the city. In the past in New York City, this has tended to be on a project
basis and so has been less coordinated across sectors. Having brought decisionmakers from all key departments in the city and from numerous sectors, the New
York City climate change adaptation process is helping to facilitate more open
avenues of communication and coordination within and among departments.
4.5 Across-City Findings
As the various scholars applied the risk framework to their cities, a combination of local factors revealed very specific climate risks confronting each city;
however, there are some common threads as well (see Table 10). This summary
table also provides the basis for developing a city climate risk assessment index.
First, a multidimensional approach to risk assessment is essential as was observed
in all four cities. Second, despite lack of data, climate risks can be articulated
as especially demonstrated by the cases of Lagos and Delhi. Third, there are
substantial mismatches between needs and responseswho mitigates, how
much adaptation, and why, remain serious concerns. For instance Delhi, despite
its extremely high risk due to its large vulnerable population is now focusing
primarily on mitigation, as is Buenos Aires. Fourth, as observed in all cities
vertical and horizontal fragmentation of urban governance is a challenge. As in
the case of Delhi, however, such distributed jurisdictions may offer an opportunity. In Delhi, the Environment Ministry is an early adopter of pro-active climate
change responses and is thus providing an entry point for systemic change.
Finally, there are the oft-noted challenges for the climate scientists to provide
credible, downscaled risk information on regionally crucial climate dynamics
such as potential changes in the Indian Monsoon. We also found, however, that
effective adaptation planning can start with the climate risk information available
now. For a programmatic approach for risk assessment and adaptation planning
where an institutional structure is articulated, see Table 11 (for additional details,
see Mehrotra 2009).
CHAPTER 6
229
TABLE 10
Risk-Response Summary of the Four Case Study Cities and the Kernels
of a City Climate Risk Index
Lagos
New York City
Temperature
observed
trend and
projections
for 2050s
~2C warming since

1900 (statistically
signicant at an alpha
level of 0.05); 1C
to 1.5C projected
warming
Buenos Aires
Slight warming since

1900; 2006 0.2C,
lowest temp since
1935;
2007 44.9C, highest
recorded temp; 1.5C
to 2.5C projected
warming
Delhi
About 1C warming
since 1900 (statistically
signicant at an alpha level
of 0.05); Warmer period
since 1990; 1C to 2C
projected warming
Slight warming trend

since 1900 (statistically
level of 0.05); 1.5C to
3C projected warming
Precipitation
observed
trend and
projections
for 2050s
22.8 millimeters per

decade increase since
1900 (statistically
level of 0.05); projected
change in precipitation
uncertain:
0 to 15% increase
14 millimeters per
decade increase
since 1900 with large
variability; projected
uncertain:
-15% to +35%
Slight decrease since

1900 with large variability;
projected change in
precipitation uncertain:
-5% to 5%
17 millimeters per
decade increase
since 1900 with large
variability (statistically
level of 0.05); projected
uncertain: + 0 to 10%
Sea
level rise
observed
trend and
projections
for 2050s
Since 1900 average

water level of La Plata
River increased 1.7
millimeters per year;
since 1960 increased
frequency of storms
causing coastal
ooding up to 2.85 m
above mean sea level
Non-coastal city;
experiences local
ooding during
monsoons
Oct 1992-Dec 1996 mean

sea-level rise observed;
Projected rise: 12 to 17
centimeters
3 centimeters per
decade increase in
mean sea level (statistically signicant at an
alpha level of 0.05);
projected rise: 4 to 56
centimeters
Extreme
events
Precipitation >100 mm/

day increased from 19
times (19111970) to
32 times (19802000)
Extreme precipitation
July 1994, July 1995,
June 2003; extreme
temperature May 1978,
April 1988, May 1996;
faces inland ooding
due to intense precipitation during monsoons
Extreme precipitation
May 1958, June 1962,
July 1968, August 1998,
November 1998; extreme
temperature March 1988,
March 1990, February
1998, March 1988,
March 2001, March 2002,
February 2003, March
2003, August 2004
Since 1900, seven of

the ten years with most
days over 32C have
occurred since 1980
Population
12 million (2001); ~10%

of the Argentinean
population
16 million; 500,000
added per year
18 million (2010); 600,000

added per year
8.2 million
Density
1.982/km2
1,400/km2
164/km2 to 60,204/ km2
10,380/ km2
Vulnerability
230
TABLE 10, continued

Delhi
Lagos
Percent
poor or slum
dwellers
~20% of the greater

Buenos Aires agglomeration
Buenos Aires
1.5 million live below

poverty line; 45% live in
unregulated settlements
70%;
Lacks basic infrastructure
18.9% below poverty

line dened by US
Government
New York City
Percent
of urban
area (or
population)
susceptible
to ooding
450,000 people live in

ood-prone areas; 25%
of city is ood-prone;
annual ood damage
to property estimated
at US $30 million,
projected to US $300
million by 2070
~7% (Delhi Disaster

Management Authority)
3 million people live
along Yamuna River
prone to oods
Signicant proportion of
the city is located on land
that is less than 5 meters
above mean sea level;
1m of sea level rise will
displace 3.6 million people
1% of New York
City land area is less
than three meters
above mean sea
level (Rosenzweig &
Solecki, 2001)
City % of
national
GDP
~50%; US $245 billion

(2005 PPP1, Price
Waterhouse Coopers,
2007 2);
2006 US $494.5
billion (2006 PPP, CIA
World Fact Book);
CABA ~24%; 2006
Geographic Gross
Product ~US $50
billion; Service sectors
is 80 percent of local
economy
~3.3%, US $93 Billion

(2005 PPP Price
Waterhouse Coopers,
2007);
US $2,812 billion (2006
PPP, CIA World Fact
Book); >2% of 2007
GDP of India
(2007 $27 Billion
Gross State Domestic
Product)
~10%; US $30 Billion

(2005 PPP Price
Waterhouse Coopers,
2007);
US $299.5 billion (2006
PPP, CIA World Fact
Book)]
~8.2%; US $1,133
billion (2005 PPP, Price
Waterhouse Coopers,
2007);
US $13,830 billion
(2006 PPP, CIA World
Fact Book)
Adaptive Capacity
Institutions
and
governance
measures
affecting
climate
change
actions3
CPI Country Ranking4

109; Score 2.9
CPI Country Ranking

85; Score 3.4; action
oriented; fragmented
jurisdictions
CPI Country Ranking 121;

Score 2.7; fragmented
jurisdictions; centralized
decision making; local
needs neglected
CPI Country Ranking

18; Score 7.3; Ofce
of Long-term Planning
and Sustainability
provides coordination;
multiple (>1,000)
jurisdictions in
metropolitan area
Willingness
of City
leadership
to address
climate
change
Member C40 Large

Cities Climate
Leadership Group
Member C40 Large

Cities Climate
Leadership Group;
People action for right
to clean air; Supreme
Court judgment
requiring fuel switch in
public transport;
Government of Delhi
steps up to challenge
worlds largest eet of
CNG-operated public
transport; introduction
of BRTS, and Delhi
Metro
Member C40 Large Cities

Climate Leadership Group;
Member C40 Large

Cities Climate
Leadership Group;
Host of second C40
Summit, 2007;
Mayoral endorsement
and active collaboration between city
government and
resident climate
experts and institutions
CHAPTER 6
231
TABLE 10, continued

Buenos Aires
Delhi
Lagos
New York City
Information
and
resources
comprehensive
analysis of
climate risks
for the city
Government supports
range of research
programs, such as
National Program on
Climate Scenarios,
initiated in 2005; rst
and second national
plans prepared in 1997
and 2006; third version
under preparation.
National action plan

on climate change
prepared in June 2008,
but Delhi-specic risk
assessment lacking
Preliminary climate impact

assessment (Ekanade et
al., 2008) not linked to
infrastructure investment;
information on sea level
rise not linked to action
Comprehensive
Risk Information
has been prepared
by New York Panel
on Climate Change
(NPCC). NPCC has
conducted in-depth
climate risk analysis
for infrastructure for
NYC Climate Change
Adaptation Task Force
Administrative unit
assigned
to address
climate
change
In 2003 Climate
Change Unit was
established within the
Ministry for Environmental and Sustainable
Development; in
2007, this evolved into
Climate Change Ofce.
Mitigation efforts led

by the Ministry of
Environment in close
collaboration with Chief
Minister of Delhi.
Lagos State Urban

Renewal Authority
(LASURA); World Bank.
Ofce of Long-term
Planning and Sustainability established in
September, 2006,
and reports directly to
Mayor
Balance
between
adaptation
and
mitigation
Mitigation >>
Adaptation
Dominated by
mitigation efforts to
reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, neglect of
adaptation despite high
ood risk
Mitigation >>
Adaptation
Emphasis only on
mitigation, (CDMs
for landlls, electricity
generation, bhagidari
program for community
participation, 1.7 million
trees planted in 2007);
adaptation needs
neglected however
implicit co-benet
from city greening for
adaptation
Mitigation > Adaptation

Primarily focused on
mitigation like GHG
emission reduction from
solid waste, introduction
of BRTS, a mass transit
system, tree planting;
adaptation not a focus,
but co-benets from other
infrastructure investments
Mitigation = Adaptation
City is proactively
pursuing mitigation and
adaptation responses
Risk
Medium
High
Very High
Low
Climate Hazards:
Sea-level rise and
coastal ooding
Vulnerability: Rapidly
growing urban
development with some
encroachment onto
the ood plain, lack
adaptation planning
and investments
Adaptive capacity:
lack of coordination
and consistency in
government initatives
Climate Hazards:
Heatwaves, inland
ooding
Vulnerbility: large
population of poor
lacking basic services
and land tenure
living in unregulated
settlements, lack
adaptation planning and
investments
Adaptive capacity:
active civil society and
judiciary, and leadership
by Chief Minister of
Delhi
Climate Hazards:
Sea-level rise and coastal
ooding
Vulnerabiity: very large
population of slum
dwellers living in coastal
areas prone to storm
surge and ooding; lack of
adaptiaton planning and
investment
Adaptive capacity: lack
of dedicated institutional
support for climate risk
reduction
Climate Hazards:
Sea-level rise, coastal
and inland ooding;
heatwaves;
Vulnerability:
Resources, including
insurance, available to
plan and implement
adaptations
Adaptive capacity:
Mayor actively leads
efforts to address
climate change with
institutional support to
the ofce of long-term
planning
232
TABLE 10, continued

Buenos Aires
Delhi
Lagos
New York City
Conicting plans,
multiple jurisdictions
reduce efcacy;
lack of consistent,
coordinated response;
primary obstacles:
lack of actionable
climate information,
vertical and horizontal
fragmentation;
divergent interests and
responses
Mitigation is focus; lack

of awareness about
need for adaptation.
Response is piecemeal
because efforts are
project-oriented.
Incentives subsidies
and grantshave been
effective for initiating
projects, but operation
and management
remain neglected
Lagos State government

is leading actor on
climate change, which
has been inuenced by
its membership in C40
Large Cities group; Initial
studies of climate change
risks but results have yet
to inform ongoing and
planned investments in
infrastructure and slum
upgrading
Climate Change Task

Adaptation Task Force
and its advisory body
the New York City
Panel on Climate
Change are identifying
mechanisms for
leveraging planned
and ongoing
infrastructure
investments to
incorporate climate
risk into decisions.
PlaNYC set mitigation
target of 30%
reduction of CO2
emissions from 2005
levels by 2017
Response
Source: Authors analysis
1Purchasing power parity (PPP) is [a] method of measuring the relative purchasing power of different countries currencies over the
same types of goods and services. Because goods and services may cost more in one country than in another, PPP allows us to make more
accurate comparisons of standards of living across countries (The World Bank Group 2009).
2Source: City Mayor Statistics, http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/richest-cities-2005.html
3Urban Governance Index is presently under development by UN-Habitat. Transparency Internationals country ranking of the National
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) (2008) is used as a substitute for the purpose of illustration.
4Country ranking of the National Corruption Perception Index (CPI) where higher score implies less perceived corruption. The range of
scores is between 1 and 10 andabout 180 countries are ranked in order of least corrupt to most. For details, see http://www.transparency.
org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008/cpi_2008_table
CHAPTER 6
233
TABLE 11
Institutional Structure for Risk Assessment and Adaptation Planning
Track
Objective
Output
1. Climate change and

cities assessment for
Mayors
To provide state-ofknowledge
Climate Change and Cities

(2011) providing a global
comprehensive assessment
of risks, adaptation,
mitigation options and policy
implications
2. Across-city rapid
risk assessment
To inform billions of dollars

of ongoing urban investment
that lack of climate risk
considerations
Integrate climate risk

assessment into City
Development Strategies and
pro-poor programs
3. City-specic,
in-depth sectoral
assessment
To redirect existing and

planned investments)
Crafting city-specic risk and

adaptation assessments for
each city department, sector
by sector
4. Learning from
experience
To derive adaptation lessons

from the early adopters
Detailed case-studies of
implementation mechanisms
from London, Mexico, New
York City
Source: Mehrotra, 2009
LESSONS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

AND KNOWLEDGE GAPS
Three initial lessons are summarized. First, a multidimensional approach to risk

assessment is a prerequisite to effective urban development programs that incorporate climate change responses. At present most climate risk assessment is dominated
by an over-emphasis on climate hazards. The application of the climate risk framework developed in this paper provides more nuanced and more actionable insights
into the differential risks depending on the exposure to hazards on the spectrum of
vulnerabilities of urban households, neighborhoods, and firmsfor instance, from
the most vulnerable slums in flood plains where infrastructure is lackingand the
adaptive capacity of local governments. However, a critical issue that requires further
research is identifying when strategic retreat may be more cost-effective than adaptation and under what socio-economic conditions is it desirable and feasible.
Second, mismatches between needs and responses are occurring in regard to
who should mitigate, how much to adapt, and why. Cities need climate change
risk assessment in order to decide for themselves what is the right mix between
mitigation and adaptation. Climate change risk frameworks, such as those
234
described in this paper, can help cities to address the issue of mismatches, that
is, the difference between a citys response to climate change as opposed to its
actual needs. For example, it appears that some developing countries may be
over-focusing on mitigation when they could be focusing more on adaptation
due to the presence of critical climate risks in the near-term as well as in future
decades. The seventeen largest economies account for most of the greenhouse
gas emissions, the root cause of climate change (US Department of State 2009).
And while many cities within these major economies have a significant role
in mitigation, it may be prudent for cities in low-income countries with large
populations of poor households to incorporate climate risk into ongoing and
planned investments as a first step (Mehrotra 2009). However, since cities play
an important role in greenhouse gas emissions in both developed and developing
countries, there is also motivation for cities to lead on mitigation activities as well.
Emissions from cities everywhere burden the environment, which is a global
public good, and thus can be regulated through a combination of market and
non-market incentives at the urban scale.
Third, the vertically and horizontally fragmented structure of urban governance is as much an opportunity as an obstacle to introducing responses to climate
change. While much has been researched about the need for an integrated and
coordinated approach, the fragmented governance structure of cities is unlikely
to change in the short-term and offers the opportunity to have multiple agents
of change. Examples in the case study cities show that early adopters on climate
change solutions play an important role. The broad spectrum of governmental,
civil society, and private sector actors in cities encourages a broader ownership of
climate change adaptation programs.
Further, gaps and future research for scaled-down regional and local climate
models were identified. In addition to the difficulties global climate models have
with simulating the climate at regional scales, especially for locations with distinct
elevational or land-sea contrasts, they also continue to have difficulty simulating
monsoonal climates. Such is the case for climate projections for some of the case
study cities in this paper, especially related to projected changes in precipitation.
This is because simulation of seasonal periods of precipitation is challenging in
terms of both timing and amount; in some cases the baseline values used for the
projection of future changes are extremeeither too high or too low. Therefore,
the percentage change calculated, vary greatly and can, on occasions, have distorted
values. Especially for precipitation projections, the future trends may appear to be
inconsistent compared to observed data, because the averages from the baseline
period to which the projected changes were added onto are inaccurate, either due
to a lack of data or extreme values within the time period that are skewing the
averages. The inability of the global models to simulate the climate of individual
cities raises the need for further research on regional climate modeling.
CHAPTER 6
235
However, what is important to focus on in these future climate projections

is the general trends of the projected changes and their ranges of uncertainty.
These refer to attributes such as increasing, decreasing, or stable trends, and
information about the uncertainty of projections in particular due to climate
sensitivity or greenhouse gas emission pathways through time. Information on
climate model projections regarding the extreme values and the central ranges
both provide useful information to city decision-makers.
5.1 Concerns and Challenges Ahead
Even as the climate risk assessment framework explored in this paper is developed further and implemented, a multitude of concerns and questions arise
regarding climate change challenges for cities, pointing the way towards further
research and policy development. These include:
Ethical questions about what levels of government and what combination of
stakeholders should (and in practice will) prioritize the actions on climate-related
concerns where uncertainty at the local level remains high and the awareness
among the poor and vulnerable sub-groups is low. How can cities address the
specific needs of the most vulnerable sections of its inhabitantsthe urban poor?
Especially, as these sub-groups lack access to basic services and live in vulnerable
shelters, and on disaster prone landflood plains and the likefurther environmental stress can be catastrophic for the slum dwellers.
How can mega-cities in developing countries do a holistic assessment of the
potential risk due to climate change, plan complementary mitigation strategies and
adaptive resilience that do not remain mere recommendations in reports but lead
to action? The lack of a climate change strategy for the city increases the risk of the
already vulnerable urban poorhow can this neglect of the poor be addressed in
the broader climate and city debate? As Delhi has introduced CNG-fueled public
transportation as a mitigation measure, what are the strategic interventionsshortgestation, low-cost, high-impactthat facilitate large-scale adaptation to reduce
the economic, social, and environmental risk to cities, particularly for the poor?
How can city infrastructurepublic transport, water, electricityand social
institutions for public health or disaster management be retrofitted to adapt to
climate change? How can a city craft a flexible and calibrated approach towards
adaptive resilience?
How can cities develop an institutional response to climate change with
complementary strategies for mitigation and adaptation that result in action on the
ground? What strategies work for vertical coordination among national, regional,
and local policy efforts? How can horizontal co-operation be fostered resulting in
collaborative action across stakeholders and between departments and agencies at
the city level, and across citiesnationally and internationally?
236
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242
PART
Infrastructure,
the Built Environment
and Energy Efciency
CHAPTER
Getting to Carbon Neutral:

A Review of Best Practices
in Infrastructure Strategy
C. Kennedy,* D. Bristow, S. Derrible, E. Mohareb, S. Saneinejad,
R.Stupka, L. Sugar, R. Zizzo, and B. McIntyre
Summary: Measures of cost-effectiveness for reducing GHG emissions from

cities are established for 22 case studies, mainly involving changes to infrastructure. GHG emissions from cities are primarily related to transportation, energy
use in buildings, electricity supply, and waste. A variety of strategies for reducing
emissions are examined through case studies ranging from US$0.015 million to
US$460 million of capital investment (US dollars). The case studies have been
collected to support a Guide for Canadian Municipalities on Getting to Carbon
Neutral (G2CN). The cost effectiveness, given by annual GHG emissions saved
per dollars of capital investment, is found to vary between 3 and 2,780 t e CO2
/ yr / US$million for the G2CN database. The average cost-effectiveness of the
database of 550 t e CO2 / yr / US$million is significantly exceeded by solid waste
projects in Canada (FCM); and by developing world projects under the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM). Five case studies in the G2CN database
with GHG savings over 100,000 t eCO2 are highlighted. Yet, cities need to start
planning projects with reductions of the order 1 million plus t eCO2 per year in
order to substantially reduce emissions below current levels for smaller cities (1
million people) and mega-cities.

244
CHAPTER 7
245
1. INTRODUCTION
The main sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributable to cities are
transportation, energy use in buildings, electricity supply, and to a lesser extent
waste (Kennedy et al. 2009). Transportation emissions per capita are inversely
related to urban density; sprawling, low density cities designed around automobiles have higher emissions than more compact cities with substantial public
transportation. Building energy use is primarily dependent on climate, i.e.,
heating degree days, but can also be impacted by the quality of building envelopes.
Emissions from electricity depend to some extent on the level of consumption,
but more significant is the means of power generation; nuclear and renewable
sources (hydro, solar, wind, etc.) have close to zero direct emissions. Emissions
from landfill waste, which are often particularly significant for cities in the developing world, are primarily dependent on the extent to which waste methane or
other gases are captured. Overall, it is clear that urban GHG emissions are highly
dependent on a range of infrastructure systems.
In order to reduce GHG emissions, it is necessary to first understand the
scale of such emissions. Inventories of emissions primarily from western cities
typically vary from about 3 t eCO2 per capita to over 20 t e CO2 per capita
(Kennedy et al. 2009). This means that for mega-cities of close to 10 million
people, GHG emission are of the order 100 million t e CO2. For example, Los
Angeles County has estimated emissions of 122 million t e CO2; and New York
City has emissions of 85 million t e CO2 (Table 1). Smaller western cities, of 1
million people, typically have emission of the order 10 million t e CO2.
TABLE 1
Total GHG Emissions from Ten Global Urban Regions
(adapted from Kennedy et al. 2009)
Urban Region
Los Angeles County
New York City
Greater London Area
Greater Toronto Area
Bangkok (City)
Cape Town (City)
Denver (City & County)
Greater Prague Region
Barcelona (City)
Geneva (Canton)
Year
Population
2000
2005
2003
2005
2005
2005
2005
2005
2006
2005
9,519,338
8,170,000
7,364,100
5,555,912
5,658,953
3,497,097
579,744
1,181,610
1,605,602
432,058
GHG Emissions
(million t e CO2 /yr.)
122.0
85.3
70.6
63.4
60.1
40.1
12.3
11.0
6.7
3.3
246
Many different infrastructure strategies can be employed in reducing GHG

emissions from cities. Table 2 displays a range of strategies under categories of
transportation/land-use, buildings, energy supply, solid waste, water/wastewater and carbon sequestration. Most of these strategies entail changes to infrastructure or built form, but a few economic strategies, e.g., congestion pricing,
are also considered. The strategies are also classified in terms of their scale of
engagement. Those strategies with higher scales of engagement generally entail
higher investments and produce higher GHG reductions (relative to strategies in
the same row). The designation of scale of engagement in Table 2 is essentially a
preliminary hypothesis for this research, though based on 10 years of research
and teaching on sustainable urban infrastructure. Clearly, the GHG reductions
achieved through building a subway or a concentrating solar plant are much
higher than those from a bicycle lane, or a vertical axis wind-turbine. The aim of
the authors is to quantify this scale of engagement more rigorously.
Amongst the strategies in Table 2 are some that reduce GHG emissions
through increased energy efficiency and others that use carbon free technologies.
Strategies such as high occupancy vehicle lanes, bus rapid transit, green roofs and
improved building operations make more efficient use of energy, but in absence
of other strategies still entail GHG emissions; these are examples of low carbon
alternatives. Other strategies, such as pedestrianization, photovoltaics, wind
turbines and concentrating solar generation, eliminate direct GHG emissions.
Further, strategies in Table 2 can also be emissions free, depending on conditions. For example, a carbon free electricity supply will enable the use of light rail
transit, subways, electric vehicles and ground source heat pumps that have no
GHG emissions. Employing strategies that use fossil fuel energy more efficiently
help cities approach carbon neutral, but to reach carbon neutrality will substantially require carbon free technologies.
CHAPTER 7
247
TABLE 2
Preliminary Classication of GHG Reduction Strategies by Scale of Engagement
Scale of Engagement
Category
Transportation/
Land-use
Minor
High occupancy
vehicle lanes; smart
commute; car-pool
networks; car share
Medium
Financial penalties to
auto use (e.g., tolls,
congestion charging)
Major
Pedestrianization of
city centres
Incentives for use of

low-emission vehicles.
Infrastructure for
plug-in-hybrid electric
vehicles
Light rail transit
Subways
Segregated bike lanes
Bicycle highways
Building energy
retrots
Improved building
operations
Green roofs
Photovoltaics
Demolition and
reconstruction with
high energy efciency
green buildings
Energy star buildings
Solar water/ air heaters
Natural gas vehicles

(e.g. municipal buses)
Bus rapid transit
On-road bike lanes
Bike share
Buildings
Ground source heat

pumps
Energy
Solid Waste
Vertical axis wind

turbines
Landll methane
capture
District energy systems
Nuclear power plants
Borehole or aquifer
thermal storage
Concentrating solar
generation
Solid waste
gasication
Increased recycling
Greening supply
chains
Vacuum collection of
solid waste
Water/
Wastewater
Reduced demand
through low-ush
toilets or low-ow
shower heads
Reduced demand
through grey-water
systems
Anaerobic waste
water treatment
plants
Carbon
Sequestration
Planting of urban
forestry
Residential scale
urban agriculture
in CO2-enriched
greenhouses
Industrial scale
urban agriculture
in CO2 -enriched
greenhouses
Algae
Carbon offsets
Note: the seventh category, integrated community design, cuts across the six categories shown.
Source: Kennedy and Mohareb 2009
248
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER

The specific objectives of this paper are to:
i) Identify which infrastructure strategies can lead to the greatest reductions in
GHG emissions from cities, in both developed and developing nations.
ii) Identify which infrastructure strategies are most cost-effective in reducing
GHG emissions (i.e., quantify reductions in t CO2 equiv. per dollar investment)
The objectives are addressed by collecting data from approximately 70 case
studies of best practices in carbon neutral urban design. This review of case
studies is the first phase of a larger project, described in section 3, which aims
to produce a Guide for Canadian Municipalities on Getting to Carbon Neutral
(G2CN). The results of the case studies show projects ranging from USUS$ 0.015
million to US US$460 million of investment, with GHG savings between 45 t
e CO2 and 950,000 t e CO2. Findings from the data set are compared to those
from two other sources: projects under the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund; and those funded under the United Nations Clean
Development Mechanism. Caveats to the case study approach are included in the
discussion.
3. BACKGROUND: GETTING TO CARBON NEUTRAL

As part of the Toronto Regions Living City initiative (TRCA 2008), the
Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Group at the University of Toronto is producing
a guidebook to assist medium to large Canadian municipalities down the path to
becoming carbon neutral (Kennedy 2009). As per the analysis undertaken for
this guidebook under the G2CN project, the authors define carbon neutrality
to require that direct and indirect emissions from the municipality minus
sequestered carbon and offsets sum to zero, a definition that has been extended
to this paper as well. Getting to carbon neutral state will first entail developing
low carbon cities.
As a first step to addressing climate change many cities have established inventories of GHG emissions, often using the simple, pragmatic approach of ICLEI1.
Within Canada, 157 municipalities are participating in the Partners for Climate
1See International Local Government GHG Emissions Analysis Protocol Draft Release Version 1.0.: http://www.
iclei.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Global/Progams/GHG/LGGHGEmissionsProtocol.pdf
May 2009.
Accessed
CHAPTER 7
249
Protection (PCP) program. Most of these municipalities have established inventories of GHG emissions, but many are struggling, however, to develop and
implement strategies for substantially reducing GHGs.
Yet there are many examples of sustainable design practices both in Canada
and elsewhere that have lead to lower GHG emissions for various neighbourhoods or infrastructure systems within cities2. Many of the strategies employed
for these are substantial, long-term endeavours requiring serious investment and
some degree of societal change. They demonstrate that if municipalities were to
aggressively pursue a wide-range of GHG emissions reducing strategies, subject
to their own unique conditions, it may be technically feasible for many of them
to become carbon neutral.
The first phase of the G2CN (Getting To Carbon Neutral) project entails
collecting and analyzing best case practices and strategies in sustainable urban
design and planning. The review includes case studies in areas of transportation,
buildings, energy systems, waste management, water infrastructure, carbon
sequestration and integrated community design. The case studies are discussed
further below.
The second stage involves developing best practice strategies for reducing
municipal GHG emissions in the categories of buildings, transportation/land-use,
energy supply, municipal services and carbon sequestration/offsets (Table 3). For
each strategy the guide provides simple, generic rules of thumb for approximately
quantifying the reductions in GHG emissions that can be achieved. The formulae
can be used, for example, to estimate GHG reductions from installing X km of
light-rail; constructing a gasification plant to process Y tonnes of solid waste;
or servicing Z% of homes in a municipality using a district energy scheme3.
The rules of thumb typically calculate changes to intermediary quantities, such
as energy use and vehicle kilometres travelled, from which GHG emissions are
subsequently determined. The guide does not seek to be prescriptive in how the
GHG reduction strategies are selected; it offers a menu of choices.
2 Canadian examples include: Calgarys wind-powered C-train, Torontos deep-lake water cooling, and sustainable
neighbourhood developments at Dockside Green (Victoria), South East False Creek (Vancouver), and Okotoks
(nr. Calgary). To these, international examples such as Malmos port, Hammarby (Stockholm) and Kronsberg
(Hannover) can be added. A few western cities such as London, UK, and Freiburg, Germany, have reduced per
capita automobile use and associated emissions. Currently under development are communities such as Masdar,
near Abu Dhabi, and Dongtan, near Shanghai, which aim to be the worlds first carbon neutral sustainable cities.
3An example rule of thumb is that retrofitting of residential homes typically reduces average energy demand by
20 to 25% in Canada.
250
Table 3. Strategies for Reducing Municipal Greenhouse Gas Emissions

BUILDINGS
Strategy 1: Reduce Energy Demand
Strategy 2: Utilize Solar Energy
Strategy 3: Ground Source Heat Pumps
TRANSPORTATION / LAND USE
Strategy 1: Appropriate Land Use
Strategy 2: Public Transportation
Strategy 3: Active Transportation
Strategy 4: Deter Automobile Use
Strategy 5: Changing Vehicle Technology
ENERGY SUPPLY
Strategy 1: Electricity from Renewable Sources
Strategy 2: Aquifer and Borehole Energy Storage
Strategy 3: District Heating and Cooling
Strategy 4: Combined Heat and Power
WASTE, WATER & MUNICIPAL SERVICES
Strategy 1: Increased Recycling
Strategy 2: Waste Incineration & Gasication
Strategy 3: Methane Capture
Strategy 4: Water Demand Management
CARBON SEQUESTRATION and OFFSETS
Strategy 1: Urban Agriculture & CO2-enriched Greenhouses
Strategy 2: Urban Forestry
Strategy 3: Geological & Mechanical Sequestration
Source: Kennedy 2009
4. METHODOLOGY
In this paper, data from the case studies assessed in the G2CN guide is used to
estimate the cost effectiveness of GHG emissions savings initiatives. Cost effectiveness has been defined as follows:
Cost effectiveness =
Annual GHG emissions saved

Capital investment
The above measure only considers initial capital costs; it excludes recurring
costs, user fees, financial benefits, low-cost financing and/or government
subsidies. Given this, cost effectiveness may be considered as a limited economic
measure since it gives no indication of financial returns. However, it is useful
from the perspective of capital budgeting to reduce GHG emissions.
CHAPTER 7
251
The case study selection procedure sought to establish leading edge examples
of initiatives being taken by municipalities, cities or regions to reduce GHG
emissions, both in Canada and worldwide. Extensive teaching and research
experience on a wide range of sustainable urban design topics, including green
buildings (Zachariah et al. 2002; Dong et al. 2005; Saiz et al. 2006), urban water
systems (Sahely and Kennedy 2007; Racoviceanu et al. 2007), sustainable urban
transportation (Kennedy 2002; Kennedy et al. 2005), alternative energy systems
(Kikuchi et al. 2009), sustainable neighborhoods (Engel-Yan et al. 2005; Codoban
and Kennedy 2008) and urban metabolism (Sahely et al. 2003; Kennedy et al.
2007), and the application of the principles of industrial ecology to the design of
sustainable cities (Kennedy 2007), provided an initial background to the selection
of the case studies.
For each case study, the aim was to establish a database on costs, benefits,
barriers to implementation, and GHG savings. The case studies, thus, also
provided empirical data to support/verify the rules of thumb developed in the
above-mentioned Guide. The purpose of this paper is to use the data from the
case studies to examine the cost effectiveness of strategies for reducing emissions.
In this context, the criteria for selection of the case studies were:
t The use of strategies that reduce, or prevent growth of, greenhouse gas emissions
t The coverage of both Canadian and non-Canadian best practices
t Inclusion of examples from both medium and large municipalities
t Strategies that primarily focused on technological and urban design solutions,
rather than economic measures
t The availability of information.
The chosen case studies (Table 4) include a wide range of strategies, essentially
covering the categories established in Table 2.
252
TABLE 4
Capital Costs and Annual Greenhouse Gas Savings for the Case Studies
PROJECT
LOCATION
CAPITAL
COST
($ million US)
ANNUAL GHG
SAVING
(kt CO2 e)
TRANSPORTATION / LAND USE

Light Rail Transit
Calgary
447
591(v)
Rubber-tired streetcar
Caen
279
Quality Bus Corridor
Dublin
68
Bus Rapid Transit
Vancouver, BC
39.2
1.8
Metrolink: Express Bus
Halifax, NS.
9.3(v)
1.125(*)
Heavy-Duty HCNG Transit BusesHydrogen Highway
Port Coquitlam,
BC.
2.3(v)
0.12(v)
Low Emission Zone
London
90(v)
Congestion Charging
London
244(v)
120(v)
Bike Share
Paris
132(v)
18(*)
Bike Share
Barcelona
Bike Campaign
Whitehorse
1.5(v)
Real time information
Portland
High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes
Seattle
2.3 (v)
Parking Cash Out
California
0.24(v)
Demolition / Reconstruction
Toronto
31.4 (v)
Solar Air Heating
Montreal
1.96
1.342
Solar Hot Water Heating
Paris
0.91 (v)
0.214 (v)
Ground Source Heat Pump
Concord, Ontario
2.862
Building Integrated
Photovoltaic
Coney Island, New

York City
0.086
Green Roof
San Francisco
2.64
Heat Recovery from

Restaurant Exhaust
Toronto
0.015
0.0075
Solar Central Receiver Station
Seville
41
110(*)
Solar Thermal Electricity Plant
Mojave Desert
1.92
0.0045(v)
BUILDINGS
ENERGY
270(*)
Tidal Stream System
N. Ireland
5.4 (v)
2(v)
Solar Power and Borehole Thermal

Storage
Okotoks, Alberta
3.8 (v)
0.26 (v)
CHAPTER 7
253
TABLE 4, continued
PROJECT
LOCATION
CAPITAL
COST
($ million US)
ANNUAL GHG
SAVING
(kt CO2 e)
Photovoltaic Plant
Olmedilla
de Alarcon, Spain
460
29(*)
Wave Power Plant
Portugal
10.6
1.8(*)
Geothermal Power
Northern California
Lake Water District Air Conditioning
Toronto
Small Hydro
Cordova Mines,
Ontario
Urban Wind Power

Vertical Axis Wind
950(*)
79
1.36
0.06(*)
Toronto
1.21
0.38
Liverpool
0.46 (v)
0.0014(*)
Source-Separation & Methane

Production
Sydney
75 (v)
210 (v)
Incineration-Based CHP
Gothenburg
453 (v)
205 (v)
Methane Capture
Toronto
24 (v)
Biogas from sewage
Stockholm
15
Co-Generation at Wastewater
Treatment Plant
Ottawa
3.4
Wastewater heat recovery
Sony City, Japan
SOLID WASTE
WATER / WASTEWATER
14
3.5 (v)
CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND OFFSETS

Doubling Urban Canopy
Chicago
10/year (v)
170 (v)
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY
Vauban
Freiburg
Dockside Green
Victoria, B.C.
Dongtan
Shanghai
2.1
4.5 (v)
(v = veried; * = GHG calculation undertaken by the project team). Source: Kennedy 2009
5.2 (v)
750 (v)
expected
254
The geographical extent of the case studies is biased first towards Canada,
and second towards North America and Western Europe. The locations of the
case studies are shown in Figure 1. Clearly it would be useful to include more
examples from other parts of the world, especially Asia4.
Information on each case study was first assembled from websites describing
the infrastructure or other relevant literature. This information was then e-mailed
to owners, designers or managers of the infrastructure, who were invited to verify,
update and add to the case study descriptions. Case studies for which the information has been verified are marked with a v in Table 4.
FIGURE 1
Locations of Case Studies for the Getting To Carbon Neutral Project
(as represented in a google map)
Source: adapted from the project website: www.utoronto.ca/sig.
4 The authors would be pleased to receive further suggestions for infrastructure projects that substantially reduce
GHG emissions; a form for submitting information on new case studies can be accessed on the project website:
www.utoronto.ca/sig/g2cn
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255
In some cases, information was only obtained on energy saved, or vehicle

kilometers reduced, thus requiring the study team to estimate the corresponding
GHG savings. For example, if the case study involved electricity supply from
a renewable source, the authors established the GHG savings relative to the
conventional supply, based on provincial, state or national GHG intensity as
documented, for example by OPA (2007), or EIA (2006). Another illustrative
example is the calculation of GHG savings related to the MetroLink express bus
project in Halifax. For this, the authors multiplied the number of round trips
made in the year 2008 by the average daily GHG savings per passenger, assuming
that all riders used a private automobile prior to using the MetroLink. Similar
assumptions are made by a number of other agencies, e.g., City of Calgary, in
calculating and reporting the GHG savings of other case studies presented in this
report. Case studies for which GHG savings were estimated by the authors are
marked by an asterisk (*) in Table 4.
5. RESULTS
From the 68 case studies for which information was sought, data on annual GHG
savings and/or capital costs was obtained for 42 cases. Of these, 34 have data on
GHG savings, 30 have data on capital costs, and 22 have both sets of data (Table 4).
For the case studies where the capital costs and GHG emissions are both
known there is a relatively consistent fit of increased emissions savings with
higher investments (Fig. 2). The data is, however, plotted on a log-log basis,
since both the costs and GHG emissions vary over orders of magnitude. The
log-log plot disguises the very large deviations in the data set. For example, a bike
campaign in Whitehorse costing US$1.51 million is estimated to save 45 t eCO2
per year; while a solar air heating system in Montreal costing US$1.96 million
has reported GHG savings of 1,342 t eCO2 per year. Another comparison can be
made between a subway line in Rennes, France, saving 18,000 t e CO2 per year at
a capital cost of US$550 million; and Calgarys light rail transit, powered by windgenerated electricity, which saves 591,000 t eCO2 per year after a capital cost of
US$447 million. Clearly there are significant differences in cost-effectiveness
between the case studies, with respect to reducing GHG emissions.
While the line of best fit in Figure 2 is of limited use as a predictor, it helps
to distinguish the infrastructure investments achieving the most cost-effective
reductions in GHG emissions. Points that lie above the line, in the middle range
of costs, include cases of solar hot water heating, urban wind power, tidal stream
power, and generating biogas from sewage, as well as the Montreal solar air
heating system.
256
FIGURE 2
Log-Log Plot of Annual GHG savings Versus Capital Costs for Infrastructure Case Studies in the Getting to Carbon Neutral (G2CN) Project
Source: Kennedy 2009.
Five case studies at the top end of Figure 2 are particularly noteworthy since
they lie above the line of best fit, and exceed GHG savings of 100,000 t eCO2 per
year: These are5:
t Sevilles Solar Central Receiver Station (Box 1)
t Londons Congestion Charging Scheme (Box 2)
t Gothenburgs Combined Heat and Power (CHP) System (Box 3)
t Sydneys Source Separation and Energy Recovery Facility (Box 4)
t Calgarys Light Rail Transit System (Box 5)
5For detailed case study descriptions, and discussion of other benefits and implementation barriers that have
been overcome, see the project website (www.utoronto.ca/sig) and Guidebook (Kennedy et al. 2009b)
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257
BOX 1
PS10 Solar Central Receiver Station, Seville, Spain

With a peak power capacity of 11MW, Sevilles Solar Central Receiver Station is the
rst commercial grid connected version of its type. The infrastructure consists of 624
120m2 heliostats that reect sunlight onto a receiver at the top of a 100m tall tower,
which produces steam to drive a turbine. The facility produces 24.3 GWh of electricity per year, of which only 12-15% is provided by back-up natural gas. The project
cost US$55 million (IEA 2008); and it is estimated that it saves 110,000 t eCO2 per
year. There are plans to expand the system to 300MW by 2013, which would be
enough to power 180,000 homes, i.e., approximately the size of Seville.
Source: Abengoa Solar 2008.
BOX 2
Congestion Charging, London, United Kingdom

Vehicles which drive within a clearly dened zone of central London between the
hours of 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, have to pay an 8 daily Congestion
Charge. Payment of the charge allows drivers to enter, drive within, and exit the
Charging Zone as many times as necessary on that day. The Congestion Charge
was rst introduced in Central London in February 2003 with the daily charge of
5 per day to travel between 7am and 6.30pm. In July 2005 the charge rose to
8, and the zone was extended in February 2007 when the hours of operation
were reduced. There is no charge for driving on the boundary roads around the
zone. In addition there are a number of routes that enable vehicles to cross the
zone during charging hours without paying the Westway and a route through
the centre of the zone running north to south.
If the Congestion Charge is not paid a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for 120
is issued to the registered keeper of the vehicle. This is reduced to 60 if paid
within 14 days but if a PCN is not paid within 28 days the penalty increases
to 180. Net revenue raised from Congestion Charging are spent on improving transport in London.. In 2007/08, the scheme generated a net revenue of
137m (Transport for London 2008).
Londons Congestion Charging Scheme is estimated to have reduced emissions by 120,000 t eCO2 per year; it cost about US$324 million to implement,
including trafc management measures, communications / public information,
systems set-up and management
Source: Evans 2008.
258
BOX 3
CHP from Solid Waste, Gothenburg, Sweden

Gothenburgs Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, fuelled by waste incineration, reduces municipal solid waste disposal needs and displaces fossil fuel generated heat and electricity. Approximately 1,200,000 MWh of electricity were produced
from incineration of waste in 2006. Annual benets from the sale of electricity are
US$33.6 million. Other benets may include avoided landll disposal costs and carbon credits. The system cost US$600 million; and saves about 205,000 t eCO2 per
year through separation and combustion of degradable organic carbon.
Source: Climate Leadership Group 2008a.
BOX 4
Source Separation and Energy Recovery,

Sydney, Australia
Sydneys Source Separation and Energy Recovery Facility achieves a 70% diversion of municipal solid waste from landll. An anaerobic digestion process
produces methane, which is combusted to produce electricity to power the separation facility. Compost from the organic stream is sold for US$20-US$30 per
tonne. The estimated GHG savings are 210,000 t eCO2 per year, as landll gas
emissions are avoided through separation / combustion of degradable organic
carbon. The facility was constructed with a capital cost of US$100 million.
Source: Climate Leadership Group 2008b.
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BOX 5
Calgary C-Train, Alberta, Canada Ride the Wind!

The C-Train is Calgarys light rail transit system. The system uses 39,477 MWh
of electricity annually (2007 data), which the city purchases from ENMAX Energy
Corporation, the citys electrical distribution provider (Inglis 2009). The program,
branded as Ride the Wind, powers the C-Train using wind energy supplied by
twelve 600 kilowatt turbines. These are installed in southern Alberta on the tops
of hills facing the Rockies, in order to take advantage of the strong westerly
winds coming from the mountain passes. The C-Train is now 100% emissions
free. It is the rst public Light Rail Transit system in North America to power its
train eet with wind-generated electricity (Ride the Wind 2008).
Following capital investment of US$447 million (in the transit system and wind
turbines), Calgarys C-train saves around 590,000 t eCO2 per year (Inglis 2009).
Each day (Monday to Friday), riders board the C-Train 290,000 times. If each
commuter had traveled alone in his or her car instead of on the C-Train, the daily
mileage would have amounted to 2.32 million kilometres. These car commuters
would have used 238,300 litres of fuel, and produced some 590,656 tonnes of
carbon dioxide, as well as other pollutants such as nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter.
Source: Ride the Wind 2008; Inglis 2009.
In addition to the above five cases, the data set includes four other projects
with annual GHG savings over 100,000 t eCO2, but for which the capital costs
are not available to the study team. These are: a solar thermal electricity plant in
the Mojave desert (270,000 t eCO2 per year); a series of over twenty geothermal
power plants in Northern California (950,000 t eCO2 per year); Chicagos plan
to double its tree canopy (170,000 t eCO2 per year); and the planned Dongtan
sustainable community development near Shanghai (750,000 t eCO2 per year).
However, it must be mentioned that doubts have been raised on whether the
Dongtan development will proceed (The Economist Mar 19, 2009).
The case studies mentioned above, with savings over 100,000 t eCO2 per
year, cover a variety of sectors: transportation, solid waste, energy and urban
forestry. This is encouraging, as it shows that a diverse range of effective strategies can be adopted to reduce emissions. For some of these nine case studies,
it is clear that the strategy adopted exploits local conditions, such as high solar
260
radiation, or suitable conditions for geothermal energy. In other cases, the

strategy was a response to local stresses, e.g., traffic congestion in London, heat
waves in Chicago; but for some cases it was just a matter of being more creative
and efficient with solid waste.
6. COMPARISON WITH OTHER DATA SETS

The results from the G2CN case studies discussed in this paper can be compared
to those from two other data sets:
i) The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) records the expected
savings in GHG emissions from some projects supported by the Green
Municipal Funds. These funds, which were endowed by the Canadian
Government, provide grants and below-market loans to directly support
municipal initiatives in Canada.
ii) The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
has a database of projects funded under the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM). The CDM arrangement, developed under the Kyoto Protocol, allows
industrialized countries to invest in emissions reduction projects in developing countries, as alternatives to more expensive strategies in their own
countries.
The majority of projects in the FCM database, for which both GHG savings
and capital costs are reported, are in the solid waste sector (twelve). In addition,
data is available for four transportation projects, four energy supply projects, and
one community development project an eco-industrial park in Hinton, Alberta
(Canada).
Generally speaking, the nine data for the non-waste sectors are distributed
in a relatively similar manner to our case study data (again on a log-log plot).
The line of best fit of G2CN data, from Figure 2, is shown with the FCM data
in Figure 3 for comparison. The cost-effectiveness of the nine non-waste sector
projects (2,040 t e CO2 / yr / US$million) is on average better than for the G2CN
case studies (550 t e CO2 / yr / US$million); eight of the nine points lie above
the regression line of G2CN data. Furthermore, it is quite apparent that the solid
waste projects in the FCM dataset substantially out-perform the data from G2CN
case studies. The average cost-effectiveness of the FCM solid waste projects is
37,400 t e CO2 / yr / US$million.
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261
FIGURE 3
Log-Log Plot of Annual GHG Savings Versus Capital Costs
for Infrastructure Projects Funded Under the Federation
of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund
The dotted line is from the regression of G2CN data shown in Figure 2. Source: FCM 2009; Kennedy 2009.
The United Nations database of CDM projects was accessed on-line between
January and April, 2009. At this time, there were over 1,500 registered CDM
projects, with several thousand more under review. Capital cost data are taken
from project design documents, assuming that capital cost was equal to incremental cost for the project (thus operations and maintenance costs are ignored),
and that the baseline scenario is to do nothing. Conversions of costs are made to
US dollars as of the project registration date6. Where capital costs could not be
located in the project design document, the project was not included as a data
point. There are many solid waste and energy projects in the database. Figure 4
plots waste and energy projects at the high end of expected GHG reductions, i.e.
all energy projects over 500,000 t e CO2 / yr, and all waste projects over 250,000
t e CO2 / yr are shown, as well as a few other smaller scale projects that were of
interest to the study team, and some agricultural and industrial projects. There are
also a small number of transportation and afforestation / reforestation projects in
the CDM database; these are plotted in Figure 4 as well.
6 using the currency conversion website Oanda.com at the inter-bank rate
262
Figure 4
Log-log Plot of Annual GHG Savings Versus Capital Costs for a Subset of
United Nations Clean Development Mechanism Infrastructure Projects
The dotted line is from the regression of G2CN data shown in Figure 2. Source: UNFCC 2009; Kennedy 2009.
In comparison to the G2CN data, the CDM projects are much more costeffective, as should be expected for developing countries. All of the CDM projects
lie above the regression line for the G2CN data. The spread amongst the CDM
projects is quite remarkable. For example, the Alto-Tiet landfill gas capture
project in Brazil has certified reductions of 481,000 t eCO2/yr for a capital cost
of US$2.31 million, while a bus rapid transit project in Bogota, Colombia saves
247,000 t eCO2/yr, at a capital cost of US$532 million. As with the FCM data,
the solid waste projects are the low hanging fruit in terms of cost-effectiveness.
This is apparent when comparing the energy and waste projects in Figure 4
(again recognizing that these are partial data). The average cost-effectiveness of
the CDM waste projects is 64,800 t eCO2/yr / US$million, compared to 10,300 t
eCO2/yr / US$million for energy projects.
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263
7. LIMITATIONS
Several caveats apply to the interpretation of the results above and the comparisons with other datasets. First, the estimation of GHG emissions for projects in
the dataset used for the study has not necessarily been undertaken with a consistent methodology. Other than the few cases where the authors calculated the
GHG savings, the quality of the dataset depends on the calculations undertaken
individually for each project by the concerned project team.
Furthermore, the study team has undertaken a broad scan of infrastructure
strategies for reducing GHG emissions. Generally, only one or two cases of a
particular type of strategy are included in the dataset, and these may not necessarily be representative of the average performance of such a strategy. Where
there is multiple data for a particular strategy, such as landfill gas to energy in the
CDM and FCM datasets, then a high degree of variation in cost-effectiveness is
apparent.
Part of the variation in costs and GHG savings between projects can be
attributed to differences in local conditions. Costs of projects vary due to factors
such as costs of labour, access to resources, access to technology, economies of
scale, etc. GHG emissions saved when generating electricity from renewable
sources depend on the GHG intensity of the local power grid. So even if costs are
the same, the cost-effectiveness is higher in regions that currently have greater
dependence on coal for power generation. GHG reduction strategies that are cost
effective in one region may not be so in another.
Several of the projects considered in the dataset are cutting edge applications
of new or developing technologies. As such the costs of these projects, which
may be considered trials or experiments, can be expected to come down as the
technology develops.
Another important caveat is that few, if any, of the infrastructure projects
considered in the dataset were designed solely for the purpose of reducing GHG
emissions. Reducing emissions is only one goal. Transportation systems are
designed to move people and goods; energy infrastructure is designed to provide
heating, lighting and electrical service, etc. By virtue of differences in their
functionality, various types of infrastructure can be expected to differ in terms of
cost effectiveness for reducing GHGs; this is less apparent with the G2CN data,
but clearly the case with the FCM and CDM datasets.
Finally, while cost-effectiveness has some merits as an economic measure, it
is of limited use from an investment perspective. The private sector, in particular,
must expect to achieve satisfactory rates of return if it is to invest in infrastructure
that reduces GHG emissions. OECD/IEA (2008) have identified a number of
energy efficiency initiatives in a few cities, such as building retrofits, LED (Light
Emitting Diode) traffic signals, and pool heat recovery, for which rates of return of
264
over 100% are achieved.. Kikuchi et al. (2009) have also shown that investments in
alternative energy technologies in Ontario can offer investors reasonable rates of
return at relatively low risk, depending on the sector. The investments considered
in both of the above studies are, however, relatively small scale. Further studies
of returns on investment are perhaps warranted with respect to infrastructure
projects that substantially reduce GHG emissions.
8. CONCLUSIONS
The case studies presented in this paper cover a variety of infrastructure strategies
with savings in GHG emissions ranging from 45 t eCO2 to over 500,000 t eCO2.
The size of the GHG reductions generally increases with the magnitude of capital
investment, as expected, but there is significant variation. Measures of cost-effectiveness vary between 3 and 2,780 t eCO2/ yr / US$million for the database.
The average cost-effectiveness of the G2CN database is 550 t eCO2/yr /
US$million. This could be used as a benchmark to compare GHG savings for
urban infrastructure investments in developed nations. However, much higher
levels of cost-effectiveness have been achieved with solid waste projects in
Canada (FCM); and with developing world CDM projects. Thus a higher
benchmark should perhaps be set for infrastructure projects in developed world
cities, depending upon the type of infrastructure available.
This paper has highlighted five case studies in particular, which are above the
average cost-effectiveness achieved in the G2CN dataset, and have GHG savings
over 100,000 t eCO2. These are: a solar central receiver station in Seville; the
congestion charging scheme in London; CHP in Gothenburg; source separation
and energy recovery in Sydney; and light rail transit in Calgary. A further four
projects in the database have GHG savings over 100,000 t eCO2, but the capital
costs of these initiatives are not available to the authors.
While the GHG savings from the nine cases are substantial, these should be
assessed with reference to the GHG inventories of cities. A GHG saving of 100,000
t eCO2 per year is still two orders of magnitude below the typical emissions for
a city of 1 million people, and three orders of magnitude below that for a megaregion, as discussed in the introduction (Table 1). Cities arguably need to start
planning projects with reductions of the order 1 million plus t eCO2 per year.
Acknowledgements
Financial support for this work was provided by Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
CHAPTER 7
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CHAPTER 7
Abbreviations
CDM
Clean Development Mechanism
CHP
Combined Heat and Power
FCM
Federation of Canadian Municipalities
GHG
Greenhouse Gas
G2CN
Getting to Carbon Neutral
t e CO2
Tones of Carbon Dioxide equivalents
PCP
Partners for Climate Protection
ICLEI
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
LED
Light Emitting Diode
267
CHAPTER
Towards CO2 Neutral City Planning

the Rotterdam Energy Approach
and Planning (REAP)
Andy van den Dobbelsteen,* Nico Tillie, Marc Joubert,
Wim de Jager, Duzan Doepel
Summary
By the year 2025 the city of Rotterdam, with the largest port in Europe, aims to
reduce its CO2 emissions by half, an ambitious plan that will require a revolutionary approach to urban areas. One proactive response to this challenge is an
exploratory study of the Hart van Zuid district. An interdisciplinary team has
investigated how to tackle CO2 issues in a structured way. This has resulted in
the Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP) methodology. REAP
supports initial demand for energy, propagates the use of waste flows and
advocates use of renewable energy sources to satisfy the remaining demand.
REAP can be applied at all levels: individual buildings, clusters of buildings and
even whole neighborhoods. Applying REAP to the Hart van Zuid district has
shown that this area can become carbon neutral. Most importantly, REAP can
be applied regardless of location.
Key Words: REAP, Rotterdam Energy Approach and Panning, carbon neutral
city planning, closed cycles, sustainability, sustainable urban planning, sustainable architecture, urban development.
268
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269
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Prospects for the Future
Ten years ago few people thought that the climate was changing and even
fewer realized that mankind was influencing the change. Since then opinions
have altered and now the world is generally convinced of the seriousness of the
situation: the climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, mankind is one of
the major causes as acknowledged by the IPCC [1] and fossil fuels are rapidly
depleting. Because of this, attention is concentrated on energy consumption
and the consequences of this. However, there are other forms of damage to both
the environment and public health that must not be ignored. It is possible to
arm ourselves against, or if required to flee, the consequences of climate change.
However the biggest social problem is not climate change but the depletion of
energy reserves; a socio-economic problem rather than a technical one. This will
have far reaching consequences for what can and cannot be achieved. Industrialized nations are highly dependent on the easy supply of fossil energy. Just before
the start of the current world-wide economic crisis the price of oil reached a
previously inconceivably high level (nearly 145 USD a barrel) and, at the time,
experts expected the price to double. A price of more than 100 USD a barrel has
serious consequences, which could be seen in the reduction in sales of petrol
guzzling SUVs in America. Energy affects everyone, but especially the poor and
the people living the farthest away from amenities. Already by 2010 the price of
oil had again reached a level of $110 a barrel. It would be wise to use the present
crisis as the impetus to develop a different energy system.
1.2 Energy
The energy crisis does not mean that individual countries have to cut themselves
off from the outside world and only use energy that can be generated within its
own borders even if that were possible but it is wise to make better use
of within-country energy potential. The continental area of the Netherlands is
sufficient to generate enough solar energy to supply the economy of the whole
world [2]. Technically it is possible to realize a completely sustainable energy
system but, for the time being, costs are prohibitive. A current requirement is an
assessment of resources and intelligent methods for using them appropriately. In
built-up areas it is important to target the following measures:
1. Applying renewable energy sources. Within the foreseeable future there will
simply be no other sources.
270
2. Making use of the available energy potential. This is an interpretation of the

first measure at local level: renewable energy could be imported but it is far
better to make use of local opportunities.
3. Making better use of waste streams. All buildings and urban areas generate
waste flows that could be harnessed but rarely are. Making use of these waste
flows would reduce the primary demand and so aid the introduction of sustainable energy sources.
4. Intelligent and bioclimatic design of buildings. This refers to making intelligent use of local conditions climate, soil and environment in the design
of buildings and districts. Buildings and neighborhoods are no longer seen as
objects out of context.
5. Energy savings in existing buildings: this will continue to be necessary as in
2025 (the period by which the city of Rotterdam must have halved its CO2
emissions) around 90% of the built-up region will be made up of the buildings
that are here today and which are frequently far from energy efficient.
1.3 The Three Stepped Strategy for Energy
Since the end of the 1980s sustainable approaches to urban areas have followed
the three step strategy (see Figure 1):
Step 01 Reduce demand
Step 02 Use renewable energy
Step 03 Supply the remaining demand cleanly and efficiently
Figure 1
The Trias Energetica, the Three Stepped Strategy for Energy [3]
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271
This strategy towards energy use is known as the Trias Energetica [3]. It
forms the guideline for a logical, environmentally conscious approach but in the
twenty years that it has been in use, it has not led to the required sustainability.
In particular, the degree of penetration of renewable energy sources, Step 2, has
been minimal. Sustainable building in the Netherlands mainly concentrates on
Step 3 which, in practice, is often mixed up with Step 1. The Netherlands, which
has been using the Trias Energetica since the early 1990s, has a very limited use
of solar, wind and other renewable energy technology in comparison with other
European countries. This is probably related to the Trias Energetica. If Step 2
abruptly follows a sub-optimal reduction in energy demand in Step 1, a great
demand for energy still needs to be met by renewable in Step 2, which so far has
been economically unfeasible. In practice this leads in quick succession to Step
3 the use of traditional, albeit more efficient, technology. Hence, in our opinion
an important intermediate step, which would make the use of renewables better
feasible, has not been explicitly mentioned.
1.4 The New Stepped Strategy
The New Stepped Strategy adds an important intermediate step in between the
reduction in demand and the development of sustainable sources, and incorporates a waste products strategy [4] (partially inspired by the Cradle-to-Cradle
philosophy [5]):
Step 01 Reduce demand (using intelligent and bioclimatic design)
Step 02 Reuse waste energy streams
Step 03 Use renewable energy sources and ensure that waste is reused as food
Step 04 Supply the remaining demand cleanly and efficiently
FIGURE 2
The New Stepped Strategy, Inserting a Step and Omitting the Last Step of
the Trias Energetica [4]
272
FIGURE 3
The New Stepped Strategy at the Building Level [4, 8]
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273
As can be seen, the New Stepped Strategy has a new second step that makes
optimal use of waste flows waste heat, waste water and waste material not
only for each individual building but also on a city-wide scale. Waste flows from
one chain may be used in a different chain. For example, waste water can be
purified and the silt fermented to form bio-gas which can be reused in the energy
chain. The addition in step 3 (really 3b) concerns waste that cannot be processed
in a technical waste processing cycle and so must be returned to nature. This
can only be done if the waste is safe (non-toxic) and if it can form nutrients for
micro-organisms.
Step 4 will continue to be necessary for the coming years, but eventually this
will no longer be possible or desired when all energy in the built environment can
be produced by renewables. The development of new areas or the redevelopment
of existing areas should already take this into account because the fourth step will
remain a painful necessity in many other regions.
1.5 Old Energy System Versus Sustainable Energy System
Considering the organization of the energy system, by 2010 only 96% was generated from fossil or nuclear sources but at the same time a lot of heat is lost (in
the air, water or ground) and many potentially useful by-products are wasted.
A source such as natural gas is delivered to all public and private amenities.
Taking the quality of energy into account (exergy) this is a significant potential
loss of energy. A gas flame of 1,200 1,500C is much more appropriate for
high-grade industrial processes (that actually require such high temperatures)
than for heating a home to 20C. If homes are intelligently designed then a
temperature of 25 to 40C is more than sufficient for the heating; this temperature is released as waste heat by many kinds of processes (e.g. greenhouses or
cooling systems in offices). Other amenities require higher temperatures, but
these could be achieved using waste heat from other higher-grade processes.
A more sustainable system based on the usage of this waste would require
significantly less primary energy and this primary energy would only be used
by the most high-grade functions (a low-exergetic system) [6]. Although not
an efficient system, it can be very effective: sustainability could be theoretically
increased six-fold, while the current plans for improvement may only increase
efficiency by as little as 10%.
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THE REAP METHODOLOGY
2.1 From Building to Neighborhood
If the New Stepped Strategy is applied to an individual building it will undoubtedly generate a more sustainable building, but within the whole urban context
this would be a waste or a missed opportunity. No use is made of the direct
surroundings. The energy demand per building can, and must, be reduced.
After this it is useful to determine whether waste flows from the building can
be usefully employed. This is already being done, for example, by recycling heat
from ventilated air and waste shower water. However, it is much more difficult
to purify wastewater from each building to reclaim bio-gas. In short: after step
2 a significant demand for energy remains which, according to step 3, must be
solved using renewable energy sources. As has already been mentioned, this is
technically possible but requires huge investment. A better idea is to consider a
cluster of buildings and to determine whether energy can be exchanged, stored or
cascaded (see schematic diagram). In other words, if at individual building level
all the waste heat has been recycled, the remaining demand for heat or cooling
can probably be solved by buildings with a different pattern of energy requirements, buildings with an excess of the required energy or which produce waste
heat (or cold).
1. An example of exchange: due to internal heat production, modern offices
start cooling as soon as outdoor temperatures exceed 12C. At these temperatures homes still require heating. This provides opportunities for heat
exchange during spring and autumn. Another example is the combination of
supermarkets (always cooling) with homes (frequent heating).
2. An example of energy storage at cluster level: heat and cold are only available
in excess when there is little demand for them. For an optimal energy balance,
energy should be stored during seasons when the exchange, as mentioned in
example 1, is not required.
3. An example of cascading: a greenhouse captures much passive solar energy
which usually disappears as waste heat into the air. A heat exchanger could
enable this waste stream (usually about 30C) to be used to heat homes, provided these homes are well insulated and make use of a low-temperature heating system. If all waste flows at cluster level are being used optimally it then
becomes possible to see if primary energy can be generated sustainably. Although solar panels, solar collectors, or a heat pump with a ground collector
system can be installed in each individual building, it is much more economical to set these up at cluster level.
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275
2.2 From Neighborhood to District
If a project can be tackled at an even higher level, such as district level, potential
discrepancies in the energy balance at neighborhood level (for example excess
demand for waste heat or cold) may be solved. At district level it is reasonable
to assume that other functions are available with a totally different demand,
and therefore, supply pattern. And just as at cluster level, it is also possible to
exchange, to store and to cascade energy (see the schematic diagram of Figure
4). Certainly at the larger amenities, such as shopping centers, swimming pools
and concert halls, the energy pattern is so specific that by combining a number of
these different amenities it is likely that an energy balance can be achieved. Hart
van Zuid provides good opportunities for this.
In addition to exchange, storage and cascading, another option is possible at neighborhood level: energetic implants. This is an intriguing term for adding a function to
complete missing links in the energy supply chain. Once the existing amenities in
the area have been optimally tuned to each other (here, as an example, only the heat
balance is considered) a residual demand for heat or cold (but not both) will still exist.
In this case it is only necessary to look for an amenity that requires extra heat (for
example, a swimming pool) or cold (for example, an ice rink) on a yearly basis. The
provision of renewable energy can then be tackled at district level. As has already been
said, some sustainable measures can be implemented at building or neighborhood
level, but other more capital intensive projects are more appropriate at district level.
An example of this is the bio-gas fermentation installations that recycle bio-gas from
wastewater and use power-heat coupling (CHP) to generate heat and electricity.
Geothermal energy is also only feasible on a grand scale.
2.3 From District to Entire City and Beyond
The next step to a higher level would be the city or region, the scale in which our
current amenities are generally centrally regulated. In the city of Rotterdam the city
heating network is fed with waste heat from the electricity generators. City heating
provides heat at temperatures between 90 and 130C. This is perfect for old buildings which are poorly insulated and with central heating systems based on 90 to
70C. However, in new housing projects the buildings are much better insulated
and would be better served with a heating system based on lower temperatures,
such as floor and wall heating using temperatures lower than 50C. Most modern
homes would even be fine with temperatures lower than 30C. City heating is
unnecessary for these buildings. Once a connection to the city heating is necessary
or desired, the whole exercise of exchange, storage and cascading at neighborhood
and district level is no longer necessary (see Figure 5). In that case the city heating
takes care of the heating and potentially also the cooling (via absorption cooling).
276
The problem with this is that the local waste heat can no longer be made useful
and disappears into the environment the urban or natural surroundings. Given
the climate change expected worldwide and in cities [1, 7] in which cities will
become warmer, both directly and indirectly this situation is not desirable. For
this reason the REAP methodology aims first at solving the problems of energy
demand and supply on a small scale, after which help can be called in from higher
levels. In addition, the city heating can fulfill a useful role as a backup system, or as
a loading and unloading system for heat imbalances in a district or neighborhood.
REAP can help make an existing neighborhood sustainable, without requiring
drastic urban planning measures. The following chapters will not only show that
this can lead to carbon neutral neighborhoods but also how this can be done [8].
FIGURE 4
The REAP Methodology
Normally the process would start with the two steps at the lower left corner, with energy renovation of
existing buildings (rstly reducing the demand, secondly adding heat-recovery systems). Instead of immediately proceeding to supplying the remaining demand through renewables, it is more effective to study
whether exchanging energy with the built environment is an option, either the neighborhood or district,
before solving the nal demand by renewables at all scales. [8]
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277
FIGURE 5
The REAP-methodology exemplied for heat and cold [8]
THE CASE OF HART VAN ZUID
How can REAP be applied to an existing, complex urban area in this case, the
Hart van Zuid district? Which decisions within the methodology must be made
if the desired reductions in CO2 emissions are to be achieved decisions at
economic, political, public, urban development and architectural level? And what
are the consequences for the buildings in a city and the open spaces in between?
In addition, the examples explicitly look for combinations of measures for CO2
reduction, together with sustainable development.
How can this cluster, with its mix of 1960s urban development and 1980s
architecture, once again become attractive in and for the city? It is currently
mainly a shopping centre, attracting people from the south of the city, with an
unusual mix of infrastructure (e.g. the second busiest bus station in the Netherlands) and a theatre, but with no activities after opening times and no links to the
surrounding areas. At the same time, the buildings devour energy; heating in the
winter and cooling in the summer. How can this urban development problem,
coupled with Rotterdams CO2 targets, be transformed into a future-oriented,
attractive development?
278
Step 00 Make an inventory of the current energy demand.

Step 01 Reduce the demand > New functions will be added: 20,000 m2 shops,
6,000 m2 supermarket. Theatre Zuidplein and the infrastructure intersection will be renewed. Better insulation of the existing shopping centre
will in itself already significantly improve the situation.
Step 02 Reuse of waste flows > The addition of housing will create a better heatcold balance. The use of the waste heat generated by the supermarket and
the typical morning and evening energy demand in homes means that
the match is perfect: 1m2 supermarket can heat 7m2 of housing! If 665
apartments are added, the heat-cold ratio becomes 1:1.08 assuming that
use is made of heat and cold storage (Figures 6 and 7).
Step 03 Renewable energy generation > The remaining demand for heat can be
solved by the addition of greenhouses on the first floor. These could be
public areas (or greenhouses for growing tomatoes) or by the addition
of PVT-panels. PV panels could also be installed on the roof to supply
electricity for the whole shopping centre. The remaining energy required
could be sustainably generated at a higher scale level. (Figure 8)
FIGURE 6
Summer Situation: Energy Demand of the Total Program, Heat (H), -865
GJ, Cold (C) -5475 GJ, Electricity -7034 GJ [8]
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279
FIGURE 7
Winter Situation: Energy Demand of the Total Program, Heat (H), -7788 GJ,
Cold (C) -1755 GJ, Electricity -7595 GJ [8]
FIGURE 8
Energy Balance and Remaining Energy Demand
to be Solved at a Higher Scale [8]
280
3.1 Motorstraat Area in the Hart van Zuid District
In this area with a school and some smaller businesses, the aim is to build two
new colleges on the redeveloped Motorstraat (Motor Street). This provides
an opportunity for developing a balanced, multi-functional cluster. But which
functions can be sustainably combined, taking energy, social and economic
issues into account?
A combination with housing improves social integration in the area by
ensuring that the area is used throughout the day. Adding offices strengthens
this mix. To achieve an energy balance in this cluster the intended 50m Hart van
Zuid swimming pool can be combined with a new ice rink. The waste heat from
the ice rink in combination with the swimming pools permanent demand for
heat provide an opportunity for using thermal storage to create energy balance.
The remaining demand for heat can be satisfied using a combination of solar
collectors and greenhouses.
Step 00 Make an inventory of the current energy demand > This is to be a newlybuilt area so right from the start the perfect function mix can be set up.
New functions are added to the cluster based around two new intermediate vocational colleges.
Step 01 Reduce energy demand > The most up-to-date techniques in energy saving will be used (Figure 9).
Step 02 Reuse waste flows > Balancing the heat-cold relationship by the addition
of functions: 50 m swimming pool (permanent need for heat), ice rink
(permanent need for cooling) as well as homes and offices (Figures 10
and 11).
Step 03 Renewable energy generation > The resulting demand for heat can be
completely satisfied by the addition of solar collectors on the roofs and
the incorporation of a greenhouse in between the various functions. This
greenhouse will also provide an additional (productive) space. Any remaining energy requirements will be sustainably generated at a higher
scale level (Figure 12, 13 and 14).
The cluster as a whole will become a highly efficient complex with a constant
daily use and bustling with life, both on weekdays and in the weekend. It will radiate
a positive charisma affecting the whole neighborhood (Figures 15 and 16).
CHAPTER 8
FIGURE 9
Step 01
FIGURE 10
Step 02, for Summer
281
282
FIGURE 11
Step 02, for Winter
FIGURE 12
Step 03
CHAPTER 8
FIGURE 13
Energy Balance and Energy Demand
FIGURE 14
Energy Flow Diagram
283
284
FIGURE 15
Programmatic Section
FIGURE 16
New Overall Plan with Mixed Program with Optimal Energy Exchange
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285
CO2 MAPPING
REAP provides a structure for CO2-intelligent development of a particular area.

If CO2 issues are to play a role in spatial design and development then sufficient
knowledge of the various possibilities must be available. At each step it must be
clear what is actually feasible. The CO2 map has been developed to provide such
an insight. The CO2 map gives a picture of the current situation and provides a
toolbox for CO2- intelligent developments for the area (Figure 17).
In reality the CO2 map is much more than just a map. It is an instrument
providing information for each aspect of REAP in the form of maps and
background information. Aspects related to energy saving and renewable energy
production are in the form of a geographical map coupled to a GIS-system. All
aspects, in particular those related to energy exchange, are in the form of generic
information concerning CO2-intelligent opportunities.
The maps related to energy saving and renewable energy production (Figure
18) show the current potential at cluster level. There is an overview of which
functions are present at each cluster. In addition, for each separate cluster the map
shows how much energy could be saved and the amount of renewable energy that
could be produced heat and cold storage, urban wind, solar electricity and solar
heat collection. Whereas the maps visualize the CO2 -intelligent potential for the
current situation, the toolbox gives guidelines for demolition, new building or
additions to the program. Such new developments benefit from the generic information in the toolbox. It is even possible to modify the building program based
on REAP and in particular on the information in the toolbox. For the first step
the toolbox indicates the potential minimum energy consumption per m2 and
thus the potential energy savings compared to the current situation that is
feasible for the different amenities. The generic information for the third step is
an overview of the pre-conditions for the implementation of various forms of
renewable energy production per building heat and cold storage, urban wind,
solar electricity and solar heat collection. The generic information in the toolbox
for the second step is an overview of the consumption of electricity, heat and cold
per m2 for the different amenities.
This can be used to determine which functions can be combined energetically demand and supply of heat and cold for energy exchange within the
program. It is also possible to determine whether it would be beneficial to incorporate an extra function in cases where the demand and supply do not match.
286
FIGURE 17
CO2 Reduction, Energy Flows and Renewable energy [8]
FIGURE 18
CO2 Map with Reduction Potentials as a Result of Insulation
and Other Existing Solutions [8]
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287
CONCLUSIONS
The general aim of this study is to discover whether CO2 neutrality can be
achieved within an existing part of the city, working from the urban planning and
spatial design processes. A manageable method is arrived at based on the guiding
principle of reduction of both energy demand and CO2 emissions. Further, REAP
is based on a realistic approach to economic, social, political and organizational
structures. The following points summarize the advantages and limitations of the
REAP methodology in CO2 neutral urban planning.
5.1 Other Architectonic Styles
The use of REAP has been worked out and depicted in areas and buildings
(existing, remodeled and new) with a particular style. The REAP methodology is,
however, architecturally independent and allows for different solutions and the
associated different architectural expressions.
5.2 Energy Techniques
An inventory of energy production on a city-wide scale shows that some

techniques are potentially much more profitable than others. This, however, does
not mean that the less profitable techniques are not useful in the development of
individual buildings. Although it would appear that wind induced energy in an
urban area is of little significance, an effective combination of high rise building
and wind turbines is still possible. This, however, is beyond the scope of this study.
5.3 Financial, Economic and Organizational Aspects
Designs for the 2020s are based on the current (affordable) technologies. An
in-depth study of financial-economic and organizational aspects goes beyond the
scope of this report but a few recommendations can be made:
t Develop a joint sustainability target for a particular area together with instruments such as a sustainability index.
t Stimulate the different parties with benefits such as tax rebates to guarantee
that targets are met.
t Ensure that the time factor is taken into account. The best (financial) solution
for a particular situation changes with time.
t Develop new structures so that parties can attune energy supply.
t Develop new instruments to guarantee the delivery of energy.
288
5.4 Ideal Solutions Versus Time
The search for the perfect solution at the right place depends on different guiding
factors money, technology, organization, information which all change with
time. In the near future this can lead to a completely different solution to the
one suggested in this study. Recently it has become increasingly clear that the
choice of projects is mainly determined by economical considerations, together
with the available energy techniques. Financially this depends on energy prices,
availability of money and potential subsidies. This serves to underline the fact
that there are no ideal solutions, at most they are only temporary; the best combination of measures is continually changing. Nevertheless it is essential to gather
more information and gain an insight into the principles involved. When solving
issues of renewable energy production, and in particular up-scaling production, it is essential to relate to each individual situation and the above mentioned
aspects such as time and money. For each step in the REAP-methodology, it is
useful to know which financial and organizational aspects are involved so that a
well thought-out decision can be reached.
A critical note can be made regarding the new necessary infrastructure. As
this is different from the existing energy infrastructure new investments have to
be made. Also, carbon neutrality goes beyond heat and cold; in particular, the
generation of sustainable electricity is difficult and has to be addressed. Apart
from other issues which go beyond the scope of this article, as food and materials,
mobility must be included. Radical changes in public and private transport are
needed.
5.5 CO2- Neutral Urban Development is Possible!
After applying REAP to Hart van Zuid, calculations have shown that CO2 neutral
urban development within the built up area of an existing city region is possible.
That is why we, the authors, would like to encourage the reader to always consider
where possibilities for small-scale energy exchange lie so that a gigantic effect can
be achieved on a much larger scale.
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289
References
Dobbelsteen, A. van den. 2008. Towards Closed Cycles New Strategy Steps based on the
Cradle to Cradle Approach. In Proceedings of PLEA 2008. Dublin.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2007. Climate Change 2007: Fourth
Assessment Report.
Jong, T.M. de (ed.), Moens M.J., Akker C. van den, and Steenbergen C.M. 2004. Sun Wind
Water Earth Life Living Legends for Design. TU Delft.
Lysen, E.H. 1996. Trias Energetica Solar Energy Strategies for Developing Countries.
In Proceedings of the Eurosun Conference. Freiburg.
McDonough, W., and Braungart M. 2002. Cradle to Cradle - Remaking the Way We Make
Things. NorthPoint Press.
Nickson, A. 2007. Preparing London for Inevitable Climate Change. Presentation to the
Hot Places Cool Spaces Symposium, Amsterdam, October 25, 2007.
Stremke, S., Dobbelsteen A. van den, and Koh J. 2011. Exergy Landscapes: Exploration
of Second-Law Thinking towards Sustainable Landscape Design. In International
Journal of Energy, 8(2), 148-174.
Tillie, N., Dobbelsteen A. van den, Doepel D., Jager W. de, Joubert M., and Mayenburg D.
2009. Towards CO2 Neutral Urban Planning Introducing the Rotterdam Energy
Approach & Planning (REAP). In Journal of Green Building. 4 (3): 10312.
CHAPTER
Urban Sprawl and Climate Change:

a Statistical Exploration
of Cause and Effect,
with Policy Options for the EU
Istvan Laszlo Bart*
Summary
This study provides a brief evaluation of the relationship between trends in transport emissions and urban land-use. It concludes that the growth of transport
emissions is a result of specific urban planning and land use policies (or their
absence). These policies can cause an increase in transport emissions even if the
population size remains the same and there is no economic growth. This implies
that governments need to implement sensible land-use policies. Such policies
may not be very visible, but they have a huge impact on transport emissions.
Finally, the study outlines a few possible measures that could control transport
emissions by addressing land-use issues. It explores ideas related to benchmarks,
mandatory plans and the possibility of using the concept of emissions trading in
connection with land-uses causing transport emissions.
Key Words: urban sprawl, land use, climate change, transport GHG emissions
290
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291
1. CAUSES IN THE GROWTH OF TRANSPORT EMISSIONS

A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
In 2005, transport emissions accounted for around 20 percent of all greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions in the EU-25. Road transport is responsible for 93 percent
of all transport emissions (excluding international aviation and maritime transport), emitting about 900 million tons of CO2 in the EU-27 in 2005. This is equal
to almost half the amount of emissions covered by the EU Emissions Trading
Scheme (ETS). Urban transport accounts for half of these emissions, a volume
nearly equivalent to Germanys allowable annual emissions under the EU ETS.
Since 1990 transport emissions have increased by one-fifth in the EU-15,
which is the largest increase among all emitting sectors. The trend in both the
absolute and relative increase of transport emissions is not expected to change in
the future. According to the EEA, by 2010 EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions from
transport are projected to increase from the current 126 percent of 1990 levels
to 135 percent if only existing policies and measures are used. Even with the
recently adopted fleet average limit of 120 g CO2/km for passenger car emissions,
transport emissions would still increase an additional 27 percent over 1990 levels
(EEA 2006).
The immediate cause of the phenomenal growth of transport emissions is
clear: a) People are travelling more and more in general, and especially more on
roads. In the EU-25, the number of road-passenger kilometres increased 26
percent between 1990 and 2000, i.e. much higher than the 20 percent increase
in GDP in this period (OECD 2007). The number of cars has also increased
by 35 percent in this period, approaching an average of 4 cars to 10 people in
the EU-15. b) Demand for the transportation of goods (responsible for about a
third of transport emissions) increased even faster in the same period, with the
number of road-freight tonne kilometres growing by 36 percent (ibid.). This
strong increase is somewhat mitigated by increased efficiency in fuel use, as CO2
emissions from road transport have only increased by 18 percent.
The question then arises: what causes the increase in the transportation of
passengers and goods? The current paper will look at the development of different
general factors in EU Member States for the 10-year period between 1990 and
2000, and will assess their impact on road transport emissions through statistical
analysis. Further, the analysis aims to determine a) whether there is a meaningful
correlation between a particular indicator and road transport CO2 emissions;
and b) whether it is possible to establish a clear cause-and-effect relationship
between this indicator and road transport CO2 emissions. The analysis will cover
population, gross domestic product (GDP) and the size of the area covered by
human constructions, including buildings, roads and paved-over lots.
292
Technological improvements in vehicle efficiency are not considered as they

are known to show a gradual and steady increase that is largely uniform in all
Member States, and thus are unlikely to have a strong explanatory power (EEA
2009). The analysis will be restricted to road transport, leaving aside aviation,
rail transport and shipping, together responsible for about than 30% of transport
emissions1. Although growing fast, these transport modes are not yet much
used in passenger commuting or in retail freight, and the relationship of their
emissions to changes in the land area covered by buildings and roads is probably
not relevant.
The analysis focuses on the relationship between changes in the abovementioned variables and changes in road transport emissions for EU Member
States where data is available. A simple linear multiple regression analysis is used
to determine the correlation between the change in population, gross domestic
product and artificial land area and the change in road emissions between 1990
and 2000. The method of analysis assumes that the same relationship holds
true for all countries in Europe. The data analysed was expressed in terms of
percentage change, so that the effect of the size of the countries would not appear
in the analysis. The data used for the analysis is presented below (all graphs in the
text are based on this dataset).
The analysis shows that the three variables explain to a considerable degree
the variation in the increase in road transport emissions. The R2 of the linear
regression is 85.1%, the adjusted R2 is 80.6%, and artificial land and per capita
GDP variables are significant variables. Results of the analysis are presented
in more detail below. If the insignificant population variable is left out of the
regression, the R2 is 84.7.4% and the adjusted R2 is 82.0%
1This figure includes international aviation, and international shipping emissions (source: EEA GHG Data
Viewer, www.eea.org).
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293
TABLE 1
Change of Road Transport CO2 Emissions and Possible Explanatory
Variables Between 1990 and 2000 for Selected EU Member States
Percentage Change Between 1990 and 2000
Country
Austria
Road transport
CO2 Emissions1
37.92%
Articial
Areas2
Per Capita
GDP3
3.06%
22.98%
Population4
5.08%
Belgium
20.85%
2.78%
*20.32%
2.85%
Denmark
15.77%
4.31%
24.42%
3.86%
France
17.80%
4.84%
16.42%
4.13%
Germany
10.57%
5.80%
18.90%
2.72%
Greece
25.68%
13.82%
*19.34%
8.21%
Hungary
6.04%
1.51%
24.20%
-1.57%
106.30%
30.67%
*82.99%
8.19%
17.65%
6.13%
16.58%
0.80%
Netherlands
24.46%
22.42%
28.21%
6.52%
Poland
11.60%
1.44%
*44.09%
0.59%
Portugal
85.20%
38.64%
*29.92%
3.61%
Spain
46.45%
25.14%
*27.69%
3.64%
6.42%
1.87%
24.83%
2.88%
18.59%
6.62%
26.82%
2.86%
Ireland
Italy
United Kingdom
Total of these
countries
*using OECDs estimate for 1990 per capita GDP value; using 1991 value instead of 1990
1Based on data from OECD and the European Environmental Agency
2CORINE Land Cover Database (European Environmental Agency)
3Real gross domestic product (expenditure approach), per head, US $, constant exchange rates (source: OECD)
4(source: OECD)
1.1 Population
As more people travel more and also demand a greater quantity of products to be
transported, there is a clear cause-and-effect relationship between road transport
CO2 emissions and population increases. By contrast, it would not make sense to
suppose that the population is growing because people and goods are travelling more.
The overall population figures are fairly stable in Europe. Between 1990 and
2000, the population of the EU-25 has increased by less than 3 percent. The
variation among countries is modest, with Ireland and Greece showing an 8.2
percent increase and Hungary a 1.5 percent decrease over the period.
294
FIGURE 1
Comparison of Road Transport CO2 Emissions Increase
and Population Increase Between 1990 and 2000
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
l
ta
To
d
lan
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l
ga
rtu
Po
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ria
st
Au
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Road transport CO2 emissions increase
Population increase
Figure 1 compares the growth of transport CO2 emissions with population

growth in selected countries. In some countries (e.g. Ireland), a higher than
average population growth took place simultaneously with a strong increase
of road transport-related emissions. For example, both Greece and Ireland
experienced population increases of over 8 percent, but the growth of transport
emissions in Greece was one-quarter of the growth seen in Ireland. At the
same time, countries like Portugal and Spain have experienced an explosion
in transport emissions while population increase remained slightly over the
average2. It is also clear from multiple regression analysis that population growth
in itself cannot explain the increase in transport emissions. According to the
analysis, the growth of population does not contribute significantly to explaining
the variance of the growth of CO2 emissions. A multiple regression analysis of the
relationship between road transport CO2 emissions and population growth, per
capita GDP growth, and increase of artificial areas yielded a t-value of 0.48 for
population growth, and a p-value of 0.63.
The lack of a strong relationship between population and road transport
2It should be noted however that while Spain and Portugal did not experience significant overall population
growth, there is a very strong urbanisation trend in these countries, i.e. people are moving to the big cities.
(See: page 15, EEA Report no 10/2006). This movement in itself does not inevitably lead to increasing transport
emissions it does so probably because new urban areas are built in a sprawling, transport-intensive fashion.
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CO2 emissions is quite remarkable, as it means that roughly the same number
of people are able to both travel more and consume more goods, which results
in more transport emissions than before. While worrying with respect to future
emissions, the lack of such a strong relationship might be viewed positively, as it
could mean that it is possible to reduce transport-related CO2 emissions without
limiting the number of people.
FIGURE 2
Road Transport CO2 Emissions Per Capita in 1990 and in 2000 (tons)
Poland
Hungary
Portugal
Greece
Ireland
Spain
Austria
Total
Italy
Netherlands
Denmark
UK
Germany
France
Belgium
0
0,
1,
2,
Road transport CO2 emissions per capita in 1990

Road transport CO 2 emissions per capita in 2000
1.2 Gross Domestic Product
It is a general public assumption that the volume of transport and thus roadtransport CO2 emissions are related to GDP, i.e. the richer a country is, the more
transport would take place. However, the cause-and-effect relationship between
the two is not straightforward. It is sensible to suppose that people are becoming
wealthier and, therefore, travel more and buy goods with a greater value (acquired
through more transport). It is equally sensible to suppose that more transportation of goods and people induces a productive economy and generates more
296
GDP.3 Therefore, GDP-growth and the growth of transport emissions are not
necessarily in a one-way cause-and-effect relationship, but rather, may influence
each other.
In the EU as a whole, transport-related CO2-emissions have grown in tandem
with per capita GDP. This statement masks great differences among Member
States as to what extent GDP growth was coupled with growth in transport
emissions. In some Member States the link is strong, whereas in others, it is
almost non-existent. Figure 3 compares the growth of per capita GDP with
the growth of road transport-related CO2 emissions. As shown, some Member
States have experienced high per capita GDP growth coupled with high growth
in road transport-related CO2 emissions (Ireland), but other Member States had
enormous growth in road transport-related CO2 emissions while per capita GDP
growth was only slightly above average (Portugal, Spain). Finally, some countries
attained an average per capita GDP growth with relatively little increase in road
transport-related CO2 emissions (UK, Poland, Germany).
FIGURE 3
and GDP Increase Between 1990 and 2000
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3The fact that a growth in transport infrastructure investment induces economic growth has been supported
by early works by e.g. Aschauer (1989), but recently several authors have refuted this claim. Crescenzi and
Rodriguez-Pose (2008) have conducted an analysis of data for European countries which shows that although
good infrastructure endowment is a precondition for high economic performance, additional investment in
infrastructure is disconnected from economic performance.
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The multiple regression analysis showed that per capita GDP contributes little
to explaining the growth of CO2 emissions. A multiple-style regression analysis of
the relationship between road transport CO2 emissions and population growth/
per capita GDP growth/ Increase of artificial areas yielded a t-value of 2.7 for
per capita GDP growth, with a p-value of 0.02. If the insignificant population
variable is left out of the analysis, the t-value is 2.9 and the p-value is 0.01. The
coefficient of the variable is 0.6, which means that a 1% rise in per capita GDP
produces less than 1% rise in transport CO2 emissions.
This shows that road transport emissions are linked to economic growth
only to some extent. If the cause and effect relationship shows that transport is a
precondition of economic growth, one might conclude that the only way to limit
growth of road transport emissions is to limit economic growth, which would be
very difficult for any elected government to sell. A further analysis of transportrelated CO2 emissions and economic growth may reveal that some stages and
types of economic growth do correlate with rising emissions while others not.
In wealthy countries where the motorway network is already built, with little
space for new roads and high levels of car ownership4, further economic growth
may not necessarily be linked to greater transport volumes (UK, Sweden), and
transport emissions could increase slowly over a high base level. In countries
where the motorway network is in the process of being built and many people
cross the wealth threshold necessary to buy a car, economic growth may be
accompanied by a massive increase in transport emissions from a lower base
level5 (Portugal, Ireland). Such detailed analysis is beyond the possibilities of the
present paper, however.
1.3 Increase in Areas Covered by Buildings
If population growth and economic growth cannot explain growth in transport

emissions, other causes can be considered. Transport emissions increase because
there is a greater quantity of passenger-kilometres and freight tonne-kilometres.
The increase in these values could be a result of more passengers and goods
travelling between the same destinations or of the same amount of passengers
and goods travelling between destinations that are further apart from each other.
4For a comparison of GDP levels and the number of vehicles, see European Environmental Agency, Indicator fact
sheet TERM 2002 32 AC Size of the vehicle fleet, page 7. (http://themes.eea.europa.eu/Sectors_and_activities/
transport/indicators/technology/TERM32,2002/TERM_2002_32_AC_Size_of_the_vehicle_fleet.pdf)
5This hypothesis seems to be borne out by the fact that the land used for road networks has indeed increased by
over 300 percent between 1990 and 2000 both in Portugal and Ireland, while the average increase in the EU-25
was only 21 percent (EEA Corine Land Cover Database). In this period, Ireland had much higher than average
economic growth, while Portugals growth was only average.
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For both goods and people, most journeys either connect two urban areas or
connect two destinations within the same urban area. No reliable statistical data
is available on how much of road transport CO2 emissions is generated in urban
areas. According to the ECs Green Paper on Urban Transport,6 Urban traffic is
responsible for 40% of CO2 emissions arising from road transport.
It would require a very complex analysis to fully map the long-term evolution
of trip-lengths and destinations for all passengers and goods. In the following,
this complexity will be minimized by assuming that the increase in road transport
emissions can be explained by the increase in urban areas. An increase in urban
areas increases individual trip lengths, and as most newly urbanised areas are
fully car-dependent with no public transport, these areas would have to lead to
increased road transport emissions. This assumption is well grounded in the
findings of researchers (see e.g. Camagni et al. 2002).
While this approach does not fully explain the increase in emissions that
occur in interurban transport, (i.e. about 50 percent of road transport emissions),
it could provide a strong explanation for the increase of emissions within urban
areas, i.e. for the other half of the emissions, because of the clear cause-and-effect
relationship between destinations and transport emissions. As people and goods
rarely travel to an empty field in the hope that one day they will find a house, a
shopping mall or a factory there, the establishment of a destination (and the road
leading to it) always precedes the journeys that cause the CO2 emissions. Indeed,
Southworth (2001) considers the building of new roads and buildings to be a
primary reason for the growth in road transport.
For analysing the increase in urban areas, the CORINE Land Cover Database
was used, which uses satellite imaging to calculate the number of hectares covered
with a particular land-use type. CORINE uses about twenty different land-use
classes, covering different types of natural areas (forests, agriculture, wetlands,
etc.) and artificial areas (continuous and discontinuous urban fabric, commercial
areas, transport infrastructure areas, etc.). Data is available for 1990 and 2000 for
the EU-27, except Sweden, Finland, Cyprus and Malta. To measure the increase
of urban areas, CORINEs composite land-use class of artificial areas is used. This
composite includes all buildings and all transport infrastructure (with the latter
being overwhelmingly roads), and in this paper this group will be referred to as
artificial areas.
An EEA report7 provides a detailed analysis of the urbanisation and sprawl
trends in Europe for the 1990-2000 period. According to the report, most
European regions are sprawling (i.e. urban areas are expanding much more than
population growth), as new housing and commercial development is almost
6COM(2007) 551 final, Green Paper: Towards a new culture for urban mobility, Brussels, 25.9.2007, p. 3.
7Urban sprawl in Europe, the ignored challenge, EEA Report No 10/2006
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exclusively suburban and car-centric. As these areas are usually not new cities,
but rather outlying appendages to existing urban areas, the inhabitants continue
to use the same city centres, but reach them from further away. With the new
areas usually not planned around public transport and too sparsely populated to
be able to support effective public transport, the passenger car remains as the sole
feasible mode of transportation. The area gobbled up by European cities between
1990 and 2000 is equivalent to the entire area of Luxembourg. The advance of
artificial areas is alarmingly fast in Spain and Ireland, while the process is only
beginning in the new Member States. A very important finding of the report
is that sprawl is not a natural phenomenon; it can be effectively controlled with
the appropriate government policies. Indeed, a study by Cameron, Lyons and
Kenworthy (2004) concluded that a number of cities in Europe (e.g. Munich and
Stockholm) and Asia (e.g. Hong Kong and Singapore) have shown that clear policy
initiatives can contain the growth of urban private motorised mobility and in
other cities such as Stockholm, the control of urban sprawl appears to have been
pivotal in reducing the growth of car use, despite strong growth in affluence and car
ownership.
The question is whether the expansion of artificial areas (in short, sprawl) can
be considered as a driver of transport emissions growth. The multiple regression
analysis which was conducted on the change in road transport emissions between
1990 and 2000 also included the change in the land covered by artificial areas as
an explanatory variable. The result is that the relationship between the growth
of artificial areas and the growth of transport CO2 emissions is very strong,
much stronger than for the other examined factors (i.e. population growth and
per capita GDP growth). A multiple-style regression analysis of the relationship
between road transport CO2 emissions and population growth/ per capita GDP
growth/ increase of artificial areas yielded a t-value of 4.2 for increase of artificial
areas, with a p-value of 0.002. If the insignificant population variable is left out
of the analysis, the t-value is 5 and the p-value is 0.0004. The coefficient of the
variable is 1.6, which means that a 1% rise in artificial areas produces a greater
than 1% rise in transport CO2 emissions.
This result is in line with several studies that have found a strong link between
the density and form of urban development and the amount of private car
transport that the development entails (Newman and Kenworthy 1999; Handy
2005). In a particular example, Muiz and Galindo (2005) reached a similar
conclusion in their study of Barcelona when they stated that measures of urban
form typically used (net population density and accessibility) have a greater
capacity to explain municipal ecological footprints variability than other factors,
such as average municipal family income and the job ratio, which leads the authors
to conclude that urban form exercises a clear effect on the ecological footprint of
transport.
300
Figure 4 provides a percentage comparison between the increase of artificial

land and road transport emissions, as was done earlier for population and per
capita GDP. The rate of sprawl experienced by individual Member States is
widely divergent. It has barely started in the new Member States, while reaching
dramatic proportions in Spain, Portugal and Italy. However, where sprawl is
strong (e.g. artificial areas have increased by more than 5 percent from 1990 to
2000), a significant increase in road transport emissions is also found (with the
exception of the Netherlands). Similarly, the increase in road transport emissions
was the lowest in the countries experiencing the least degree of sprawl.
FIGURE 4
and Articial Areas Increase Between 1990 and 2000
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1.4 Summary
The strong correlation between increases in artificial land area and transportrelated CO2 emissions indicates that policies limiting the increase of artificial land
could be effective in limiting the increase of CO2 emissions in transport. Policies
limiting land use will not necessarily restrict economic growth, for growth is not
correlated to increasing the quantities of artificial land.
Sprawl is not an inevitable consequence of economic growth, but rather a
result of specific government policies. The economy of the Netherlands and
Portugal increased at about the same rate between 1990 and 2000, but Portugal
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saw both its urban area and transport CO2 emissions grow at triple the rate of the
Netherlands. This difference can probably be best explained by different land-use
policies. Another example is the UK, which had strong economic growth in this
period but only limited expansion of artificial areas, probably due to its vigorous
policies against sprawl. According to Couch and Karecha (2006): urban sprawl
in Britain is brought under strong planning control and this has been particularly
effective in the large northern conurbations such as Liverpool. As the newly
urbanised areas are a primary cause of increasing transport CO2-emissions, the
current insouciance of EU policies towards increasing sprawl is a dangerous
position that threatens to undermine the achievements of other climate policies.
The CO2 emission effects of unmitigated sprawl are already clearly visible in
the Mediterranean Member States. For example, although under the EU burden
sharing agreement Spain is allowed to increase its total greenhouse gas emissions
by 15 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2008-2012 , in 2005 its total emissions
stood at 50 percent over the base year. Though emissions from all sectors are
growing, transport emissions have almost doubled in Spain and have increased
their share in total emissions. The picture is similar in Portugal, Ireland, Greece
and Italy. The Member States most affected by sprawl are among those that are
furthest away from meeting their Kyoto Protocol reduction targets.8 All these
countries will now have to spend huge amounts of money on buying credits
to comply with their Kyoto target. Their transport emissions, engendered by
growing affluence that allows more and more people to have cars, coupled with a
lack of urban planning, will be very costly to reduce.
For better or worse, Central Europe always tried to follow the development
patterns of Western Europe. This seems to be the case in transport development
too. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the new Member States have
increased by 28 percent between 1990 and 20049, which is higher than the average
increase in the EU-15. As these countries have already fulfilled their Kyoto
targets, no outside pressure will limit the growth of transport CO2 emissions in
these countries until after 2012. Due to the lack of roads and money for cars,
sprawl was not strong in the land use patterns of the 1990-2000 period in these
countries. However, as they are in the process of passing the wealth threshold
which enables nearly everyone to buy a car10, it is expected that transport emissions
and sprawl will explode in the same way as they did in the Mediterranean. With
no EU-policies against sprawl, the deluge of structural and cohesion funds (a
8EEA 9/2006, p. 20.
9EEA 9/2006, p. 23.
10The threshold appears to be being passed in these years. Car sales in Central and Eastern Europe have
increased by 13.4% between 2006 and 2007, with several countries showing growth over 25%. http://www.
jato.com/Documents/PRESS%20RELEASES/Central%20and%20Eastern%20European%20car%20market%20
continues%20significant%20growth%2025.9.2007.pdf
302
large portion of which is spent on new roads) will only exacerbate this process.
According to an EEA report: The new Member States seem to be repeating the
experience of Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Starting from a relatively low transport
level, all these countries experienced strong growth in transport and its greenhouse
gas emissions due to high economic growth.11
In order to prevent the further deterioration of the situation in the Mediterranean and to try to set new Member States on a more sustainable course of
growth, the EU should get into the business of regulating city development and
urban planning. The possible policy options are outlined in the next chapter.
WHAT COULD THE EU DO TO LIMIT THE GROWTH

OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM TRANSPORT?
2.1 Current Policies on Reducing Transport Emissions
Existing and planned specific EU-level policies aim primarily at increasing the
CO2-efficiency of existing traffic volumes. Both the Directive 2003/30/EC on
biofuels and the planned target of 120 g CO2/km for new passenger cars by
201212 would bring substantial savings in transport-related CO2 emissions, but
will only slow their growth and not stop the increase. The average carbon dioxide
emissions of new passenger cars were reduced from 186 g CO2/km in 1995 to
163 g CO2/km in 2004, representing a reduction of about 12 percent.13 However,
in the same period, 21 percent more cars were sold, more than offsetting the
emission reductions due to increased CO2-efficiency.14 As nothing indicates
that the trend towards a growing automobile fleet (and a parallel increase in the
growth of artificial land15) would stop in the future, a similar offsetting of the
planned policies can be expected.
The EUs Green Transport package of July 200816 makes an important step by
providing a common framework for Member States policies on charging for road
usage by heavy lorries, and crucially, allowing the introduction of environmental
11EEA 9/2006, p. 23.
12Commission Communication - Review of the Community Strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger
cars and light-commercial vehicles (7.2.2007, COM(2007)19 final)
13COM(2007)19 final, Impact Assessment, pp. 7, 32.
14 EEA 9/2006, p. 47.
15 Not surprisingly, there is a discernible correlation between the increase of the number of passenger cars and
the increase of the artificial land area. In statistical terms: R2(indicating the strength of the relationship) = 0.7 (1
means a perfect correlation, 0 means no correlation); P-value (indicating statistical significance) =
0.00000840912 (i.e. there is a 0.0008% likelihood that the correlation is false)
16For a summary of the documents in the package, see: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/greening/index_en.htm
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costs in the charges, something that was not possible previously. However, as the
Communication17 in the package states, Private transport is not covered because
of subsidiarity. In other words, the EU does not consider itself legally empowered
to introduce road charging for passenger cars, a policy that could have dramatic
effects on sprawl and its related emissions.
Outside actual legislation, the notion that unsustainable land-use patterns
are a main cause of the increase in transport emissions does appear in policy
documents, though without offering policies to address the problem. The EUs
Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment18 (Thematic Strategy) does at
one point say that Avoiding urban sprawl through high density and mixed-use
settlement patterns offers environmental advantages regarding land use, transport
and heating contributing to less resource use per capita.19, but it never quite makes
the link between land-use decisions and climate change. 20
A very useful result of the Commissions work on the Thematic Strategy is
the development of guidance on Sustainable Urban Transport Plans21, which
provides a wealth of information on what local governments can do to reduce
CO2 emissions from transport if they have the resources to address the issue.
The Annex of the guidance22 provides detailed policy options in the areas of land
use and transport planning co-ordination, traffic calming, fostering cycling and
walking, promoting public transport, road pricing, and parking management.
The Green Paper on Urban Transport is a document that is up to date with the
latest thinking on the environmental impacts of car-traffic and identifies sensible
policies to promote the use of public transport, cycling and walking. In particular,
it recognises that The trends towards suburbanisation and urban sprawl lead to
low-density, spatially segregated land use. The resulting dispersal of home, work and
leisure facilities results in increase transport demand. The lower densities in peripheral
areas make it difficult to offer collective transport solutions of a sufficient quality to
attract substantial amounts of users.23 In other words, sprawl cannot be fixed by
investment in public transport; it is an inherently climate-unfriendly mode of urban
development, which cannot be eliminated by better transport policies. The problem
of sprawl requires better land-use policies. However, the Green Paper on Urban
Transport does not go beyond asking the question: How can better coordination
between urban and interurban transport and land use planning be achieved?24
17COM(2008) 433 final, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on
Greening Transport, Brussels, 8.7.2008
18 COM (2005)718 final, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on
a Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment; Brussels, 11.1.6.
19 COM (2005)718 final, p.10.
20COM (2005)718 final, p. 5.
21http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/pdf/transport/2007_sutp_prepdoc.pdf
22 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/pdf/transport/2007_sutp_annex.pdf
23COM(2007) 551 final, p.15.
24COM(2007) 551 final, p.16.
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2.2 Possible Future Policies
From a policy development point of view, realising that sprawl is a main driver of
the growth of transport emissions allows policymakers to do something beyond
legislating CO2 efficiency improvements that do not reduce the volume of traffic
or hoping that modest increases in fuel tax would reduce emissions without
causing public outrage first.
The growth of urban areas (at steady population levels) is not a desirable public
good, but rather an undesirable consequence of ever greater fossil fuel-based
mobility. Governments seek to limit sprawl, though with varying success. In the EU,
as the Thematic Strategy states Most cities are confronted with a common core set of
environmental problems such as poor air quality, high levels of traffic and congestion,
high levels of ambient noise, poor-quality built environment, derelict land, greenhouse
gas emissions, urban sprawl, generation of waste and waste-water. 25
If greenhouse gas abatement policies are aimed at limiting sprawl, they can be
expected to face less opposition than policies that directly limit car use or raise
fuel costs. Unlike in the case of a road that people are not allowed or cannot
afford to use, nobody complains about a situation where people do not need
to travel to fulfil some need or other. Another advantage of concentrating on
land-use policies is that the building of cities is already a densely regulated field,
albeit the current objectives of regulations do not always include limits to greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU has significant limitations in developing policies on urban planning.
Land-use policies are currently widely regarded as falling into national, regional
or local competence, even though the climate change effects of urban planning
do not justify this. Article 175 of the EC Treaty explicitly states that measures
affecting town and country planning and land use require unanimity. These
provisions also appear in Article III-234 of the Constitution; however, internal
market-related harmonisation measures will be exempt from such unanimity
requirements. Tax policies are in principle possible to adopt on an EU level, but
they require unanimity. The EUs unsuccessful efforts in the 1990s to introduce a
meaningful EU carbon tax suggest that fighting sprawl with EU-level taxes (either
on fuels, vehicles or land-use types) is not possible in the foreseeable future26,
even though taxes could be very effective for this purpose.
As it is properly recognised by the Thematic Strategy, many European cities
were successful in developing policies to halt sprawl and to limit the growth of
transport CO2 emissions. (Witness, for example, the outstanding success of the
policies of Dutch cities to limit the growth of transport emissions compared to
25 COM(2005) 718 final, p.3.
26For a short account of the EUs attempts to introduce a carbon tax, see Padilla and Roca (2004)
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increase of land area in Figure 4.) However, as these policies are often locally
initiated, only the vanguard of regional and local governments can implement
them, while the majority of cities abandon themselves to the centrifugal forces
of car-based urban development because of a lack of resources and/or expertise.
Without central, EU-level requirements to address the problem of sprawl, most
cities will only recognise it when it is too late. Bearing in mind the impending
explosion of transport CO2 emissions in the new Member States, the EC should
not rely on the wisdom of local governments to recognise the need to fight against
sprawl, but should rather focus on extending sustainable urban development
practices through binding measures.
While there is a need for general EU-level policies in the field, it is very
important to recognise the diversity of the myriad planning decisions that subsidiarity rightly places in the hands of local governments. Even so, EU policies could
still be devised to avoid micro-management and concentrate on areas where it is
possible to set up general guidelines that can be followed under all circumstances.
Following are a set of ideas on the types of instruments that the EU could
develop with the purpose of reducing transport CO2 emission through encouraging more sustainable land use patterns. The measures presented below were
selected according to the following criteria: a) they are legal under the EC Treaty; b)
they can be adopted on an EU-level without unanimity; c) they are not voluntary
actions, but applicable for all. Ideas related to improving public transport are not
included here as such measures are addressed in detail in the Green Paper.
2.2.1
Benchmarks, Targets and Minimum-Standards
Though urban planning needs to take account of diversity of urban areas, if the
objective is to reduce CO2 emissions, it is possible to develop overall objectives
which could then be established as recommended benchmarks, future targets or
mandatory minimum standards. The most straightforward would be a public
transport access requirement, whereby Member States would be required to
ensure that buildings have access to a certain level of public transport27.
Though a public transport access requirement policy does not directly regulate
urban development, the only way for Member States to realise such an obligation
is (in addition to investing in public transport) through urban planning measures,
in particular in requiring higher settlement densities. A public transport access
27A similar policy exists in the Netherlands since the early 1990s, known as the ABC location policy, which
differentiates between areas according to their accessibility by public transport. Businesses which attract a large
number of customers can only be located at places with good public transport access. (http://international.vrom.
nl/docs/internationaal/engelsesamenvattingnr.pdf)
Another comparable policy is the so-called concurrency policy in Florida and the US state of Washington,
which requires local governments to only allow new urban development if certain public services (including
e.g. public transport but also roads) is made available concurrent with the impacts of such a development.
(Southworth 2001; Steiner 1999)
306
obligation could stop the process of building low-density suburban areas where
public transport is unable to compete with cars. As a minimum, the policy
could extend to new apartments, larger workplaces and commercial establishments; it could then be extended to various categories of existing buildings.
Similarly to recycling and renewables, the requirement could also be formulated
in percentages to be reached within a timeframe28. A first step in this direction
would be to include information on the level of public transport accessibility into
all buildings Energy Performance Certificates.
As a remnant of an age with different preoccupations, many cities have
minimum parking-space requirements for new buildings. This policy is intended
to make sure that relatively wealthy car-owners are also able to move into these
buildings thus increasing the local tax base, but it invariably has the consequence
of increased congestion. Therefore, instead of minimum requirements, targets
for maximum parking space requirements should be established, depending
on the level of public transport available29. Such a policy would reduce CO2
emissions, reduce congestion and free up space for other uses. (Of course, this
policy works only if the area is served by public transport or is accessible on foot
and bicycle.)
Another possible benchmark is the designation of peri-urban green areas
that could eventually form an effective urban growth boundary around large
cities. Most large agglomerations have already expanded well beyond the administrative limits of the original city. Thus the frontier of sprawl is in suburban
municipalities. While the central government of an agglomeration usually sees
sprawl as problematic, many suburban municipalities welcome and foster sprawl
on their territories because new development can increases the tax base. . A
potential tool against this process would be to require Member States to designate
no-development areas around large cities that would form a barrier towards
sprawl and direct further development into existing transport corridors30 and
areas that are well served by public transport. Thus, such a policy is effectively
the inverse of a public transport access requirement, in making areas not served
by public transport off-limits to development. Unoccupied areas around cities
are often agricultural areas that would not merit protection on the basis of their
environmental value. Once such protected areas are established, they could also
28 In its effects, such a percentage target could be compared to the UK target of building at least 60% of new
housing on brownfields (i.e. previously developed land), which typically have better transport services than
greenfields. (Couch and Karecha 2006)
29 The Dutch ABC location policy is again a good example of this, as it maximises the amount of parking space
that can be provided for each location type. E.g. in an A location the ratio of total area to parking area must
not exceed 1:125.
30An example of this is the Finger Plan in Copenhagen, where development is restricted to the five fingers
reaching out from the city. The fingers follow railway lines, and between the fingers, there are green areas. (see
e.g.: http://www.geogr.ku.dk/dkgs/image/pub_pdf/artikler/2006_2/02.pdf)
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serve the purpose of providing accessible green areas to people living in the city
(which is necessary if they live at density levels that are high enough to maintain
public transport.) According to Anas and Pines (2008), if charging for road usage
is not possible, urban growth boundaries are effective second-best measures to
limit sprawl.
2.2.2
Development of Mandatory Sustainable Urban Transport Plans
Short of targets and benchmarks, the public and authorities can consider the
climate-change impacts of their development policies through a requirement to
draw up plans and strategies on sustainable urban development.
A very important recommendation of the Thematic Strategy is for cities to
develop Sustainable Urban Transport Plans. This is already an obligation in
France and the UK, and other Member States are considering its introduction.
According to the Thematic Strategy, Transport planning should take account of
safety and security, access to goods and services, air pollution, noise, greenhouse
gas emissions and energy consumption, land use, cover passenger and freight
transportation and all modes of transport.31 The guidance provided by the
Commission on developing Sustainable Urban Transport Plans32 is very useful
for local governments who are already looking for solutions to the problems of
urban land-use and transportation. However, without a specific obligation to
draw up such a plan, many municipalities will not find the time and the money
to prioritise urban transport and land-use planning. This is particularly true in
those cities (particularly in new Member States) where these problems may not
yet be endemic and the progress of car-based development could still be checked.
Transport planning by housing developers could be useful even if not
coupled with a public transport access obligation. The Green Paper mentions
in passing the possibility that developers could be encouraged to prepare a sitespecific mobility plan as part of the procedure for obtaining planning permission.33
In many countries, home buyers and local authorities alike tend to neglect the
transport aspects of new housing developments. As the problem is similar to
buyers neglect or ignorance of their buildings energy use, the solution could
be to expand building energy performance certificates with information on the
quality of transport services available at the building (and an estimate of the CO2
emissions caused by the trips to the building.)
31COM (2005) 718 final, p.5.

32See footnotes 26 and 27 for links
33COM(2007) 551 final, p.7.
308
2.2.3
Emissions-Trading for Land Uses That Cause Transport Emissions

(e.g. parking)
It is worth considering whether the transport emissions could not be limited

through involving the land-use forms that cause emissions into an emissions
trading scheme. Emissions trading would be superior to benchmarks or plans
as it would be able to set a cap on transport emissions without prescribing the
policies that should be used to achieve it.
Airplanes and ships are managed by commercial enterprises in fleets, where
operators have many opportunities to increase carbon efficiency on a fleet level
through better organization, and upgrades. By contrast, passenger cars are usually
operated by private persons, who have little scope to improve the efficiency of their
cars after the purchase. In the face of high carbon prices, the only immediately
available emission-reduction option would be to reduce the amount of driving
(on the longer term, the purchase of a more efficient vehicle or moving to a place
with better transport options would also be possible.) Having only one short term
option would probably make participants feel very constrained, thus reducing the
acceptability of the scheme.
Emissions trading-induced increases in the cost of air travel may be countered
with flying less or buying goods with lower transport costs. This is illustrated with
the greater price-sensitivity of air transport compared to road or rail transport, as
demonstrated in a meta-analysis by Kremers et al. Road transport thus appears to
be a more essential service and/or one with fewer alternatives, than air transport.
If people are less likely to give up road transport in the face of higher costs, many
people will have no other choice but to pay more. This is both a social question
and an issue of political acceptability.
To date, the inclusion of road transport into existing emissions trading schemes
has not been possible for several reasons: a) the enormous number of transport
vehicles make the management, verification and enforcement of a scheme involving
individual car operators very costly; b) passenger cars are usually operated by
private persons, who have little scope to improve the efficiency of their cars after
the purchase. Thus, faced with high carbon prices, their only significant short-term
emission-reduction option would be to reduce the amount of driving. Having only
one option would probably make participants feel very constrained, thus reducing
the acceptability of the scheme. Also, Incentives to drive less or to buy more efficient
cars are much easier created through fiscal measures.
In order to make emissions trading a valid concept for transport emissions, a set
of operators that are less numerous and can actively influence the CO2-efficiency
of the overall transport system is needed. For this, not only direct, but also indirect
emitters need to be considered. Such indirect emitters could be the owners of
houses or other buildings, but they are just as numerous as car operators, so the
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system would not be much simpler. A much more appropriate set of operators
are the providers of parking spaces, private or public, or on a higher level of aggregation, municipal governments. According to Southworth (2001): Parking control
policies, through either higher parking rates or restrictions on spaces available, offer
considerable leverage through which to alter travel patterns.
Currently, free parking in out-of-town workplaces and shopping centres is one
of the infrastructural bases of the present unsustainable trend of urban sprawl. As
the Green Paper on Urban Mobility says: Providing more parking spaces may, in
the long term encourage car transport, in particular if they are free of charge.34 The
amount of parking space is a significant limiting factor on the volume of transport,
but it is often provided by private entities with no government control, thereby
inducing further traffic and overloading the road network. The mechanism
works in reverse as well, cars stop going to places where it is not possible to park.
Therefore, controlling parking could effectively be used to control transport CO2
emissions. Of course, such parking policies should always bear in mind that a
total lack of access by car can result in the abandonment of an area, if the same
amenities are freely available in other areas where cars can go.
A trading scheme to reduce transport emissions involving parking placeproviders would work as follows:
i)
The government would establish a total cap on the amount of transport

emissions for a given period. A quantity of allowances equal to this cap
would be distributed free of charge to entities or by auction.
ii) Entities responsible for a large number of parking (large offices, shopping
centres, municipalities, etc) would be required to report the number of
parking spaces provided, and they would be obliged to surrender a certain
amount of allowances for each parking space.
iii) The amount of allowances to be surrendered per parking space would be
set by the government in advance on the basis of average vehicle emissions,
average trip lengths and average parking space occupancy rates. This figure
should not be changed very often, and changes would need a long lead-time.
iv) As the surrender obligation for parking spaces is placed on the parking provider, the parking provider would need to obtain the allowances first, either
through the free allocation or through a purchase in an auction or from another participant. The cost of an allowance (and thus, indirectly, the cost of
providing a parking space) would depend on the level of scarcity, i.e. the size
of transport emissions compared to the cap. Parking providers would have
to decide whether to i) limit the amount of parking; ii) pass on the cost of
purchasing allowances to their clients in the form of parking fees; or iii) to
absorb these costs. Of course, the more parking is created, the greater the
34 COM (2007) 551 final, p.6.
310
need for allowances and the higher their price would be, eventually forcing
many parking providers to pass on the costs of parking.
It is important to realise that because parking spaces function in groups (i.e. one
car needs a parking space at home, at the office and at the shopping centre to be able
to operate) it is not necessary to introduce the system everywhere at the same time.
The system would bring benefits even if first limited to large commercial establishments and offices (though questions of equity would arise as to whether it is fair to
place the entire burden on a subset of parking space providers.) A great advantage
of emissions trading for parking spaces is that there is no international competition
and costs may be passed on to the consumer freely.
Beyond simply ensuring that the cap for transport emissions is not overstepped,
and realising the polluter pays principle, such a scheme would have long term
structural impacts. It would eliminate the cost-advantages of car-only locations,
which are in fact free riding on publicly funded road infrastructure and take
business away from more centrally located facilities which lack unlimited free
parking. In the next step, if the accessibility by car of workplaces and shopping
decreases, suburban living becomes more difficult, thereby inducing people to
live in more sustainable locations.
A great political advantage of an emissions trading scheme for parking spaces
is that it would not directly limit mobility by increasing the price of cars or
the price of fuel, measures which would be very unpopular if implemented at
a level which has a real effect on CO2 emissions. The car fetish would be left
untouched, and high parking prices would develop automatically, without
direct government involvement.
3. CONCLUSIONS
The statistical analysis shows that wherever sprawl occurs in the EU, it results
in a strong increase of transport-related CO2 emissions. Sprawl, measured in
the increase of the areas covered by buildings and roads, is a stronger cause of
increased road transport emissions than other possible causes, such as the growth
of per capita GDP or population growth.
This conclusion is very relevant for the EUs climate policy. Unlike other
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, emissions from transport are growing
steadily. Current EU policies aimed at transport emissions try to increase the
CO2-efficiency of cars, but they are not enough to stop the growth of emissions.
If sprawl is significantly correlated to increasing transport emissions, then the
EU needs to adopt policies that try to limit sprawl. Several policy options are
described in this paper, including a public transport access obligation, mandatory
sustainable transport plans, and emissions trading for parking.
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4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful to gnes Kelemen for her assistance in the regression
analysis, and to Gbor Rna, Prof. Denny Ellerman, Peter Zapfel and David
Delcampe for the ideas, comments and corrections provided for this paper.
References
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Aschauer, D.A. 1989. Is public Expenditure Productive? Journal of Monetary Economics
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Camagni, R., M.C. Gibelli, and P. Rigamonti. 2002. Urban Mobility and Urban Form: The
Social and Environmental Costs of Different Patterns of Urban Expansion. Ecological
Economics 40: 199216.
Cameron, I., T.J. Lyons, and J.R. Kenworthy. 2004. Trends of Vehicle Kilometres of Travel
in World Cities, 196090: Underlying Drivers and Policy Responses. Transport Policy
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Couch, C., and J. Karecha. 2006. Controlling Urban Sprawl: Some Experiences from
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Crescenzi, R., and A. Rodriguez-Pose. 2008. Infrastructure Endowment and Investment
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Padilla, E., and J. Roca. 2004. The Proposals for a European Tax on CO2 and their Implications for Intercountry Distribution. Environmental and Resource Economics 27:
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Research Record. Journal of the Transportation Research Board: 1685.
CHAPTER
10
The Role of Intelligent

Transport Systems for Demand
Responsive Transport
Robert Clavel,* Elodie Castex, Didier Josselin
Summary
Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) is a public transport system, which
provides the user with the advantages of both public transport and taxi services. It
was often considered as a marginal mode of transport reserved for areas with low
population densities. Since the end of the 1990s, the numbers of DRT systems
have been increasing consistently, with new investments in urban, suburban and
rural spaces, and with varying degrees of operational flexibility. The flexibility and
efficiency of DRT systems are influenced by several factors, the most important
being technological. Most of these technological developments are in the field
of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This paper illustrates
the use of technology to improve DRT efficiency with two case studies from
France (Pays du Doubs central and Toulouse). The type and level of ICT used
is strongly dependent on the type of DRT service, its level of flexibility, and its
specific optimization problem. The examples of Doubs Central and Toulouse,
two different areas, show that technology can play a key role to optimize DRT
trips and bring quality service to the population in a large area, or when the
patronage is high. Technology offers the potential for achieving real-time demand
responsiveness in transport services, particularly in complex networks, to a level
far in advance of manual systems.
312
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313
1. INTRODUCTION
Originating in the mid-1970s, Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services
initially aimed at serving areas with low population density, and offered an alternative form of transportation to disabled people. Now DRT is also used in urban
and suburban areas, and offers a large variety of services: ranging from transport for all types of passengers in regular commuting schedules but with low
volumes of passengers, to transport for specific areas (airports, etc.). The development of suburbs and the dispersion of origins and destinations of trips led to the
emergence of this form of public transport.
The general idea of DRT is to provide people with a public transport service
when conventional transport services would be too expensive. DRT responds
particularly to dispersed mobility needs, including hours of low demand, areas
with low population, and target users dispersed among the general population
(e.g. disabled, elderly, students, and tourists).
DRT is a flexible transport service, which adapts to the demand of passengers
who have to book their trips. So DRT introduces an innovative approach to mass or
collective transport, both in terms of service production and target population: the
transport service is not provided on a fixed line but is offered over a defined area. The
bus trips are not bound to a specific route or fixed timetable as in the case of conventional service, and the flexibility is provided by the capability to adapt the service to
the level and characteristics of demand. Each trip is planned based on the user request
in terms of start/arrival timing and origin/destination. In DRT services, the bus will
reach the stops only when it is needed and at a pre-arranged times, avoiding long and
useless waiting at stops by the users. It exists in the form of different types of services:
door-to-door1, fixed routes, fixed routes with deviations, free routes among a set of
points2 (Burkhardt et al. 1995; Ambrosino et al. 2004; Castex 2007). These services
are more or less flexible depending on the public, the area and the goals of the service.
In different European cities and regions, many advantages and benefits are
associated with DRT services that are complementary to conventional and
scheduled public transport. One of the main reasons for the emergence and
success of DRT services is the availability of different information and communication technologies (ICT). These have radically improved the possibilities to
provide personalized transport services, in terms of interface with potential
customers, optimization and assignment to meet travel requests, and service
provision and management. The support of adequate ICT tools is particularly
necessary for the management of user-booking volumes, number of trips, etc.
1A service that picks up passengers at the door of their place of origin and delivers them to the door of their
destination (Burkhardt et al. 1995).
2e.g. stop-to-stop services.
314
This paper first provides an overview of existing DRTs in France, and subsequently demonstrates how technological opportunities can contribute to the
management and development of DRT. Examples of the use of ICT for DRTs are
provided for two case study locations in France.
2. STATE OF THE ART OF DEMAND RESPONSIVE TRANSPORT IN FRANCE

DRT in France is managed by transport authorities, which correspond to administrative divisions such as communes3 and the county council. Sometimes an
association or a private firm can also manage a DRT. In certain cases, a transport
authority can manage several services of DRT, each service corresponding to
one specific offer of transport located in a particular space.
A database of 650 DRT services in metropolitan France was established
between 2003 and 2005 (Castex 2007). It includes a national census on the DRT
(DATAR, DTT, ADEME, 2004; UTP, 2005), as well as information gained from
websites or directly from the transport authorities. The objective of the database
is to make an inventory of DRT services at the scale of the service and not at the
scale of the transport authority. This provides information on the evolution of
DRT services and helps map them.
2.1 Increase in the number of DRT services since the late 1990s
In 2005, there were 615 DRT services, managed by 384 transport authorities,
covering more than 7000 communes. Figure 1 presents the number of new
DRTs services created each year and registered in the database. Their number
has increased in France noticeably since the end of the 1990s. This growth was
encouraged by several laws4 oriented toward the better management of transportation systems in accordance with the needs of urbanization and environmental protection. DRT services are especially promoted in cities or in territories without transportation and offer a large variety of services. It is possible to
distinguish different kinds of DRT according to their users targets. A majority
3The commune is the smallest administrative subdivision in France of which there are 36 000 in metropolitan
France.
4The law of orientation for national transport, dec. 30th, 1982 which establishes that the right of transport for
everybody must be fulfilled, and defines DRT as a possibility for transport authorities
The law fordevelopment of rural areas, Feb. 23rd 2005, which establishes that in case of lack of public transport
services, DRT can be developped
The law for equality of rights for disabled people which establishes that specific DRT can be developped when
regular lines cant be accessible to disabled people
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315
of DRT services provide transportation services to all the people like the other
modes of transport (General DRT), while some services are dedicated to specific
users like disabled people (Paratransit), customers of private firms (Private DRT),
members of assocations (Social DRT), or railway users (TAXITER).
FIGURE 1
Number of New DRT Creations in France
60
50
40
30
20
10
2003
2001
1999
1997
1995
1993
1991
1989
1987
1985
1983
1981
1979
1969
Number of new services
DRT Creation
Source: Castex 2007.
2.2 DRTs services in France
Figure 2 shows that DRT services are scattered all across France. DRT services
for all users (general DRT) are more numerous than the others, and a number of
them are located in rural areas. Social DRT are widely common in rural areas, but
serve relatively few people (only members of relevant associations). TAXITER is
also used in rural areas where rail travel is not very common.
A lot of cities use general DRT in order to complete their transportation
system. Typically, general DRT is used to serve the outskirts of the bus network
or to take the place of bus routes during off-peaks hours or at night. It is also
numerous in suburbs, where the transportation network is less efficient. The
area with a presence of general DRT services represents only 15% of the French
territory but contains 50% of the population. Most cities have also established
the paratransit type of DRT service. Private DRT services exist only in the larger
cities. The different types of DRT services, together, are present in 24.4 % of
the French territory, which corresponds to an area where 90 % of the French
population live.
316
FIGURE 2
Location of DRT in France
DRT services also differ according to the nature of their supply or availability,
which offer varying degrees of flexibility. Door-to-door DRT services impose the
least constraints, with service characteristics comparable to that of a private car or
a taxi. At the other end of the spectrum, fixed route DRT services can be compared
to a bus line: the trip is predefined with given departure and arrival times. The
other types of DRT services available offer intermediate forms of flexibility: stopto-stop services permit free routes among a set of points, but their flexibility
depends on the number of stops and their location; convergent DRT users have
their arrival point predetermined but their departure point is unrestricted. These
two kinds of DRT services are relatively similar to door-to-door services in terms
of flexibility while fixed routes with deviations DRT services are less flexible and
relatively similar in nature to fixed routes DRT.
Figure 3 shows that door-to-door systems are the most widely prevalent,
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317
especially with respect to services dedicated to specific users. Many general DRT
services are convergent, i.e. their destination stops are predefined by the relevant
transport authority, but fixed route DRT services are also numerous. Stop-tostop services and fixed routes with deviations have been used less frequently in
France, although their use is increasing with time.
FIGURE 3
Different Kinds of DRT in France
General DRT
Fixed route
TAXITER
Paratransit
Stop-to-stop
Social DRT
Private DRT
Door-to-door
0
50
100
150
200
2.3 Small-scale services
DRT services in France are mostly a set of small-scale initiatives, in terms of

the scale of operations, and/ or the number of passengers carried. Indeed, the
majority of services are located in smaller administrative areas. Some rural DRT
services organized by county councils consist of larger operations, but they are in
areas with low population density. DRT services in cities are usually located in the
suburbs, where the population density is low too. Moreover, the spatial configurations of DRT services rarely correspond to the busiest commuter routes.
New technical innovations and solutions (both hardware and software) have
been developed to make it easier to introduce applications to support demand
responsive multi-modal public transport services. These innovations are primarily
in the domains of vehicle-locating systems, communications and network, and
they have generaly been developed for specific operators or functions. The main
customers for such products are public transport operators, regional authorites
and systems integrators, who seek a mix of technologies depending on the operational and financial strategies they wish to implement. Although some products
have been developed for managing DRT services, they are few, and have not
318
been tested widely. Therefore, there is a strong potential market for products to
support DRT technologies.
For the future, DRT services should be enhanced to a wider scale to improve
their efficiency, encourage technological innovations to integrate their functional
requirements, and extend their services to areas with high levels of population
density and more intense commuting requirements (e.g. during the officetime related rush hour). The purpose of large-scale DRT services is to offer a
better quality of service, a competitive supply and to realize economies of
scale (Tuomisto and Tainio 2005). They can also contribute positively to the
environment by substituting for the use of private cars.
3. DRT SERVICES IN EUROPE

Several large-scale DRT services are available in Europe, e.g., Flexlinjen in
Gteborg (Sweden), Treintaxi and Reggiotaxi in the Netherlands (Enoch et
al. 2004), and Drintaxi in Genoa (European project CIVITAS5). Technological improvements have enabled these services to be relatively flexible in their
supply characteristics. Technology in European DRT services, such as SAMPO,
SAMPLUS, FAMS6 (Enoch et al. 2004,) or CIVITASis used in travel dispatch
centers, and for communications systems including those on-board. Several
types of DRT user interface systems are used through different channels like
phone, internet, and GSM/SMS.
SAMPLUS is a European project (1999) which has demonstrated and
evaluated Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services using telematic
technologies at five sites in four different EU member states (Belgium, Finland,
Italy, Sweden). This project shows that the level of ITS support for DRT is a
critical factor. Unless an operator can confidently predict high patronage and
can afford a major investment in hard and software, it is recommended that low
to moderate technology solutions are developed. Large-scale investment is most
likely to be possible in regulated market environments where more resources,
including manpower, are easily available. SAMPLUS also shows that public
transport users may regard DRT services as a means of improving intermodality
and system integration, especially where there is no such pre-existing service,
thus opening up mobility opportunities for all citizens and moving one stage
closer to seamless public transport journeys. More specifically, DRT services can
be tailored to suit the requirements of the local situation, whether through highly
5 http://www.civitas-initiative.org
it aims at supporting and evaluating the implementation of ambitious integrated sustainable urban transport
strategies in european cities
6DRT experimentations in Italy, Finland, Belgium, Sweden, England for citizens in rural and urban areas
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319
flexible routing or by guaranteeing connections with conventional services. While

it is not the objective of DRT services to adopt a dominant role in the provision
of public transport, policy makers should regard it as a vital supplier of services
where conventional solutions are untenable (e.g. in low demand areas for public
transport). Thus, awareness raising should not only be directed towards local
authorities and operators, but also towards central government institutions, which
themselves exert considerable influence over the actions of local authorities.
4. NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO ENHANCE THE FLEXIBILITY

OF DRT SERVICES
Flexibility is an important characteristic for transportation modes. A private
car provides strong flexibility in comparison to other modes of transport since
it does not involve predetermined trip bookings, and allows for door-to-door
trips with easy accessibility. However, in European cities its ease of use is
now increasingly constrained by traffic jams and limited parking availability,
especially in the city centers. Therefore, public transport systems are more
efficient in these areas, although users criticize their lack of flexibility and the
numerous connections to be made between them due to fixed itineraries. In
more sparsely populated suburbs and smaller towns, the private car still offers
the most effective mode of transport. DRT, which is an intermediate form of
transportation between a private car and a bus, can provide services with a
variable level of flexibility, the degree of variability depending upon the choices
of the relevant transport authority.
4.1 Dening Flexibility with Respect to DRT Systems
Several factors influence the flexibility of a DRT service. These include prerequisites with respect to booking a trip, and the nature of the trip route. Figure 4
compares and evaluates levels of flexibility in DRT services. Each axis represents
the main features that may influence flexibility in different modes of transport,
which can also be applied in the context of DRT functioning. The placement of a
DRT service at the center of the graph symbolizes a low level of flexibility, while
an outward movement, away from the center of the graph, indicates greater flexibility. Flexibility is assessed in terms of temporal accessibility (represented in the
bottom half of the figure), and spatial accessibility (represented in the top half of
the figure, in grey).
320
FIGURE 4
The Eight Components of the DRT Flexibility
For instance, in the top half of the diagram, the axis direction of flows
indicates flexibility levels in trips opportunities available with a service. A
DRT can have multidirectional flows (all trips are possible in a given area) or
convergent flows (only trips toward a convergent point7 are possible), with the
first being more flexible. Multi- convergent flows represent intermediate levels
of flexibility where several convergent points may be available. To the right of
direction of flows is the axis representing the spatial functioning of a DRT: a
service can have a zonal functioning (e.g. door-to-door), an organization based
on stops (e.g. stop-to-stop services) or on lines (e.g. fixed routes, fixed routes
with deviations). The spatial cover axis represents the fact that a DRT service
7A convergent point can be a railway station, a town or a shopping center.
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321
can cover all the territory under the administration of a transport authority or
segment of it. The above three axes together indicate the spatial accessibility of a
DRT service. On the other hand, temporal accessibility is determined by:
t the flexibility of the departure and stop hours; they can be free, pre-determined, or limited according to time slots;
t the period of booking which varies from a few minutes to one day;
t the functioning schedule: the DRT can offer services for a large duration of
the day (e.g., 8 am to 7 pm), a relatively short duration (e.g., 10 am to 5 pm) or
only during off-peaks hours.
Between these two axes (spatial and temporal accessibility) are located the
components that depend on both time and space variables. Tariff systems can be
based on time (e.g. variable tariffs based on peak and off-peak hours) or space
(e.g. distance covered, or a zonal price). ICT or software use includes time and
space dimensions too by permitting better trip management. Without them it is
impossible to manage a flexible service in a large area, or one targeted toward a
large number of users. Three levels of flexibility with respect to ICT use are represented in Figure 4: no use, minimal use, and strong use.
4.2 Description of Technologies Used for DRTs
The success of DRT services is due, in part, to the availability of different ICTs
which have radically improved the possibilities to provide personalized transport services in terms of interface with potential customers, optimization and
assignment to meet travel requests, and service provision and management.
Continued advances in IT platforms (advanced computer architecture, web
platforms, palmtops, PDAs, in-vehicle terminals, etc.) and in mobile communication networks and devices (GSM, GPRS, GPS, etc) have supported:
t DRT operators with respect to service model dimensions, including route,
timing of services and vehicle assignment, and have enabled them to alter the
service offered in response to current or changing demand;
t A more flexible evolution and use of the operational cycle of DRT services
for both transport service operators and passengers. These have made easier
aspects related to trip booking, user trip parameters, negotiation phases between the operator and the user, and communication of trip to drivers, service
follow-up/location, reporting the completed service.
322
Usually, ICT-based computer architectures supporting DRT operations are

organized around the concept of a TDC (Travel Dispatch Center). The TDC is the
main technological and organizational component supporting the management
of DRT service provisions. Computer architecture developed for DRT operations
include the following:
t Several integrated software procedures to support the operations and management of DRT Travel Dispatch Centers. These include technological developments to ease procedures with respect to handling user requests, trip booking,
service planning, vehicle dispatching, vehicle communications and location notification, system data management, and regular Public Transport notification;
t A communication system usually based on public or private long-range wireless telecommunication networks, supporting communication and information exchanges (both data and voice) between the TDC and the DRT vehicles;
t Several types of DRT user interfaces, enabling communication between the
user and the TDC through different channels (i.e. phone, internet, GSM/SMSShort Message Service, and automated answering devices Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) with Computer telephone integration (CTI));
t On-board systems (IVT In Vehicle Terminal) installed on DRT vehicles
to provide driver support functions during vehicle operations in the form of
dynamic journey information, route variations, passenger information, and
driver/dispatcher messages.
All existing DRT installations are realized through variations in the above
basic computer architecture schemes, the implementation of which is made
possible by a number of key enabling technologies. These include:
t Booking and reservation systems to manage customer requests;
t Regular public transport information (dynamic or static) meant for DRT
operations that support regular public transport services, but also avoid
conflicts of DRT schedules with regular public transport schedules;
t Web, Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), Computer Telephone Integration (CTI); and hand-held devices to assist customer booking;
t Dispatching software for allocating trips and optimizing resources;
t Communication network to link the TDC with drivers and customers;
t In-vehicle units to support the driver;
t GPS-based vehicle location systems;
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323
t Smart-card based fare collection systems;

t Management information systems, administrative systems, and other data
analysis systems
The role of the TDC is important for the maintenance of system performance
and service provisions (Figure 5). The optimized management of user requests
through the TDC with the help of ICT also leads to a potentially more economically efficient model of DRT operations.
FIGURE 5
DRT Architecture
Source: Ambrosino 2004.
5. EXAMPLES OF DRT SERVICES USING SPECIFIC

TYPES OF ICT
Provided here are two examples of DRT that illustrate the role of ICT for DRT
management. The examples of Doubs Central and Toulouse, two different areas,
show that technology can play a key role to optimize DRT trips and bring quality
service to the population in a large area, or when the patronage is high. As noted,
324
technology offers the potential for achieving real-time demand responsiveness in

transport services, particularly in complex networks, to a level far in advance of
manual systems.
5.1 TADOU: An Innovative DRT in a Rural Area
The Pays du Doubs centralis a grouping of 99 communes across five little towns,
located in the northeast of France. To serve the mobility requirements of the
sparsely populated area of 25 000 inhabitants with 38 inhabitants per square
kilometer (Castex 2007), the transport authority of the area developed a stop-tostop DRT service named TADOU (Transport la Demande du Doubs Central)
using the Tadvance network8.
A set of stops cover the entire territory in a system of multidirectional flows,
and passengers can travel in any direction from one stop to another after having
phoned the previous day to book their trip. A software innovation named
GaleopSys developed by Tadvance is used for DRT service, which calculates the
trips booked and rationalizes them. The input data requirements of Galeopsys are
stop points, timetables, and the acceptable levels of delay-time.
GaleopSys achieves trip optimization using a Geographical Information
System (GIS), the database of which contains information on all the stops
and passenger addresses (figure 6). The software enables the calculation of
the shortest routes while maximizing the number of passengers transported
by as few vehicles as possible. At the same time it ascertains that users
time constraints are respected. The algorithm developed is based on Dial A
Ride Problem with Time-Windows (DARPTW) (Garaix et al., 2007); the
Prorentsoft firm distributes the software.
The cost of travel depends on the distance travelled, and is proportionally
less for a longer distance of travel than for a shorter one. In 2006, the number
of trips was 1863 for 2454 passengers, which corresponds to 1.3 passengers per
vehicle. At the beginning of the year 2007, the service had 230 trips a month
(Castex 2007).
8researchers network (Universities of Avignon and Belfort-Montbliard) aiming at the development of DRT
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325
FIGURE 6
Trips Optimization on GaleopSys Software (TADOU)
5.2 DRT Services Complementary to Public Transport Facilities

in the City of Toulouse
In 2004, a DRT service called TAD 106 (Transport la Demande 106) was created
in Toulouse by the Public Transport Authority Tisseo. The service operates as a
public-private partnership with RCS Mobility9 being the private operator subcontracting with Tisseo. The system provides people in the eastern suburban area of
Toulouse with a flexible public transport service that is complementary to existing
regular lines. ICT innovations used10 for this operation focus on an information
and reservation center operated by telephone and secured reservation website
with a multimodal database. The database is regularly updated with software
named SYNTHESE for the reservation and dispatching of trips. SYNTHESE is
free software with a General Public License. Its input data requirements are the
9Rseaux, Conseils et Solutions Informatiques (RCSI)
10Developed by Rseaux, Conseils & Solutions Informatiques RCSI firm.
326
City of Toulouse DRT System

Features include:
U The coverage of a large geographical scale: trips are possible on every origin/
destination among 100 stop points across six municipalities;
U A direct connection to a fast and important transport mode (subway);
U High level of availability with departures every 30 minutes from 5 am to 12:30
am every day of the year;
U Flexible operations that require no pre-established itinerary, only stops and
timetables are xed;
U An adaptable system allowing for variations in the number of DRT vehicles on
the roads, as a function of demand;
U A low constraint travel option for passengers since it provides the option for
booking an unplanned return trip from the central area of town at the metro
terminal; otherwise bookings are to be made one hour in advance with
cancellations possible until the departure;
U Accessible information and booking center with special toll-free telephone lines
available between 6:30am and 10:30pm everyday of the year and a secured
website allowing customers to book places any time;
U The DRT service operates to complement the existing urban public transport
network. There is no competition with regular lines and a common system of
information is shared with them, with integrated tariff systems, etc.
stop points by zone, timetables, the window of time allowed for prior booking,
and pre-existing rules of no competition with regular public transport lines. The
dispatcher can consult the real-time location of DRT vehicles with the use of
GPS, and can inform passengers in case of vehicle delay. As roadmap trips are
transmitted automatically to the drivers from the reservation center, operating
costs are optimized. There is also a permanent radio link between vehicles and
the information and reservation center and the system allows the display of realtime information of DRT departures; this is available on screens at the Balma
Gramont station, which is the terminal metro station. Computer terminals at the
Balma Gramont station have facilities for printing the tickets for the allocated
trips. The capacity of the vehicles varies from 8 to 22 passengers.
Showcasing the success of this initiative are the statistics associated with this
DRT service. On average, 650 passengers/day were transported in 2009 with
more than 1000 passengers/day during particular events like the Music Festival; a
total of 295 000 trips were made in 2009, a 95 percent increase from 2006, with a
passenger satisfaction rate of 97%11. Many other unique, and innovative features
are associated with this DRT service are shown in Figure 7 and the box below.
11Data collected from DRT operator in Toulouse
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327
FIGURE 7
Principles of DRT TAD 106 in Toulouse
Source: DRT operator in Toulouse.
It is envisaged that future ICT innovations in several realms (see figure 8) will
allow improvements in the quality of DRT services being offered in Toulouse and
lead to the reduction of management costs. These will depend to a large extent
on the will of the actors involved, including the local authority and the operators
who will benefit from the integrated workings of communication satellite systems
with local telecommunications networks.
328
FIGURE 8
Technological perspectives for DRT TAD 106 in Toulouse
Source: DRT operator in Toulouse.
6. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF DRT

An ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency12) analysis
(ADEME 2005) compares greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from the use
of urban DRT services against a theoretical situation where a passenger would
use a private car for the same trip. The study concluded that:
t DRT services consume slightly more energy (10% more at the maximum),
and therefore emit more GHG emissions when compared with the usage of
private cars; and
t DRT operations consume much less energy than regular public transport services (at least 60% less) in areas with low mobility potential (e.g. those with
low population densities).
Although the comparison shows a slightly higher level of energy consumption
12http://www.ademe.fr
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329
and corresponding GHG emissions arising from the use of private cars, as
opposed to DRT services for a similar trip, the results of the comparison must be
interpreted with caution since many trips would not be made without the availability of DRT services. This is because one of the objectives of the DRT model
is to provide mobility to those who may find it difficult to use both private and
public forms of transport (e.g., elderly people, disabled, and those who do not
own personal transport and/ or have inadequate access to public transport).
Apart from the above, a simulation-based assessment was also conducted on the
extension (to more municipalities) of the DRT service Evolis Gare that provides
connecting trips to the train station in the urban agglomeration of Besanon (Castex
2007). This assessment showed that a DRT service with a high rate of demand (at
least three people/vehicle) enables a decrease in the number of kilometers (up to
30%) made by DRT vehicles. Therefore, if trips are optimized, DRT services can
contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gases emissions arising from transportation. However, additional studies would be needed to measure these environmental impacts of DRT system services and its related ICT infrastructure.
7. CONCLUSION
One of the main reasons of the development of DRT in recent years has been the
development of technology. Advances in software, computers, digital maps, remote
communications, in-vehicle computers and GPS technologies have helped make
DRT services viable. The examples of Doubs Central and Toulouse, two different
areas, show that technology can play a key role to optimize DRT trips and bring
quality service to the population in a large area, or when the patronage is high.
Technology offers the potential for achieving real-time demand responsiveness in
transport services, particularly in complex networks, to a level far in advance of
manual systems. However, the costs of establishing high-tech schemes are significant, resulting in local authorities sometimes being reluctant to make investments
in such softwares. Moreover, suppliers often provide specialized hardware rather
than adapting standard platforms, which increases cost considerations and thus
constrains the greater use of technology for more efficient DRT services.
There is immense potential for DRT services to develop as an economically sustainable public transport systems and alternative to the private car. In
particular, DRT helps to meet the travel needs for target groups of passengers
like the elderly, disabled, and other special groups. These potential markets
have largely not been met by transport services because cost-effective means of
meeting such demands have not been adequately developed. Operators and local
authorities increasingly believe that if technical barriers can be overcome, the
transport market for DRT will accelerate.
330
The environmental benefits of an efficiently functioning DRT system have not

been adequately established yet. However, it is conceivable that if DRT system can
effectively use ICT developments to achieve more flexibility in their responses
to mobility requests, they can help mitigate transport related GHG emissions by
limiting the use of private transport.
Glossary
ITS : Intelligent Transportation Systems
IT : Information Technology
PDA : Personal Digital Assistant
GPRS : General Packet Radio Service
GSM : Global System for Mobile communications
GPS : Global Position System
TDC : Travel Dispatch Centre
DARPTW : Dial-a-Ride Problem with Time Windows
GIS : Geographic Information Systems
CHAPTER 10
331
References
ADEME. 2005. Fiches Descriptives de Transport la Demande pour Flux Faibles, ISIS, 74.
Ambrosino, G., Nelson J.D., and M. Romnazzo. 2004. Demand Responsive Transport
Services: Towards the Flexible Mobility. Rome: Agency ENEA.
Burkhardt, J., Hamby B., and A.T. McGavock. 1995. Users Manual for Assessing ServiceDelivery Systems for Rural Passenger Transportation. TCRP Report 6, National
Academy Press, Washington.
Bolot, J., Josselin D., and T. Thevenin. 2002. Demand Responsive Transports in
the Mobilities and Technologies Evolution: Context, Concrete Experience and
Perspectives Proc., 5th AGILE Conference, Palma, Washington.
Castex, E. 2007. Le Transport A la Demande (TAD) en France : de ltat des lieux
lanticipation. Modlisation des caractristiques fonctionnelles des TAD pour dvelopper
les modes flexibles de demain, PhD Thesis in Gography, Avignon.
Castex, E., Houzet S., and D. Josselin. 2004. Prospective Research in the Technological
and Mobile Society: New Demand Responsive Transports for New Territories to Serve
Proc., 7th AGILE Conference, Heraklion.
Certu. 2006. Le transport la demande, Etat de lart, lments danalyse et repres pour
laction, Dossiers du CERTU.
Datar, DTT, Ademe. 2004. Services la demande innovants en milieu rural: de linventaire
la valorisation des expriences, ADETEC, 245.
Enoch, M., Potter S., Parkhurst G., et al. 2004. INTERMODE: Innovations in Demand
Responsive Transport. Rapport final. Manchester.
Garaix, T., Josselin, D., Feillet, D., Artigues C., and E. Castex. 2007. Transport la
demande en points points en zone peu dense, proposition dune mthode doptimisation des tournes. Cybergeo, 396: 17.
Tuomisto, J. T. and M. Tainio. 2005. An Economic Way of Reducing Health, Environmental, and other Pressures of Urban Traffic: a Decision Analysis on Trip Aggregation. BMC Public Health: 14.
UTP. 2005. Le transport la demande dans le transport public urbain. p. 8. Union of Public
Transport. Paris, France.
CHAPTER
11
An Investigation of Climate
Strategies in the Buildings Sector
in Chinese Cities
Jun LI*
Abstract
Around 60% of Chinese people will be living in the cities by 2030 (UN 2008).
Energy consumption and GHG emissions could increase exponentially with
unprecedented urban expansion, and in any case with an increasingly western
mode of living, in the absence of drastic policies being undertaken immediately. Due to its long lifetime characteristics, the quality of large-scale urban
infrastructure is critical to the achievement of long-term and cumulative GHG
emissions mitigation objectives in the next decades given the spectacular pace
of urban development (e.g. China will build the equivalent of the EUs entire
existing housing stock between 2005 and 2020). This research investigates the
role of urban infrastructure in shaping the long-term trajectory of energy and
climate securities protection and sustainable urban development prospects in
China. Based on a quantitative analysis in a selected case-city (Tianjin), the
research demonstrates how Chinas cities can embark on a sustainable energy
supply and demand track by developing climate resilient building infrastructure. Also discussed are the implications for development financing policy and
institutional change.
Keywords: Climate resilience, urban infrastructure, buildings, long-term
trajectory, China
332
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333
1. INTRODUCTION
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
Conference of the Parties Fifteenth session (COP-15) in Copenhagen has set
a target of 2C by 2050, which laid the framework of the post-Kyoto global
climate regime. One of the key uncertainties in the next climate negotiations
is on the role that emerging countries will play in dealing with climate change
mitigation and adaptation in the next two decades. A major challenge in the
21st century will be to accommodate and sustain economic growth in emerging
countries while ensuring the sustainability and inclusiveness of this development (Colombier and Loup 2007). This paper seeks to outline an appropriate
policy framework to enable Chinese cities to shift themselves to low-carbon
development pathways by managing infrastructure quality whilst improving
social welfare without hindering economic growth. China, according to the
International Energy Agency, will contribute 30% of the increase in global
energy demand and more than 50% of coal consumption rise by 2030 under
the business-as-usual BAU scenario (IEA 2007a). Meanwhile, China will
continue to heavily rely upon coal to power its economic development over the
next few decades due to existing infrastructure and that under construction.
Due to the current and anticipated rates of construction and expansion, shortterm changes will have significant consequences for long-term emissions. In
other words, the trajectories that China will follow in the short-term will have
extremely important implications on global energy and climate securities.
This leads to a fundamental question of tackling climate change mitigation in
emerging countries: Can we decarbonise a countrys high-emissions sectors
without hindering economic growth or causing adverse impacts on its socioeconomic development?
Indeed, there exist various technological options for decoupling economic
growth from increases in energy related GHG emissions from urban infrastructure: energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear power generation
(fourth generation with minimum environmental impact), fuel switching
(e.g. coal to natural gas) and carbon capture and storage (CCS). However,
policy makers must take account of the availability and cost-effectiveness of
these options, within the context of climate change. Most supply-side low
carbon technologies (Generation IV nuclear and CCS, among others) might
not be commercially available at industrial scale by 2020 or even later, as they
are currently in the stage of research and pilot project demonstration. Other
promising carbon-free supply technologies (e.g. Wind, Solar PV) are still
confronting technical, financial and institutional barriers to be deployed at
scale. In contrast, improvement in energy efficiency is the most cost-effective
emission abatement measure, particularly in the buildings sector (IPCC 2007).
334
Buildings were responsible for nearly one-third of global CO2 emissions in

20041 (IPCC 2007). However, a significant part of emission mitigation potentials in this sector remain untapped in large emerging economies like China.
Due to the strong inertia and long lifetime characteristics, failure to implement
energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies in buildings will increase the
risk of locking cities into irreversible carbon-intensive mire for several decades.
Huge social cost would also result from intensive capital investment in additional
supply capacity and retrofitting infrastructure during the operation stage. Thus,
the environmental quality of the newly built infrastructure will determine the
level of energy consumption and of CO2 emissions of the country for decades to
come (Neuhoff et al. 2009).
2. THE CITIES IN CHINA AT THE FOREFRONT OF URBAN

SUSTAINABILITY
2.1 Unprecedented Urban Growth and Increase in GHG Emissions
Cities need to be at the forefront of tackling the Climate Change mitigation

challenge. Considering that half of humanity currently lives in cities, cities
consume the majority (60-80%) of energy in the world and account for almost
equal GHG emissions (OECD 2010); how cities develop and what they consume
will determine the collective capacity to combat global warming. By 2015, 1.6
billion people will be living in cities of more than 1 million people, with 622
million in cities of more than 5 million (UNFPA 2001). Over two-thirds of the
global population will live in cities by 2050 (UNFPA 2007; UN-Habitat 2008).
China, in particular, stimulated by fast economic development, will see an
unprecedented scale of urban growth in the next few decades. Currently, China
is adding nearly 2 billion square metres of new buildings every year. Around 20
to 22 billion square metres of buildings are expected to be constructed by 2020,
equivalent to the total existing building stock area in EU-15 today (Ecofys 2006).
It is projected that 60% of Chinese population will live in cities by 20302. This
will drive up demand for energy services and urban infrastructure. The high CO2
emission-urbanization elasticity in low and middle-income developing countries,
found in the empirical study by Martnez-Zarzoso (2008) strongly indicates that
climate change mitigation requires public policies to be put in place to decouple
the CO2 emissions from urbanization in China.
1Indirect emissions from the buildings sector through electricity use are included.
2Urban population projection is based on the central-C scenario of Toth et al. (2003).
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335
Table 1
Population and Per Capita Income Growth in China During 1990-2005
Population
Size
Population
Growth
Per Capita
Income
Per Capita
Income
Growth
million
(US $)
1990
2005
1990-2005
1995
2005
1990-2005
1143.3
1315.8
15.1
339
1709
404
Source: excerpted from (ASEAN 2006).
Energy demand in China has been rapidly increasing to fuel its economic
growth engines and meet the growing living standard (Table 1). As a result of
the high-rate economic development and urbanization, primary energy demand
increased four-fold during 1980-2005. In 2005, China consumed 1560 million
tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) energy and energy-related CO2 emissions were 5100
Mt, representing 57% of Asias total3 (IEA 2006; BP 2008).
Past experiences in developed countries show that during the early stage of
economic take-off, residential demand for energy services increases rapidly before
reaching a sufficiently high level, comparable to current high-income countries.
A recent study (Azomahou et al. 2006) using statistical analysis showed that the
per capita CO2 emission in China is following an upward trend with respect to
economic development4. This virtuous circle of improved quality of urban infrastructure and standard of living creates fundamental issues of meeting the growing
demand while minimizing the energy and environmental implications. The world
would struggle in terms of energy resources availability and climate governance if
the past tendency in the United States and Europe were reproduced in China.
The rapid urbanization and changing perceptions of comfort among building
occupants implies that China will develop all the means to meet the fastgrowing demand for energy services, driven by economic development and a
more westernized lifestyle. Demand for energy services is positively correlated
with household income. It is projected that per capita income in China could
increase to US$10,000 (PPP) by 2020 (NDRC 2004a), implying significant
increases in household demand for various energy services. Meanwhile, the
ageing population trend implies significant adjustment of the urban household
structure, i.e., the number of households will increase while household size will
be smaller. Empirical studies show that the energy demand per capita is much
3Japan is included in the calculation.
4Statistically significant at 5% level, countries like India and China are pursuing the upward trend of per capita
CO2 emission as per capita GDP increases (Azomahou et al. 2006).
336
higher for small households than in large households5. Furthermore, it is anticipated that low-income and rural residents will gradually switch to energy sources
such as natural gas or electricity derived from coal, from conventional biomass
energy (mostly crop straw and stalk), which is still widely used in rural areas for
cooking and heating.
2.2 Climate Resilient Buildings to Avoid the Long Term Lock-In
Large-scale urban infrastructure, such as buildings, has a long lifetime. Inappropriate decision on investment in infrastructure quality could result in irreversible energy and emissions lock-in. By comparison, retrofitting existing buildings and those soon to be constructed is comparatively very costly and requires
short-, medium- and long-term action. At present the investment decision is
mainly oriented by short-term objectives of meeting the mass markets demand
and maximising the profits of developers without necessarily accounting for
the long-term consequences of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The
governance and relevant institutional capacity of many local authorities is fairly
weak in dealing with the quality management of urban infrastructure, leading to
questions of how to enhance governance of urban development through reorienting sectoral investment choice towards low-carbon technologies and planning
strategies at the local level. Buildings will certainly play an overarching role in the
(Low Carbon Economy) LCE transition process in a city due to its long supply
and value chain.
3. CHANGING PATHWAY OF BEE IMPROVEMENT

IN CHINESE CITIES
3.1 Modelling Framework and Key Assumption
This section discusses how to make appropriate investment decisions in

energy performance improvement in the buildings sector in China based
on a bottom-up modelling approach. The quantitative analysis is based on
a case study in the city of Tianjin using the Long Range Energy Alternative
Planning; or LEAP model (Heaps 2008), a bottom-up energy technology
simulation model. Modelling includes final and primary energy demand,
environmental impacts in terms of carbon emissions, as well as the total costs
5For example, the US (1997) residential survey shows that the average per capita energy consumption in a
5-person household and 3-person household is 25 and 37 Mbtu respectively, while the per household member
consumption is 75 Mbtu in the single-member household.
CHAPTER 11
337
in each scenario. The primary objective is to investigate the economic and

environmental performance of Building Energy Efficiency (BEE) improvement portfolios in order to identify the portfolio in which the present
value (PV) of total costs is minimised. We compare five central scenarios,
namely TJ-2004 (business as usual), RT-2005 (equivalent to the French
efficiency standard in 2005), SWE (equivalent to the Swedish standards), LC
(with more stringent BEE targets in new buildings), and ParCom (delay in
BEE implementation in new building constructions). The technical calculation of thermal and appliance consumption in the residential and commercial
sectors for buildings constructed in compliance with different BEE standards
is detailed in Li (2009).
In Chinese cities, per capita floor area is expected to approach 30 square
meters by 2020 according to the national housing development program
(MOC) and a previous study by Zhou et al. (2007). It is assumed that this will
rise to approximately 35 square meters per capita in 2030, also considering that
the average house size will increase more slowly after 2020. Coupled with the
household size in 2030, average housing floor space will then be around 96.5
square meters, roughly equivalent to the current level in Japan and the average
of the EU-15 in 20046.
Household thermal comfort is projected to progress accordingly to keep
pace with increasing living standards. It is assumed that comfort levels for
the inhabitants in Tianjin and those in developed countries will converge
eventually. With indoor temperature approaching the international benchmark
of residential comfort level, it is assumed in the model that heating temperature will pursue a continuous upward trend to approximate 22C by 2030.
Combining the factors of increases in heating temperature and heating period
length will give the underlying energy demand indicator, the heating degree
day (HDD).
Renewables (urban and rural wastes), co-firing, CHP, fuel switching (GS;
from coal to natural gas) and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) are considered
in the alternative energy supply options in which new technologies are assumed
to be deployable from 2020 in the model. Estimate of costs associated with
thermal efficiency improvement, household electric appliance ownership, and
supply technologies is based on Liu (2006), Zhou et al. (2007) and Li et al.
(2009); cost of CCS is based on Rubin et al. (2007).
6Housing size ranges between 75 and 110 square metres, the average is about 91 square metres in EU-15 in 2004
(Bosseboeuf 2007).
338
3.2 Component of Costs
The boundary of cost defines the scope of economic analysis. The model considers
the following costs in the calculation boundary within the modeling period:
t energy performance enhancement cost, including efficient building materials,
envelope insulation, ventilation, metering, regulation systems, etc.;
t energy resources cost coal, natural gas, oil, biomass, etc. - using a proxy of
fuel price, capital cost of heat and electricity (average and marginal investment
in increasing new generating capacity to meet the growing demand);
t fixed operation and maintenance (O&M) cost;
t variable O&M cost; and
t cost of environmental externalities (CO2 emissions).
3.3 Costs and Implications for Climate Policy
3.3.1
Annual Cost in the Scenarios
The annual cost in each of simulated scenarios is presented in Table 2. This demonstrates
that the BEE enhancement in the case of RT-2005 and SWE will be systematically less
costly than the reference case. While LC is more difficult to implement, the cost will fall
below that of the reference case in the long-term. However, the upfront cost during the first
decade of the modelling period will be significantly higher than that of the reference case.
This suggests that a more intelligent financial arrangement will be needed to reallocate the
limited economic resources in order to achieve the cost-effectiveness target. In contrast,
failure in implementing BEE in new construction in the next decades will generate very
significant cost consequences in the case of ParCom. One striking result is that ParCom
will never be cheaper than efficiency compliance scenarios.
TABLE 2
Annual Cost in the Simulated Scenarios (in million CNY)
ParCom
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
14660
22800
28380
32060
34300
TJ-2004
13595
19862
24232
27007
28938
RT 2005
13535
19051
22686
24870
26387
A2
13595
19634
23299
25284
26244
SWE
13777
18479
21387
22981
24110
LC
17008
20226
21692
22425
22492
Source: Authors calculation
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339
The situation will be worsened if the city decides to opt for low-carbon supply
systems (CCS or geologic storage) from 2020 under carbon emission constraints.
The costs associated with these backstop technologies will soar in the less efficient
cases (see Tables 3 and 4). A sharp jump of annual cost is predicted in 2020 when
CCS will begin to be deployed in part of coal-fired power plants. However, the
cost of SWE+CCS is almost identical to the reference cost, and more importantly,
the cost of LC with CCS option in 2030 will still lie below the level of the reference
case. By contrast, the reference+CCS and ParCom+CCS scenarios will lead to a
14% and 30% jump in annual costs, respectively, compared with the reference
line. This is totally unacceptable for the local authority because huge financial
resources would be required to cover the significant increase in operation cost of
introducing the CCS. This implies that efficient buildings scenarios have more
flexibility in facilitating the technological transition in energy supply, contrary
to the sharp increase in costs in the starting year of new technology penetration
in the less efficient scenarios. It can also be seen that the difference between
scenarios in 2030 would deepen compared with the situation in 2020 when new
TABLE 3
Annual Cost with Introduction of CCS Option from 2020 on (in million CNY)
Scenario
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
REF
13595
19862
24232
27007
28938
REF+CCS
13595
19862
27692
35966
39086
RT05+CCS
13460
19390
25926
33473
36108
SWE+CCS
13610
18800
24182
30243
31942
LC+CCS
15050
19950
23262
27439
27494
ParCom+CCS
14870
23350
31436
39087
42038
TABLE 4
Annual Cost with Introduction of Fuel-Switching Option from 2020 on
(in million CNY)
Scenario
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
REF
13595
19862
24232
27007
28938
REF+GS
13521
20526
27532
36715
42672
RT05+GS
13460
19390
25050
32660
37550
SWE+GS
13647
18884
23679
30020
33811
LC+GS
15123
20172
23144
27631
29044
ParCom+GS
14907
23466
31369
40735
47280
Source: Authors calculation
340
technology penetration begins. In the long run, efficient buildings can help
achieve the investment strategy which allows smooth sectoral transformation
toward gradual decarbonization of the citys coal-fired supply system without
significant impact on financial resources reallocation.
3.3.2
Total Accumulated Cost Under Carbon Constraints
One fundamental point of economic analysis is that the determinant of BEE

investment will be related to the present value of the series of yearly costs. How
the cost will be redistributed is another issue. Figure 1 presents the accumulated
costs with different energy supply technologies under moderate-level carbon
constraints by assuming a carbon price of $50/t CO2 in 2030.
The discounted rate used in the calculation is 8%, consistent with risk in
large-scale fixed capital investment return and the indicative long-term housing
mortgage rate. SWE allows for the lowest discounted costs in all scenarios,
implying that the current BEE target needs to be tightened further by 50% to
address both energy and climate concerns for the long-term investment decision.
FIGURE 1
Discounted Cumulative Cost
Source: Li 2009.
CHAPTER 11
3.3.3
341
Imperative of Changing Pathway
Table 5 compares the cost of carbon emission abatement in different scenarios of BEE
standards and energy supply systems. It is clearly shown that the city needs to tighten
the BEE requirements immediately in the scenario of unconstrained coal-based energy
supply as the mitigation costs are almost negative except for the LC scenario. However,
it could be predictable that Chinese cities will shift gradually from the current coalbased supply technologies in the longer term; consequently, we also draw the comparison of costs in the cases of penetration of CCS and fuel-switching from coal to gas
under the carbon constraints from 2020 on. Likewise, the more stringent buildings
performance are even more necessary if the city is to decarbonise its energy supply
infrastructure through scaled deployment of CCS and fuel switching (GS); the second
and third columns of Table 5 show that the costs would increase substantially in the
scenarios of lower energy efficiency in buildings. The strategy matrix highlighted in
bold refers to the best choices in which the costs of abatement will be significantly lower
than otherwise. This means that city must commit itself to embarking on the energy
performance and supply pathways shown in the bottom-right of Table 5. However, the
trade-off between CCS and GS will not be clearly arbitrated until 2020 when the cost
and availability will reveal the feasibility of each option. Engaging in one sole supply
option to reduce carbon emissions is likely to increase the risk that either the technology
or energy supply will be unavailable. A portfolio decision turns out to be more relevant
and risk-averse from an investment decision standpoint.
TABLE 5
Comparison of Abatement Costs (US $/tCO2 in 2005 price)
RT2005
A2
SWE
LC
Coal BAU
-56
-38
-43
1
CCS
32
43
7
11
GS
39
67
8
14
Note: Reference is TJ-2004 coupled with coal-red heating system. Source: Li (2009).
3.4 Implications for Climate Policy
The modelling results clearly demonstrated that the current building efficiency
standard practiced in Chinese cities is not an optimal choice because the
discounted cumulative cost could be reduced further by upgrading BEE standards.
The analysis of annual costs shows that, despite a remarkable incremental investment costs in all enhanced BEE scenarios, the increase in required investment
is considerably less in the high efficiency case (LC) than in the lower efficiency
342
case (ParCom). To avoid a sharp jump in current year operation costs, such as
in the ParCom scenario, upfront buildings energy performance and quality of
construction are of critical importance, otherwise the city will be trapped in a
vicious circle: lower efficiency buildings resulting in costly operation and thus
decreased financial capacity to invest in low-carbon technologies to mitigate
carbon emissions in the future.
Further, if the actions are conceived to be credited by demonstrating additionality, the robustness of a baseline definition, metrics (policy based, intensitybases or fixed target) and MRV issues of emissions, accountability, environmental effectiveness, and economic efficiency all will need to be taken into
account. Unilateral, bilateral or multilateral actions in infrastructure quality
improvement require establishment of relevant institutions and evaluation bodies
as well as recognised procedures.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS
China will have strong political and economic interests in enhancing energy
efficiency in the large-scale urban infrastructure to transform the nations
populous cities into low-carbon infrastructure facilitators. It is demonstrated
that inaction would result in tremendous irreversible costs compared to proactive
approaches aiming to significantly improve the quality of urban infrastructure in
Chinese cities. The modelling results presented here corroborate the findings of
the Stern Report (2007).
A multi-dimension and trans-sectoral policy framework needs to be established to ensure the implementation of low carbon infrastructure development
policies. A comprehensive market for energy-efficient technologies and products
needs to be created. Domestic models can be tested based on the development
of clean technologies and their diffusion, and sharing experience with developed
countries in the establishment of policies aimed at the following: regional
planning; integrated urban planning; the implementation of energy performance
standards for buildings and amenities; soft practices and support programmes
aimed at local authorities and stakeholders in the building and transport sectors.
In conclusion, a sustainable future in urban infrastructure in Chinese
cities requires changing the pathway of sectoral development and involves
profound institutional and governance transformation in the whole process of
urban development policy making. Integrated approaches should be adopted
by Chinese policy makers with regards to building energy efficiency and
sustainable transport. The sooner that China moves towards a low-carbon
infrastructure, the better placed the world will be in terms of minimising the
climate change-related risks.
CHAPTER 11
343
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CHAPTER
12
Opportunities and Challenges

to Electrical Energy Conservation
and CO2 Emissions Reduction
in Nigerias Building Sector
John-Felix Akinbami,* Akinloye Lawal
Summary
Using an energy demand model, MADE II (Model for Analysis of Demand
for Energy), the electrical energy demand for the household, commercial, and
industrial buildings, on a long-term period was estimated for Nigeria based on
the concept of useful energy demand. This analytical tool uses a combination
of statistical, econometric, and engineering process techniques in arriving at
the useful electrical energy demand projections. The associated CO2 emissions
were also estimated. These projections reveal that the electrical energy growth is
enormous especially considering the associated financial cost, and the estimated
CO2 emissions are also substantial. This study therefore discusses the potentials
for efficient energy use in the buildings sector in Nigeria. In addition, obstacles
to the full realization of energy-saving potentials in the nations building sector
are discussed. Finally, a framework of strategies to overcome these obstacles,
promote energy conservation, and thereby enhance sustainable development in
the nations built environment is suggested.

Q
345
346
1.
INTRODUCTION
Energy literally fuels the economy of a country. Without energy, economic development would not be possible, human survival would be threatened and national
security would be jeopardized. Energy is therefore an inextricable part of a nations
security. While sustainable energy policies seek to provide us with the energy
needed at the least financial, environmental and social cost, energy efficiency
encourages policies or practices which help us to evaluate the full cost of our
energy choices and to get more output from a unit of energy. Sustainable energy
planning should be done on the basis of cost-effectiveness, continuous availability,
unrestricted supply, and satisfactory regard for the environment. Energy efficiency
encompasses conserving a scarce resource, improving the technical efficiency of
energy conversion, generation, transmission and end-use devices, substituting
more expensive fuels with cheaper ones, and reducing or reversing the negative
impact of energy production and consumption activities on the environment.
In the face of increasing demand for energy and especially electricity in all
sectors, more efficient use of energy has to be considered as one of the major
options to achieve sustainable development both in Nigeria and even globally
in the 21st Century. Buildings in the tropical areas of the world are constantly
exposed to solar radiation almost on a daily basis. Building design should aim
to minimize heat gain indoors and maximize evaporative cooling, so that users
of these spaces can have adequate thermal comfort, and reduce dependence on
air conditioning and electricity use. The demands for electricity in a building
are primarily for space cooling and heating, refrigeration, lighting, motive
power (motors), and heating (process and cooking). Energy in buildings can
be classified into two types: energy for the maintenance/servicing of a building
during its useful life; and energy capital that goes into production of a building
(embodied energy) using various building materials (Venkatarama and Jagadish
2003). For a complete understanding of building energy needs, a study of both
types of energy consumption is required.
This paper deals with the energy needs of buildings during their service lives, and
presents an energy demand model (MADE-II Model for Analysis of Demand
for Energy) which is used to project the long-term demand for electrical energy
from households and from commercial and industrial buildings in Nigeria. The
model is based on the concept of useful energy demand, and uses a combination
of statistical, econometric and engineering process techniques to project future
energy demand as well as associated CO2 emissions. Based on the model results,
this paper then discusses the potential for efficient energy use in the buildings
sector in Nigeria, as well as the obstacles to the full realization of this potential.
In the final section, a set of strategies are suggested to overcome these obstacles,
promote energy conservation, and enhance sustainable development in Nigeria.
CHAPTER 12
347
1.1 Global Trends in Energy Consumption

and Associated CO2 Emissions in the Building Sector
The key drivers of energy use and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
in buildings include activity (population growth, size of labor force, urbanization, number of households per capita living area, and persons per residence),
economic variables (change in GDP and personal income), energy efficiency
trends, and carbon intensity trends. These factors are in turn driven by changes
in consumer preferences, energy and technology costs, settlement patterns,
technical change, and overall economic conditions. Urbanization, especially in
developing countries, is clearly associated with increased energy use, as commercial fuels, especially electricity, become easier to obtain. As countries modernize,
the expected level of comfort (i.e. floor area per person, amount of air conditioning, lighting level, electric appliances, etc.) also increases, often causing
energy (especially electricity) consumption in buildings to increase more rapidly
than in other sectors (Levine et al. 1991).
Buildings constitute a significant and rapidly growing energy consuming
sector. Between 1971 and 1995, world primary energy use in the buildings sector
grew from 61.5 109.8 exajoules (EJ). While residential building sector energy
use grew from 41.7 to 69.4 EJ, that of the commercial sector more than doubled
from 19.8 to 40.3 EJ (IPCC 2001) (see Table 1). There has been an observed steady
decrease in the average annual growth rate (AAGR) in the same period. Correspondingly, the associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew from 1,140 to
1,732 million tons of carbon (MtC) for the global buildings sector between 1971
and 1995 (Table 2). On a disaggregated basis, that of the residential building
sector grew from 775 to 1,148 MtC while that of commercial buildings grew from
364-584 MtC in the same period. Table 2 further reveals that the corresponding
CO2 emissions in the aggregate buildings sector in Africa grew from 15 to 48 MtC
in the same period. Of this, CO2 emissions from residential buildings grew from
11 to 39 MtC, while that of the commercial sector grew from 3 to 9 MtC in the
same period (IPCC 2001). Table 1 also shows that in Africa, there was a steady
increase in primary energy use in both residential and commericla buildings, and
consequently in the total primary energy use of buildings. According to the International Energy Agency (1989), buildings in the developing countries, account
for 28% of total commercial energy use and 38% of electricity use.
348
TABLE 1
World Primary Energy Use by Sector and Region in the Buildings Sector
1971-1995 (Exajoule) (EJ)
Primary energy use (EJ)
Building
sector
Average annual
growth rate (%)
1971
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
19711990
19901995
19711995
Developed
Countries
44.4
48.9
52.3
56.8
62.3
68.5
1.8
1.9
1.8
Residential
Commercial
28.3
16.1
30.5
18.4
33.0
19.3
34.6
22.2
36.7
25.6
40.6
27.9
1.4
2.5
2.0
1.7
1.5
2.3
Economies in
Transition
10.7
13.0
18.2
21.0
23.0
16.2
4.1
6.8
1.7
Residential
Commercial
8.1
2.6
9.8
3.2
12.9
5.3
14.3
6.7
15.1
7.9
10.4
5.8
3.3
6.0
7.2
6.1
1.1
3.4
Asia Pacic
3.6
4.6
5.6
7.9
10.2
12.9
5.7
4.8
5.5
Residential
Commercial
3.0
0.0
3.9
0.8
4.6
1.0
6.3
1.6
7.9
2.3
9.3
3.6
5.2
7.8
3.4
9.0
4.8
8.1
Africa
0.6
0.8
1.1
1.4
1.9
2.5
6.0
5.4
5.9
Residential
Commercial
0.5
0.1
0.6
0.2
0.8
0.3
1.1
0.3
1.5
0.4
2.0
0.5
6.1
5.8
6.0
3.1
6.0
5.2
Latin America
1.7
2.1
2.8
3.3
4.1
5.0
4.9
4.1
4.7
Residential
Commercial
1.3
0.3
1.6
0.5
2.0
0.8
2.3
0.9
2.9
1.2
3.4
1.6
4.2
7.0
3.3
5.8
4.0
6.8
Middle East
0.4
0.7
1.2
2.2
4.1
4.6
12.3
2.8
10.3
Residential
Commercial
0.4
0.0
0.7
0.0
1.1
0.1
2.0
0.2
3.4
0.7
3.7
1.0
11.5
20.2
1.8
7.0
9.4
17.3
Rest of World
2.7
3.7
5.1
6.9
10.1
12.1
7.1
3.8
6.4
Residential
Commercial
2.2
0.5
2.8
0.8
3.9
1.2
5.4
1.5
7.8
2.3
9.1
3.0
6.8
8.5
3.2
5.7
6.0
7.9
World
61..5
70.3
81.3
92.6
105.6
109.8
2.9
0.8
2.4
Residential
Commercial
41.7
19.8
47.1
23.2
54.5
26.8
60.6
31.9
67.4
38.2
69.4
40.3
2.6
3.5
0.6
1.1
2.2
3.0
Source: IPCC 2001.
CHAPTER 12
349
TABLE 2
World Carbon Dioxide Emission by Sector and Region in Buildings
Sector 1971-1995 (Million tonnes of carbon) (MtC)
Average annual growth
rate (%)
Carbon dioxide emission (MtC)

Building
sector
19711990
19901995
19711995
958
0.8
0.9
0.8
539
377
560
398
0.2
1.8
0.8
1.1
0.3
1.7
381
373
320
2.3
3.0
1.2
266
97
290
92
279
94
256
64
2.9
1.1
1.8
7.3
1.9
0.7
88
131
179
232
292
6.7
4.7
6.3
57
10
75
14
110
21
145
33
180
51
210
81
6.2
9.0
3.1
9.7
5.6
9.1
Africa
15
18
23
30
38
48
5.0
5.1
5.0
Residential
Commercial
11
3
12
6
16
7
22
8
29
8
39
9
5.1
4.8
6.0
1.7
5.2
4.2
Latin America
18
21
24
24
30
34
2.6
2.8
2.7
Residential
Commercial
14
4
16
5
19
6
19
5
22
8
24
10
2.5
3.2
1.6
5.9
2.3
3.7
Middle East
13
23
41
58
80
10.5
6.7
9.7
Residential
Commercial
7
2
10
4
17
6
30
12
41
17
59
21
10.0
12.0
7.6
4.3
9.5
10.3
Rest of World
42
52
71
95
125
162
6.0
5.3
5.8
Residential
Commercial
32
10
38
14
52
19
70
25
92
33
122
40
5.7
6.7
5.8
4.0
5.7
6.2
World
1140
1273
1450
1542
1646
1732
2.0
1.0
1.8
Residential
Commercial
775
364
869
404
977
473
1042
500
1091
555
1148
584
1.8
2.2
1.0
1.0
1.6
2.0
1971
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
Developed
Countries
790
836
886
887
915
Residential
Commercial
522
268
543
293
549
336
537
350
Economics in
Transition
240
296
362
164
76
213
83
Asia Pacic
67
Residential
Commercial
Residential
Commercial
Source: IPCC 2001.
350
Global projections of primary energy use for the buildings sector show a
doubling, from 103 to 208 EJ, between 1990 and 2020 in a baseline scenario
(IPCC 2001). The most rapid growth is expected in the commercial buildings
sector, which is projected to grow at an average rate of 2.6% per year. Under
a scenario where state-of-the-art technology is adopted, global primary energy
consumption in the buildings sector could grow to about 170 EJ in 2020. A more
aggressive ecologically driven/advanced technology scenario, which assumes
an international commitment to energy efficiency as well as rapid technological
progress and widespread application of policies and programs to speed the
adoption of energy-efficient technologies in all major regions of the world, could
result in primary energy use of 140 EJ in 2020.
The current low efficiency of energy use in buildings in developing countries
presents a significant opportunity for energy conservation. Energy conservation
calls for a collective endeavor, in that it stems from the actions of people in
diverse fields, although the people involved may not be sufficiently informed or
motivated to conserve energy. In many developing countries including Nigeria,
the system-wide peak electricity demand occurs in the early evening, coinciding
with the peak use in buildings (especially homes). Thus, energy conservation in
the buildings sector will significantly reduce the load during peak hours when
electricity is most expensive to generate, and will mitigate the problem of load
shedding that often occurs during peak hours because demand exceeds supply.
The next section presents information on Nigerias building sector.
TRENDS IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND ASSOCIATED

CO2 EMISSIONS IN NIGERIAS BUILDING SECTOR
2.1 Past Trends
In this section, the discussion will focus only on electricity consumption in

residential, commercial and industrial sectors of the Nigerian economy. Included
under the commercial sector are public buildings, community buildings, hotels,
hospitals, etc. Table 3 shows that in 1990, total electricity consumption in the
country was 28.22 Petajoules (PJ), which amounted to 3,949 GWh. Of this, 14.22
PJ (50.39%) went to the residential sector; 6.67 PJ (23.64%) went to the commercial sector while the remaining 7.33 PJ (25.97%) was consumed in the industrial sector (Federal Office of Statistics 1995). In 1995, while the total national
electricity consumption was 35.24 PJ, 17.77 PJ (50.43%) of this was consumed in
the residential sector, 9.94 PJ (28.21%) was consumed in the commercial sector
and the remaining 7.53 PJ (21.37%) went to the industrial sector (Federal Office
of Statistics 1998).
CHAPTER 12
351
TABLE 3
Past Electricity Consumption Trend in the Residential, Commercial
and Industrial Sectors
Year
Residential
Sector (PJ)
Commercial
Sector (PJ)
Industrial
Sector (PJ)
Total
Consumption
(PJ)
1970
1.60
0.87
1.65
4.13
1975
3.68
2.15
3.95
9.77
1980
7.67
2.77
5.91
16.35
1985
11.47
2.70
7.96
22.13
1990
14.22
6.67
7.33
28.22
1995
17.77
9.94
7.53
35.24
2000
15.04
7.54
6.54
29.12
Source: FOS (Federal Ofce of Statistics) 1995; 1998; 2000.
In 2000, total electricity consumption amounted to 29.12 PJ. The residential

sector accounted for 51.65% (15.04 PJ) of this, while the commercial and industrial sectors accounted for 25.89% (7.54 PJ) and 22.46% (6.54 PJ) respectively
of the total national consumption (Federal Office of Statistics 2000). It must be
noted that the observed reduction in total electricity consumption between 1995
and 2000 was not as a result of energy conservation measures and technologies;
rather, it is likely attributed to suppressed demand of electricity due to unreliable
and inadequate national grid electricity supply in the country.
2.2 Future Trends

2.2.1
Methodology
For the estimation of future trends of electricity demand, an energy demand model,
Model for Analysis of Demand for Energy (MADE-II) was employed. This study
has employed the concept of useful energy demand (that is, actual energy use for
energy services such as cooking heat, lighting, process heat, motive power, etc.).
This allows for the analysis of inter-fuel substitution possibilities and estimation
of the optimal supply. In analyzing energy demand for a developing country
like Nigeria, certain socio-economic parameters have to be considered. These
parameters include rural-urban dichotomy, income distribution inequalities,
352
non-commercial energy dominance (such as fuelwood and charcoal), and rapid

structural transformation in the economy. The model incorporates the abovementioned basic socio-economic parameters of the Nigerian energy system in
the analysis of the future energy demand.
Three methodologies were used for carrying out energy demand analysis:
statistical, econometric, and engineering process techniques. This model
MADE-II (Saboohi 1989) was chosen and adapted for the Nigerian
situation partly because it uses a combination of statistical, econometric, and
engineering process techniques in arriving at the useful energy demand projections, and partly because of its flexibility. The statistical technique aspect is
used to extrapolate the trends of energy demand into the future. The econometric technique uses an estimated function relating energy demand with
fuel prices and income. The engineering process technique represents the
core methodology of MADE-II. It is a simulation technique that uses socioeconomic development and technical changes as the most important determinants of energy demand. The model represents all technical processes in the
energy sector with great detail.
Another striking feature of MADE-II is its flexibility, which makes it adaptable
for the various problems normally encountered in energy demand analysis. For
example, one can go into any level of disaggregation in the analysis, depending
on the data available and the objective of the demand analysis. Technical changes
such as improvement of efficiencies and reduction of energy intensities through
scientific progress and technical innovations play a significant role in the demand.
These aspects are included in the demand analysis by using technical efficiencies
for various end-use technologies and appliances in order to obtain the useful
energy demand for all sectors.
MADE-II was developed so that energy demand could be considered in
relation to socio-economic development. The projection of useful energy
demand is based on the information about population growth and socioeconomic development. In MADE-II, demographic data, that is, population
growth and share of rural and urban areas are considered as exogenous
parameters. The basic analytical approach in MADE-II involves the calculation of the base year energy intensity (energy per unit of service in every
sector of an economy, for example, quantity of energy used to produce one
ton of steel in the manufacturing or industrial sector) for the various end-use
categories for different sectors of the economy. This is derived by relating
the total energy consumption for that end-use service by the measure of
activity level of that service. Future energy intensities are then derived based
on simulation concepts. Once the future year energy intensity is obtained,
useful energy requirements are calculated by multiplying future projected
activity level with the energy intensity. In this demand model, useful energy
CHAPTER 12
353
requirement, UE for end-use category j, for group g, of economic sector s, in

time period t, is given as:
UEj,g,s,t = AL j,g,s,t *
EIj,g,s,t
(1)
where ALj,g,s,t is the activity level for end-use category j of group g of economic
sector s in time period t, and EIj,g,s,t is the energy intensity for end-use category j,
for group g, of economic sector s, in time period t.
Due to the uncertain evolution of developing country economies which the
Nigerian economy typifies, three energy demand scenarios which represent three
different patterns of energy development were adopted for the energy demand
projections. These are the LEG scenario which represents low economic growth
and hence low energy growth; the MEG scenario assumes moderate economic
growth and development and hence, a moderate energy growth; and HEG,
the high energy growth scenario, which represents strong economic and social
growth. The projection spans through 25 years with 1995 as the base year. It
is expected that Nigerias actual energy growth pattern will most probably be
between the LEG and HEG scenarios.
2.2.2
Analysis of Results
An analysis of the results of the model reveals that under a moderate energy
growth (MEG) scenario, the final energy demand for electricity has been
estimated to grow from 17.78 to 65.43 PJ between the period 1995 and 2020
in the residential sector. In the industrial sector, the growth is expected to be
from 9.55 to 33.85 PJ and from 8.02 to 21.60 PJ in the commercial sector within
the same period (Figures 1, 2 and 3). Sectorally, electricity consumption in the
household sector would increase 11.1%, 17.1% and 22.3% per annum in the
LEG, MEG and HEG scenarios respectively. Similarly, in the industrial sector,
it is expected to grow at the rate 10.5%, 18.3% and 30.7% for the three scenarios
LEG, MEG and HEG respectively while for the commercial sector, the growth
rate will be 7.3%, 13.3% and 22.6% respectively. On aggregate, total electricity
consumption growth rates in the LEG, MEG and HEG scenarios are expected to
be 10.1%, 16.6% and 24.6% respectively. Whichever energy growth path is taken,
the growth is potentially enormous, especially considering the associated finance.
Figure 4 gives the CO2 emissions trend from Nigerias electricity supply system
for the period 1995-2035 (Akinbami 2003). The observed decrease in emissions
may be due to the choice of the linear optimization model, used for the energy
supply analysis in the country, to use electricity supply technologies which are
less CO2 or non-CO2 emitting towards the end of the study period.
354
FIGURE 1
Final Energy Demand Projections for Electricity in Three Energy Scenarios
for Residential Sector in Nigeria
Source: Akinbami 2003.
FIGURE 2
for Industrial Sector in Nigeria
CHAPTER 12
355
FIGURE 3
for Commercial Sector in Nigeria
FIGURE 4
CO2 Emissions Trend in Nigerias Electricity Sector
356
EXISTING BUILDING DESIGN PRACTICES

HOW ENERGY EFFICIENT?
Buildings in the tropical areas of the world are constantly exposed to solar radiation. Hence, building design should aim at minimizing heat gain indoors and
maximizing evaporative cooling, so that users of these spaces can have adequate
thermal comfort and consequently make less demand of active energy. These
buildings should therefore be bioclimatically responsive; in other words, having
shapes and forms which:
t Are properly oriented;
t Have a building fabric specified to prevent or minimize heat gain; and
t Respond to passive energy and have minimal use of active energy for economic viability.
For building design purposes, overheated regions of the world, which generally
refer to the tropical areas, are classified into three categories: (1) hot/warm and
arid/semi arid regions, (2) warm and humid regions, and (3) temperate, both
arid and humid regions (Bowen 1975; Ajibola 2001). Based on this classification, Nigeria is in the warm-humid region. In this region, there are two distinct
seasons, the dry season, which is from November to March, and the rainy season
from April to October. Other observations include that climate varies as one
moves from the coast to the northern parts of the country, and with the time of
the year, latitude of the location and landscape (Ideriah and Suleman 1989).
Observations of most buildings in Nigeria (both traditional and contemporary) reveal that most of the above-mentioned criteria have not been strictly
adhered to. It has been further observed that traditional buildings in Nigeria have
laid too much emphasis on socio-cultural and economic factors (Costa 1989). In
addition, contemporary buildings have depended on imported building materials.
Various problems have emanated from even the present design approaches and
philosophy (Ajibola 1997; Ajibola 2001). Some of these are:
t Most buildings seem to be replicas of buildings in European countries in
shape and form despite marked differences in climatic conditions;
t Despite observed climatic differences in various cities within the country,
forms and shapes of buildings tend to look alike;
t Windows of buildings have not been properly oriented to maximize air movement for space cooling indoors;
t Window sizes and openings have not responded to physiological comfort
CHAPTER 12
357
thereby necessitating the use of mechanical devices for increased air movement. The choice of windows tends to be in response more to aesthetic needs
rather than physiological needs;
t Material specification for buildings in the housing sector have followed the
same pattern despite the difference in climate within the country;
t The desire for more usable space makes the provision of single windows in
spaces unavoidable especially in hotels and other commercial buildings; and
t Due to the limitations of the land and other considerations, the idea of getting
all spaces in a building cross-ventilated is not feasible.
The existing building designs in the country have promoted inefficient energy
use. This has translated over the years to increasing demand for active energy
through the various devices for both lighting and adequate indoor thermal
comfort. Unless intervention measures are put in place to contain this trend, the
situation will remain the same and even exacerbated with time.
Ajibola (2001) has observed that the climate of Nigeria cannot be regarded
as strictly homogeneously warm-humid even though it lies within the latitude
5o-16o N. Most cities have composite climates. Due to paucity of climate data and
lack of energy conscious building designs, these pertinent issues are not taken
into consideration. However, for a comfortable indoor environment, which is
energy conscious, to be achieved, the microclimate of the locality in which the
design is taking place should be considered. The analysis of climate data closely
related to the design environment will lead to more adequate and precise design
decisions in terms of:
t Adequate orientation;
t Spatial organization;
t Prevention of heat gain into spaces; and
t Better choice of building materials.
A climatic classification useful for architectural building design must have a
combined effect of temperature, relative humidity, mean radiation temperature,
and wind velocity.
358
4. OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION

IN BUILDINGS
If the building envelope and building materials were adequately considered
to allow for a longer time period for daylighting, and maximum indoor space
cooling, this would reduce the time needed for electrical energy for both lighting
and cooling devices. Consequently, this will promote energy conservation. Apart
from the building envelope, opportunities also exist for energy conservation in
the lighting and cooling devices sub-sectors. For instance, due to the high firstcost of fluorescent bulbs, incandescent bulbs are still the predominant electric
lighting device in the country. Hence, approximately 34.3% of total electricity use
in urban households goes to lighting (Adegbulugbe and Akinbami 1995).
The tropical climate of Nigeria definitely makes space cooling an essential
energy service. This is provided by electric fans and air conditioners. Fans have a
much higher market share than air conditioners in Nigerian households because
of their lower investment costs and lower electricity consumption. A study
(ibid.) has revealed that electricity consumption by fan cooling ranges between
2% and 8% while the total average consumption is 7% of the total household
electricity consumption in the various household income groups in the country.
Similarly, the percentage share of electricity consumption by air conditioners to
the total household electricity consumption ranges between 0% and 2% with a
total average of 1.5%. Resulting from the downturn in economy in the past two
decades, the Nigerian market has become a dumping ground for second-hand
products from abroad. Due to overuse before shipment, the efficiencies of these
products would have dropped already. These consequently add to energy inefficiency in Nigerian buildings (ibid.).
If energy efficient lighting devices such as the compact fluorescent lamps
(CFL) as well as energy efficient cooling devices, such as fans and air conditioners, were promoted in the country, these would help in reducing both electric
lighting and cooling energy. Putting all these energy savings opportunities in
the residential buildings alone together, it is estimated that at least 10% of total
residential electrical energy use will be conserved. Based on the results from
energy audits conducted in the country for two refineries, two cement plants,
one steel plant and a furniture manufacturing plant which indicate that about
25% of energy used in these industries can be saved through good housekeeping
measures (Adegbulugbe 1991), it is assumed that about 10% of both total industrial and commercial sectors electricity demand could be saved. Ultimately,
these would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gases emissions in the country.
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359
5. BARRIERS TO ENERGY CONSERVATION IN BUILDINGS

Several factors act as obstacles to the full realization of energy-saving potentials
in the nations buildings sector. Some of them are:
5.1 Lack of Awareness
The lack of or limited awareness of the potential of energy efficiency is likely the
most important obstacle to wide-scale adoption of energy efficiency measures
and technologies in the country (Adegbulugbe 1991) generally, and particularly
in the buildings sector. This is a by-product of two major issues. One is inadequate information infrastructure to raise the level of awareness of the potential of
energy efficiency (including costs and benefits) as well as the available technologies and proven practices. The other issue is a lack of an overall energy demand
management policy. If there were an energy demand management policy, this
would probably have necessitated the need to develop a databank on the proven
measures and technologies that promote rational energy utilization which would
be available to the public for effective implementation of the policy .
5.2 Energy Supply Constraints/Lack of Incentives and Motivation
Even when there is a desire to adopt energy efficiency measures, the structure
of the electric energy supply may be a bottleneck. Due to an unreliable supply
of electricity in Nigeria, the motivation to adopt any conservation measure
or technology is limited. In addition, a general lack of incentives, such as tax
rebate or low customs and excise duties on imports of improved energy efficient
technologies, hinders both the importers and consumers.
5.3 Inappropriate Energy Pricing
Pricing is an important tool to promote efficient use of energy. However, the energy
pricing regime in Nigeria is still perceived to be below the marginal opportunity
cost (MOC), a result of the government monopoly of the electricity sector and
the use of energy supply solely as a social service (provision of energy far below
production cost through government subsidies) in order to achieve political objectives. Successive governments have upheld the culture of energy subsidies in the
country. Over the years, this has sent the wrong signals to energy consumers to the
extent that any attempt to raise energy prices to the MOC level has often led to both
social and political upheavals. In addition, the energy subsidy culture has discouraged any incentive for innovation on energy efficiency measures.
360
5.4 Private and Public Buildings
Often, houses are built, especially by the affluent, with a view to projecting
prestige rather than from the economic perspective. Such buildings are generally devoid of energy efficiency features. Lack of information on trends in
energy efficient architecture among professionals is a formidable obstacle. This
has also encouraged a lack of energy-conscious building standards and regulations. Furthermore, the investor/user or landlord/tenant dilemma also helps
to discourage energy efficiency. For instance, if the user or tenant is allowed
to make energy saving investments, he stands the risk of not enjoying the
pay off for the whole life cycle of the investment if his tenancy or contract is
terminated abruptly, and the investor or landlord may not give any refund on
the investment already made. For public buildings owned by various government authorities (local government, state and federal or national authority),
the budgeting format is usually annual budgeting fixation, which means that
they cannot transfer funds from the recurrent budget to the capital budget.
With a lot of other and probably more urgent pressing needs calling for capital
investment, energy efficiency measures are given the lowest priority. The
poor perception of public goods also adds to the obstacles confronting energy
efficiency in the country. For instance, electricity bills for government buildings are rarely paid; hence there is no urge to adopt even simple housekeeping
measures to conserve electricity.
5.5 Lack of skilled Manpower and Technical Know-How
There is a limited and inadequate human resource capacity to carry out energy
audit studies and projects in general, and to design energy efficient buildings in
particular, in Nigeria. Energy engineers are rather few in the country. Coupled
with this is the fact that few professionals in the building sector have training
on energy-efficient building designs. These may have been borne out of a sense
of non-need for such skilled manpower due to a long persistent culture of
inappropriate energy pricing in the country. However, the era of low energy
pricing is gradually fading away. Provision of the required skilled manpower
entails specialized training which most Nigerian tertiary institutions are not
providing presently. Consequently, it is necessary to review the educational
curricula in tertiary institutions to close this gap. There is a general dearth
of skilled manpower and adequate technical know-how on how to carry out
technical energy conservation measures in the country.
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361
5.6 Lack of legislation
A lack of legislation may imply non-availability of standards, or where such

standards exist, non-compliance may result from lack of enforcement. These
issues expose the Nigerian Energy Market (NEM), and hence the consumers,
to sub-standard technologies which are likely to be energy inefficient and may
have even been outlawed in their country of manufacture. Both non-availability
of standards and lack of enforcement of standards, where they exist, discourage
local manufacturers of energy technologies from investing in improving the
efficiency of their products.
6. POSSIBLE STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE ENERGY

CONSERVATION IN THE BUILDING SECTOR
6.1 Development of Adequate Database
Energy efficiency improvement programs aim to reduce unnecessary energy costs

through identification and elimination of inefficiencies. This requires the collection and proper analysis of relevant data, which can help to indicate whether or
not there is need for improvement in energy use. For the data acquisition activity,
the building sector should be compartmentalized into various sub-sectors
in which the electricity use can be adequately monitored and analyzed. Such
sub-sectors may include the building envelope, which could be further compartmentalized into lighting system, cooling system, building materials, etc. The
databank should also include other energy conscious building parameters and
energy efficient devices and measures.
6.2 Research, Development, Demonstration and Dissemination

(R,D,D&D)
Funding of research is needed in tertiary institutions and appropriate research

institutes in order to develop building designs that allow for a longer period of
use of passive energy than obtained presently. The research activity should also
be extended to building materials for physiological comfort, ceiling and roofing
materials that will prevent or minimize heat gains in the different parts of the
country. Of course the R,D,D&D should also include external designs that
provide sufficient shade, reduce solar radiation reflections into the building and
thereby reduce demand for active energy services in the building. These may
include shade trees, green facades, etc.
362
6.3 Awareness Campaign/Outreach Program
As the old adage says, knowledge is power. There is the need for the electric
utility, federal ministries and agencies involved in energy and housing matters
and the building private sector to reach out to the public, including: investors, professionals, planners, and decision makers through various campaign
programs such as seminars, conferences, workshops, radio/television talks and
programs. The campaign should be taken to the grassroots in order to educate
every stakeholder in the buildings sector on the needs for, benefits of, and options
for energy conservation in the sector.
6.4 Legislative and Regulatory Support
Measures to promote energy conservation in the country need adequate legislative and regulatory backing. This will involve the institutionalization of
standards and codes, as well as incentives and motivation that will enhance the
national promotion of energy conservation. For the buildings sector, various
professionals and all other stakeholders will have to be involved in the legislative
and regulatory processes for meaningful and functional legislative measures and
regulatory practices.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The model results from the MEG scenario, which may likely be Nigerias energy
growth and development pattern in the future, reveal that electrical energy
consumption in both the residential and industrial sectors will increase more
than three-fold, while that of the commercial sector will increase about threefold over 25 years in the period 1995-2020. The financial resources required to
put in place the supply infrastructure to meet this demand are quite substantial. The observed high growth pattern of the electricity demand also shows the
high potential for energy conservation measures. Putting all the energy saving
opportunities already discussed in place, it is estimated that at least 10% of total
residential electrical energy use can be conserved while it is also assumed that
about 10% of both total industrial and commercial sectors electricity demand
could be saved. These would ultimately lead to a reduction in green house gases
emissions in the country.
Hence, for sustainable economic growth and development, energy conservation
should be a preferred energy supply option in Nigeria, to enhance energy security,
reduce wastage in the energy system, delay construction of new energy supply infrastructures, conserve financial resources for other development programmes, and
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363
reduce environrmental and climatic problems. However, for serious and beneficial
energy conservation in the buildings sector, the government needs to take some
necessary steps in addition to those already suggested. These include:
t Leadership by example just as practical steps were taken in the US to
conserve energy in the White House, similar steps need to be taken by the
Federal Government with respect to all the federal public buildings Aso
Rock Villa (the Presidential Office and Villa}, the National Assembly Complex (the Legislature), Federal Secretariat and other Federal Government
buildings including the armed forces buildings, etc. The government should
be seen as the vanguard of energy conservation;
t National building codes, standards, regulations should be developed jointly
by the various professional bodies, other stakeholders and government. As
mentioned earlier, the building codes and standards should be based on research of the local climatic conditions;
t In order to further promote energy conservation, incentives for the production, marketing and utilization of energy efficiency goods and services; and
technologies should be implemented;
t Buildings should be rated according to their energy efficiency indices in order to make them attractive for rental and investment;
t Building that incorporate renewable energy applications for use as thermal
energy and electricity generation should be encouraged with incentives during the design and post-construction stages;
t Energy impact assessment for new buildings should be made compulsory
nationwide as is being suggested to be practiced now in Lagos State;
t To enable buyers to make robust and well-informed decisions, it is necessary
that all appliances imported into the country be tested to conform to national standards labeling, and that all electrical equipment be adequately labeled;
t Research and development, demonstration and dissemination in design and
materials for energy conscious architecture should be well funded by both
government and the private sector;
t More awareness campaigns need to be mounted by both government and private sector for continuous education of the populace which consist of would
be investors, professionals, planners, law and decision makers on both the
macroeconomic and microeconomic benefits of energy conscious buildings;
t Development of energy conscious building parametrics and energy efficient
devices and measures databank;
364
t Educational curricula of architecture, building and allied departments in

the tertiary institutions may have to be reviewed to incorporate issues that
relate to contemporary energy conscious architecture and building designs
and materials in order to raise and increase the skilled manpower required
in this area; and
t International cooperation with countries of similar climatic conditions to
Nigeria for information and data exchange and research collaboration needs
to be promoted.
Acknowledgements
The Authors gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Lara
Opperman of Construction Economics and Management, University of Cape
Town, South Africa in an earlier version of the paper at the Technology and
Management for Sustainable Building Conference, South Africa.
References
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Efficiency. Paper presented at the Conference on Energy Issues in Nigeria: Today and
Tomorrow, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
Adegbulugbe, A. O., and Akinbami J-F.K. 1995. Urban Household Energy Use Patterns in
Nigeria. Natural Resources Forum, 19 (2): 12533.
Ajibola, K. 1997. Ventilation of Spaces in a Warm, Humid Climate Case Study of Some
Housing Units. Renewable Energy 10 (1): 6170.
______. 2001. Design for Comfort in Nigeria A Bioclimatic Approach. Renewable
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Greenhouse Gases Emissions of the Nigerian Electrical Power Industry. A Ph.D. Thesis,
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Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
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Ideriah, F.J.K., and Suleman S.O. 1989. Sky Conditions of Ibadan during 1975-1980.
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IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2001. Technological and Economic

Potentials of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction in Climate Change 2001 Mitigation.
Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Bert Metz, Ogunlade Davidson, Rob Stewart,
and Jiahua Pan.
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Efficiency, Developing Nations, and Eastern Europe. A Report to the U.S. Working
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CHAPTER
13
A New Water Paradigm

for Urban Areas to Mitigate
the Urban Heat Island Effect
Marco Schmidt
Summary
Evaporation of water is the largest and most important hydrological component
on earth. Only water that has evaporated will cause rainfall, and the effects of
deforestation and growing urbanization are causing significant losses to global
evapotranspiration. Reduced evapotranspiration, locally and globally, means
more short-wave global solar radiation is converted to long-wave thermal
emissions and sensible heat. Thus, reduced evaporation causes higher surface
temperatures and is a main contributor of the urban heat island effect. Rainwater
harvesting measures can play a key role in further mitigation strategies against
increased surface temperatures and drought. This new approach changes
the focus of rainwater management to evaporation, rather than infiltration or
discharge into sewers. Several demonstration projects have been established in
Berlin that give insight into a new water paradigm for rainwater management in
urban areas.
Key Words: Evaporation, evapotranspiration, climate change, rainwater

harvesting, evaporative cooling, urban heat island effect, green roofs, green
facades, new water paradigm
366
CHAPTER 13
367
INTRODUCTION
Evaporation of water is the largest hydrologic process on earth and the most
important component of energy conversion. Figure 1 illustrates the components
of global radiation conversion on the Earths surface, for a mean energy flux of
one square meter per day. Of this, 7.3% of incoming solar radiation is reflected
and 38% is directly converted to thermal radiation due to the increase of surface
temperatures. The total long-wave (thermal) radiation consists of atmospheric
counter-radiation (7776 Wh/ (md)) and the thermal radiation of the surface of
the Earth (7776 + 1724 Wh/ (md)). Compared to other available figures about
the global mean energy budget (e.g. Kiehl & Trenberth, 1997; Trenberth et al.,
2009), both components are presented separately in Figure 1. All surfaces above
273C emit long-wave radiation, as they receive at the same time. Therefore,
the long-wave energy gain and loss of the atmosphere, the atmospheric counterradiation, must be considered separately from conversion of short-wave global
radiation to thermal radiation.
Net radiation can be either converted into sensible heat (575 Wh/ (md)) or
consumed by evaporation, a conversion into latent heat. With 1888 Wh/ (md),
the energy conversion by evaporation is the largest component of all, even more
than the thermal radiation converted from incoming short-wave radiation.
Additionally, evaporation reduces the long-wave thermal radiation due to the
decrease in surface temperatures.
FIGURE 1
Global Daily Radiation Balance as Annual Mean
Global Radiation Balance
Sustainable land use
Energy balance, daily

daily mean
mean
Condition
Stopping deforestation
Reduction of urbanization
Global Radiation
4514 Wh
Evaporation
(Latent Heat)
1888 Wh
Niederschlag
Sensible Heat
575 Wh
Reflection
328 Wh
[email protected]
Increased Thermal
Radiation 1724 Wh
Main Influencing Factors:
Vegetaition
Net Longwave (Thermal) Radiation 7776 Wh
Net Radiation
2462 Wh
Precipitation
Soil fertility
Daily Global Mean in Wh/m

source: www.physicalgeography.net
Source: Schmidt, 2009. Energy data based on www.physicalgeography.net
368
With consideration of Figure 1, the entire global radiation balance is

dominated by evaporation and condensation. Just as rainfall volume depends
on the amount of water that has evaporated, so will a reduction in evaporation
mean the increased conversion of short-wave global solar radiation to long-wave
emissions and sensible heat. Additionally, a reduction in evaporation on land
translates to a reduction in overall precipitation, effecting a further reduction in
evapotranspiration, thus creating a chain reaction.
Evaporation rates are being reduced in direct correlation with worldwide deforestation, sprawling urbanization, and the loss of fertile agricultural land (GTZ 2007;
Kravk et al. 2007). In Germany, for example, urbanization continues to grow
at a rate of more than 1 km daily (UBA 2008). As a result of this urbanization,
an annual reduction of 200 mm evaporation releases sensible heat and thermal
radiation of 50,000 GWh (0.2 m/a * 680 kWh * 1 Mio m * 365 d). Moreover,
the associated loss of vegetation further impacts hydrological processes, causing
extreme storms, floods, drought, and desertification (Kravk et al. 2007).
FIGURES 2 AND 3
An Urbanized Landscape (Rio De Janeiro, left) in Contrast to Natural
Landscapes (Germany, right) Signicantly Alter a Regions Patterns
of Radiation and Hydrology
A reduction in evapotranspiration leads to the conversion of short-wave global

solar radiation into long-wave thermal emissions and sensible heat. Reduced
evaporation rates cause higher surface temperatures and contribute greatly to the
urban heat island effect. Additionally, hard materials and surfaces in urban areas
absorb and re-radiate solar irradiation and increase that areas heat capacity. As
an example of radiation changes in urban areas, Figure 4 illustrates the radiation
balance of a black asphalt roof. Compared to Figure 1, most of the net radiation
from the urban setting is converted to sensible heat rather than evaporation.
Higher surface temperatures also increase the thermal radiation.
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369
FIGURE 4
Radiation Balance of a Black Asphalt Roof as an Example
for Urban Radiation Changes
Source: Schmidt, 2005.
FIGURE 5
Extensive Green Roofs Transfer 58% of Net Radiation into Evapotranspiration
During the Summer Months, UFA Fabrik in Berlin, Germany
Source: Schmidt, 2005.
370
As a result of changes in radiation, air temperatures inside buildings also rise.

This leads to discomfort or excessive energy consumption for air-conditioning.
Greening buildings is a logical solution to create more comfortable air temperatures in cities and to improve the microclimate around buildings. Green in
this sense means to green faades and roofs, thereby consuming this energy
by evapotranspiration. According to measurements taken at the UFA Fabrik in
Berlin, a greened vegetated roof covered with 8 cm of soil transfers 58% of net
incident radiation into evapotranspiration during the summer months (Figure
5). The annual average energy conversion of net radiation into evaporation is
81%, the resultant cooling-rates are 302 kWh/ (m*a) with a net radiation of 372
kWh/ (m*a) (Schmidt 2005). The roof in Figure 5 was monitored parallel in the
direct neighborhood to the asphalt roof in Figure 4 for the same period.
2. BEST PRACTICE PROJECTS

With regard to the urban heat island effect and global warming, sustainable
architecture and landscaping need to consider the natural water cycle, including
evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Rainwater harvesting measures
could play a key role in mitigating the urban heat island effect. This approach
would mean that rainwater management must focus on evaporation rather
than discharge into sewer systems or infiltration. Table 1 shows priorities and
measures for sustainable urban development.
Water quality and other environmental issues are also considered.
TABLE 1
Priority List of Sustainable Measures for Urban Areas Regarding
the Mitigation of the Urban Heat Island Effect and Global Warming
Priority Value
Measure
1.
+++
3.0
unpaved greened areas (parks, greened courtyards, street trees)
2.
++O
2.3
green building developments (green roofs, green facades)
3.
++
2.0
articial urban lakes and open waters
4.
+ OO
1.7
rainwater harvesting (for cooling and irrigation)
5.
+O
1.3
trough inltration combined with large vegetated structures,

grass pavers
6.
1.0
rainwater harvesting for toilet ushing and further utilisation
7.
OO
0.7
trough inltration systems through natural soil,

semi-permeable surfaces
8.
0.3
trench inltration directly into the underground
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371
The conventional principle of water discharge, which was implemented

for over a hundred years, nowadays bears disastrous environmental effects on
surface water quality and on the climate. The paradigm shift, which must now be
implemented on the local level, will require a complete rethinking of the existing
urban planning and water management.
In Germany, rainwater infiltration has been a popular strategy in recent years.
However, in spite of the great benefit of preventing negative impacts to surface
waters, infiltration does not fully reflect the natural water cycle. The missing
hydrological component in urban areas is evaporation rather than infiltration
(SenStadt 2007). In the catchment area of Berlin/ Brandenburg in Germany,
about 80% of precipitation is converted to evaporation, while groundwater
recharge and runoff together represent 20%. Urban areas are characterized
by completely paved areas as well as semi-permeable surfaces with little to no
vegetation. The semi-permeable surfaces allow much higher groundwater
recharge compared to naturally vegetated areas (Schmidt et al. 2005, SenStadt
2007), as they over-compensate for infiltration with reference to completely
paved surfaces. Therefore, in the interest of effective environmental priority, the
provision for evaporation rather than infiltration needs to become a primary task.
Natural groundwater recharge in the region Berlin/ Brandenburg represents 10-20% of annual precipitation. Artificial infiltration systems manage an
additional 6-10 times the surface of the infiltration area itself. This represents
500% - 900% of natural precipitation as runoff from paved areas, or about 40-50
times more than natural conditions. For example, a park area in Berlin receives
600 mm of precipitation annually. A grassy
FIGURE 6
area without any artificial irrigation would Trough Inltration System
typically evaporate about 500 mm into in Berlin, Lacking
the atmosphere, while 100 mm serves Vegetation (priority 7)
for groundwater recharge, mainly in the
winter season. An infiltration system in the
neighborhood receives the same 600 mm
of annual precipitation, plus an additional
4500 mm surface runoff from paved areas
adjacent. Following the rates above, these
5100 mm of water would be converted into
about 700 mm evaporation, while 4400
mm represent groundwater recharge. This
level of recharge is 44 times higher than
the natural water cycle would permit (see
Figure 6) (compare SenStadt 2007).
However, infiltration can also lead to
evaporation provided that vegetation and
372
vegetated structures are constructed in the neighborhood. In such a case, infiltration systems must be supplemented with trees or faade greening systems. A
discussion about the overcompensation of groundwater recharge by infiltration
systems should not neglect the benefit of preventing rainwater from being
discharged into sewers and surface waters. Nonetheless, we must expound the
impacts on the natural water cycle and on groundwater quality in urban areas.
For this reason, rainwater harvesting for toilet flushing gets a higher ranking in
Table 1 compared to infiltration systems.
With a focus on rainwater harvesting and evaporation, four projects have
been established in Berlin in cooperation with the Watergy working group
(Chair of Building Technology and Design) and the Chair of Applied Hydrology.
All projects combine different measures of Table 1 to increase the efficiency of the
water related environmental benefits.
2.1 DCI Berlin, Potsdamer Platz
The DaimlerChrysler-Project at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (from 1996-1998

the largest construction site in Europe) was built under very strict stormwater
management regulations. In order to avoid overloading the existing combined
sewerage system in central Berlin, the building permit issued by city council
stated that the new complex would drain runoff at a rate of no more than 3 l/
sec/ ha, or 1% of flows during storm events. To comply with this regulation, the
Atelier Dreiseitl (www.dreiseitl.de) and landscape architect Daniel Roehr implemented the following techniques for the management of 23,000 m precipitation
that falls annually on this building site:
t extensive and intensive green roofs on all of the 19 buildings
t collection of roof-runoff for toilet flushing and plant irrigation
t an artificial lake for rainwater
retention and evaporation
Since infiltration was not
possible at this site, the basis
for the rainwater management
concept
involved
rainwater
harvesting for toilet flushing and
evaporation by green roofs and
an urban lake as a retention pond.
Three cisterns providing 2,550
FIGURE 7
Urban Lake, Supplied with Roof-Runoff
at Potsdamer Platz (priority 3)
CHAPTER 13
373
FIGURES 8 AND 9
Greened Roofs, UFA-Fabrik Berlin-Tempelhof (priority 2)
m storage capacity correspond directly to 12% of the annual precipitation of

the catchment area. The artificial lake, covering a total area of 13,000 m, can
fluctuate its levels by 30 cm, which corresponds to an additional storage capacity
of 11% of the annual precipitation. The water is cleaned and filtered through
artificial filtering systems and, additionally, by a constructed wetland of 1,900
m, which is planted mainly with Phragmites. The resulting water quality, as
well as stormwater issues, have proven that this large rainwater system have
performed very well for the last 10 years of operation.
2.2 Cultural Center UFA-Fabrik in Berlin-Tempelhof
The Cultural Center UFA-Fabrik in Berlin-Tempelhof, home to various projects

of urban ecology (see: www.ufafabrik.de) includes an integrated rainwater
management project. As a first measure, most of the roofs were vegetated from
1983 to 1985. In 1994, a rainwater harvesting system was integrated. As a
result, water from the green and conventional roofs is stored in a former underground waterworks station, along with runoff from street level.
The rainwater system at UFA-Fabrik has a total storage capacity of 240 m
in two cisterns. This is equivalent to 40 mm or 6.7% of annual precipitation
of the catchment area. The system collects primarily first flush stormwater.
By capturing the pollutants and nutrients associated with the first flush the
UFA-Fabrik, which is situated on a separated sewer system, provides increased
ecological benefits, by directing this polluted runoff to a modified constructed
wetland for treatment. Collected rainwater is used to flush toilets and for
irrigation. About 75% of rainwater used in the summer month is linked to
irrigation. This rate of use, the large storage capacity for rainwater, and the
greened roofs represent the integration of best management practices for the
new water paradigm.
374
2.3 Demonstration Project Adlershof Physik
The Institute of Physics in Berlin-Adlershof is located in a research and office

facility featuring several measures of sustainable architecture. It was designed by
the architects Georg Augustin and Ute Frank (Berlin) following an architectural
competition held in 1997. Rainwater is used to supply a faade greening system
and central air-conditioning systems with evaporative exhaust air cooling. The
water is harvested from the roofs and stored in five cisterns.
Research elaborating on the performance of the building is funded by the
Berlin Senate of Urban Development, Section Ecological Construction. The
project includes permanent monitoring of the water consumption of different
plant species and performance of eight air conditioning units. Continuous
monitoring has been carried out since 2004.
The faade greening system is evaluated to determine the importance of
evaporation and shading on the overall energy performance of the building,
including temperature and radiation measurements. Data collected from this
project is used to calibrate simulations that are designed to predict performance
and benefits in a range of different climatic conditions. This work will inform the
design of future projects.
About 280 parameters are electronically harvested every minute. Primary
systematic evaluation is based on the water parameters and their relation to
energy dissipation. Additionally, 12 plant species and their requirements for
maintenance (fertilization, plant protection) are monitored. Seven long-wave,
short-wave and infrared sensors monitor the radiation concerning shading and
reflection for each faade system. The building is not connected to stormwater
FIGURES 10 AND 11
Faade Greening System (priority 2; left); Articial Rainwater Pond
(Priority 3) Combined with Trough Inltration for Stormwater Management
(Priority 7; right)
CHAPTER 13
375
sewers, reflecting one of the main goals of this decentralized system of rainwater
retention and harvesting. Stormwater events from heavy rainfall are managed
with an overflow into a small constructed pond in one of the courtyards, from
which the water can evaporate or drain into the ground. To protect the quality
of groundwater, this drainage is only allowed through surface areas covered with
vegetation. Some of the roof surfaces are also extensively greened to assist in
retaining and treating stormwater.
Evaporative Exhaust Air Cooling at the Institute of Physics
The German governments climate protection program defines a target of reduction

of fossil fuel consumption by 40% by the year 2020. This ambitious goal is mainly
based on the reduction of energy consumption in the building sector. However, the
growing use of air conditioning powered by electric energy is in direct conflict with
this target. In contrast with the desired target, it is estimated that energy consumption
for cooling and ventilation will increase by 260% by 2020 (EECCAC 2003). Fortunately, a different approach to cooling, based on rainwater, can negate this conflict.
Air conditioning in the Institute of Physics is achieved through seven evaporative cooling units. These ventilation units use rainwater to cool air by the process
of evaporation. First, rainwater is evaporated to reduce the temperature of the air
leaving the building (Figure 12). This process has the capacity to cool exhaust air
from 26C to 16C. In a second step, fresh air entering the building is cooled as it
passes across a heat exchanger with cooled air on its way out. This process is sufficient
to maintain indoor temperatures of 21-22 C with outside temperatures of up to 30
C. When outside temperatures exceed 30C, indoor temperatures are maintained
with the additional aid of conventional cooling systems based on absorption chillers.
Figure 13 demonstrates the results on performance of the systems studied.
To evaluate the reduction in energy consumption, the conventional system
was tested first with the evaporative
cooling system switched off and then FIGURE 12
with it switched on. The resultant Adiabatic Exhaust Air Cooling
energy consumption of the conven- with Rainwater in Seven
Air Conditioning Systems (priority 4)
tional cooling system, in this case
cold supplied by absorption chillers,
indicates a decrease of 70%. The
performance of 70% for the hottest day
of the year suggests that the process is
much more successful than expected.
We can predict a reduction in energy
consumption for cooling between 80
to 90% as an annual mean, compared
to conventional systems. Additionally,
376
FIGURE 13
Evaluation of the Reduction in Energy Consumption When Switching
the Evaporative Cooling System On and Off
40.0
35.0
[C]
Aussentemperatur [C]
Anlage 4 [kW]
[kW]
5
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
4
3
2
10.0
5.0
0.0
1
0
20/7/06 20/7/06 20/7/06 20/7/06 20/7/06 20/7/06 21/7/06 21/7/06 21/7/06 21/7/06 21/7/06 21/7/06
0:02
4:07
8:07
12:07 16:12 20:27
0:27
4:27
8:27
12:32
8:27
12:32
the evaporation of (rain)water reduces the urban heat island effect, whereas
conventional air conditioning systems exacerbate the problem by consuming
electric energy and releasing heat outside, influencing neighboring buildings.
The advantage in using rainwater instead of tap water, which would also work,
is that rainwater has no salt/ no lime, therefore a low electrical conductivity. When
using potable water, two cubic meters are needed to evaporate one cubic meter and
concurrently produce one cubic meter of sewage water. Using rainwater can conserve
50% in water volume and completely conserves wastewater (SenStadt 2010).
Due to evaporative heat loss of 680 kWh per cubic meter, even desalination by
membrane reverse osmosis of seawater makes sense. The energy consumption
of membrane seawater desalination decreased to a value of 7 kWh per cubic
meter in the past years. In this case, evaporation implies energy savings of 100:1!
Conventional compression cooling systems consume 200 to 350 kWh compared
to the benefit of evaporation of one cubic meter of water. Heat releases of conventional cooling systems in the streets outside the buildings are 680 kWh plus an
additional 200 to 350 kWh of electric energy consumption that is converted into
heat as well. Evaporative cooling simply consumes heat.
Faade Greening System
Green faades were implemented at the Institute with two objectives: 1) to

passively climatize the building through shading and solar radiation; and 2) to
harness evapotranspiration to improve the microclimate inside and around the
building. Plants provide shade during summer and, when defoliated in winter,
the suns radiation can lessen heating needs.
CHAPTER 13
377
A total of 150 experimental troughs are organized in such a way that the
water content is maintained at a constant level. Evapotranspiration demonstrates
immediate feedback to water consumption. Since the troughs lack a facility for
weighing, evaporation is determined by measuring the water supplied to the
trough throughout the day. Figure 14 shows the mean daily evapotranspiration
of this faade greening system, measured as water consumption. The real ETP
is extremely high, likely because the plants have an optimized water supply and
the surface area of the trough is small compared to the surface area of the plants.
Mean evapotranspiration between July and September 2005 for the south face of
the building was between 5.4 and 11.3 millimeters per day, depending on which
floor the planters were located (Figure 14). This rate of evapotranspiration represents a mean cooling value of 157 kWh per day. Water consumption for the
mature Wisteria sinensis increased up to 420 liters per day for 56 of the planter
boxes. This represents a cooling value of 280 kWh per day for one of the courtyards. The courtyard has a size of 717 m, the greened faade a surface of 862 m.
FIGURE 14
Mean Evapotranspiration of the Faade Greening System In Mm/Day
and Correspondent Cooling Rates
[mm/d]
30
Mean ETP of a facade greening system, Adlershof Physik

[kWh/m2d]
7/15/05-09/14/05
20.4
courtyard, 1 st
floor
courtyard, 2nd
floor
courtyard, 3rd
floor
25
20
17
13.6
15
10.2
10
6.8
3.4
0
23:00
22:00
21:00
20:00
19:00
18:00
17:00
16:00
15:00
14:00
13:00
12:00
11:00
10:00
9:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
0:00
In selecting the climbing plants, emphasis was placed on choosing types that
can grow in the extreme conditions of planter boxes. Of the various plants tested,
Wisteria sinensis has proven to be the best. In addition to plants, a special system
of irrigation and different substrates were also applied and studied. A factor in
this selection was adequate capillary rise of water through the irrigation and
substrate systems. Another aspect studied was providing of a layer of insulation
to some of the planter boxes, to compensate for large shifts in temperature and
378
especially to help protect against low winter temperatures. This comparison

revealed that insulation can lead to significant differences in plant growth.
The combination of providing shade in the summer and permitting solar
energy gain in the winter supported a further design for a technological development: the implementation of a simple translucent insulation system in
arrangement with a vertical climbing plant structure. The overheating process
of conventional translucent systems can be avoided, as evapotranspiration
reduces the surface temperatures and improves the local microclimate. This
system combines energy saving strategies and provides the natural water cycle;
therefore, it includes the old climate change discussion and future strategies
on mitigating global warming.
2.4 Watergy, a System for Water Treatment, Building Climate

Control and Food Production
Watergy follows the development of a technology platform for the decentralized, basic supply of energy, water and food that can be used within a number
of different applications (see www.watergy.de). The technological principle was
proofed with two different prototypes between April 2003 and March 2006,
and was funded by a European Union research project (NNE5-2001-683). In
2004, the first prototype was built for the purpose of greenhouse horticulture
in Almeria, Spain. A second prototype was built in Berlin as a living- and office
building with an attached faade-greenhouse.
The Watergy system combines solar collection with a mechanism for rainwater
and greywater treatment. The building in Berlin (Figure 15) is based on the
concepts of passive house insulation and solar-derived zero energy standards.
A greenhouse located in front of a transparent wall on the southern face of the
FIGURES 15 AND 16 The Watergy prototype in Berlin- Dahlem (Germany),

South-Facing Greenhouse Facade; the Watergy Prototype
in Almeria (Spain), Cooling Tower in its Center (right)
CHAPTER 13
379
building acts as a modified double faade. The air inside the greenhouse becomes
heated by solar gain and also humidified by the plants. The warm air rises to
the ceiling, where it is further heated and further humidified within a secondary
collector element. The upper side of this collector leads to a chilled air duct that
is located inside the building. Thus, when the warm air cools off it condenses and
falls down through this duct, back into the greenhouse. Solar energy is stored in
a 35 m tank of water, enough for heating the building through the wintertime.
The prototypes are supplied with rainwater and a condensation unit to regain the
evaporated water. The process of evaporation and condensation creates excellent
water quality and shifts large amounts of energy, the previously mentioned 680 kWh
per cubic meters. The evaporation of harvested rainwater inside of the greenhouse
represents priority 4 of Table 1. The system can be implemented in landscapes
where natural precipitation is not sufficient for crop production. In Almeria the
water demand for irrigation was reduced from 10 to 0.4 mm per day thanks to the
recondensation of evaporated water in a cooling tower (Figure 16).
3. Conclusions
Rainwater harvesting measures that focus on evaporation rather than infiltration
have tremendous potential to decrease the environmental impacts of urbanization. On a global scale, reduced evaporation on land causes increased temperatures (Kravk et al. 2007). With this knowledge, the popular focus on reducing
greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming may be a fatal misinterpretation of environmental processes. Indeed, simulations of global climate changes
continue to neglect the fundamental driving forces of the global climate: transpiration by vegetation and evaporation by land. Thus, the correlation between CO2
and global temperatures in fact represent the processes of vegetation, namely
photosynthesis and evaporation.
While we may all agree that human activities are causing desertification due
to unsustainable land use (Schmidt 2010), the additional roles of water, soil and
vegetation are still not in focus in the climate discussion. The global change in
hydrology and its impact on the climate requests a new water paradigm (www.
waterparadigm.org). Until recently, evaporation has always been defined and
understood as a loss. In fact, evaporation is the very source of precipitation.
Drought is conventionally expressed as a result of rising global temperatures, but
if we take this new perspective then increased aridity is the cause, not the result,
of the global warming. Our intensive land use patterns are causing the planet to
dry out (Ripl et al. 2007; Kravk et al. 2007).
Rainwater harvesting measures can play a key supportive role as adaptation
and mitigation strategies against the urban heat island effect and global warming.
380
When considering a close-up of the small water cycle, we may entertain the
emergence of a new water paradigm. As part of this new paradigm, harvesting
rainwater for evaporation would become a first priority in urban areas: not a
single drop of water may leave urban surfaces simply to be funneled into sewer
systems. Rather, harvested rainwater can be used for evaporative cooling via
vegetation and/ or air conditioning units.
The research summarized above indicates that evaporation of water is the
cheapest and most effective way to cool a building. It is known that one cubic
meter of evaporated water consumes 680 kWh of heat. Thus, instead of conventional cooling systems (old cooling approach) which releases heat outside the
building, produces additional heat, and consumes energy, the evaporation of
water simply consumes heat (new cooling paradigm). In this way, energy is
released when water vapor condenses on any given surface, or in the atmosphere.
Condensation in the form of clouds in the atmosphere represents the primary
energy loss by the earth into space.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express sincere thanks to Brigitte Reichmann (Department of Ecological City Construction, Berlin Senate) for organizing and financing
the innovative project in Berlin-Adlershof. Many thanks to Christine Thuering
(Chlorophyllocity) who improved my English.
References
EECCAC (Energy Efficiency and Certification of Central Air Conditioners). 2003. Report
for the DGTREN of the Commission of the EU, 2001, 1: 52.
Gerlich, G., and Tscheuschner, R.D. 2007. Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2
Greenhouse Effects within the Frame of Physics. http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161;
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v3; http://www.tsch.de.
GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Technologische Zusammenarbeit). 2007. Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries. Eschborn: GTZ. http://www.gtz.
de/de/dokumente/en-climate-reducing-emissions.pdf.
Kiehl, J. T., and Trenberth K.E. 1997. Earths Annual Global Mean Energy Budget.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: 197208.
Kravk, M., Pokorn J., Kohutiar J., Kov M., and Tth E. 2007. Water for the Recovery
of the Climate - A New Water Paradigm. Municipalia. http://www.waterparadigm.org.
Ripl, W., Pokorny J., and Scheer H. 2007. Memorandum on Climate Change, the
Necessary Reforms of Society to Stabilize the Climate and Solve the Energy Issues.
Berlin. http://www.aquaterra-berlin.de.
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Schmidt, M. 2005. The Interaction between Water and Energy of Greened Roofs.
Proceedings of the World Green Roof Congress, Basel, Switzerland, September 1516.
Schmidt, M., H. Diestel, B. Heinzmann, and H. Nobis-Wicherding. 2005. Surface
Runoff and Groundwater Recharge Measured on Semi-Permeable Surfaces. In
Recharge Systems for Protecting and Enhancing Groundwater Resources, Proceedings
of the 5th International Symposium on Management of Aquifer Recharge
ISMAR5, 190193, Berlin, Germany, June 1116, 2005. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/
images/0014/001492/149210E.pdf.
Schmidt, M. 2009. Global Climate Change: The Wrong Parameter. Proceedings of Rio9,
World Energy and Climate Event, 167176, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. http://www.rio9.
com/programme/Book_of_Proceedings/28_ES_Schmidt.pdf.
Schmidt, M. 2010. A New Paradigm in Sustainable Land Use. Topos 70, Callwey Verlag.
SenStadt. 2007. Environmental Information System, Berlin Digital Environmental Atlas,
Map 02.13 Surface Runoff, Percolation, Total Runoff and Evaporation from Precipitation. Senatsverwaltung fr Stadtentwicklung. http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.
de/umwelt/umweltatlas/edb213_05.htm.
SenStadt. 2010. Rainwater Management Concepts: Greening Buildings, Cooling
Buildings. Planning, Construction, Operation and Maintenance Guidelines. Senatsverwaltung fr Stadtentwicklung, 72. http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/bauen/
oekologisches_bauen/download/SenStadt_Regenwasser_engl_bfrei_final.pdf.
[Accessed 31 August 2010].
Trenberth, K. E., Fasullo J.T., and Kiehl J. 2009. Earths Global Energy Budget. Bulletin of
the American Meteorological Society: 311323.
UBA (Umwelt Bundes Amt). 2008. Environmental and Spatial Planning: Reduction of
Land Use. UBA, http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/rup-e/flaechen/index.htm.
CHAPTER
14
Characterizing the Response

of Buildings to Climate Change:
The Issue of Overheating
Tristan Kershaw,* David Coley
Summary
Many buildings currently demonstrate levels of overheating close to the
maximum allowed by the building regulations of the countries in which they are
located. Therefore there is the potential that such buildings will clearly breach the
regulations under the climatic conditions predicted as a result of climate change.
To examine the problem, weather files indicative of possible future climate were
created and applied to a variety of buildings. Using numerous combinations of
buildings and weather scenarios, the modeling demonstrated that the projected
levels of climate change engender a linear response in the internal temperature
of the buildings. The resultant constant of proportionality that this implies has
been termed the climate change amplification coefficient. This paper demonstrates that optimization of the climate change amplification coefficient during
the design process of a new building will promote the adaptation of architectural
design to the effects of climate change and thereby improve resilience.

382
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383
1. INTRODUCTION
There is now an overwhelming body of scientific evidence suggesting that climate
change is an urgent and serious issue. Predictions of the worlds climate point to an
increasingly warmer world, with greater warming across land and away from the
equator (IPCC 2007). Predictions contained within the IPCCs fourth assessment
report (AR4) indicate mid-latitude mean temperature rises over land of ~4C
(under the A1FI scenario) (IPCC 2007). However, recent research (Anderson and
Bows 2008) shows that current emission trends could lead to actual temperature
increases which are far higher than predicted by the A1FI scenario. This implies
that several highly populated regions not acclimated to high temperatures will
be exposed to a very different summertime experience. In the absence of any
human modification of climate, temperatures such as those seen in Europe in
2003 have been estimated to be 1-in-1,000 year events. However, modeling by the
Hadley Centre shows that, by the 2040s, a 2003-type summer is predicted to be
about average (Stott 2004) and this will clearly have a great impact on the energy
consumption of air conditioned spaces and the thermal comfort within naturally
ventilated ones. In order to assess the scale of the problem there is the need to
understand the sensitivity of the internal environment of buildings to changes
to climate, and the sensitivity of the occupant, particularly of vulnerable groups.
Here, the focus is on the former, with an attempt to quantify the response of all
naturally and mechanically ventilated, non air-conditioned, buildings to changes
to summertime temperatures. A reliance on air-conditioning, rather than careful
architectural design will exacerbate the problem of climate change, due to the
implied increase in carbon emissions. Given a quantitative scale of response,
it should be possible to assemble risk registers of buildings and occupants, to
improve the design of new buildings, and initiate the refurbishment of existing
ones such that they are more resilient to a changing climate.
It seems natural to expect the response of a building to a perturbation in
climate to be complex, with the functional form of the response depending on
the degree of climate change and whether this is mainly a result of changes in,
for example, wind rather than sunlight or air temperature rather than humidity,
and on the architecture, construction materials, ventilation strategy and controls
present. The existence of such a complex response function would make it difficult
to discuss in any simple way the relative benefits of one design over another, or
even characterize the response of a building with a single measurable statistic.
For example, it might be possible that one design demonstrates little change in
internal temperature for small perturbations to the external climate, but then a
large and rapid response for greater perturbations, and that another design might
show the opposite response. In such a situation it would be very difficult to draw
any simple conclusions as to which design is likely to perform better under any
384
particular climate scenario. Instead, a substantial amount of costly computer

modeling would be needed to report a time series of changes given a time series
of exact predictions of climate change within the urban environment. Climate
science has yet to be able to give such predictions with the required accuracy, and
even if it could, building design might still be an issue. For example, one building
design outperforms another until 2040 and then underperforms the alternative
design. Again, the potential complexity of the relationship between the building
and the external environment makes it very difficult to draw general conclusions
and drive the adaptation agenda forward.
This research investigates the form of the response function of a large number
of buildings given a range of predictions of future climate. From this work it
is possible to derive a single set of coefficients that fully describe the expected
response of any design to any reasonable amount of climate change. Further,
these coefficients can be used to establish a definition of climate change resilience within architectural dialogues and set minimum performance standards
within building regulations and codes, with the aim of promoting adaptation to
a changing climate.
2. APPROACH
2.1 Prediction of Future Weather
Given statements of future climate by the IPCC and others (Murphy 2000) a time
series of typical future weather can be assembled in one of several ways, for instance
by using recorded historical data for locations whose current climate matches that
predicted for the location in question. This has the downside that certain weather
variables such as hours of daylight, will be incorrect. Other methods include interpolating (in space and time) the time series produced by a global circulation model,
or to run a fine (in space and time) regional climate model connected to a global
circulation model. All these methods have advantages and disadvantages, which
are discussed in more detail in Belcher (2005).
Belcher (2005) have developed a methodology for transforming historic weather
files into future weather years representative of different climate change scenarios
by the use of a set of simple mathematical transformations. The simplicity of this
method has made it attractive to building scientists. In this method hourly weather
data for the current climate is adjusted with the monthly climate change prediction
values of a regional climate model (in the case of the UK, the output from UKCIP02
(UKCIP 2002)). This methodology is termed morphing.
The morphing process has the advantage that it starts from observed weather
from the location in question, the variables output are likely to therefore be self-
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385
consistent and it is simple to achieve given the resources available to building

scientists. However, it doesnt allow for fundamental changes in the weather, with
for example, weather systems following identical trajectories across the landscape.
Table1 shows summary statistics for some of the future weather time series created
using morphing and used in this work. The IPCC AR4 (2007) shows the upper
boundary of the A1F1 scenario to be 6.4C. However, current emissions may
exceed even the A1F1 scenario (Anderson 2008), making it prudent to include
more extreme climate change. While the extreme scenarios may seem unrealistic,
with the Hi++ scenario1 predicting an increase of nearly 10C in mean temperature, this represents an upper bound in the absence of the more up to date probabilistic scenarios of UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) (which at time of
writing have not yet been released). This scenario is designed to lie in the tail of the
UKCP09 distributions and account for missing climate feedbacks in IPCC AR4.
TABLE 1
Example Statistics for Historic and Future Weather for London
Scenario
Min Dry T(C)
Max Dry T
(C)
Mean Dry T
(C)
Mean T (C)
Historic TRY
1.10
30.10
14.71
-1.14
Historic DSY
0.00
33.60
15.85
Low
1.50
37.70
18.42
2.57
Medium-low
1.80
38.40
18.85
3.00
Medium-high
2.50
40.30
20.07
4.22
High
3.00
41.50
20.83
4.98
Hi+L
4.60
45.60
23.40
7.55
Hi+m1
4.80
46.30
23.83
7.98
Hi+m2
5.60
48.30
25.05
9.20
Hi++
6.00
49.50
25.81
9.96
Table 1 shows example statistics for summertime dry bulb temperature (Dry T)
for the test reference year (TRY) and the design summer year (DSY) (Levermore
2006) for London. These files are currently used for energy and overheating
analysis, respectively, for buildings in the UK, and characterize a typical year (the
TRY) and a hot but non-extreme summer (the DSY) chosen from a 23-year cycle.
Also shown are statistics for future weather years indicative of the 2080s based
1Details of the construction of these custom scenarios can be found inColey (2010).
386
upon the emissions scenarios of the IPCC (2007) and UKCIP (2002) created using
the morphing process. The four extreme scenarios Hi+L, Hi+m1, Hi+m2 and Hi++
were created by performing the morphing procedure twice. Figure 1 shows traces
of external air temperature for a typical summer day for the DSY reference year and
the different climatic scenarios for the 2080s time slice. Note how the morphing
procedure preserves the shape of the diurnal temperature swing, an indication that
the underlying weather patterns have not been altered.
FIGURE 1
Plot of External Dry T for a Typical Summers Day
for Different Climatic Scenarios
2.2 Thermal Simulation
Over 1000 different combinations of future weather, architecture, ventilation

strategy, ventilation type (natural, mechanical and buoyancy driven stack ventilation), thermal mass, glazing, U-value and building use (house, school, apartment, or office) were studied. In addition, more extreme predictions of future
weather were included (see Table1) in order to ensure the results would remain
valid if future climate modeling work or measurements indicate different climatic
futures than currently predicted by UKCIP. Thermal simulations of the different
CHAPTER 14
387
architectural designs were performed for the four UKCIP emissions scenarios
for the three time slices (2020s, 2050s and 2080s) and also for the four extreme
scenarios in the 2080s timeslice. Each building was modeled using an industrystandard dynamic simulation package (Integrated Environmental Solutions
Virtual Environment), which models radiative, conductive and convective heat
exchange between building elements and the internal and external environment,
and includes dynamic representations of occupancy densities, solar gains, air
densities, air flow and heating systems.
Since the morphing procedure does not change the underlying weather
patterns, the work was repeated using a series of (unmorphed) historic weather
records for various parts of the world that might be considered to represent
the possible range of UK future climates, including some extreme changes in
the underlying weather. By definition, these demonstrate very different weather
patterns and correlations between weather variables. Coley (2010) noted that
there is a clear linear response between the response of the internal environment
and perturbations to the external environment as a result of climate change. The
gradient of this linear response dubbed the climate change adaptation coefficient gives an indication of how resilient a given building is to climate change.
In essence they indicate the degree of amplification (or suppression) the architecture of a building is capable of. So if, for example, CT = 1.5 for a building, a
prediction of 2C rise in mean summertime temperature from a climate model
implies with a high degree of accuracy a 3C rise in mean summertime internal
temperature.
3. RESULTS
The thermal simulations show that all the buildings studied pass the UK
building regulations using the DSY reference year. However, with the use of
sequentially more aggressive climate change scenarios, increasing numbers
of buildings start to fail. Figure 2 shows how the percentage of (summertime) occupied hours >28C (a metric used to indicate overheating in the UK
building regulations) varies for the different UKCIP02 emissions scenarios at
different time slices for a single design of a school. While the school does not
overheat using the DSY (1980s time slice) the design fails building regulations
from the 2020s onwards for all the emission scenarios studied, with a peak
of over 40% of occupied hours >28C in the 2080s. This degree of failure is
by no means uncharacteristic with some design variants showing over 90% of
occupied hours >28C by 2080. Typically the problem of overheating quickly
escalates with the use of more aggressive climate scenarios, a trend which is
consistent across all the designs of buildings studied.
388
FIGURE 2
Percentage of Occupied Hours Over 28C for Different Emissions
Scenarios and Time Slices
Clearly the above situation is unacceptable and will have a profound effect on
the thermal comfort experienced within the occupied spaces. As the internal
air temperature within the building increases it becomes more difficult for the
human body to cool itself. A metric for measuring thermal discomfort is the
percentage of people dissatisfied (PPD) (Fanger 1970). Figure 3 shows the PPD
for an open plan working space within an office block sited in London (high
emissions scenario 2080s time slice). Each point represents the hourly average
air temperature in the space and the resulting PPD for the whole summer period.
The graph shows that as the internal air temperature approaches 37C all of the
building occupants are experiencing thermal discomfort. It is clear from comparison of Table 1 with Figure 3 that under climatic scenarios in which the external
air temperature is likely to exceed 37C nearly all people will be experiencing
thermal discomfort. Unless the building can successfully modify the internal
climate without resorting to air-conditioning, the problem of building emissions
will be exacerbated.
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389
FIGURE 3
Percentage of People Dissatised (PPD) for an Open Plan Ofce Space
Under High Emissions Scenario for the 2080s
4. CLIMATE CHANGE AMPLIFICATION COEFFICIENTS

It is possible to characterize the degree of climate change by the perturbation to
the external air-temperature (Dry T) as shown in Table 1 and hence the effect on a
given design of building by the change in internal air-temperature. A comparison of
external mean or maximal temperatures against the corresponding internal temperature for different perturbations (climate scenarios) yields with a high degree of
accuracy a linear relationship. This is surprising because it might be assumed that the
relationship is a complex sum of the different heat flows within the building structure.
Figure 4(a) shows a subset of the results for five buildings for all the climate scenarios
studied. The following observations are true for all the designs:
t The form of the response to the perturbation of the weather file is always linear,
regardless of the architecture, construction, ventilation type or use of the building;
t Different buildings demonstrate different gradients ranging from 0.75 to 1.85;
t The intercept of any two regression lines is always at negative values of the
perturbation (i.e. to the left of the graph), implying that any building which
shows a lower mean or maximum internal temperature than another in the
current climate will continue to do so for future climates.
t From the previous two points it can be concluded that the response to a perturbation of climate can be characterized solely by the gradient of the regression
linethe intercept is not relevant. However, for buildings with large internal
gains the internal temperature is higher (the intercept is greater) but the
390
gradient is unaffected (internal gains have no affect on the buildings response

to climate change), indicating that comparison of CT should be restricted to
buildings with similar uses and internal gains. The exact relationship between
CT and the intercept requires further investigation.
t Some designs show gradients greater than unity, others less. A value greater than
unity indicates that the building amplifies the effects of climate change, while a
value less than unity means that it suppresses the effects of climate change.
t There is no advantage in multiple simulations of a building with a range of
carbon and climate scenarios. Two simulations are enough to identify the gradient and therefore the response of the building to other scenarios can simply
be calculated from the gradient.
Mathematically, we can see that we have two constants (CTmean and CTmax) that
represent the propensity of any design to overheat given a known perturbation
to the current climate:
internal
max
T internal
CTmean= T mean
=
,
external and CT
max
max
T mean
T external
where mean and max refer to the mean or maximum temperature observed either
in the weather file (external) or within the building (internal). We term such
constants climate change amplification coefficients (CT), and presumably other
such descriptors could be identified (for example changes in cooling demand for
air conditioned buildings). The correlation coefficient (R2) of CTexceeds0.997
for all the buildings studied.
CTmean and CTmax fully describe the response of the maximum and mean temperature of any design to a changing climate and the existence of such coefficients of
proportionality demonstrates that the concern expressed in the introduction about
the potential complexity of the response function is invalid. We believe that such
coefficients are highly suitable for describing the response and relative benefits of a
series of design alternatives. Because these two coefficients appear to be able to take
values either side of unity, it is tempting to describe buildings that have values less
than one, as resilient, and those with values greater than one as non-resilient. However,
this simple binary classification ignores the potentially serious consequences of higher
indoor temperature for vulnerable groups, where even a mild increase in temperature
can be fatal if it is sustained over several days with a minimal diurnal cycle.
It might be thought that one possible explanation for the linear response can
be found in the form of the perturbations used in the morphing process, detailed
in Belcher (2005). However, as mentioned above, another way to produce a time
series indicative of future weather is to use historic weather from a location that has
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391
a climate similar to that predicted for the future climate in the location of interest. In
general, such time series diverge far more from the historic weather in the location
of interest and cannot be represented by shift and stretch functions. A subset of
the buildings was simulated with historic weather files from other locations; the
results for one building are summarized in Figure4(b). Again, such perturbations
engender a linear response, although with a lower correlation coefficient.
FIGURE 4
(a) Plot of the response of ve buildings to different climate change
scenarios described by their perturbations to external maximum air
temperatures (data shown for 5 different domestic buildings). (b) Plot of
the response of one building to different climates derived from historic
weather les of selected location (data shown for a typical ofce block).
392
4.1 Case-Study
Using a highly detailed thermal model (Figure 5 inset) of a newly built school
in the UK which overheats and demonstrates low thermal comfort it is shown
that the use of climate change amplification coefficients could have produced a
building that not only fares better in the current climate but also under the effects
of predicted future climate change.
Typically the DSY reference year used to model a building for overheating analysis
is the 3rd hottest observed summer period between 1983 and 2004. Modeling the
building as constructed using the entire base set of observed summers in the same
period shows that, while the reference year is, on average, the 3rd hottest in terms of
external air temperature, it is the 6th hottest in terms of mean internal air temperature and hours of overheating (>28C), falling to 8th if 2005/06 are included. This
is not surprising given that the internal temperature of a building is dependent on
other weather variables in addition to air temperature. Thus, while the modeled
design just passes the building regulations, a good proportion of the observed
weather years from which the reference year is chosen cause the building to fail.
It is clear that the DSY reference year is outdated and does not take into account
recent changes in climate, hence it is unsurprising that the building overheats in the
current climate and demonstrates low thermal comfort. Calculation of the climate
change amplification coefficient for different design variations would have allowed
an estimate of how the building would respond to different climatic conditions
without having to run a large number of simulations.
A climate change amplification coefficient CT can be calculated using a minimum
of two simulations of a building (four are used in this case study for clarity) and can
give an estimate of how that design will behave for any given amount of climate
change irrespective of weather patterns. This means that the outdated snapshot of
weather and climate represented by the reference year can be replaced by a distribution of possible climatic scenarios by performing a single extra simulation, instead
of many simulations of different climatic futures. By altering design features and
ventilation strategies of the building model to minimize CT it is possible to create a
building that should perform well for many years to come. Using the model of the
school as an example, several different variations of the design were simulated and
CT calculated. The value of CT for the school as constructed is 1.031 for the mean
(0.761 for the maximum) internal air temperature (averaged across all rooms in the
school). By increasing the admittance of some of the internal surfaces and altering
the ventilation strategy to include night cooling to restore the coolth of the internal
structure, it is possible to reduce the values of CT to 1.009 for mean (0.749 for the
maximum) internal temperature (CTmax is the line gradient in Figure 5). While these
reductions may not seem large this translates to a reduction in the predicted mean
internal temperature of the school of 1.5C (reduction in maximum of 2.9C) and
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393
a reduction of 100 hours of overheating by 2020 (Figure 5). Moreover, the building
would still pass the building regulations in the 2020s time slice, indicating that if the
building had been constructed with these modifications then it would not currently
overheat and would still be usable for many years to come. Such large reductions in
the increase of internal temperature as a result of climate change due to the reduction
in CT can be explained by examination of the trend lines in figure 5. The time scale
represented by the x-axis can be replaced by one of change in external temperature
allowing comparison between figures 4 and 5. The intersection of the two lines
plotted in figure 5 is far off the left hand side of the graph, therefore a small change in
the gradient can produce a large change in the internal temperature.
FIGURE 5
Plot of Peak Internal Temperature and Hours of Overheating (both
averaged over the entire school) for Different Time Slices Under The High
Emissions Scenario.
Inset: a rendering of the thermal model of the school used.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Driven by questions of increased morbidity and mortality of vulnerable groups,
particularly in mid-latitude cities as the climate warms (Vandentorren 2004),
the general form of the response of the internal environment within buildings
to perturbations in climate has been studied. The response, as measured by the
change in mean, or maximum, internal summertime temperature, to a change
in mean or maximum external temperature, would appear to be linear, regard-
394
less of whether the perturbations are created by simple mathematical transformations of historic weather, or by the use of historic weather from other,
warmer cities as proxies.
We have termed the resultant constants of proportionality climate change
amplification coefficients (CT), and suggest that the estimation of these for new
or existing buildings will allow more rapid thermal modeling of buildings with
respect to climate change, the design of more resilient buildings, cost-benefit
analysis of refurbishment options and the rational assembly of at-risk registers
of building occupants. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that minimizing
the climate change amplification coefficient, CT, during the design process can
be used to adapt a building to the effects of climate change, reducing overheating
and improving thermal comfort.
References
Anderson, K., and Bows A. 2008. Reframing the Climate Challenge in Light of Post-2000
Emissions Trends. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 366: 386382.
Belcher, S. E., Hacker J. N., Powell D. S. 2005. Constructing Design Weather Data for
Future Climates. Building Services Engineering Research & Technology 26: 4961.
Coley, D., Kershaw T. 2010. Changes in Internal Temperatures Within the Built
Environment as a Response to a Changing Climate. Building and Environment 45:
8993.
Fanger, P. O. 1970. Thermal Comfort. Copenhagen: Danish Technical Press.
IES (Integrated Environmental Solutions). http://www.iesve.com/content/ [Accessed
April 14, 2009].
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2007. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change: Fourth Assessment Report. http://www.ipcc.ch. [Accessed April 14,
2009].
Levermore, G. J., and Parkinson J. B. 2006. Analyses and Algorithms for New Test
Reference Years and Design Summer Years for the UK. Building Services Engineering
Research & Technology 27: 31125.
Murphy. J. 2000. Predictions of Climate Change over Europe using Statistical and
Dynamical Downscaling Techniques. International Journal of Climatology 20:
489501.
Stott, P. A., Stone D. A., Allen M. R. 2004. Human contribution to the European heatwave
of 2003. Nature 432: 6104.
UKCIP. 2002. UKCIP02: Climate change scenarios for the United Kingdom. http://www.
ukcip.org.uk. [Accessed April 14, 2009].
UKCIP. Unpublished. UKCP09. http://www.ukcip.org.uk. [Accessed April 14, 2009].
Vandentorren, S. et al. 2004. Mortality in 13 French Cities During the August 2003 Heat
Wave. American Journal of Public Health 94: 151820.
CHAPTER
15
Comparative Study of Energy

and Carbon Emissions Development
Pathways and Climate Policy
in Southeast Asian Cities
Aumnad Phdungsilp*
Summary
The United Nations has estimated that about half of the 6.5 billion world population currently lives in cities. Moreover, an additional 1.8 billion people will
move to urban areas by the year 2030. Understanding the relationships between
energy use pattern and carbon emission development is crucial for estimating
future scenarios and can facilitate mitigation and adaptation of climate change.
This paper investigates the development pathways on selected Southeast Asian
cities, including Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and Manila, which are major cities
in the region in terms of energy consumption, carbon emissions, and climate
policies. The paper investigates the development of energy and carbon emissions,
and climate change mitigation strategies of the selected case studies. In addition,
the paper attempts to estimate the energy consumption and associated carbon
emissions. Then, it compares overall patterns of selected cities and analysis of the
climate policies.
Key Words: Carbon Emissions, Climate Policies, Energy Consumption, Southeast Asian Cities
Q
395
396
1. INTRODUCTION
The United Nations has estimated that about half of the worlds 6.5 billion
people currently live in cities. Moreover, an additional 1.8 billion people will
move to urban areas by the year 2030. Southeast Asia contributed 12% of the
worlds total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2000, amounting to 5,187.2 Mt
CO2-eq, including emissions from land use change and forestry. The regions total
emissions increased 27% during 1990-2000, faster than the global average rate
of increase. On a per capita basis, the regions emissions are considerably higher
than the global average, but are still relatively low when compared to developed
nations. Furthermore, the regions GHG emissions from the energy sector grew
by 83% during the same period; the highest growth rate among three major
sources of emissions (i.e. land use change and forestry, energy and agriculture)
(ADB 2009).
Cities are both drivers and targets of climate change. Cities are the engines of
economic development of a country, as well as centres of key activities that drive
changes in the carbon cycle and climate system. Despite the importance of cities,
they have not been a unit of analysis for energy and carbon emissions in past
decades. This is particularly true for Southeast Asian cities where rapid economic
growth has led to rapid increases in energy consumption and carbon emissions.
As a consequence of urban expansion, Southeast Asian cities will require an
enormous amount of resources and will emit more emissions.
Understanding the relationship between energy use pattern and carbon
emissions is crucial for estimating future scenarios, and can facilitate mitigation
and adaptation to climate change. The main research questions are: How have
past and current trends in energy consumption and carbon emissions developed
over time in major Southeast Asian cities? What are the future scenarios of the
target cities? How do city officials respond regarding climate change policies?
What policy measures have been implemented to influence mitigation in selected
cities? To address these questions, a comparative study of development pathways
for select Southeast Asian cities in terms of energy consumption, carbon
emissions, and climate policies, has been conducted. The study is focused on four
cases: Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and Manila, which are major cities in the region
and can contribute to large extended energy-saving opportunities and carbon
emission reductions as well as regional development.
The paper investigates a range of socio-economic aspects that influence
energy consumption and energy-related CO2 emissions, and energy and climate
policies. In addition, the paper attempts to estimate future scenarios of energy
consumption and associated CO2 emissions. The study focuses on an analysis
of the development pathways of energy consumption and energy-related CO2
emissions. Then, it compares overall patterns of the selected cities.
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397
Main findings of the case studies can contribute to underpin more efficient
energy utilisation, carbon emission reductions, and enhancing sustainable development at city, national and regional levels. This study can also help to understand ongoing processes and develop means on how to react strategically to
climate change.
2. DRIVING FACTORS IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION

AND EMISSIONS
In principle, energy use and associated emissions in a city are generated by three
kinds of activities. The first type is produced through direct energy consumption or direct emissions within the boundary of a city itself (e.g. gasoline or
diesel combusted by vehicles). The second type is indirect energy consumption
or indirect emissions, which is encompassed those types of energy use in a city
where energy is used inside a city with the actual emissions taking place outside
its boundary (i.e. electricity generation). The third type of activity is embodied
energy or embodied emissions. This activity is due to energy use and environmental emissions taking place outside of the city to produce goods and services
consumed within the city (Dhakal 2008).
Factors driving energy consumption and associated emissions in cities have
been interpreted differently among research communities. Engineers typically
look at the contributions of various energy sectors (i.e. residential, commercial,
industrial and transport sectors) as well as the energy mix in an energy system.
Economists see the energy use and emissions linkages to income, elasticity,
market role, price, etc. Social scientists see the drivers from a wider perspective.
Dhakal (2008) has summarised different approaches to explain such drivers as
following.
Emissions = sum (sectoral and subsectoral disaggregations)
Emissions = (emission/energy, energy/income, income/person,
population)
Emissions = (economic growth, price signal, externality, market
mechanism)
Emissions = (population, organisation, environment, technology,
institutions, culture)
Emissions = (mobility, shelter, food, lifestyle)
A strong correlation between emissions, population and gross domestic
product (GDP) reflects the importance of population and economic growth
as emission drivers. Figure 1 presents an overall picture of urbanisation rate
398
in selected Southeast Asian countries. It is projected that in the year 2020 the
population in Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and Metro Manila will reach 7.76, 5.78,
20.77 and 13.4 millions, respectively (ADB 2008).
Previous studies have used decomposition analysis to analyse the importance
of population, income, energy intensity and fuel mix shifts in shaping energyrelated emission trends. A comprehensive global study on factors contributing to
CO2 emissions can be found from Baumert et al., 2005. It should be noted that
the drivers of CO2 emissions are very complex and multifaceted. These drivers
are raising the challenge to greater in-depth analysis, particularly at a city-scale.
FIGURE 1
Trends of Urbanisation Rate in Selected Southeast Asian Countries
Source: UNESCAP 2008.
In Southeast Asian cities, the major driving forces behind energy consumption
and CO2 emissions are related to urban demographic changes, income level and
lifestyle, socio-economic development, urban spatial structure and transportation system, energy technologies, and local climate factors. An understanding of
these factors is essential to formulating policy measures in achieving co-benefits
of reducing energy consumption and impacts of climate change. Some previous
studies discussed the drivers that influence energy consumption and emissions
from Asian cities, for example see Dhakal 2004; 2008. Impacts of some of these
drivers are well established while others are not clear. Furthermore, some drivers
are also dependent on location (i.e. local climate, geography, culture, etc.);
therefore, an in-depth analysis of a particular city is required for a full understanding of driving factors.
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399
3. ENERGY AND CLIMATE POLICIES

Cities in developed countries tend to make comprehensive energy and climate
policies locally and in many cases have specific emission targets. Europe has
been at the forefront of the attempts to reduce CO2 emissions from cities. Many
European cities are much ahead in implementing local climate policies compared
with other regions.
Southeast Asian cities are likely influenced by the central government decision
regarding energy and climate policies. Some cities, such as Bangkok, are raising
energy and climate awareness to the residents and some cities are in the development stage. It is found that in many cases, they often show climate policy linkages
through co-benefits in relation to activities in energy efficiency, energy conservation, urban air pollution and health, and land transport management. Also, many
cities are interested in developing energy and climate projects for generating local
revenue through Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and selling Certified
Emission Credits (CERs) to their parties. Most of the urban projects are related to
improving energy efficiency, fuel switching, and waste management (Dhakal 2008).
Energy and climate policies are challenging issues, particularly at the city-scale
since most of the relevant policies are designed at the national level. Currently,
comprehensive policy with a focus on climate mitigation does not exist at a city
level in Southeast Asia, but some cities in developed Asian nations, such as Japan
(Tokyo and Osaka) and Korea (Soul), have started formulating such policies. At a
national level, some Southeast Asian countries have already introduced and implemented various policies in meeting their energy and development goals, and each
country has developed a specific policy framework or integrated climate concern in
the overall energy and development policy framework (Table 1). It should be noted
that the focus in this study is based on the existing legal measures. The study found
that each case studied country has developed its own national plan and strategy for
climate change and has established an agency for climate policy.
Southeast Asia has considerable potential to harness renewable resources.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand have elaborated specific renewable
energy policy frameworks (see Table 1). Energy security is very prominent in
the policy goals of these countries though environmental protection, energy
access and investment promotion goals are also considered important. These
policy goals reflect the concern of growing dependence on imported energy
and environmental issues related to power generation, particularly in the Philippines and Thailand. In the Philippines, under the Philippine Energy Plan, the
use of new and renewable energy sources is seen as significant in contributing
to electricity generation. Thailand has developed the Alternative Energy Development Plan, which covers a wide range of power generation and heat production
from renewable energy resources. Thai government target is to increase the
400
share of renewable energy to 8% by 2011.Recently, Thailand has announced a

new renewable energy plan, which aims for energy from renewable sources to
constitute 20% of final demand by 2022. In Vietnam, the Energy Law aims to
improve energy efficiency and promotes the development of renewable sources.
Renewable energy development is pursued within the context of improving
energy access in rural areas. Vietnam has also recognised the relevance of
renewable energy development as a least-cost option to increase electricity access
in remote and isolated regions (ADB 2009).
The transport sector has high potential to reduce CO2 emissions and improve
urban air quality in Southeast Asian cities. Policies in Thailand to mitigate emissions
from transportation include the development of a master plan in large cities,
promoting the mass transit systems in Bangkok, encouragement of car pools, retrofitting and improvement of engine efficiencies, and promoting the use of natural gas
in vehicles. Indonesia considers the development of mass rapid transportation as an
important measure to reduce emissions in urban areas. The Indonesian government
has developed the strategic plan for the transportation sector in response to climate
change. In the Philippines, Road Transport Patrol Programme was launched to
promote efficient use of fuel. Vietnamese government plans to improve fuel efficiency
in transport through the wider use of cars with lean burn engines.
Mitigation of climate change requires action at all different levels from international to national and local levels. Currently, most mitigation efforts in the energy
sector in Southeast Asia have focused on improving energy efficiency, developing
renewable energy sources, and promoting urban mass transit systems. Cities play
a crucial role in implementation of national standards. They have the capacity to
issue building permits and ensure projects that meet energy regulations, and they
can introduce new energy conservation rules in the plans. They also provide a
platform to launch efforts to mitigate emissions which would not only result in the
reductions of national emissions but also would bring benefits at local scale. In the
near term, policy changes in Southeast Asian cities would be required to begin the
shift of development patterns in a manner that moves toward low-carbon cities,
and avoids some of the most adverse climate change impacts.
In addition to the supply and demand-side policies, the embodied energy policy
due to consumption-based activity should be considered, since cities are a centre
of consumption activity, particularly large cities. Instead of focusing on emissions
produced within the citys border, many studies argue that a consumption-based
responsibility would be more equitable as the necessary deep cuts in emissions,
since it takes into account trade, emphasizes demand-side action, prevents carbon
leakage, and provides a stronger rationale for low-carbon technology transfer and
deployment in developing countries (Wang and Watson 2008). A consumptionbased emissions account might also help the developing countries to negotiate in
the post-2012 climate agreement as strategic emission reductions measure.
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401
TABLE 1
Major Energy and Climate Policies in Selected Southeast Asian Countries
Case
studies
Bangkok
(Thailand)
Relevant policies at national

and city levels
The Energy Conservation
Promotion Act (ENCON Act)
passed in 1992, is the primary
legislation guiding Thailands
energy conservation and
renewable energy policy.
Key policy measures

- compulsory programmes
- voluntary programmes
- regulation
- building code
- labels
- energy performance standards
- nancial incentive
National Strategy on Climate

Change approved in 2008
- information
- capacity building
- research and development
Strategic Plan for Renewable

Energy Development issued in
2003, aims to increase the share
of renewable energy in the primary
energy consumption to 8% in 2011
- renewable portfolio standard, 5% of

new power plants must be generated by
renewable energy
- investment incentives
- tax measures
- net metering regulations
- public-private partnerships
- feed-in tariffs
Hanoi
(Viet Nam)
Bangkok Metropolitan
Administration Action Plan on
Global Warming Mitigation 2007
2012, set a target to reduce
carbon emissions by 15% per year
from 2007-2012
- information
National Energy Policy (2004)

providing electricity services
in the rural areas and support
an acceleration of renewable
electricity production.
- foreign or local investment for off-grid

supply
National Energy Efciency

Programme 2006-2015
approved in 2006, aims to
reduce 3%-5% of total energy
consumption by 2010, and 5%-8%
reduction by 2015
- information
- voluntary programmes
- scientic and technological activities

- voluntary labels
402
TABLE 1, continued
Case
studies
Jakarta
(Indonesia)
Relevant policies at national

and city levels
The Energy Law promulgated
in 2007, is ruled important
institutional and legal changes on
Indonesias energy policy.
Key policy measures

- nancial subsidies
- regulation
- information and training
- voluntary labels
National Energy Policy issued

in 2004, sets a 5% target of
renewable energy in power
generation by 2020.
- power purchase programme for smallscale power generation

- renewable energy targets
- feed-in tariffs
- voluntary corporate efforts
Manila
(the
Philippines)
National Action Plan for Climate

Change
- guide for climate change mitigation and

adaptation efforts
Renewable Energy Policy

Framework issued in 2002,
aims to reduce the countrys
dependence on imported energy,
broaden resource base, and save
foreign exchange and reduce
emissions.
- renewable energy targets

- regulating in geothermal, mini-hydro
andwind
- tax measures
- public-private partnerships
- voluntary corporate efforts
Department of Energy Act issued

in 1992, an Act creating the
department of energy rationalising
the organisation and functions of
government agencies related to
energy and for other purposes.
- nancial subsidies
- tax incentives
- regulation
- energy performance standards
- mandatory product labels
Sources: Pacudan 2005; APERC 2008; ADB 2009.
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403
4. ENERGY USE AND CO2 EMISSIONS IN SELECTED CITIES

4.1 Denition of the Case Studies
Data from disparate reports and studies can sometimes be incompatible because
different definitions of a city are employed.. To remedy this problem, this paper
uses the definition of a city based on local administrative definitions. Table
2 provides basic indicators of the case studies (Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and
Manila), while Table 3 shows the population estimates and projections.
TABLE 2
Basic Indicators of Case Studies
City
Population
in 2005
(000)
Economic
Product in 2004
($M)
Land Area
(sq. km)
Population
Density
(people/sq.km)
Bangkok
5,483
63,088
1,569
3,495
Hanoi
3,183
NA
921
3,348
Jakarta
8,864
24,592
661
13,397
Metro Manila
10,677
32,277
636
17,453
NA not available. Source: UN-HABITAT Database.
Bangkok is governed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) with a

total land area of 1,568 km2. Bangkok consists of 50 districts and 154 sub-districts.
It is the overwhelming centre of culture, population and economic development
for Thailand.
Hanoi city lies in the centre of the Hanoi region on the bank of Red River.
Hanoi is an administrative area consisting of nine urban districts and five
suburban/rural districts. It has a land area of 921 km2. Hanoi today is experiencing rapid economic growth and industrial expansion.
Jakarta is located in a low land area with average height around 7 m above
sea level and comprised of 661 km2. Jakarta is divided administratively into six
municipalities. It is inhabited by variety of races and tribes, with different sociocultural background both in terms of population size and economics.
Metro Manila is composed of four districts with twelve cities and five municipalities. It contributes 30% of the Philippines GDP. Metro Manila also provides
almost half of the total national output in manufacturing, commerce and services.
Metro Manila accounts for about 13% of the countrys total population.
404
TABLE 3
Population Estimates and Projections in Case Studies
Unit: (thousands)
City
2010
2020
2025
Bangkok
6,918
7,807
8,332
Hanoi
4,723
6,036
6,754
Jakarta
9,703
11,689
12,363
Manila
11,662
13,892
14,808
Source: UN 2007.
4.2 Comparison of Energy and Emissions
Cities offer major opportunities to reduce energy demand and to mitigate the
impact of global climate change, just as they drive the economy of their nations.
Cities that are not properly planned or managed can be a burden on natural
resources and threaten quality of life. Cities and urban activities are usually
blamed for global increases in GHG emissions, but UN-HABITAT (2008)
analysis shows that the emissions from cities are more related to consumption
patterns and income per capita (i.e. GDP/capita) rather than the urbanisation
levels. When comparing cities energy use and carbon emissions, it is important
to discuss the complexities involved, not only the size of an economy, its transport, and household consumption pattern.
According to the Asian Development Bank study team (ADB 2009), the four
countries emitted a total of 544 Mt of energy-related CO2 emissions in 2000.
They consumed a total of 193 Mtoe of primary energy, including 113 Mtoe of oil
(58%), 47 Mtoe of natural gas (24%), 30 Mtoe of coal (16%), and the remaining 3
Mtoe (2%) from renewable energy.
In this study the emission performance of cities is measured in terms of CO2
emissions per capita. Emissions per capita is a better indicator than emissions
alone because it internalises some of the equity debates (Dhakal 2008). A
comparison of energy and associated CO2 emissions from Bangkok, Jakarta and
Manila is shown in Figure 2.
A limitation of this study is a lack of sound data on urban energy consumption.
Because disaggregated data is not available, it is not clear what proportion of the
overall emissions is generated in urban areas, although since most buildings and
transport networks are located in cities, urban areas are most likely responsible
for a large proportion of these emissions (UN-HABITAT, 2008). It is important to
understand which sectors consume the most energy to take appropriate actions
for emission reductions.
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405
FIGURE 2
Comparison of Energy and CO2 Emissions from Selected Cities
Source: Ajero 2002; APN 2004; and BMA 2009.
4.3 Urban Transport
Transport sector is a major contributor of CO2 emissions in the case studies. Rapid
growth in urban population has contributed to high growth in demand for transport services and energy consumption. This sector also emits other pollutants such as
NOx, SO2, CO, particulate matter, etc. into the atmosphere. These gases lead to worse
air quality in urban areas. The four case studies have established plans to expand and
introduce mass transit systems or to develop road infrastructure in order to alleviate
congestion and improve the overall energy efficiency of urban transport.
Figure 3 shows trends in number of registered vehicles in the case studies.
In Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, the modal share of public transport varies
between 40% and 60% of total person trips (Nhan 2008). By contrast, in Hanoi
the percentages of individual private motorcycles and bicycle are extremely high,
which accounts for 60% and 30%, respectively (Hoang, 2004). Table 4 presents
the structure of current and estimated future energy demand in transport sector.
Bangkok has two mass rapid transit (MRT) systems: the Sky Train and Subway.
Sky Train has 23 km of elevated track that transports about 400,000 passengers
per day. The subway is an underground route of 20 km that transports around
20,000 passengers daily. BMA is extending the Sky Train in several phases with
a total length of 7.5 km extension. Bangkok also plans to extend existing MRT
lines, amounting to a total of 118 km by 2020. Moreover, Bangkok is developing a
bus rapid transit system that is expected to carry 50,000 passengers daily.
Hanois transport is now characterised by motorcycles and rapid growth in
passenger vehicle ownership. Buses account for a small portion of total personal
406
FIGURE 3
Number of Registered Vehicles in Case Studies
Source: Land Transport Ofce, the Philippines; Department of Land Transport, Thailand; Transport Development and Strategy Institute, Viet Nam; and Wirahadikusumah 2002.
trips. According to the master plan, Hanoi will develop a transport system that
can accommodate the increasing number of passengers. Hanoi aims to increase
the density of its urban road network.
Jakarta is dependent on road transport. Passenger vehicles account for about
11% of total personal trips, while buses account for 52% of total personal trips.
According to a transport master plan, Jakarta aims to reduce its congestion
problem and energy consumption as well as CO2 emissions through investment
in road infrastructure and the development of MRT systems.
Currently, Manila has three MRT systems in operation, including one MRT
and two light rail transit (LRT) systems. Manila plans to expand the existing lines
and further develop the LRT systems. As part of a plan to reduce congestion and
manage transport efficiently, Manila plans to develop two rails that connect the
city centre to suburban areas.
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407
TABLE 4
Structure of Fuel Share and Estimated Energy Demand from the Urban
Transport Sector
Fuel Share (%)
2005
2020
Bangkok
Jakarta
Manila
Gasoline
48.9
50.1
55.2
Diesel
43.9
49.0
44.3
LPG
6.1
NA
NA
CNG
0.1
0.9
0.0
Electricity
1.1
NA
0.5
Total energy demand (10^6 GJ)
180.4
242.5
93.3
Gasoline
56.9
48.0
48.4
Diesel
38.9
51.1
51.4
LPG
3.5
NA
NA
CNG
0.1
0.9
0.1
Electricity
0.7
NA
0.1
347.6
571.7
598
Total energy demand (10^6 GJ)
LPG stands for Liqueed Petroleum Gas and CNG stands for Compressed Natural Gas.
NA not available. Source: AIT 2002; and Phdungsilp 2006.
5. SUMMARY
Cities are not just victims of climate change but also part of the problem,
which means they are also part of the solution. Cities in the developing world
show different energy end-use distribution according to their size and stage of
economic development. The case studies show that they are not only engines of
their representative countries economic growth, but also of the regional economies. Factors driving energy consumption and energy-related emissions in cities
are interconnected in many respects. The challenges are to create knowledge
based policies and to implement energy conservation and mitigation practices.
Better scientific knowledge is a prerequisite for understanding the various causes
of emissions and for implementing such measures.
Cities in Southeast Asian countries are continuing to grow due to changes in
urban demographics, income level, lifestyle and related socio-economic devel-
408
opment. This study shows that the projected population in Bangkok, Hanoi,
Jakarta and Metro Manila will reach 7.76, 5.78, 20.77 and 13.4 million, respectively, by the year 2020. This will lead to intensive energy consumption in urban
areas. In terms of per capita energy consumption and CO2 emissions, Bangkok
is the highest in the region. In terms of sectors, transportation is the largest
energy consumer in these cities. Strategies to reduce transportation-related
energy consumption and CO2 emissions include modal shifts to mass transit,
urban planning and public transport, and fuel economy standards. Many initiatives have been introduced and implemented to achieve co-benefits of reducing
energy consumption and improving urban air quality.
The way cities are designed and managed over the coming decades will have a
large influence on the future of the carbon cycle both locally and globally. Welldesigned and well-managed cities provide many opportunities to reduce per
capita energy consumption and/or carbon emissions. Carbon management would
play an important role in the citys climate policy. A key need in these efforts is to
develop a science-based policy and implementing framework for cities in which
energy and climate mitigation measures are addressed in an integrated manner
and to explore alternative development pathways for cities.
References
ADB (Asian Development Bank). 2008. Managing Asian Cities: Sustainable and Inclusive
Urban Solutions. Manila, Philippines. www.adb.org.
______. 2009. The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review.
Manila, Philippines. www.adb.org.
AIT (Asian Institute of Technology), Thailand. 2002. Energy, Environment and Climate
Change Issues: A Comparative Study in Asia. A study by the Asian Regional Research
Programme in Energy, Environment and Climate Phase II.
Ajero, M.Y. 2002. Emissions Pattern of Metro Manila. Proceedings of IGES/APN
Mega-City Project, Kitakyushu, Japan, January 2325.
APERC (Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre). 2008. APEC Energy Overview 2007. Asia
Pacific Energy Research Centre, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. www.ieej.
or.jp/aperc/.
APN (Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research). 2004. Integrating Carbon
Management into Development Strategies of Cities Establishing a Network of Case
Studies of Urbanization in the Asia-Pacific. Project 2004-07-CMY-Lasco.
Baumert, K.A., T. Herzog, and J. Pershing. 2005. Navigating the numbers: Greenhouse gas
data and international climate policy. World Resource Institute, USA. http://pubs.wri.
org_pdf.cfm?PubID=4093.
BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Administration). 2009. Bangkok Assessment Report on
Climate Change 2009. Bangkok, Thailand. www.roap.unep.org/pub/index.cfm.
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Dhakal, S. 2004. Urban Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Asian MegaCities: Policies for a Sustainable Future. Kitakyushu, Japan: Urban Environmental
Management Project, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies.
______. 2008. Climate Change and Cities: The Making of a Climate Friendly Future. In
Urban Energy Transition From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power, ed. Droege, P. Elsevier
Publication.
Hoang, P.D. 2004. Promoting Mass Transit for Improving Urban Environmental
Management: A Focus on Pricing and Financing of Bus Service in Hanoi City,
Vietnam. MSc. Thesis in Urban Environmental Management (UE-04-02), School of
Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.
Nhan, L.T.T. 2008. Developing Eco-efficiency Indicators for an Urban Transportation
System in Hanoi City, Vietnam. MSc. thesis in Urban Environmental Management
(UE-08-18), School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of
Technology, Thailand.
Pacudan, R. 2005. Renewable Energy Policies in ASEAN: Background Paper. Information for
the Commercialisation of Renewables in ASEAN. Denmark: Risoe National Laboratory.
Phdungsilp, A. 2006. Energy Analysis of Sustainable Mega-Cities. Licentiate of
Engineering Thesis, Department of Energy Technology, Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden.
UN (United Nations). 2007. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision. United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division.
UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific).
2008. Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2008. UNESCAP. www.unescap.org/
stat/data/syb2008/.
UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme). 2008. State of the
Worlds Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities. UK: Earthscan.
Wang, T., and J. Watson. 2008. Chinas Carbon Emissions and International Trade: Implications for Post-2012 Policy. Climate Policy 8: 57787.
Wirahadikusumah, K. 2002. Jakarta Air Quality Management: Trends and Policies. The
Regional Workshop on Better Air Quality in Asian and Pacific Rim Cities, Hong Kong,
December 16.
410
PART
City Institutions
and Governance
for Climate Change
CHAPTER
16
Understanding and Improving

Urban Responses to Climate Change
Reections for an Operational Approach to Adaptation
in Low and Middle-Income Countries
Roberto Sanchez Rodriguez*
Abstract
This article reflects on the construction of an operational approach for adaptation to climate change in low and middle-income countries. I depart from the
assumption that climate change is a development challenge for urban areas and
that adaptation to its impacts needs to be considered a learning process rather
than a single product. I argue that an operational approach to climate change
needs to address the formal and the informal process of urban growth in order to
be efficient. This requires attention to the balance between structure and agency
in the construction of the urban space and the combination of top-down and
bottom-up actions. The article considers the role of urban institutions and the
collaboration between scholars and local governments and stakeholders as part
of an operational approach for adaptation.

412
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413
1. INTRODUCTION
Urban responses to climate change have grown rapidly during the last decade
in several parts of the world. However, many of these responses have focused
solely on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Only a limited number of large
urban areas have begun to consider adaptation as part of their response to
climate change. Attention provided to mitigation over adaptation by international organizations, national and local governments, the mass media, and stakeholders has diverse causes (Schipper 2006; Moser and Satterthwaite 2007). But
the Fourth Assessment of the IPCC (Wilbanks et al. 2007) has brought attention
to the impacts of climate change and how societies can better adapt to them.
Particularly critical is the situation of urban areas in low and middle-income
countries with severe development pressures and few resources and information to respond to the challenges of climate change. Connecting current
urban development challenges with climate change is an effective tool for initiating adaptation in those societies. A critical step in this direction involves
considering urban growth as more than just the outcome of local forces. This
simplified perspective is common in urban planning and often leads to incomplete strategies seeking to address complex realities. It is also important to
conceptualize climate change as more than an environmental problem; rather, it
is fundamentally a development challenge for societies. Focusing on structural
conditions of urban development and how they interact with climate change
can be instrumental in helping societies define a better future. The size, form,
structure, and function of urban areas and their future growth trajectories are
critical elements to be considered in the discussion on climate change and the
sustainability of societies.
Recent attention paid to adaptation and urban areas within the debate on
climate change by the international community has begun to pay off. International and regional organizations (UN, The World Bank, OECD, etc.) have started
to create programs supporting adaptation. International donors are starting to
prioritize urban adaptation in low and middle-income countries. Scholars have
begun to deepen their understanding of adaptation by addressing the diverse
dimensions of this complex issue. Moreover, some urban areas have begun to
create and implement adaptation strategies. These contributions have enhanced
the visibility and relevance of climate change at the local level. However, parallel
efforts fostering operational approaches to adaptation are urgently needed in
order to meet the needs of local government and stakeholders. This discussion is
timely given the rapid pace of urban growth in middle and low-income countries
and the current difficulty of designing adaptation strategies in urban areas.
Current urban policy decisions have the potential to either constrain or facilitate future urban adaptation strategies. Further delays in developing and imple-
414
menting adaptation plans can have severe consequences for millions of urban
inhabitants as well as local and national economies.
This article addresses challenges and opportunities for adaptation in urban
areas of low and middle-income countries. It highlights the importance of
connecting climate change adaptation to the fundamental drivers of both formal
and informal urban growth. Focusing only on formal or informal urban growth
creates incomplete perspectives that are likely to spark conflicts and contradictions among adaptation responses. Moreover, it is important to conceive of
adaptation as a process involving the dynamic transformation of urban space
over time. This article argues that adaptation strategies need to recognize those
dynamics to maintain their effectiveness in the short and long-term. Ultimately,
adaptation must be considered a learning process rather than a one-time product.
2. A PERSPECTIVE ON THE CHALLENGES

AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADAPTATION
Adaptation involves taking actions to reduce harm and risk to an extreme event.
It can also describe a societys evolution to a higher stage of social well-being.
Adaptation provides an umbrella for the design and enforcement of actions
intended to reduce vulnerability (Adger and Vincent 2005; Smit and Wandel
2006). It is perceived as a long-term process to decrease the vulnerability of local
society. Adaptation does not have the same appeal as mitigation with respect
to its benefits for the international common good, and as a result, is often less
appealing to mass media, decision makers, and stakeholders. Moreover, uncertainty about the type, location, frequency, intensity, and extent of climate change
impacts make adaptation strategies difficult to design (who should adapt to what
and where?). There is also a perception among local elected officials, practitioners,
and stakeholders that the impacts of climate change will occur sometime in the
distant future and there is no need to invest in adaptation since scarce resources
should be devoted to solving current urban and environmental problems.
A useful departure point for the discussion of climate change in urban areas
is to consider urban areas as complex and dynamic systems where problems and
contradictions within and among societies become evident in their daily operation
and the type of urban space created (formal and informal urban growth). This
viewpoint is useful for understanding why urban areas are burdened with many
of the problems associated with growth, particularly in low and middle-income
countries. Unemployment and underemployment, environmental degradation,
deficiencies in urban services and housing, deterioration of existing infrastructure, problems in guaranteeing access to natural resources vital to urban life
(water, energy, food, construction materials), and an expansion of violence and
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415
crime are some of the most visible problems common to urban areas (Moser and
McIlwai 2006; Martine et al. 2007; UN-Habitat 2007). Those problems are aggravated by rapid population growth and the current economic, financial, and social
crises unique to each country.
Climate change also has great potential to exacerbate these problems. Thomas
and Twyman (2005) highlight the fact that climate change does not occur independently of other social processes. They call attention to how the interface between
climate change and development processes can enhance existing inequalities.
Adger et al. (2005) highlight the key role of underlying distributions of power
within the institutions that manage resources and often create vulnerabilities
to climate change. For them, present-day adaptation actions reinforce existing
inequalities and do little to alleviate underlying vulnerabilities. They suggest that
measures to reduce poverty and increase access to resources could reduce both
future and present-day vulnerabilities and will ultimately facilitate adaptation to
climate change.1 However, adaptation at the local level may be limited by national
and international regulations and pressures that determine the legal rights to
resources, levels of resource out-take, availability of resources, and conflicts over
the interpretation of regulation or limited enforcement of regulation (Keshitalo
and Kulyosaba 2009). Societies with obstacles to democratic representation and
efficient governance can also face obstacles for human agency and bottom-up
initiatives for adaptation. It cannot be assumed that resources for adaptation
are distributed on the basis of need, relative to exposure to stresses. Often times
resource allocation is determined politically or economically, with the most
powerful interest groups and decision makers granted a larger proportion of
resources (Adger et al. 2005).
Despite these challenges, Martine et al. (2007) argues that urbanization can
offer people a better chance to live fuller lives, help to unshackle the bonds of
perennial poverty, and deflect environmental damage with the support of
proper policies. Indeed, urban societies offer unique opportunities for development. There are clearly problems that need to be improved, particularly in
urban areas of low and middle-income countries. But even urban societies with
severe development pressures have encouraging examples of bottom-up projects
improving livelihoods and communities in poor urban neighborhoods (Carolini
2007; Satterthwaite et al. 2007). Missing so far are initiatives connecting climate
change (vulnerability and adaptation) with local efforts to improve urban growth,
poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods. An important step in this direction is
1It is interesting to note that a similar approach is suggested to help biodiversity adapt to climate change. Lawler
(2009) suggests the removal of non-climatic treats to a species or systems and reducing other stresses on species
as the most obvious approaches to increase resilience to climate change. Burton (1997), Adger et al. (2005),
Thomas and Twyman (2005), Smit and Wandel (2006), Satterthwaite et al. (2007) and others scholars suggest
a similar principle of adaptation, protecting individuals and communities through poverty and social inequity
reduction, improving livelihoods, and strengthening governance.
416
connecting current development challenges in urban areas with the design and
implementation of climate change adaptation strategies. Dovers (2009) highlights
the importance of connecting adaptation more closely to existing policy and
management understanding in communities, professions, and agencies, and to
the existing agendas, knowledge base, and risks they already face. He suggests
that, in at least some relevant sectors, there is an existing set of reasoned options
on which to base adaptation policy development, representing a better beginning
than starting afresh. This approach has been suggested by other scholars (Burton
1997; Beg et al. 2002; Shipper 2006; Smit and Wandel 2006) and is highly relevant
for fostering the participation of local elected officials, practitioners, and stakeholders in building and implementing adaptation strategies. Equally important
are parallel efforts to connect informal urban growth and community development initiatives with adaptation. I will discuss this point later on in this chapter.
A point of clarification is in order in this discussion. Mainstreaming adaptation
strategies in urban policies can be achieved through formal mechanisms often
found in urban planning (building codes, land use permits, etc.) and through
economic incentives common in the formal regulation of the build environment
in many urban areas. But it would be unwise to neglect informal urban growth
in many low-income and middle-income countries. Those communities grow
rapidly, they represent a large extent of the urban area, and they are among the
communities with the highest vulnerability and most urgent need to adapt to
climate change (Martine et al. 2007; Satterthwaite et al. 2007; Wilbanks and
Romero-Lankao 2007; UN-Habitat 2007).
The introduction of this article highlighted the importance of connecting
adaptation to climate change with the driving processes of formal and informal
urban growth in low and middle income-countries. Attention so far has focused
on formal urban growth within the framework of urban planning. But initial
to connect pro-poor programs with climate change have begun to appear in
informal settlements. Ideally, adaptation strategies need to be imbedded within
urban growth trends and urban development strategies. Focusing only on formal
or informal urban growth will leave half of the problem unaddressed. Therefore,
there are two issues that need to be considered with respect to adaptation.
First, adaptation needs to be considered a process rather than a single product.
Indeed, adaptation strategies need to be updated and improved periodically in
order to incorporate changes in climatic, socioeconomic, and urban conditions.
Adaptation as a learning process can create a framework that facilitates the development of multidimensional perspectives of urban growth and creates synergies
with efforts towards sustainable development. Second, this process must recognize
the critical balance between structure and agency in urban growth.
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417
3. STRUCTURE AND AGENCY

The promotion of adaptation opportunities, and the subsequent reduction of
social and urban vulnerability, depend on balancing the policies and actions
of socioeconomic and political systems with human agency. Structural socioeconomic constraints are often addressed by top-down approaches and their
implementation and effectiveness depend on complex politically negotiated
processes. The construction of urban infrastructure, housing programs, and
urban services are top-down actions managed by the formal framework of
state control (urban planning) and the real estate market. It would be unrealistic, however, to expect that those processes could make a difference by
themselves, particularly in urban areas of low and middle-income countries.
This is because a significant part of the rapid urban growth in this context
takes place outside of the formal framework of urban planning and top-down
approaches do not reach those areas often. Top-down actions are not necessarily responsive to low-income individuals and groups, neglecting their needs
and the value of agency (Hull 1998; Watson 2009). Therefore, bottom-up initiatives are extremely important for the design of actions to reduce vulnerability
and provide opportunities for adaptation in those communities. Combining
bottom-up and top-down approaches in policies and strategies that reduce
social vulnerability will create more balanced and integrated adaptation
responses to climate change in low and middle-income countries.
3.1 Formal Urban Growth
Mainstreaming climate change adaptation strategies with both urban development policies and informal urban growth can have benefits in the short and longterm. An entry point where those benefits could reach many urban inhabitants
is in the design and planning of the built environment (urban infrastructure,
services, land use, and buildings). The life spans of buildings and infrastructure are often over 75 years and structures being built now will likely operate
under different climatic conditions in the next decades. Current designs and
investments seldom take into account the potential impacts of climate change
that can cause significant dysfunctions in their operation. Taking into consideration scenarios of future extremes in temperature and precipitation would
help progressive adaptation in the design of the built environment. Adjusting
to current planning practices (building codes, infrastructure standards, land
use regulations), and the regulatory and financial framework of formal urban
growth are important steps in this direction. These actions can be achieved by
selecting no-regrets strategies that yield benefits even in the absence of climate
change. This can include initiatives such as flexible strategies and buying safety
418
margins for new investments (Hallegatte 2009). This approach is particularly

useful in light of the uncertainty associated with identifying climate change
impacts at the urban level.
The study of social and urban vulnerability to climate change creates an
analytical framework that is useful to the study of adaptation. The in-depth
analysis of the driving forces of vulnerability considers social processes that
condition the exposure of communities to extreme climatic events as well as
their capacity to cope with those events (Adger 1999; Turner et al. 2003; Adger
2006). The same processes are also partly responsible for current socioeconomic,
environmental, and urban problems that local elected officials, practitioners, and
stakeholders can relate to. The study of vulnerability is also helpful for identifying who needs to adapt to what within the context of climate change and is
an effective tool for helping local decision makers conceptualize how shortterm actions can have long-term benefits. The concept of vulnerability is also
an effective way to broaden the scope of policy and actions oriented to urban
growth (biophysical and socioeconomic processes at the regional and global
level). Several vulnerability scholars have drawn attention to factors influencing
individuals or groups capacity to anticipate, cope, resist, and recover from the
impact of a natural hazard associated with climate variability and climate change
(Adger 1999; Mirza 2003; Pelling 2003; Moser and Satterthuaite 2008). However,
it is also a useful approach in the design of adaptation strategies that can also
be expanded to address climate change impacts beyond natural hazards (for
example, impacts on health, the urban economy, social interactions within the
urban area, ecological services, biodiversity and habitat conservation, etc.).
Case studies in Cartagena and Manizales Colombia are useful examples of the
connection between urban vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in low
and middle-income countries. Other studies on the potential impacts of sea level
rise on coastal urban communities have created useful precedents for reducing
social and urban vulnerability while simultaneously enhancing local adaptation
to climate change (McGranahan et al. 2007; Scherbinin et al. 2007).
Information on future climate scenarios, and alternatives to progressively
adapt to them, are also useful planning tools for reducing vulnerability and
leveraging adaptation. Access to scientific information is often difficult for local
official, urban planners, and stakeholders. Building collaboration with local,
national, and regional universities can help bridge the gap between science and
policy/practice. It can help incorporate the global and regional dimension of
climate variability and climate change to adaptation in formal urban growth. I
will return to this important issue later on. However, it is important to highlight
that climate information becomes a useful tool for urban communities when
it is imbedded in multidimensional adaptation strategies connecting current
local urban, social, and environmental problems with climate change. Those
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419
strategies can help communities make an efficient use of scarce financial,

technical, human, and natural resources, particularly in poor countries and
emerging economies.
Development challenges in urban areas are often associated with financial
constraints for building urban infrastructure and services, housing, and environmental protection, particularly in small and medium size urban areas in poor
countries. Often times, the level of financing required is beyond the capability
of most urban areas to provide and requires the participation of national/
sub-national governments, and sometimes international funding agencies. The
challenge of adaptation is not only a financing problem, however. Finding funding
sources for urban growth in low and middle-income countries has always been
a challenge. Making adaptation an integral component of that process has the
potential to improve opportunities to secure funding. This is due in part to the
fact that international and local attention to climate change has enhanced the
pool of financial resources available to local governments to address development
pressures in urban growth.
Strens (2008) review of the international assistance for cities in low and
middle-income countries outlines obstacles and opportunities of urban areas in
the South. He suggests four ways in which urban assistance programs can be more
effective. 1) Support research on local problems. For him, the development of
South perspectives and approaches for urban development are essential, together
with solidifying local knowledge about cities and enhance informed discussion of
important issues. 2) Support South-South networks to better understand possible
futures and scenarios to deal with their most challenging problems. 3) Continue
to focus on pro-poor policies that enhance the opportunities for social change.
4) Act as responsible stakeholders, develop transparent and accountable assistance, and maintain local programs until there is general agreement they should
be discontinued. These four strategies are also a useful model for developing and
supporting adaptation programs in low and middle-income countries.
In the South, the role of international assistance has been central to the development of urban adaptation strategies. Roberts (2008) describes the city of
Durbans experience (South Africa) and the process the municipality went through
to create its adaptation plan. She illustrates the role of international assistance at
different stages of the process. The cities of Cartagena and San Andres de Tumaco
in Colombia assessed their urban and social vulnerability to sea level rise and
climate change with the support of the Netherlands Climate Assistance Program.
Their studies also included potential adaptation actions (http://www.nlcap.net/
countries/colombia/). International assistance fostered the collaboration of
local universities with local governments in South Africa and Colombia. These
collaborations were key in building adaptation to climate change. Moreover, the
partnership has been an important support for the sustainability of those plans.
420
The experience of political and administrative decentralization from national

to local governments is also relevant to this discussion of multilevel funding
of urban growth and adaptation to climate change. Decentralization has been
considered a central driver of development opportunities for municipalities since
the 1980s. The experiences of these processes are helpful in the discussion of
adaptation to climate change in urban areas and the role of multi level governmental interactions in that process. A key experience of the decentralization
efforts in Latin America and Africa is the importance of maintaining a balance
between political and administrative decentralization (Ribot and Larson 2004).
This includes transferring adequate resources to meet the new responsibilities
at the local level and politically empowering the municipality in the decision
making process. A second important lesson is that the national government
should monitor the evolution of decentralization processes to avoid the cooption
of benefits by power groups at the local level.
Other experiences from relevant urban development projects in these
countries have taught us two important lessons: the importance of multidimensional and integrated approaches of urban development to reduce unintended
negative consequences from the projects (social, economic, environmental, and
cultural impacts); the critical role of combined top-down approaches addressing
structural socioeconomic conditions with bottom-up approaches facilitating
human agency, the use of local knowledge, and the sustainability of the project.
Many bottom-up projects are based on low-cost solutions that involve alternative technologies and ecosystem services. They provide useful alternatives for
adapting to climate variability and climate change.
3.2 Informal Growth
The creation of the urban space in low and middle-income countries is characterized by the rapid growth of informal settlements and their incorporation over
time into the real estate market and to the formal part of the city. Informal growth
results from complex social processes, the limited capacity of local and national
governments to meet the demand of housing and urban services, and human
agency. Countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia have diverse experiences
addressing the challenges of informal urban growth, but a commonly found
feature is the location of settlements in hazardous areas that are at high risk to the
impacts of climatic events.
There is a large literature on informal urban growth. I will limit my remarks
to suggest how adaptation strategies to climate change can address informal
settlements in urban areas. Moser and Satterthwaite (2008) propose a pro-poor
adaptation approach for urban areas in low and middle-income countries. They
assert that addressing the social development dimensions of climate change
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adaptation in urban areas requires considering the roles of not only different levels
of government but also individuals, households, and civil society organizations.
They suggest a framework of pro-poor asset adaptation for climate change as a
conceptual and operational framework. The framework helps identify the vulnerabilities of low-income individuals, households and communities to climate
change and considers how their assets can support local adaptation. Although the
framework can support a broader analysis of vulnerability, the authors focus on
vulnerability and natural hazards, particularly in terms of protection to extreme
events and post-disaster responses and rebuilding. Within this context, they
suggest four sets of actions for adaptation: adjusting local planning regulatory
and financial frameworks; bottom-up pressures for risk reduction; adjustment
of current practices (building codes, land regulations, land use management);
and factoring climate change related risks into new development plans and
investment programs. The pro-poor asset adaptation framework is an encouraging effort to address informal urban growth in adaptation strategies. Using
assets to connect urban and social vulnerability to climate change adaptation
strategies can become a useful operational tool.2
The framework of assets, livelihoods, and social policy proposed by Anis and
Moser (2008) is also useful. Originally, it was not developed to address adaptation
to climate change but was conceptualized as a polycentric framework for social
and economic development. It seeks to enable policy makers to recognize the
different interests and claims on assets, and the roles and responsibilities of
different social and institutional actors, if such assets are to be accumulated in an
equitable and sustainable manner. The framework is part of efforts to eradicate
poverty, fill productive employment, and enhance social integration. However,
it combines key elements to reduce social and urban vulnerability and to foster
climate change adaptation. It provides a multi-scale approach (polycentric)
to development that is responsive to both national needs and transnational
processes. Moreover, it combines a holistic approach to assets with sustainable
livelihoods.
Moser (2008) proposes a second-generation asset-based policy as an effort to
sustain current poverty reduction policies focusing on the provision of housing,
urban services and infrastructure, health, education and microfinance. She
argues that the benefits of first generation efforts in terms of assets accumulation can been eroded by the globalizing institutional context and that their
effectiveness to reduce poverty and social inequality can be lost over time. The
second-generation asset-based policy is designed to strengthen accumulated
assets and to ensure their further consolidation. This approach can be partic2See also the work of Adger (1999) in Vietnam for the use of entitlement theory in the study of vulnerability to
climate change.
422
ularly useful in addressing adaptation to climate change as a process. Current

attention to reducing social and urban vulnerability and to adaptation is closely
connected to poverty reduction efforts mentioned above (provision of housing,
urban infrastructure and services, etc.). Strengthening poverty reduction efforts
through asset-based policy and sustainable livelihoods can achieve structural
transformations with multiple benefits: it can enhance opportunities for social
change, reduce social and urban vulnerability, and enhance adaptation to climate
change within the context of urban development. Mosers emphasis on strengthening accumulated assets is relevant to the process of urban growth in low and
middle-income countries where informal settlements are progressively incorporated to the formal process of urban growth. Accumulated assets can be lost in
the process of incorporating informal settlements into the formal structure of the
urban area and the real estate market. The loss of accumulated benefits would
also affect the reduction of vulnerability and the acceptance of adaptation strategies among poor inhabitants.
Moser and Anis framework further facilitates the identification of actors and
agents who need to be mobilized in efforts towards enhancing access to assets and
sustainable livelihoods. They assert that assets create agency and provide support
for bottom-up community asset-building. As I mentioned above, agency and
bottom-up community-based asset building are relevant elements of adaptation
strategies to climate change. Incorporating them into operational approaches for
adaptation is necessary to assist urban areas build short and long-term sustainability. It is also important to maintain a comprehensive perspective of the interactions between structure and agency that will help retain a balance between
top-down and bottom-up adaptation actions.
4. THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS

The discussion above leads us to consider the important role of institutions in
the process of adaptation. International attention to climate change has begun
to address the role of institutions (structures and operations) to meet global and
regional challenges of the 21st century (ORiordan and Jordan 1999; Biermann
and Bauer 2004). Unfortunately, few substantial institutional changes have
been achieved so far at the local, national, and international level, including
those changes needed to meet the challenges of climate change. In the case of
urban areas, a key question is the role of urban planning. Do planning institutions have the vision, capacity, and flexibility to update themselves and to guide
future urban growth in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century? This
is a relevant question because institutions, particularly public institutions, are
reticent to change their operations and their structures. Public institutions are
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seldom self critical about their limitations and the steps needed to update and
improve themselves. The situation is common among planning institutions,
particularly in low and middle-income countries (Watson 2009). Such institutions are confronted by limited human, technical, and economic resources, and
very limited capacity for research to create multidimensional perspectives of
their urban problems. Urban planners are also prone to suffering limited support
from mayors and local elected officials for mediation in the political negotiations
among divergent interests of social groups in the urban space.
Urban planning is considered a societal tool to create order among activities
in the urban space, to reduce conflicts among them, and to seek the well-being of
their inhabitants (Blair 1973). This model has prevailed since the early schemes
of urban planning more than a century ago. However, a number of scholars have
pointed out the limitations of that model, including its difficulty in ordering
complex urban systems. Blair (1973) highlighted thirty-five years ago the lack
of capacity of urban planning to solve conflicts among economic, political,
and socio-cultural priorities in the urban space. He stressed its mainly physical
focus (the built environment). Blair called this approach the poverty of urban
planning. He criticized the techno-bureaucratic approach of urban planning that
addresses problems ad hoc, with little scientific knowledge, without self-critique
or a synoptic view of the problems. Moreover, Blair argues that the planning
profession operates without updating its methodological and conceptual frameworks in order to meet the continuous changes in urban society. Blair proposes
an alternative approach to urban planning based on multi-dimensional and
interdisciplinary perspectives. It is worth noting the similarities between Blairs
multi-dimensional proposal for urban planning 35 years ago and the need for
multi-dimensional perspectives in addressing vulnerability and adaptation
mentioned above.3 Urban areas need to create new multidimensional and multiscale approaches to orient their growth in the 21st century.
Non-governmental-organizations (NGOs) and community-base-organizations (CBOs) are also important urban institutions in many low and middleincome countries. Those organizations often supplement the limitations of local
governments in the supply of urban services and play a key role in the design and
implementation of bottom-up development projects (Carolini 2007). They can
be also important actors in reducing social vulnerability and building adaptation
responses to climate variability and climate change (Satterthwaite et al. 2007).
3By the same token, Simmie (1993) criticizes the techno-administrative function of urban planning incapable of
controlling and orienting urban growth and the undesired consequences of concentrating the benefits of planning
in some social groups and its negative costs on others. Hogan (2003) highlights the failure of urban plans in the
U.S. despite more than a century of progressive urban planning. Bridge (2007) questions the assumption that
urban planning would impose order to the inherent chaos of the city. He criticizes the dominant assumption
within urban planning that the city can be directed by an instrumental rationality.
424
However, in the context of climate change, the work of these organizations can
be strengthened by the appropriate linking of local experience and scientific
knowledge (Blanco 2006).
Other urban institutions (i.e. professional associations of engineers, physicians, teachers) and economic institutions (Chambers of Commerce and other
business organizations) are also active in local urban areas and can play a role in
developing strategies to reduce vulnerability and enhance implement adaptation.
Expanding their participation in the urban planning process and in the design
of adaptation strategies can strengthen social commitment to those initiatives,
supplement local knowledge, and expand community involvement in short and
long-term strategies. Such institutions can become important actors in the social
learning process of adapting to climate change.
5. THE COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE

AND POLICY/PRACTICE
Despite the mentioned limitations of urban planning, the discipline represents
a useful resource for adaptation. There is an extended presence of urban institutions in a large number of urban areas that can become important actors in
adaptation to climate change. Offices of urban planning and public works exist
in almost every local urban government and they are institutions with knowledge of local development pressures. Improving those institutions would be an
important but a long-term project, particularly in poor countries and emerging
economies (Verna 2007). A positive step in that direction is building collaboration between planning institutions and local, national, and regional research
institutions with knowledge and experience on urban issues and climate change.
This approach has helped cities like London, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Mexico
City, Toronto, Cap Town, Durban, Manizales, and other cities in Europe, Africa,
the Americas and Australia in the design of strategies and actions for mitigation
and adaptation to climate change.
Lessons from collaborations between scientists and practitioners stress the
importance of the following steps. First, it must be recognized that transferring
scientific knowledge to local urban practitioners and decision-makers is difficult
and alone, is not enough to build better responses to local urban problems and
climate change. Rather, new useful knowledge can be constructed by valuing
scientific contributions as well as those from the domain of practice (urban
planners, decision-makers and stakeholders). The creation of a common space
for knowledge sharing will facilitate the creation of useful knowledge (Roux et
al. 2006; Turnholt et al. 2007). Second, the creation of a relationship among those
actors should be based on trust and respect among participants, to build under-
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425
standing and collaboration among them. Third, leadership is critical building

multidimensional and transdisciplinary approaches to urban planning and
adaptation to climate change. Leadership can come from any of those actors and
it should provide a multidimensional vision of the urban system and its interactions with climate change.
The collaboration between scientists and planners, policy makers, and urban
stakeholders can yield contributions in two critical areas: in the assessment of
urban and social vulnerability to climate change risks and impacts, and in the
development of multidimensional and multi-scale perspectives of the urban
system where adaptation to climate change is linked to current urban growth
trends and problems. Universities and research institutions can be instrumental
in identifying cumulative impacts and risks from climate change in urban areas.
Urban planners, decision makers, and stakeholders can develop a different
perspective of their urban areas if the potential impacts of climate change are
taken into consideration. The impact of sea level rise, seasonal and extreme variations in precipitation and temperature, their consequences for health, the urban
structure and functions, together with the risk of natural hazards (flooding,
drought, landslides, heat waves, wind storms, fires), can become strong incentives to identify how urban areas can better adapt to those changing conditions.
An additional opportunity for bringing climate change to the attention of
local urban planners and officials is through the collaboration of international
and regional organizations and the scientific community. International organizations (UNDP, UNEP, UN Habitat, World Bank, Metropolis, International Union
of Local Governments, and other regional organizations) have capacity building
programs designed to train public officials responsible for urban environmental
planning and public works every year in poor countries and emerging economies.
Those programs are often carried out in coordination with national governments. Adaptation to climate change has not yet been incorporated as part of the
capacity building curriculum. However, the UN and other international organizations have begun to pay attention to the potential multiplying benefit if local
officials relate their current development pressures with adaptation responses to
climate change. These programs can have significant benefits on the short-term
if they are carried out in coordination with local, national, and regional universities and research institutions to incorporate climate change into perspectives
of urban growth. They can also assist in the creation of long-term partnerships
between local and national universities and local decision-makers, planers, and
stakeholders.
The role of NGOs and CBOs in urban development mentioned above is also
relevant to the discussion of successful collaboration among urban institutions.
Some NGOs and CBOs have research capacities adequate enough to incorporate
the dimension of climate change as part of their activities. However, the majority
426
of these institutions cannot carry out extensive research. Building collaboration

among universities and research institutions, urban planners, and NGOs, CBOs,
can strengthen climate adaptation strategies in both formal and informal settlements. This combined approached mentioned above represents the best alternative to address a large percentage of the built environment in many urban areas
of low and middle-income countries. This issue is often neglected in the discussion
of adaptation, but it is one that requires significant attention by efforts seeking to
reach the majority of present and future urban inhabitants. Collaboration can
be particularly useful for identifying hazardous areas, or places that are at risk
to extreme climatic events. It can also illuminate components that contribute to
the reduction of social and urban vulnerability, health consequences of climate
change, the use of low cost technology, and the importance of ecosystem services.
6. CONCLUSIONS
This article contributes to the debate on operational approaches to climate change
adaptation in low and middle-income countries. The article stresses the need to
situate the debate within the context of the structures and agencies that define
the construction of urban space. This approach is essential to addressing formal
and informal urban growth and highlights the need to include top-down and
bottom-up strategies as part of urban adaptation efforts. The explicit connection
of social and urban vulnerability, sustainable livelihoods, and adaptation through
an asset-based framework contributes to the creation of an integrated, multiscale, and multidimensional vision of the urban area in which stakeholders and
decision-makers can relate to their daily life and areas of concern. Such efforts
will require taking advantage of the accumulated knowledge under diverse disciplinary studies and the promotion of transdisciplinary knowledge.4 This approach
is needed for the study of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, and
ultimately for operational strategies of sustainable urban development.
It is worth stressing the differences among adaptation strategies in urban areas
of high and middle and low-income countries. Although urban areas in those
countries share common development challenges (including climate change),
they are significantly different in terms of their resources, needs, and values
associated with addressing those challenges. Recognizing these fundamental
differences is relevant to the design of adaptation strategies as well as to their
implementation. Adaptation is site specific and its strategies must reflect local
4Breaking with the disciplinary culture of excessive specialization in favor of schemes that include interdisciplinary
and trans-disciplinary thinking is not easy and requires time. But there is growing recognition of the need to
complement the disciplinary vision with integrated multidimensional perspectives in the study of complex
problems societies face in the 21st century (Giri, 2002; Ramadier 2004; Petts et al. 2006).
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427
resources, needs, and values. Experiences from other urban areas are useful
precedents that can contribute to more efficient learning processes of adaptation.
But care should be given to how those experiences and knowledge are applied
locally, particularly in the context of North-South collaboration.
Adaptation responses in urban areas have the potential to benefit large
sections of society in low, middle, and high-income countries alike. Adaptation
strategies in urban areas offer the opportunity to reach large parts of current and
future global population. Moreover, multidimensional strategies that combine
top-down and bottom-up approaches could integrate adaptation within formal
and informal urban growth processes with short and long-term benefits that
inhabitants, stakeholders, and local officials can relate to.
Finally, it is worth stressing the urgency of developing robust climate change
adaptation strategies in urban areas. What it is been built now will likely operate
in the future under different climatic conditions from those of today. Further
delays in incorporating climate change into urban growth planning can reduce
their functionality and aggravate the negative consequences of climate change.
Efforts in the direction of adaptation have the potential to make a difference in
the livelihoods of millions of present and future urban inhabitants.
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CHAPTER
17
Planning Climate Resilient Cities:

Early Lessons from Early Adapters
JoAnn Carmin,* Debra Roberts, Isabelle Anguelovski
Abstract
Climate change is expected to place increasing stress on the built and natural
environments of cities as well as create new challenges for the provision of urban
services and management systems. Minimizing the impacts of climate change
requires that cities develop and implement adaptation plans. Despite the imperative, only a small number of cities have initiated the adaptation planning process.
Drawing on theories of diffusion and capacity, and empirical assessments of
initiatives in Durban, South Africa and Quito, Ecuador, this paper examines two
questions: What is driving cities to initiate climate adaptation planning? What is
enabling the efforts of early adapters to take root? Scholars argue that incentives
from external sources such as regulations and funder requirements, the diffusion
of international knowledge and norms, and the presence of sufficient capacity
are critical drivers of sub-national change in the policy and planning arenas.
However, rather then being driven by external pressures, the early adapters
examined in this study were motivated by internal incentives, ideas and knowledge generated through local demonstration projects and local networks, and the
means to link adaptation to ongoing programs and enlist the support of diverse
stakeholders from within the city.

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1. INTRODUCTION
Cities throughout the world have begun to experience the impacts of climate
change. As temperatures and precipitation patterns continue to shift, it is expected
that urban areas will encounter an even greater array of challenges (IPCC 2007).
Increases in the volume of rainfall, intensity of storms, and incidence of natural
disasters, for example, will put additional stress on infrastructure, buildings,
environmental conditions, and urban services and management systems. To
retain their vitality and viability, cities must be prepared for the ways in which
they will be affected by climate change. Since international protocols have not
been advanced for adaptation planning at the local level, and most national
governments are not working to address potential problems at this scale, some
cities are taking independent action to initiate adaptation (Granberg and Elander
2007; Schreurs 2008)
Local climate adaptation efforts tend to emphasize one of three goals: accommodating, protecting, or retreating. For instance, managing the impacts of sea
level rise include accommodation strategies such as beach nourishment, the
installation of protective structures such as groins and seawalls, and retreat
measures that restrict development and other human activity, including provisions to relocate current residents (Kirshen, Knee, and Ruth 2008). While
adaptation measures typically are aligned with one or more of these approaches,
the extent to which they are being formally integrated into citywide planning
efforts tends to vary. At one extreme, cities are developing comprehensive plans
for adaptation. However, these efforts are the exception rather than the rule.
The more common approaches are for sector-based departments to identify key
threats and related measures they need to pursue or for no adaptation planning
to be taking place.
What is driving cities to initiate climate adaptation planning? What is enabling
the efforts of early adapters to take root? In this paper, we draw on theories of
diffusion and capacity, and field research in Durban, South Africa and Quito,
Ecuador, to advance our understanding of what is leading cities to engage in
climate adaptation planning. Although scholars have begun to integrate issues
related to climate adaptation into their research agendas, the emphasis has been
on the range of adaptation options that are viable to pursue (Smit et al. 2000), the
costs and benefits of implementing different measures (Tol et al. 2004), and the
needs of vulnerable countries and populations (Adger et al. 2006; Roberts and
Parks 2007). While these studies are important, they do not consider the preconditions for climate adaptation planning or assess adaptation in urban contexts.
Therefore, in the sections that follow, we discuss drivers of urban change and
present case studies of Durban and Quito to advance our understanding of the
forces and factors associated with climate adaptation planning in cities.
432
2. POTENTIAL DRIVERS OF URBAN CLIMATE

ADAPTATION PLANNING
Minimizing the impacts that climate change will have on cities and their inhabitants requires that urban municipalities make concerted efforts to protect natural
systems, the built environment, and human populations. For most cities, a
commitment to adaptation requires adjustments in the institutional frameworks
guiding their decisions and actions. There are three sets of factors associated with
institutional change in cities that are relevant to the adoption of climate adaptation planning. The first two factors, incentives and ideas, often are attributed to
the spread and adoption of innovation in the policy and planning arenas (Dobbin,
Simmons, and Garttre 2007). In addition, resource-based studies suggest that a
third factor, capacity, affects the ability of a city to initiate and sustain a municipal
program of action.
2.1 Incentives for Adaptation Planning
Incentives motivate urban change through the promise of rewards. In some

instances, these rewards are predicated on meeting conditions established by
external parties (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Dobbin, Simmons, and Garttre
2007). This often is the case, for instance, with regulation and funding. Regulations traditionally impose requirements and use the threat of sanctions to foster
compliance. Although this is one of the methods countries use to shape local
behavior, regulations addressing adaptation at the local level have not emerged,
even in countries that have prepared national adaptation plans. As with regulation, funding often is accompanied by requirements that must be fulfilled. At
the present time, funding that is earmarked for adaptation is limited. Bilateral
development assistance and foundations are common sources of project-level
aid, some of which is being linked to adaptation. It is anticipated that development loans and aid channeled through international organizations will play an
increasing role in supporting urban adaptation. Funding can directly support
adaptation initiatives. It also can be an indirect catalyst for adaptation when it
contains related requirements. For instance, a city may obtain a loan for infrastructure, but the financing may be predicated on meeting other stipulations.
While conditionality in the environmental arena is common, and some funders
are starting to incorporate climate-related provisions, adaptation is not a requirement in most funding streams (Gutner 2002; Tellum 2007; Hicks et al. 2008).
Most scholars emphasize how external pressures promote urban change.
However, for many cities, internal goals serve as incentives for initiating new
programs or initiatives. Being able to demonstrate leadership or offering an
environment that is conducive to business and residents is a driver of action
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in many locales. A further incentive that is relevant to climate protection is the

presence of threats to residents, assets, and the general development goals of a
city. Natural disasters and sudden events often give issues sufficient visibility to
move them on to the policy agenda and, in some cases, to foster change (Kingdon
1995; Birkland 1997). In some instances, weather events and disasters have been
attributed to climatic change and contributed to a city engaging in climate action
planning (Zaharan et al. 2008a, 2008b). As these patterns suggest, the desire to
protect property and local populations also may be an incentive for initiating
adaptation planning.
2.2 Ideas and Adaptation Planning
Ideas in the context of adaptation planning refer to the ways in which knowledge
alters local behavior (Dobbin, Simmons, & Garttre 2007). While incentives rely
on the promise of benefits, ideas promote change by transmitting information
and norms, both within and across countries (Strang & Meyer, 1993). The diffusion of ideas, such as best practices, standards, and conventional wisdom, influence behavior in cities by generating an awareness and understanding of activities that are most appropriate and likely to achieve a desired outcome (DiMaggio
and Powell 1983; Scott 1995). Diffusion in the climate arena is not limited to
knowledge related to planning processes and techniques, but includes the transmission of scientific knowledge and information that can affect perceptions of
risk. While diffusion can take place within and across countries, most scholarly
work focuses on how international and global ideas shape action in sub-national
arenas (e.g., Stone 2004; Dobbin, Simmons, and Garttre 2007)
Diffusion can be initiated from a variety of sources. Professional networks
and associations often transmit ideas and information to their participants and
members. In the climate arena, the International Council for Local Environmental
Initiatives (ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability), United Cities and Local
Governments (UCLG), C40 Cities, and Cities Alliance are among the many formal
networks and umbrella organizations that provide information about climate
change to member cities through electronic media, publications, and the meetings
they convene. The diffusion of technical expertise and managerial know-how also
can occur when representatives from a city participate in governmental and intergovernmental initiatives such as domestic and international commissions and in
events such as conferences and training programs. Incentives are not the only tool
used by international organizations to promote change. The UN, OECD, World
Bank, and others foster the transfer of norms and ideas through publications,
workshops, meetings, training programs, and technical assistance (Stone 2004).
NGOs and consultants are further sources of diffusion in the urban context
since many provide services and support the efforts of local governments. In the
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climate arena, environmental, development, and humanitarian aid organizations

are among the NGOs that have the potential to be most influential. While some of
these organizations conduct their own research, others maintain their expertise
in their respective policy domains by staying current in the relevant literature and
attending conferences and training sessions. As they interact with local governments, be it through in person contact as they collaborate, advocate, and protest,
or through policy papers and reports, NGOs can diffuse ideas and practices they
believe will be effective (Princen 1994; Boli and Thomas 1999). In the climate
arena, natural scientists and engineers also are important sources of diffusion as
they disseminate knowledge about the potential impact of climate stressors as
well as the ability that a city has to withstand these impacts (Jasanoff 2005).
2.3 Capacity for Climate Adaptation
Local capacity, including financial, technological, human, political, and social

resources, provide a foundation for initiating and sustaining change (Clemens
and Cook 1999). From a practical standpoint, the financial stability and security
of a city will affect its ability and willingness to tackle new initiatives as some
adaptation measures, such as infrastructure upgrades and residential resettlements, require major investments. Technology also will affect a citys adaptation planning. Those that have advanced capabilities are able to conduct spatial
analyses of vulnerabilities and develop models and scenarios, all of which make is
possible to assess a variety of options before making decisions and taking action.
Human resources are not limited to personnel dedicated to working on
climate issues, but extend to the presence of leadership. Time and again, a change
or new initiative has been attributed to the efforts of a local champion, including
those in the climate arena. Leadership in these instances has been demonstrated
by elected officials, government employees, and local residents (Mukheibir and
Ziervogel 2007; Roberts, 2008; Schreurs 2008). Leadership can manifest at the city
level. For instance, programs that demonstrate a commitment toward protecting
the environment and enhancing sustainability, including those dedicated to
smart growth, green building, and open space conservation, suggest that a city
is environmentally proactive. They also provide a resource on which adaptation
efforts can be built. Leadership further extends to the presence of political will
to promote the ideas advanced by champions and sustain existing programs and
initiate those that are new.
Transnational and national NGOs, as well as local NGOs, CBOs, and residents,
contribute to the human and social dimensions of urban adaptation capacity
(Few, Brown, and Tompkins 2007). A variety of transnational and national
environmental, humanitarian aid, and international development NGOs have
initatied programs and projects that advance preparedness for the impacts of
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climate change in cities. These include preserving ecosystems as a means to

minimze the impacts of natural disasters, ensuring that poor communities have
flood defenses and early warning systems in place, and improving stores of food,
water, and medical provisions (Reeve, Anguelovski, and Carmin 2008). In some
cities, particularly those in developing countries that are highly vulnerable,
communities are extending local capacity by participating in risk assessments
(van Aalsta, Cannon, and Burton 2008) and taking steps to ensure they are
prepared for climate impacts (Jones & Rahman 2007; Sabates-Wheller, Mitchell,
and Ellis 2008). While these locally-initiated efforts are being made by vulnerable
communities to address issues they are facing, they contribute to urban capacity
and promote and sustain city adaptation planning.
3. URBAN CLIMATE ADAPTATION PLANNING

IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
As the previous discussion suggests, incentives, ideas, and capacity can foster institutional change in cities. Incentives create imperatives. In some instances they are
a response to external pressures stemming from sources such as regulation and
funder requirements. In other instances they are based on internal goals such as
developing a competitive advantage or protecting environmental quality. Ideas
transmit information and knowledge about relevant, appropriate, efficient, and
effective initiatives for a city to pursue. Collectively, incentives and ideas serve as
catalysts that alter the institutional field by establishing room for new actors to
emerge and for entrepreneurial efforts to influence existing rules and norms (Greenwood, Suddaby, and Hinings 2002). Alternatively, financial, technological, human,
and social resources affect the extent to which the status quo can be maintained and
new initiatives adopted and implemented (Clemens and Cook 1999).
Incentives, ideas, and capacity will be present in all cities in one form or
another. However, our understanding of how these factors shape the earliest
phases of policy formation and implementation is limited. Therefore, we studied
two cities that are early leaders in climate adaptation planning: Durban, South
Africa and Quito, Ecuador. In addition to both cities engaging in adaptation
planning, they are experiencing natural disasters and natural resource depletion
and wrestling with longstanding challenges associated with poverty alleviation,
infrastructure upgrading, and basic service provision.
The narratives that follow were primarily developed from semi-structured
interviews and participant observation. The Quito case is based on in-person
and telephone interviews with staff members and managers from departments
working on climate adaptation and local elected officials who played a central
role in the adaptation planning process. Since one of the authors (Roberts) was
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instrumental in the adaptation planning process in Durban, this case initially was
based on her observations and experience. To minimize bias and verify factual
information and interpretations, we conducted additional interviews with city
employees. In both cases, we engaged in follow-up email exchanges to confirm or
clarify important information with respondents. To further validate our understanding of the chronology and drivers of planning, the cases were reviewed by
individuals from each city who were involved in the planning process. We begin
each narrative with overview of the city and its adaptation initiatives. We then
examine the types of incentives, ideas, and resources that were present and the
ways in which they shaped urban adaptation planning.
3.1 Climate Adaptation in Durban, South Africa
The city of Durban covers an area of 2,300 kilometers and has a population
of approximately 3.5 million people. This expansive municipality has varied
terrain that ranges from a flat coastal plain in the east to steep escarpments
and undulating hills in the west. Durbans climate is subtropical with an annual
average rainfall in excess of 1000mm. The variety of landforms and climatic
conditions within the municipal area, along with it being located within a
biodiversity hotspot of national and international significance, have produced
a wide range of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Within the citys boundaries are three terrestrial biomes (savanna, forest, and grassland), 18 major
river catchments, 16 estuaries, and 97km of coastline. Durban also is a culturally and racially diverse city with African, Asian, and European influences.
The Black African community makes up the largest sector of the population
(68%) followed by the Indian community (20%), the White community (9%)
and the Colored community (3%). Spatially Durban is still affected by the
legacy of apartheid development with a racially structured, highly fragmented,
sprawling, and poorly integrated urban form.
The advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994 brought with it enormous
development pressures and expectations. Most of these were linked to the need
to address the socio-economic imbalances of the countrys past. Racially-based
apartheid development policies created high levels of structural unemployment
and large numbers of underinvested and un-serviced households. Addressing
these shortfalls poses an ongoing challenge to local governments throughout
South Africa. Even through Durban is an important economic center in South
Africa, 34.4% of the working age population currently is unemployed. This
has contributed to high levels of poverty and crime in the city. Further, many
government institutions are inefficient and ineffective. While efforts are being
made to address service backlogs, at present there are 140,000 urban households
that do not have access to services such as water, electricity, and sanitation.
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Durban is planned and managed by the eThekwini Municipality. Politically

eThekwini Municipality is overseen by a non-executive Mayor and an Executive
Committee. The Executive Committee is the principle committee of the municipality. There are 200 councilors and one hundred wards. The Administration
is headed by a City Manager and is divided into six functional clusters, each
with their own dedicated deputy City Manager. Given the immediacy of many
problems, the city has placed a priority on traditional forms of economic development and basic service provision. The development objectives for the city are
summarized in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The IDP outlines the
need for development that balances social, economic and environmental needs.
The vision articulated in the IDP is that By 2020, eThekwini Municipality will
be Africas most caring and livable city. To achieve this vision, a number of key
developmental choices have been made. These include improving the port and
logistics infrastructure, using land use management to increase densities and
to reduce sprawl, improving the public transport system, developing ecological
tourism, and ensuring ecological integrity.
Relative to other more immediate and clearly defined challenges that the city
faces, climate change has not received significant attention, mainly because its
impacts are viewed as more remote and uncertain. However, an initial impact
assessment commissioned by the Environmental Management Department
(EMD) in 2004 suggested that there are many imminent threats posed by climate
change and that these will affect the citys economic stability and development.
The assessment indicated that in the years to come, Durban will likely experience
temperature increases of 2-3C in maximum temperatures and 3-4oC in minimum
temperatures. There is some indication that the total amount of rainfall may
increase and that the seasonal distribution will change. Current measurements
suggest that sea level is rising, on average, by 2.7 cm each decade. The predicted
changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level will likely be accompanied by
a host of impacts. These range from heightened frequency and intensity of floods
and droughts to increased rates of coastal erosion and levels of stress on existing
infrastructure, to decreased water availability and food security. Changes such
as these affect most municipal functions and undermine the citys stated goal of
achieving a more sustainable development path, including its potential to address
the needs of previously disadvantaged communities.
3.1.1
Adaptation Planning Process in Durban
Climate-related action in Durban was initiated in 2000 when international

funding was made available for a small number of South African local governments to participate in ICLEIs international Cities for Climate Protection (CCP)
campaign. Among the achievements resulting from participation in the program
were the development of a municipal Greenhouse Gas emissions inventory and
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the initiation of an energy efficiency program for select municipal buildings.

Despite these gains, very little knowledge of climate science or the impacts of
climate change on municipal functions was learned in the process. As a result, the
CCP campaign generated only minimal levels of interest and momentum with
respect to climate action in the municipality.
The situation began to change in 2004 after Debra Roberts, Head of the EMD,
returned from a semester-long environmental management program at Brown
University in Rhode Island (USA). The course she attended was designed for
professionals in leadership positions in the global South and included in-depth
engagement with climate science. Roberts new understanding of climate change
and its implications for the city were critical factors in her initiation and development of the Municipalitys Climate Protection Programme (MCPP) upon her
return. At that time, she also commissioned consultants through the EMD to
conduct an initial climate change impact assessment. The completed assessment
was published in 2006 as a report entitled, Climatic Future for Durban. This report
provided the first real opportunity to engage diverse municipal stakeholders in
discussions about climate change. The presentations she gave to city councilors
highlighted the fact that there was nascent political interest in understanding
how the city could respond and adapt to anticipated changes.
The assessment and report generated sufficient interest that Roberts, working
through the EMD, initiated development of an adaptation strategy for the city
in 2006. This involved having extensive discussions with municipal line departments to ascertain the extent that municipal sectors were vulnerable to climate
change impacts, the ways that various departments of the municipality could
engage with climate adaptation, and the types of departmental options and initiatives already in place that would facilitate adaptation. The process resulted in the
publication of a summary document later that same year called the Headline
Municipal Adaptation Strategy that highlights the relevance of climate-change
issues for virtually all departments within the municipality and presents broad
strategic targets for each sector.
The Headline Adaptation Strategy was integral to advancing adaptation
planning in Durban. However, since this document is limited to general guidelines, it has become clear that most departments are not using it as a point of
reference or taking concerted action to consider climate impacts in their decisions
or actions. Once again taking the lead, the EMD is in the process of developing
sector specific Municipal Adaptation Plans (MAPs). While all sectors ultimately
will be included, in this early phase, the water and health sectors are the focus since
they have been identified as two areas that face the greatest risk of being directly
affected by climate change. Rather than emphasizing broad strategic targets,
the intention with the MAPs is to ensure that adaptation is fully integrated into
the planning, activities, and decisions of the affected line functions. The MAPs,
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which are expected to take approximately 12 months to develop, will include

detailed action plans that will maintain or improve the functioning of municipal
systems, departments, services, and infrastructure as the local climate changes
(ERM 2008). They also will contain clear target dates for the roll-out of action
plans, be developed with and approved by affected municipal departments and
key stakeholder groups responsible for plan implementation, and be approved by
the city council.
3.1.2
Drivers of Adaptation Planning in Durban
Addressing climate change at the city scale in South Africa is challenging due to
the administrative structure of the country. Although South Africa has ratified
the UNFCCC, it has not yet converted the relevant elements into national law
and therefore, addressing climate change is not yet mandatory (DEAT/UNDP
2008). As a result, municipalities must take independent action if they want
to pursue climate mitigation and adaptation agendas. The preparation of the
Climatic Future for Durban and Headline Adaptation Strategy were influential
reports that helped set the adaptation planning process in motion. While these
reports can be traced to the early efforts Roberts made to initiate climate initiatives in the city, a number of incentives and ideas influenced her activities as well
as the acceptance of climate change by city officials as an issue worthy of being
placed on the municipal agenda.
Incentives for Planning in Durban
A view often advanced about policy and planning is that change is motivated
through mandates, such as requirements stemming from national laws or donor
funding. However, this form of pressure was not a driver of Durbans adaptation
action. When climate adaptation planning was initiated, there were no national
or provincial policies or laws that required cities in South Africa to pursue
adaptation planning. There also have not been any pressures to pursue adaptation associated with direct foreign investment and official development assistance. At the time Durban was initiating its planning process, most funders had
not started to support adaptation-related initiatives. Even in subsequent years,
financial support from governments and foundations has not been earmarked for
adaptation or contained adaptation requirements.
Durban has been highly successful in obtaining grants and using them to
support its climate-related efforts. In other words, rather than external funders
establishing an adaptation agenda, Durban has found ways to link international
funding to their adaptation program and use them to realize their ideas. For
example, when it became clear that the Headline Adaptation Strategy was not
leading to changes in the way that sectors and departments were going about
their work, Roberts wanted to find a way to initiate more detailed adaptation
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planning as a way to catalyze action. Coincidentally, she was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation to attend a meeting and present her work. That was followed
by an invitation to sit on the Advisory committee for their Asian Cities Climate
Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN). Because time spent on the network
would take her away from her local work from time to time, Rockefeller offered
to compensate her either through an honorarium or by allocating money for local
projects. She elected to use those funds to jumpstart the MAP work.
As in other parts of Africa, storms have come to be accepted as normal weather
patterns in Durban. There is no concrete evidence that they are related to climate
change. However, as awareness of climate risks grow, and as Durban experiences
frequent floods and significant coastal damage, the storms reinforce claims that
climate change is real and that the city needs to pursue adaptation planning in
order to protect its residents and property and to make progress on the development path elaborated in the IDP. The IDP elaborates the citys development
objectives and is a point of reference for many of its decisions. The IDP not only
emphasizes improving infrastructure and the provision of municipal services, it
also stresses the importance of promoting equity by attending to the needs of
vulnerable populations. Engaging in adaptation activities are seen by some as
a means of protecting vulnerable populations while supporting the projected
development path.
Ideas and Adaptation Planning in Durban
The first phase of the MCPP, the vulnerability assessment, focused on understanding how climate change would affect Durban and municipal operations
more broadly. Since information on the ways in which global environmental
trends would play out in the city were not available, this was an important first
step in ascertaining the citys vulnerabilities and the implications of changing
climatic conditions for security and stability over the long term. The potential
severity and cross-cutting nature of the impacts highlighted by the impact assessment underscored the urgent need to ensure climate change issues were considered in all aspects of city planning and development.
International networks often are attributed with being sources of influential
ideas. Durban has developed ties to some of these types of networks and they
have had some impact on adaptation planning. For instance, Durban developed
an affiliation with ICLEI in 1994. At that time, ICLEI was focusing on Local
Agenda 21 rather than climate change and Durban participated in the network
in order to become integrated into the international environmental community.
Although ICLEI did not have any impact on adaptation planning per se, it did
help representatives from the city build their environmental networks and
sources of information. Training sessions often can diffuse ideas and information that shape actions. This was the case when senior managers from several
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municipal departments in Durban participated in programs led by international

agencies to help them prepare for emergencies. For instance, the United Nations
invited Debra Roberts from the EMD and Billy Keeves from the Disaster and
Risk department to participate in Awareness and Preparation for Emergency at
Local Level (APELL) workshops to better prepare the city for emergencies that
could impact industrial and technical sectors.
The earliest climate work in Durban was due to the efforts Roberts, who was
committed to the cause and willing to explore unfamiliar terrain such as developing
impact assessments. This started to change as more targeted opportunities arose.
For instance, in addition to the ACCCRN providing links to others in the international community who were thinking about climate adaptation and resilience,
Roberts also forged ties with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in
the UK while attending a conference in Mexico. This led to an informal partnership
between the Tyndall Centre and eThekwini Municipality to develop integrative
assessment tools for London and Durban, respectively. As with international
networks, this partnership has allowed Durban to engage others who are thinking
about similar issues and to share and test ideas that support their climate work.
Durban is not the only city in South Africa that has been pursuing climate
adaptation. Other major metropolitan areas such as Cape Town and Johannesburg as well as smaller centers such as Potchefstroom have emerged as climate
leaders. At the present time, there is no structured coordination or communication between these different communities and therefore, no domestic efforts
to promote joint learning or sharing of best practices. Instead, Durban and
other local governments are obtaining information about adaptation from
reading reports, scanning the Internet, and talking to people at conferences and
meetings. Working with consultants is also an important source of learning. In
many instances, consultants are hired to assist or prepare reports. In the process,
they often bring new knowledge and ideas to the municipality. This was the case
with the preparation of the Climatic Future for Durban report which summarized, for the first time, locally relevant climate change research being undertaken
in South Africa in a single, accessible document. By engaging consultants, local
government officials were able to obtain information that they would not have
the time or resources to obtain for themselves.
Rather than adaptation initiatives following a predetermined course, many
ideas and activities tend to be the result of unexpected opportunities. For
instance, Roberts gave a lecture on climate change at a public seminar. At the
conclusion of the event, an individual with a passion for green roofs spoke with
her about their potential and she realized that this could be an interesting idea to
test in the city. The city has an extensive stock of large, flat, and empty rooftops on
its buildings (Greenstone, 2008). These spaces are ideal locations to create green
roofs and could be used to develop a network of green spaces in the inner city
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environment that could provide a range of adaptation benefits such as reducing

urban heat island effects, slowing runoff, and improving food security. Roberts
was able to allocate modest funds and provide institutional support to start
testing this idea. The only way to get access to the citys building stock was to forge
a partnership with the Architecture Department. The result is that the EMD and
the municipalitys Architecture Department are developing a green roof on an
existing municipal building within the central business district. This project will
test the methodology and measure the effectiveness of the installation in terms of
temperature amelioration and storm water management. Should this pilot prove
to be successful, the potential exists to roll out the project to other municipal
buildings and proposed new developments. In the process, it also may mean that
ideas about climate adaptation will be diffused internally in the city.
Capacity for Adaptation in Durban
Much of the climate work in eThekwini Municipality has been undertaken by
the EMD on a part-time basis and implemented with department funding that
was able to be reallocated from core biodiversity projects to adaptation. Despite
limited financial and human resources, the initiatives undertaken by the EMD
have achieved local, national, and international recognition. In 2007, these efforts
were formally acknowledged and institutionalized by the municipality with the
creation of a dedicated Climate Protection Branch within the EMD. Although
this is an important step forward, as is the case with municipal jobs in Durban in
general, it has been difficult to find someone willing to fill the new post due to
its low level grading and salary package. The result is that in the short-term, the
climate work undertaken by the EMD continues to be done in an ad hoc manner,
as time and resources permit. Although efforts are not widespread, other departments ranging from health, to disaster management, to food to coastal management, have begun to address adaptation. Since internal capacity is limited, departments rely on their personnel to the extent it is feasible to do so and outsource the
remainder of the work to consultants.
Previous research suggests that cities with ongoing environmental initiatives are likely to be early adopters in the climate mitigation arena. If Durban
is a reflection of other cities, then this also appears to be the case when it comes
to adaptation. A variety of environmental programs in Durban created the
foundation on which current adaptation efforts are being built. In addition to
drawing on some of its existing programs, the municipality has been able to
engage members of local communities and other stakeholders in their adaptation
efforts. In this regard, a number of projects have been initiated under the banner
of Community Adaptation Planning (CAPs). For instance, the Climate-Smart
Local Communities project aims to improve adaptive capacity in poor communities. The two communities participating in this program will be involved in
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conducting vulnerability and risk evaluations, and then using this information
to develop and implement sustainable cross-cutting adaptation measures. The
local participants in the program include formal community leadership, such
as ward Councilors, civil society representatives, womens groups, communal
garden committees, and school groups. If the program is successful, then it will
be initiated in other communities in the city (Golder Associates 2008).
Pilot projects implemented by consultants on behalf of the municipality also
assist the local government in better targeting its efforts. For example, research
undertaken within the MCPP indicated that rural and peri-urban low-income
groups in Durban grow approximately 50% of their food, and purchase the
remainder. The predominant food purchased is maize and costs families in
excess of 50% of their monthly income. This poses significant challenges as
the predicted changes in weather and temperature Durban indicate that the
productivity of agricultural land, particularly for maize, will decrease in the
future. Alternative food production will therefore be required to ensure food
security for the citys low-income groups. The municipality has initiated field
trials in different climatic zones that simulate conditions projected by various
climate change scenarios. At each testing station, a variety of crops will be
planted and yields will be measured at the end of the growing season. In parallel
to the field trials, the social acceptability of the new crops will be tested to
determine the ability of the average household to prepare the new foods, the
palatability of the food, and its acceptability as a substitute for maize (Golder
Associates 2008). The findings of this project will inform the development of
food security plans and strategies in the city.
A number of local NGOs are working collaboratively with the city to support its
climate and development goals. This is evidenced, for instance, with a successful
community reforestation project. The project site selected for this intervention
is the regional Buffelsdraai landfill to the north of the city where the municipality has extensive land holdings. This land was once forested and wooded, but is
currently under sugar cane cultivation. Working in collaboration with the NGO,
Wildlands Conservation Trust, the city is promoting the Indigenous Trees for
Life (ITFL) program as it provides a platform for the development and implementation of the Buffelsdraai Community Reforestation Project. The objective
of ITLF is to establish sustainable livelihoods that contribute to the restoration
of the regions forest ecosystems and to the sequestration of carbon dioxide. The
program draws on a network of tree-preneurs, often orphaned and vulnerable
children, who grow indigenous trees and then barter the trees for food, clothes,
bicycles and other necessities that the Trust secures through corporate donations.
The trees are then replanted in urban greening projects or forest restoration
carbon sinks (Diederichs 2008).
Informal networks exist across most municipal departments and among many
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individuals. These relationships have provided a foundation for advancing

adaptation planning. This was the case, for instance, in the creation of the MAPs.
Roberts targeted the most vulnerable sectors and invited key individuals to a
meeting to discuss their involvement. However, it is important to acknowledge
that networks alone do not ensure participation or commitment to adaptation
planning. Some departments maintain that they do not have the capacity to
address adaptation. Others believe that adaptation measures will compete with
their priorities. For instance, some individuals working in the area of economic
development are concerned that adaptation policies requiring retreat from
the coastline would undermine their efforts to promote tourism. As a result,
while networks foster communication and can facilitate coordination, there are
varying views of the value of adaptation relative to the economic and social
priorities in the city.
3.2 Climate Adaptation in Quito, Ecuador
Quito, home to approximately 2.1 million people, is situated 2,800 meters above
sea level in the Central Andes of South America. While the natural mountain
barriers create a spectacular setting, they have forced urban development to
follow a linear trajectory and urban growth to be highly chaotic. The result
is that the city is approximately 40 to 50 km in length from North to South,
but only between four and ten kilometers wide from West to East (World
Bank 2008). As is the case with other Latin American cities such as Bogota
and Curitiba, Quito has made strides in protecting environmental quality. This
is exhibited in the presence of electric bus systems that run along dedicated
corridors and have the potential to be upgraded to a light rail system. It also is
reflected in the preservation of over 50% of the metropolitan region as green
space and in initiatives ranging from slope protection to the creation of formal
parks to air quality monitoring systems.
Average GDP per capita in Quito is low, with 30% of the people living in
poverty. Most of the poor are concentrated in upgraded informal settlements to
the south of the metropolitan area (World Bank 2008). There is a long history
of migrants moving from agricultural areas to the edges of the city. In the past,
these migrants would create illegal settlements. However, this is increasingly rare
due to a greater number of shelters and city-owned housing in conjunction with
tough sanctions against squatting. Just as the poor have their enclaves, so too do
the wealthy. While some live in the urban core, many have moved to the suburban
areas in the northeastern hills that surround the city center. In contrast to settlements in the south, the wealthy neighborhoods in the northeast are populated by
well-tended homes that boast high levels of amenities and easy access to shopping
centers, offices, and recreation areas.
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The Municipality of Quito, which is situated within the broader Metropolitan District, is governed by a Metropolitan Mayor and a Municipal Council.
As a result, most of the planning and regulatory power for the Municipality
lies in the hands of the Metropolitan Council for the District of Quito. The
Metropolitan Council approves ordinances, resolutions, agreements, and leads
broader projects for the whole metropolitan area, including the Municipality
of Quito.
Although Quito is flourishing, it faces a wide range of challenges as
it slowly emerges from a national economic crisis that accumulated and
worsened with the dollarization in 2000. Among the citys highest priorities
are the construction of a viable waste treatment system, the creation of new
suburban centers and affordable housing, and the promotion of nature and
cultural tourism. Transportation also is a pressing issue. There is a strong
need to develop new arterial roads and tunnels as well as to implement the
proposed light rail system. Even though the municipality is projecting a rapid
increase in revenues and public expenditures, city departments do not expect
to have sufficient resources over the next decade to address all of the major
issues identified in the Metropolitan Structural Plan.
The impact of global climate change is among the challenges that Quito is
working to address. In the Andean region where the city is located, the temperature has been increasing by about 0.11C per decade against a global increase
of 0.06C per decade (Gobierno del Ecuador et. Al. 2008). As with the rest of
Ecuador, because of its geographic position and mountainous topography,
Quitos water resources are highly vulnerable to these changes in temperature
(Comit Nacional sobre el Clima 2001). The city relies on melt and water
resources in glacial basins and pramos ecosystems for about 50% of its water
supply. For instance, Quito receives part of its potable water provision from the
Antisana Glacier and its pramos ecosystems. Changes in climatic conditions are
associated with this glacier decreasing about 7 or 8 times faster in the 1990s than
in the previous decades (Francou et al. 2000, Maisinchi et al. 2005). As temperature rises, and the rate of glacial melt increases, the long term availability of
water to the city is decreasing.
The impacts of climate change are not limited to water availability. Public
officials also anticipate that changes in temperature will contribute to the
destruction of endemic habitat and biodiversity, the release of carbon from
pramo soils, increased likelihood of fires and desertification, and lower
agricultural yields (World Bank 2006; Direccin Metropolitana Ambiental
y Fondo Ambiental 2008). The intensification of extreme rainfall in Quito
also will place additional stress on down slope habitats, including primary
rainforests, exacerbate flooding, and lead to increased occurrences of landslides
and mudslides (Direccin Metropolitana Ambiental y Fondo Ambiental 2008).
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3.2.1
Adaptation Planning Process in Quito
In fall 2006, the mayor at the time, Paco Moncayo, and the Metropolitan Council
decided host a one-time regional conference of the Andean Community of
Nations called Clima Latino. The conference, scheduled for October 2007, was
designed to bring representatives from local and national governments together
to start thinking about the impacts of climate change in the Andean Community and identify measures they could take to promote mitigation and adaptation. Given the significance of the event, and the desire to demonstrate that they
were a proactive municipality, Mayor Moncayo and the Metropolitan Council
thought the conference would be a good platform for highlighting climate initiatives taking place in Quito.
The decision to host the conference immediately initiated discussions about
climate planning, but the process did not gain momentum for a few more months.
In January of 2007, Gonzalo Ortiz gave a presentation to his fellow members of
the Metropolitan Council about the importance of designing a climate strategy
for Quito based on scientific information about rising temperatures and the
shrinking of the Andean glaciers. He argued that it was imperative for Quito to
establish both mitigation and adaptation strategies. This presentation generated
wide and warm support from the Council and Mayor Moncayo. Based on these
approvals, less than a month later, Ortiz initiated the formal planning process
when he and Carmen Elena De Jann, another Metropolitan Councillor, asked
the Directors of the municipal water and sewage corporation (EMAAP-Q), the
municipal air monitoring corporation (CORPAIRE), the Metropolitan Office for
the Environment, and the Strategic Research Unit to establish an Inter-Institutional Commission and prepare a draft climate change strategy for the city. Their
charge was to summarize the best available knowledge on climate adaptation and
mitigation and propose concrete measures that the city could follow.
In September 2007, the Inter-Institutional Commission shared its draft
strategy with key technical representatives from different municipal agencies and
received their approval in October 2007. This draft document was presented at
the Clima Latino conference a few weeks later. Discussions that took place at
the conference helped improve the quality of the draft, especially the sections
on objectives and guidelines for climate adaptation and mitigation. Once this
preliminary stage in planning was complete, Quito engaged in a metropolitanwide consultation about the plan. The Commission decided to hire an environmental NGO, ECOLEX, to formally lead the consultation process. ECOLEX was
charged with engaging the local population, especially vulnerable communities
living on the hillsides of the Pichincha Volcano, the Valle de Los Chillos, and
other poor neighborhoods in the Southern part of Quito, as well as key social and
community development organizations. Four workshops were held by ECOLEX
in October and November 2007 to gather concerns and suggestions so that they
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could be addressed in the climate strategy. While many issues and suggestions
were raised, the major concerns voiced by the general population were the need
for access to public transportation as well as better waste management, hillside
protection, and improvements to the potable water system.
After making revisions based on the concerns and suggestions voiced by
residents, a formal document called the Quito Strategy for Climate Change (EQCC)
was finalized in February 2008. The EQCC, which is presently pending formal
adoption and integration into local regulations of the Metropolitan District,
addresses activities in four Strategic Areas: (1) Communication, education and
citizen participation in climate change efforts; (2) Institutionalization and capacity
building for climate change in the Metropolitan District of Quito; (3) Ensuring
adequate information to decrease vulnerability and promote adaptation; and (4)
Use of technology and good environmental practices to reduce and capture GHGs
in five sectors (energy, industrial processes, agriculture and farming, waste, and
land use and forestry). The plan maps out activities across sectors with varying
degrees of specificity, but does not establish concrete deadlines and targets.
An entire Strategic Area of the EQCC is dedicated to elaborating measures
that will guide Quito towards being prepared for the impacts of climate change.
Among the adaptation measures included in the plan are the development of an
Environmental Information System that will inform citizens of the most important
current and future climate risks and impacts. It also establishes broad guidelines
for developing Early Warning Systems and a Climate Risk Management System
(Direccin Metropolitana Ambiental y Fondo Ambiental 2008). The strategy is
designed to be flexible, with provisions for ongoing monitoring and evaluation
so that the city can readjust its adaptation measures over time as appropriate. It
also is oriented toward broad stakeholder engagement. Not only does it consider
the role of government agencies in preparing the city for climate impacts, but also
the ways in which university engagement, civil society participation, and publicprivate cooperation can support and sustain adaptation initiatives (Dumas 2007).
3.2.2
Drivers of Adaptation Planning in Quito
National climate efforts in Ecuador stretch back to the early 1990s when the
country ratified the UNFCCC. Over the years, efforts have been made to implement mitigation projects and develop a national plan. Working under the
auspices of the Ministry of the Environment and the National Climate Change
Committee, Ecuador developed its National Policy and Strategy for Climate
Change in 1998 and currently is in the process of constructing a National Climate
Change Adaptation Strategy. However, most national climate policies do not
extend their reach in a concrete way to cities or other local areas.
The Quito Strategy for Climate Change was set in motion when the Mayor
and members of the Metropolitan Council decided to host the Clima Latino
448
conference and then formalized in response to the call for action made by
Gonzalo Ortiz. Since his presentation to the Metropolitan Council in January
2007, Ortiz has served as a champion for climate change planning and has
encouraged local agencies and offices to adapt concrete measures. However, he
has not been alone in his quest. Other municipal leaders and officials initially
supported the creation of the climate strategy and continue to be proactive in
advocating for programs that strengthen the resilience of Quito against changing
climatic conditions. Rather than wait for the national government to pass legislation, provide structural guidance on adaptation priorities and measures, or
offer support for their efforts, local officials realized that they should not delay
further adaptation planning and elected to take independent action. Collectively,
their awareness and ability to initiate adaptation efforts was shaped by a number
of different incentives, ideas, and the overall capacity within the city to support
and sustain adaptation planning and implementation.
Incentives for Planning in Quito
Institutional change often is associated with the presence of incentives, either in
the form of regulations or funder pressures. However, this was not the case with
respect to adaptation planning in Quito. As mentioned earlier, the city was not
pressured by the national government to pursue particular projects or planning
measures. Further, while Quito recently has been able to avail itself of support
from international funding agencies, this was sought out by officials to advance
adaptation work that was being planned, rather than funders imposing their
requirements on Quito. For instance, the Andean Regional Project for Adaptation to Climate Change studies and monitors the environmental conditions and
ecosystems around the micro-basins of the Antisana Volcano. In this project, the
EMAAP-Q receives funding from the GEF and World Bank to collaborate with
scientists from the Project. The goal is for EMAAP-Q to better understand how
changing conditions in the micro-basins will impact water provision and ascertain what adaptation measures are required to ensure adequate potable water
distribution in Quito.
A motivating force for the citys adaptation planning efforts is its aim to be
regarded as a leader in the Andean region and in Ecuador. This vision, and
related efforts to enhance the visibility of innovative initiatives within the city, led
Quito to organize international climate conferences such as Clima Latino. The
conference gave them an opportunity to learn from others in the region about
their experiences with climate change and get feedback on their draft proposal.
While the event was used to legitimize and validate their climate adaptation
initiatives, climate initiatives also were a way the city could demonstrate it is
taking a leadership role on geopolitically and environmentally important issues.
In addition to organizing conferences, Quito has maintained a presence at
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international climate conferences to ensure that its accomplishments gain recognition and to bring more visibility to its initiatives. For instance, Guido Mosquera,
the head of the Inter-Institutional Commission in charge of the climate change
strategy for Quito, wanted to present Quitos climate change strategy at a regular
meeting of the Inter-American Network of Cities (Red Ibero-Americana de
Ciudades) that was being held in Medelln, Colombia in November 2007.
Local officials and members of the Inter-Institutional Commission knew other
competitor cities would present their climate change work and, once again, they
wanted to demonstrate that they were taking a leadership role. By having a draft of
their climate strategy in place, they believed that they would be able to show that
they were being proactive in protecting the city and its resources against climate
threats and extreme weather events. By taking the lead on adaptation planning,
they further believed they would reinforce their position as an innovative municipality and would be imitated for their climate and political leadership and autonomous policy-making relative to the national government.
A further incentive for engaging in adaptation planning was an increase
in natural disasters and the desire to protect the city from future incidents. A
number of early reports suggested that as the climate changed, Quito would be
prone to increased periods of rainfall and that these were likely to trigger extreme
events such as landslides and floods in the hillside areas around the city. As these
predictions came to pass, the need for adaptation planning became evident as
weather events affected city functions, particularly public transportation and
roadway accessibility. For instance, in May 2006, intense rainfall led to landslides
in several residential neighborhoods, damaging houses, obstructing roads, and
halting the flow of traffic for several hours (Snchez 2006). The impacts of severe
storms have not been limited to property damage and city functions as earlier
that same year a landslide in the Carapungo district resulted in the death of a
young man (El Universo 2006).
Ideas and Adaptation Planning in Quito
Awareness of the risk of a changing climate has been influential in Quito. Some
of the earliest climate studies date back to the mid-1990s when the French Institute for Development Research (IRD) brought the issue of changing temperatures and its likely impacts to the attention of the Mayor and members of the
Municipal Council. One of those reports was based on the results of monitoring
of the Antisana glacier. The researchers found that the size of the glacier had
significantly shrunk between 1994 and 1997 (Semiond et al. 1998) and therefore, that 80% of the water supply for the city was being threatened. In 2000,
study conducted by local university researchers indicating that the population of
Quito would double by 2025 caught the attention of EMAAP-Q managers and
engineers. Growing sensitivity to the rate of glacial melt, along with population
450
information, served as catalysts for the City Council and the General Manager of
the EMAAP-Q to start making provisions to secure the citys water supply.
International workshops and events related to specific sectors, particularly
water resources, advanced awareness and understanding of the need to initiate
climate adaptation measures in Quito. For instance, over the years, managers
from EMAAP-Q and several members of the Municipal Council have been
invited to participate in regular meetings of the Inter-American Development
Bank, the Corporacin Andina de Fomento, and the World Bank related to
long-term water security. In the course of exchanging experiences, representatives have learned about some of the problems and the social and political
conflicts that have emerged in other locales as a consequence of not being
proactive in ensuring adequate water provision. This heightened their sensitivity
to the importance of taking action to in Quito. In other international meetings in
which the EMAAP-Q participated, such as the IVth Water Forum in Mexico and
the First Annual Megacity Water Congress in 2006, representatives from the water
company were able to learn about innovative techniques and approaches for
clean, safe, and efficient water supply and management, and water sanitation in
large cities. They also become aware of best practices and knowledge management
tools from both developed and middle-income countries.
International climate networks and programs also have been influential sources of
ideas for the city officials and representatives. Since 2004, Mayor Moncayo has played
a leadership role in United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), contributing to
the efforts of this international network and learning from his participation. One
example dates to March 2006 when Moncayo served as a member of a delegation
from UCLG that participated in the World Water Congress in Beijing. During the
congress, debates were centered on the importance for increasing sustainable access
to water and sanitation services for urban populations and improving the capacity of
local governments and cities to protect and manage water resources. This meeting
created a heightened sense of urgency to engage in climate adaptation planning in
Quito. Through his involvement in UCLG more broadly, Moncayo has learned how
other cities are being affected by climate impacts and the ways they are responding.
He has brought these lessons back to Quito where they are shared with members of
the Municipal Council and others involved in planning for climate change.
Capacity for Adaptation in Quito
Capacity refers to resources that provide a foundation for adaptation planning
and sustain implementation. In Quito, the citys existing environmental commitment and programs planted the seeds for mitigation and adaptation planning.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the mayors of Quito have placed a priority on
environmental quality and established a variety of environmental and planning
programs. These initiatives include the creation of new parks, river clean-up and
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restoration, and reforestation. In 2005, Quitos Mayor presented a formal longterm environmental plan (Plan Equinoccio 21, Quito hacia el 2025) that encompasses a series of strategic objectives related to recycling, development of clean
production technology, control of environmental contamination, and restoration
of natural resources in and around Quito. This plan not only serves as guide for
programs and projects of relevant metropolitan agencies, but indicates which
environmental initiatives should be prioritized. Since these include efforts to
protect and restore fragile ecosystems and promote adequate use and conservation of water resources, they establish a basis on which climate adaptation
planning in the Metropolitan District is being built.
City offices and departments are important foundations for adaptation initiatives in Quito. For example, knowing that ecological health is essential to water
security, the Office for the Environment has been promoting a policy to protect
a series of natural areas in the Metropolitan District. In 2006, staff from the
environmental office played a strong role in pushing for a municipal ordinance
that preserves biodiversity and protects fragile areas and ecosystems around the
district since these areas are often sources of water for the population. A number
of relevant programs and activities also are situated within the Metropolitan
Office for Territorial Planning. Over the years, staff members from this office
have been conducting research to identify vulnerable areas of the city and using
land use planning measures, such as soil conservation, green space preservation,
and forest protection, to reduce exposure to natural hazards.
The presence of disaster management plans has bolstered adaptation
planning. Managers from the Risk Management Unit of the Metropolitan Office
for Citizen Security, working together with the Meteorology Institute, have
been following weather patterns for two decades in Quito. Through this collaboration, they became aware that severe storms were increasing the vulnerability
of people living on the hillsides and slopes to flooding and landslides. In 1999,
they developed the Rain Plan to prepare the city for extreme weather events
and establish disaster response measures. More recently, the Risk Management
Unit has been working to ensure that the city is prepared for the impacts that
extreme weather events will have on the local transportation, water, electricity,
and, beyond all, housing infrastructure. This includes implementing the
Hillside Project, which seeks to help inhabitants living in these areas improve
soil protection by reforesting fragile landscapes and preventing further housing
construction through community policing.
NGOs have been an important resource for city officials. In general, NGOs in
Ecuador have greater visibility and are regarded more highly by the government
than is the case in many other countries in Latin America. Although many
development and humanitarian aid NGOs have initiated climate adaptation
campaigns, they have limited presence in Quito as most have focused their work
452
on rural areas in the Andes and Amazon. Instead, at the present time, adaptation
work generally appears to be the domain of environmental NGOs that focus
on technical and scientific work. Organizations such as Fundacin Natura,
Ecociencia, Forum for Hydraulic Resources, SESA, the local office of The Nature
Conservancy are all highly respected for their research, projects to protect
fragile ecosystems around the pramos, and efforts to promote improved water
management. These organizations have published a number of studies on how
the pramos around Quito are affected by different climate and industrial threats.
They also supported the efforts of scientists working in government agencies as
well as helped to implement government environmental initiatives.
The availability of financial resources and technical assistance have advanced and
sustained adaptation-related initiatives in Quito. One of these, the Environmental
Fund, was created in 2005 within the Environmental Office to protect and conserve
the natural resources and environmental quality of the district. At present, the Fondo
Ambiental is financing dozens of projects around the district with the objective of
improving the economic conditions of local populations, creating greater social
cohesion, and protecting fragile areas around Quitos water basins. While some
projects are implemented by the city, others are implemented by local environmental
NGOs. The Fund for Water Protection (Fondo para la Proteccin del Agua - FONAG),
created in 2000 through support from the EMAAP-Q, the Nature Conservancy, and
local corporations, is another key financial resource that serves as a platform for
climate adaptation. As with the Environmental Fund, projects supported by FONAG
are not officially deemed as climate adaptation. However, they support related efforts
since the FONAGs mission is to protect the basins used by Quito for water provision,
as well as to raise awareness about the need to improve the management and conservation of water resources around the city.
Existing resources provide a foundation on which Quito is building its climate
adaptation program. At the same time, new resources are being dedicated to
institutionalize and implement the EQCC. As a first step, at the end of 2008, the
Metropolitan Office for the Environment decided that it should create a Climate
Change Unit. Since this decision has not yet been approved by the Metropolitan
Council, financial resources have not been allocated and staffing is limited to two
people who are responsible for implementing the EQCC. If the Unit is approved,
it will work to improve the sustainability of the climate change strategy, manage
available funds, coordinate the initiatives and projects of metropolitan agencies
and offices, and give the strategy greater visibility. To ensure that the EQCC has
support from agencies across the city, the Unit is planning to organize regular
workshops and meetings with key staff from the EMAAP-Q, the Planning Office,
and the Risk Management Unit. As the process moves forward, the Unit will
be in charge of implementing the climate strategy and monitoring whether it is
achieving its mitigation and adaptation goals.
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4. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FACTORS

SHAPING ADAPTATION PLANNING
The cases of Durban and Quito demonstrate that while incentives, ideas,
and resources all are relevant to urban change, the specific ways in which
these factors shape adaptation planning do not fully conform to the patterns
predicted by prevailing theories. For instance, contemporary theories emphasize how external pressures, particularly regulations and financial incentives will
motivate action (e.g., DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Dobbin, Simmons, & Garttre,
2007). However, this was not the case in either city. Regulations pertaining to
adaptation have not been established at the national level. Further, even though
both cities face resource constraints, neither funding or pressures from funders
shaped decisions to initiate adaptation planning. In both instances, the cities
elected to pursue adaptation and then sought financial support for specific
projects or worked to integrate adaptation objectives into their currently funded
activities. To some extent, this approach likely reflects where these cities are on
the adaptation curve. As early adapters, they are pursuing a course of action
that is just gaining international recognition and that is not widely funded at
the present time. Consequently, rather than serving as an incentive, funding
provided support for their visions and efforts in this domain.
TABLE 1
Incentives, Ideas, and Resources Related to Adaptation Planning
Incentives
Durban
Quito
U Protect against natural disasters

U Secure development path
U Protect against natural

U Enhance reputation
U Awareness
Ideas
of potential climate
impacts
U Information from international
networks
U Ideas from demonstration projects
U Awareness of potential climate

U Information from international
impacts
networks
U Information
from domestic networks
U Government
Resources
employee as
champion
U Formation of dedicated climate
division
U Strong environmental programs
U Community-based adaptation
initiatives
U Environmental NGO engagement
U Specialist input from consultants
disasters
U Public ofcial as champion

U Formation of dedicated climate division
U Strong environmental programs
U Capacity of municipal water corporation
U Environmental NGO
U University research
engagement
454
As summarized in Table 1, rather than being influenced by external pressures,

it appears that locally-determined goals and values were critical drivers of
adaptation planning in both cities. One influential incentive was ensuring the
safety of local populations and protecting the natural and built environments
from natural disasters. Both cities were aware of projected changes in whether
patterns. For Durban, this point was reinforced by severe storm and flood events.
In Quito, floods and landslides that affected city services and infrastructure
affirmed predictions about climate change and provided a cogent rationale for
initiating adaptation planning.
Although there were similarities in the general types of incentives shaping
adaptation planning in both cities, there were differences in the underlying goals
motivating action. In Durban, the projected development path as delineated in
the IDP structures all local action. From the start, adaptation was viewed as a
means to advance sustainable development and therefore, it was seen as integral
to achieving this broader set of goals. For Quito, maintaining a competitive
advantage is an important goal. Climate planning was viewed as a way to enhance
the citys reputation in the region as innovative, forward thinking, and politically
important. It also was regarded as a way to maintain visibility and a favorable
profile in the international arena.
The diffusion of international knowledge and norms, and ties to international networks, are recognized by scholars as having significant impacts on
local behavior (e.g., Stone, 2004; Dobbin, Simmons, and Garttre 2007; Schreurs
2008). In contrast, adaptation planning in both cities was primarily influenced by
locally-relevant, and often locally-generated, ideas and information. For instance,
the impact analysis conducted in 2006 in Durban generated political and administrative interest in understanding in how the city was going to be affected by
climate change and how it could respond to the predicted impacts. Membership
in global networks and attendance at international conferences were important
sources of ideas and information for both cities. However, rather than being
influenced by global norms or best practices being advocated by representatives
from the North, participation in networks and events were valued as opportunities for two-way exchange and for identifying ideas and activities that could
advance local goals and priorities.
The presence of human and political resources was essential to initiating
and sustaining change in both cities. Adaptation planning was catalyzed by an
individual from within the government, either an employee or elected official,
who was compelled by the science and served as a champion to raise awareness
and initiate action. In both cases, these individuals had environmental orientations, understood the implications of the science for city management, and
were able to communicate these insights to others in positions within city
government. While these individuals were influential, they had different levels
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of success in generating short term support for climate initiatives within their
cities. In Durban, adaptation planning took root early, relative to most other
cities. Although the assessment sparked interest and the MCPP was established,
and some Councilors immediately recognized the importance of climate impacts
on the city, adaptation planning has been slow to gain widespread political
support. In contrast, in Quito, Mayor Moncayo initiated informal efforts and,
subsequently, Councilor Ortiz was able to mobilize support around his proposal
to create an official strategy to address climate change after his presentation at
the Metropolitan Council. The continued engagement and monitoring of this
process by Ortiz and other councilors motivated the Environmental Office to
move quickly to develop a strategy. The differences in political support seem to
be associated with broad city uptake of the climate change idea in Quito while in
Durban it still is a niche concept associated with a limited number of actors.
Resources are important for initiating a program of action, but so too is
resourcefulness. Both cities faced notable capacity limitations. Rather than wait
until they had additional funding or personnel, they found innovative ways to
draw on and extend their capacity so that they could initiate climate planning
and action. For instance, both cities were able to build on existing environmental
programs, draw on networks, and find ways to link adaptation to ongoing initiatives. In addition, while the specific approaches varied in each city, both were able
to engage NGOs, CBOs, consultants, and universities.
5. EARLY LESSONS FROM EARLY ADAPTERS

A number of lessons can be learned from the adaptation planning processes in
Durban and Quito. In general, these experiences suggest that cities may need to
develop general strategies as well as sector-based plans in order to have successful
adaptation programs. Once Durban became aware of the impacts that climate
change was projected to have on the city through their impact assessment,
municipal staff members developed a general adaptation strategy. However,
relatively quickly they discovered that they needed more concrete measures to
guide action, so they now are in the process of developing more detailed planning
protocols for each sector. Quito has had a detailed water plan in place for many
years, but the city found that it needed to have an integrated climate action plan.
As the experiences in Quito and Durban suggest, a strategy provides a general
framework that can integrate citywide action and offers opportunities for public
input. However, strategic plans need to be augmented with sector plans that
include specific goals and implementation targets.
The cases of Durban and Quito demonstrate the importance of linking
adaptation planning and implementation to city priorities and existing initia-
456
tives. While local governments generally seek to provide basic services and
ensure a good quality of life for their citizens, most have limited resources.
Frequently, climate change is perceived as a distant threat and is often regarded
as less important, or in conflict with immediate priorities. Helping cities see how
adaptation can support their goals and priorities, and how adaptation measures
can be connected to ongoing activities, may be a way to facilitate planning and
implementation. For instance, Durban is encountering ongoing issues related to
water scarcity. While the water sector is proactive in its efforts to stabilize service
provision by engaging in efforts such as repairing leaks and upgrading pipes,
they do not regard these initiatives as being motivated by adaptation needs. In
Quito, large areas have been set aside as green space. Although these initiatives
contribute to adaptation by helping reduce the impacts of storms by slowing
runoff and limiting heat island effects, they mainly are viewed as ways to beautify
the city, improve the quality of life for local populations, and build tourism. As
these examples suggest, there are many ongoing activities that can contribute
to urban resilience. Acknowledging the presence of climate impacts and then
building on and extending existing work is a way to promote adaptation in the
context of departmental work routines and goals.
Efforts need to be made to ensure that cities have access to reliable information and opportunities to share experiences and ideas through local, regional,
national, and international networks, seminars, and conferences. While there
are abundant materials on the internet and in print, it appears that interpersonal
exchange, including informal discussions of new activities and initiatives are
ways that cities learn from others and extend their adaptation programs. Scientific information about climate impacts is vital, but so too is knowledge sharing
around sector specific issues and climate governance more broadly. As the cases
suggest, seminars and workshops within cities can be just as influential as international conferences. The import of information obtained through different types
of networks and events suggests that forums for exchange should be established
and participation in diverse types of climate-related events should be supported.
This includes forums within cities so that information is shared across departments, as well as fostering participation in events in the regional, national, and
international arenas.
The trends across both cities suggest that it is important to have a dedicated
climate team that is working within a centralized office. This office needs to be
appropriately staffed and funded. It also needs to have sufficient authority to
enlist cooperation from upper and mid-level staff members of sector offices and
to foster intergovernmental coordination and communication. Climate change
frequently is assumed to be an environmental issue as individuals within the
environmental sector tend to be first to make efforts to promote adaptation and
initiate this work by building on existing environmental programs. While this
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provides an important foundation, it can lead to climate offices being situated

within environmental departments. This can be problematic since environmental
functions in local government frequently are weak and marginalized. The impact
is that climate change is labeled green before there is a chance to understand
its crosscutting nature and significance to development more broadly. Rather
than relegate adaptation to a single sector, an alternative would be to create a
Climate Protection Department within the office of the City Manager or Mayor.
This would reinforce the interdepartmental character of climate impacts while
demonstrating that the adaptation has status and political support.
The engagement of NGOs, CBOs, consultants, and universities can enhance
municipal adaptation efforts. The cases suggest that initiation and success of
adaptation planning rest on the commitment of government actors and departments. While government support is essential, cities can extend their capacity
by engaging a variety of stakeholders. For instance, an environmental NGO
is working collaboratively with the EMD in Durban. In addition, the city has
begun to draw on its existing Ward structure to engage communities and
community groups and to build their adaptation capacity. In addition to these
civil society actors, Durban engaged consultants to conduct studies and assist
with projects. Similar to Durban, NGO adaptation work in Quito appears to be
limited to organizations with an environmental focus. For the most part, rather
than working directly on projects, these NGOs have conducted research that
has provided important information to governments. Quito also has relied on
university scholars, centers, and programs to provide it with research in support
of its initiatives.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Minimizing the impacts that climate change will have on cities and their inhabitants requires that urban municipalities make concerted efforts to protect natural
systems, the built environment, and human populations. City plans and planning
processes are guided by the beliefs and goals that local public officials, representatives, and communities seek to advance. More often than not, these individuals
and institutions are inclined toward maintaining the status quo. However, as
transitions in Durban and Quito suggest, even highly resource-constrained cities
are able to alter their practices.
The cases suggest that specific types of incentives and ideas can foster institutional change and promote adaptation planning in cities. Dedicated regulations and financial incentives are not yet influential in the adaptation arena and
therefore, do not shape the activities of early adapters. Instead, these cities tend to
be driven by their existing goals and priorities and influenced by the recognition
458
that taking action in the short term is likely to ensure the viability of their cities in
the long term. With respect to ideas, awareness of local vulnerabilities stemming
from scientific information and assessments had a notable influence on climate
decisions and actions. More generally, both cities benefited from personal interactions and participation in diverse forums as these fostered an exchange of
information and ideas that generated locally-relevant insights.
The findings demonstrate the ways in which capacity serves as a complement
to incentives and ideas in the adoption and mainstreaming of new urban initiatives. A critical resource that emerged in both cases was the presence of a local
champion. These individuals can help raise awareness of the risks and importance
of adaptation planning, identify ways to link adaptation to existing programs,
and seize new opportunities that emerge in order to extend and mainstream
adaptation efforts. Political support also emerged as an important resource. The
support of public officials in both cities determined whether adaptation was
viewed as a legitimate issue and affected the rate at which planning and implementation took place. Resources are important, but so too is resourcefulness.
Efforts in both cities to link adaptation to ongoing initiatives and to engage the
support of diverse stakeholders provided a means for extending capacity and
creating a foundation for adaptation planning.
The trends and accomplishments in Durban and Quito provide insight into
steps cities can take to initiate and sustain climate adaptation programs. First,
while general strategies and broad guidelines are central to establishing a vision,
action is predicated on the creation of sector-specific adaption plans that include
goals and intermediate targets. Second, the mainstreaming of climate adaptation
may be most readily achieved when initiatives are linked to local priorities and
ongoing activities. Third, it is essential to ensure that there are multiple ways for
cities to gain access to reliable information. This includes locally-relevant scientific
information about risks as well as information on pertinent adaptation measures.
Fourth, cities need opportunities to share experiences and ideas through local,
regional, national, and international networks, seminars, and conferences. Fifth,
cities should be encouraged to establish climate offices that are not affiliated with
a specific department or sector. These offices also need to be given adequate
visibility and resources so that they can initiate and implement change. Finally,
while local governments need to make a commitment to adaptation and work
to coordinate intergovernmental efforts, they should extend their capacity by
engaging nongovernmental stakeholders, including NGOs, CBOs, consultants,
and universities.
The findings presented in this paper are based on the activities of two cities
with similar administrative structures. It is likely that as more cities pursue
adaptation planning, and we have opportunities for comparison across those
with diverse forms of administration and management, we will uncover new
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459
trends and experiences in the adaptation planning process. In addition, the two
cities studied here had relatively limited engagement with NGOs and moderate
levels of institutional and financial capacity. Cities with alternative civil society
relationships or different levels of capacity may follow different trajectories as
different drivers may take on greater significance in these settings. Finally, it is
important to acknowledge that as the adaptation context changes, and national
governments develop regulations and dedicated adaptation funds and funder
requirements emerge, late adapters will encounter different circumstances than
the early adapters described in this paper.
Prevailing theories emphasize the ways in which external pressures and the
diffusion of global knowledge and norms drive local change. However, the trends
in Durban and Quito suggest that for early adapters, local change is shaped by an
ability to link new initiatives to local priorities, to identify and generate locallyrelevant knowledge, and to build upon ongoing routines and existing programs.
These patterns not only offer a counterpoint to the dominant theories, but offer
practical lessons for policymakers and other cities seeking to engage in adaptation
planning and implementation.
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CHAPTER
18
Climate Change and the Resilience

of New Orleans: the Adaptation
of Deltaic Urban Form
Armando Carbonell, Douglas J. Meffert*
INTRODUCTION
Using New Orleans, Louisiana, USA as the departure point, this paper discusses
emergent trends of climate change and hurricanes, along with policies and
practice representing adaptive land use, mitigation, and governance. The role
of urban form in adapting to and mitigating climate change will be addressed,
including an emphasis on natural wetland and water ecostructures. The New
Orleans case study offers information that can inform international sites, particularly historic, vulnerable port delta cities.
1.1 Coastal Louisiana and New Orleans
For most of the 20th century, New Orleans was sustained paradoxically by
enhanced drainage of its delta subsurface along with increased efforts on
managing land and water at its perimeter and regional environs (e.g., levees and
floodwalls). At the same time, coastal Louisiana was experiencing one of the
highest coastal wetland loss rates in the world due to the combined and exacerbating effects of seasonal sediment deprivation from the Mississippi River levees,
natural compaction and subsidence, subsidence from oil and gas extraction, sea
level rise, and nutria consumption of native wetland vegetation.
462
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The continued loss of wetlands and increased vulnerability of New Orleans

was widely discussed and debated among many scientists, engineers, and policymakers for decades before Hurricane Katrina. The immensity of the problem was
revisited in the early 21st century when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in
approximately 217 square miles of wetland conversion (loss) to water statewide,
117 square miles of which was due to Hurricane Katrina (CPRA 2007). Around
metropolitan New Orleans, where the wetlands have historically formed a critical
storm surge buffer, the loss of coastal marshes in that particular year was so great
that it represented about 50 years of projected wetland loss.
Much has been written and debated about how and where New Orleans
residents should repopulate. Many of these discussions recommend rebuilding
or relocating with the expectation of future flooding, clustering populations
in areas safest from natural disaster, and enhancing natural processes to the
greatest extent possible.
The destruction and increased vulnerability of wetlands has reached a critical
level worldwide. Over the last 200 years, wetlands in the United States have
been drained, dredged, filled, leveled, and flooded for urban, agricultural, and
residential development. In consequence, the 220 million acres of wetlands that
once existed in the contiguous U.S. have been reduced to about 103 million acres
(Watzin and Gosslink 1992). These losses are important because wetlands are
among the most highly productive ecosystems on Earth, and provide a variety
of economically important products and services (Costanza and Farber 1985).
Scientists have recognized the need to restore or replace lost wetlands. Until
recently, most wetland restoration efforts were relatively small, but a few largescale restoration efforts (50,000 acres and larger) have been implemented.
Nowhere in the United States are wetland losses greater than in Louisiana.
Louisianas coastal zone was formed by sediments deposited during a series of
16 major Mississippi River deltaic episodes over the past 7,000 years, creating
a region of coastal wetlands covering 3.3 million acres of the state (Cowan and
Turner 1988; Turner and Rao 1990; Good et al. 1995). These wetlands represent
30% of coastal wetlands in the contiguous U.S. but are experiencing 90% of
coastal wetland loss (CPRA 2007; LCWCRTF 1993; Dahl 2000). The causes
of this wetland loss include cumulative natural and human-induced impacts
(LCWCRTF 1993; Boesch 1982; Mendelssohn 1983; Titus 1986; Turner and
Cahoon 1987; Day and Templet 1989; Duffy and Clark 1989). Beginning in the
18th century and accelerating after the record flood of 1927, the construction of
artificial levee systems has eliminated the overbank contribution of sediment of
flood flows from the Mississippi River to Southeastern Louisiana (Turner and Rao
1990; Kesel 1989). In addition, during the 19th and 20th centuries, navigation
channel dredging, oil and gas exploration and production, land reclamation, and
the construction of commercial and industrial facilities further damaged the
464
coastal region in terms of primary and secondary wetland losses. These activities
have caused reductions in new accretion and freshwater inflow, led to increases
in saltwater intrusion and wave energies on a fragile interior marsh substrate,
and destroyed emergent vegetation which would otherwise bind sediments and
produce organic matter. By 2050 it is projected that Louisiana will have lost
more than one million acres of coastal wetlands, an area larger than the State of
Delaware (LCWCRTF 1993; Meffert et al. 1997). In addition, the Gulf of Mexico
will continue to advance inland as much as 33 miles during this period, transforming previously productive wetlands into open water and leaving major towns
and cities, such as New Orleans and Houma, exposed to open marine forces of
the Gulf of Mexico (CPRA 2007; Titus 1986; Lopez 2005; NCMGCEC 2006).
If the coastal land loss trend continues, Louisiana will sustain major economic
and social losses including: (1) damages, control costs, and insurance claims
from floods and hurricanes; (2) oil and gas infrastructure; (3) private land and
residences; (4) commercial seafood production; (5) commercial hunting and
trapping; (6) recreational hunting and fishing; (7) shipping; (8) channel and river
maintenance; (9) drinking water; (10) water quality improvements; and (11)
employment. When one accounts for functional values, infrastructural investments, and biologic productivity, Louisianas coastal wetlands value exceeds $100
billion dollars (CPRA 2007; LCWCRTF 1993). These resources provide more
fishery landings than any other coterminous U.S. state (CPRA 2007; USDOC
1994), the largest fur harvest in the U.S. (CPRA 2007; Coreil 1994), 21% of the
nations natural gas supply (CPRA 2007; LCWCRTF 1993), and protection for
waterborne cargoes representing 25% of the nations total exported commodities
(CPRA 2007). Because many of these benefits and services are of national interest,
the entire country, not just Louisiana, stands to lose a vast economic resource.
1.2 Climate Change Implications
With expectations of climate change-related relative sea level rise of 3-10 mm

per year in the next 50 years (Trnqvist et al. 2008), the vulnerability of the New
Orleans metropolitan area and the rest of coastal Louisiana will only be exacerbated, leading to an increased need for people to reside in the least vulnerable
zones, whenever possible. When one accounts for both subsidence endemic to
Louisianas deltaic coast and global sea level rise, recent estimates of relative sea
level rise project the Gulf of Mexico will be anywhere between 2-6 feet higher in
the next century (Trnqvist et al. 2008; Day and Giosan 2008; Marshall 2008).
Despite these recent and dire predictions, with the exception of populated
areas in New Orleans that are below sea level, urban and rural populations of
Louisianas coastal zone have long existed with the natural flooding propensity
of the region with many small towns in the deltaic plain, in particular, priori-
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tizing residential land use along the limited levee areas of bayous and former
distributaries of the Mississippi River, so that they can remain above sea level
and minimize risks associated with flooding and storm surge. The problem now
is that many of the small rural towns in coastal Louisiana that have been able to
sustain themselves near sea level for the past century will succumb to sea level rise
during the next century and, those that remain above sea level but on the ridges of
the former Mississippi River distributaries will no longer have the wetland buffers
that have historically protected them from diurnal fluctuations of sea level, intermittent storms, and less frequent but increasingly catastrophic hurricane/tropical
storm surges. For many of these towns, residential relocations are inevitable.
Given these relocations, the State has an opportunity to re-examine future land
use priorities in the delta plan and implement both structural and non-structural interventions that will maximize the productivity of these systems while
minimizing economic and cultural losses and social justice dilemmas.
THE ECOSTRUCTURE HYPOTHESIS
Specific crosscutting research questions addressed in this paper (adapted from

ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability Urban Biosphere Programme) are:
1. What are the main ecological drivers of change at the regional and local scales
that impact urban resilience following a disaster and adaptation to climate
change?
2. What is the role of ecosystem services and land use transformation in promoting human well-being and safety, reducing vulnerability, and enhancing
adaptation and mitigation to climate change?
3. What are the spatial, jurisdictional, and temporal scales required to ensure
sustainable governance of urban systems?
For purposes of this research, the definitions of adaptation and mitigation are
consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth
Working Group (IPCC 2007):
Adaptation is defined as initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability
of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects.
Various types of adaptation exist, e.g., anticipatory and reactive, private and public,
and autonomous and planned. Examples are raising river or coastal dikes, the
substitution of more temperature-shock resistant plants for sensitive ones, etc.
Mitigation is defined as technological change and substitution that reduces
inputs and emissions per unit of output. Although several social, economic and
466
technological policies would produce an emission reduction, with respect to

climate change, mitigation means implementing policies to reduce Green House
Gas (GHG) emissions and enhance sinks.
The hypothesis is that restoring and enhancing ecosystem services (i.e.,
ecostructure) of urban systems in the context of regional natural systems with
appropriate jurisdictional oversight and local governance increases the ability of
these urban systems to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
METHODOLOGY
The methodology chosen is a synthetic assessment of large-scale ecosystem restoration, flood protection, jurisdictional advocacy and oversight, and land policies
that promote climate change adaptation and mitigation for New Orleans and
its contextual regional ecosystem. Given the nascent nature of New Orleans
recovery from Hurricane Katrina and coastal master plan implementation,
primary sources of information are peer-reviewed when available, or from
journalistic accounts when peer-reviewed or government documents are not
available.
Since many of the most significant indicators of actual implementation of
large-scale adaptation and mitigation measures are not yet available, a quantitative model is not proposed in this paper for linking social and governmental
actions with resultant adaptation and mitigation outcomes. Rather, a qualitative
review of peer-reviewed, popular, and government reports regarding urban and
coastal restoration and planning are synthesized with a particular emphasis on
relevance to climate change adaptation and mitigation. For example, while the
Wetland Value Assessment (WVA) methodology behind selection of priority
wetland restoration projects is well established (providing a common metric of
average annualized habitat units (AAHUs), these assessments are prospective
in nature for an average project lifetime of twenty years of accrued benefits
(LCWCRTF 1993; Meffert et al. 1997). Furthermore, as discussed later in this
paper, the projects that have been determined to have the greatest benefits in
terms of large-scale adaptation and mitigation have not yet been implemented
due to lack of land policy resolution and funding, so there is no available information yet on the efficacy of these projects. It is possible, however, to perform a
qualitative review of cumulative expected outcomes.
This paper thus provides a qualitative review on the adaptation of urban form
in New Orleans to date, with a particular focus on ecostructural approaches,
and extrapolates this information to recommended future land use and other
practices that can be applied to cities with similar conditions internationally.
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ECOSYSTEM AND POLICY ADAPTATION
4.1 Ecological/Coastal and Urban Form Comparisons
Just as ecologists examine ecological systems in terms of their carrying capacity of

keystone species, one can examine urban and other coastal human settlements in
terms of their residential carrying capacity. So how do prevailing gradual environmental trends (e.g., relative sea level rise and coastal wetland loss) and acute threats
(e.g., hurricanes and flooding) impact urban and rural coastal carrying capacity in
Louisiana? The pre-Katrina trend was already one of dramatic historical wetland
loss since these regions are the vestiges of former Mississippi River delta lobes and
are thus subject to the natural compaction and deterioration of these habitats which
has been exacerbated by relative sea level rise and other anthropogenic interventions (e.g., leveeing the Mississippi River, oil and gas exploration, wetland conversions to agriculture and other development).
With regard to the first crosscutting research question described earlier in this
paper, the main ecological driver of enhanced resilience on both regional and
local scales is restoration and preservation of coastal wetland habitats. Current
plans are to restore as much of this marsh as quickly as possible with a combination of adaptation and mitigation measures, including restoration of natural
delta building, marsh creation from use of dredged material, water control structures, and hard structures e.g., dikes and levees (CPRA 2007; LRA 2007; CPRA
2009). The most interior marshes have been prioritized for conservation and
restoration because of the ecological benefits (e.g., habitat for fisheries, support
of indigenous plant and animal life) and storm surge protection they provide
to the more densely populated areas, including New Orleans, and oil and gas
exploration and transportation infrastructure. The most prominent occupied
landscape feature currently identified for abandonment is the modern (aka birds
foot) delta of the Mississippi River. Plans call for this land/marsh material to be
utilized for restoration/re-creation of marsh that is located proximate to more
densely populated areas.
Campanella (2007) has assessed vacant parcels and lots in Orleans parish
in order to calculate the potential incremental increase in residential carrying
capacity of areas above sea level in New Orleans (beyond those properties
already identified as blighted, which are under the jurisdiction of the New
Orleans Redevelopment Authority). By this estimate, New Orleans could accommodate roughly 300,000 residents above sea level (in 1960 this area held a peak
population of 306,000), which is 115,000 more than the 185,000 residing above
sea level in 2006.
Given the knowledge that deltaic cities like New Orleans will likely experience
3-10mm per year of relative sea level rise over the next 50 years (Trnqvist et
468
al. 2008), residential development should be the priority use for higher elevations, with lower elevations reserved to support fisheries, storm surge protection,
and other ecosystem services. If one is to prioritize areas 1 foot above sea level
or higher for residential occupation, for example, available space is limited in
the deltaic plain of coastal Louisiana to primarily levees and ridges along rivers,
bayous and former distributaries of the Mississippi River . While a larger regional
levee system in south Louisiana is proposed to provide 100-year protection for
about 120,000 rural residents in Louisiana coastal areas (Walsh 2007), thousands
of residents are left outside of protection systems. For the Delta lobe (e.g.,
Boothville-Venice) residents, these lands will ultimately be abandoned, with
marsh creation (e.g., through beneficial use of dredge material) being prioritized for degraded marsh in Barataria, Terrebonne, and Breton Sound basins, in
particular. So far, relocation is based primarily on voluntary actions of residents
and this must be re-examined carefully in terms of design, planning, and policy
with an eye to both vulnerability and litigation exposure.
4.2 Ecosystem and Land Use Adaptation to Climate Change and
Disaster: Chronic Perturbation v. System Shocks
Of necessity, human populations worldwide will continue to occupy urban areas that
are vulnerable to the impacts of slow variables (e.g., sea level rise, periodic flooding,
etc.) and threshold events (e.g., natural disasters) some of which will be severe. As
a deltaic city, New Orleans has always been situated in a dynamic landscape. After
achieving its peak urban population in the early 1960s, in the 40 years before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was experiencing trends in multiple slow variables. These
natural and socioeconomic indicators, including rising seas, compacting deltaic
landscape, population decline, suburban sprawl in below sea level areas, coastal
wetland loss, and economic decline (Campanella, Etheridge and Meffert 2004),
combined to make the city increasingly vulnerable. In terms of most of these indicators, Hurricane Katrina provided a shock to the New Orleans urban ecosystem that
advanced its state half a century into what its future would have been had that storm,
or a similar shock, not struck the city during that period. Thus, New Orleans provides
valuable clues for strategic planning of vulnerable deltaic cities worldwide.
The Gulf of Mexico of the United States has an ongoing history of natural
disasters. A major hurricane has hit the Gulf Coast every year since 1994 with 26
named storms and 14 hurricanes in 2005 (NCMGCEC 2006). One of the reasons
that Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage is that more than 10 million people
currently live in coastal counties and parishes along the Gulf of Mexico 3.5 times
the population that lived in these counties in the 1950s (NCMGECEC 2006).
Since Hurricane Katrina, numerous articles and reports have been published that
mesh the theoretical underpinnings of coastal science, engineering, architecture,
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landscape architecture, and urban planning and design, with land use and other
germane coastal policies to provide recommendations for future planning of the
urban/rural form of New Orleans and its surrounding deltaic landscape (CPRA
2007; LRA 2007; Laska and Morrow 2006; Lopez 2007; Costanza, Mitsch and
Day 2006; Blakely 2007; Rodiek 2007; Meffert 2008; Trnqvist and Meffert 2008).
Most of these articles emphasize both adaptation and mitigation, recognizing that
adaptive measures are necessary given the rapid rate of relative sea level rise and
increased salinization of freshwater and brackish coastal marsh habitats. In general,
recommendations include maximizing incorporation of natural ecostructural
processes in community-based planning and design and minimizing deleterious
environmental impacts of built infrastructure elements. While specific recommendations vary among publications, general concepts include:
1. Work with natural hydrology and propensity for flooding whenever possible
and encourage a) building on higher ground with increased residential densities in these areas and b) promoting decreased residential densities in lower
ground and/or floodable structures in these areas;
2. Restore natural landscapes (e.g., gradual boundaries/topography between
deepwater systems and uplands) with natural processes (e.g., Mississippi
River diversions) whenever possible for maximum provision of ecosystem
services including storm surge and infrastructure protection;
3. Implement flood control, disaster preparedness, and landscape interventions
on a neighborhood scale in existing urbanized areas and primary transportation corridors (e.g., terraces; polders; drainage enhancements, including bayous, canals and permeable surfaces);
4. Use sustainable architectural practices (e.g., renewable and efficient energy,
decreased flooding propensity, materials reuse, etc.) for both renovation of
existing structures and construction of new structures; and
5. Maximize community participation and restore social capital (e.g., diversity,
environmental justice, and social networks) at every phase of planning, design, and implementation.
With regard to the second crosscutting research question described earlier in
this paper, one can examine New Orleans urban and contextual natural habitats
in terms of the ecosystem services they provide and, thus, aid prioritization of the
interventions described above. Cumulatively, these interventions will increase
human well-being and safety, reduce vulnerability, and enhance adaptation and
mitigation to climate change. Current Tulane University CBR social-ecological
research in New Orleans, for example, is testing, forensically and prospectively,
whether human interventions in post-Katrina New Orleans have altered the
470
ability of this urban and surrounding coastal ecosystem to provide for ecosystem
services. The habitats of interest are the urban forest; developed residential,
commercial, and public space; and other built and natural forms as they have
existed historically through development patterns and in terms of prospective
plantings and other future built and natural interventions. Some of the primary
core services endemic to the New Orleans urban/coastal system include:
1. Provisioning services:
a. Foods (e.g., through urban farms)
b. Energy (e.g., biofuel production in underdeveloped formerly urban floodprone regions)
c. Passive stormwater runoff/infiltration (e.g., vegetative interventions/
landscape architecture)
d. Storm surge protection (e.g., from coastal wetland and barrier island habitats)
2. Regulating services:
a. Carbon sequestration and climate regulation (e.g., urban heat island effect)
b. Nutrient dispersal (e.g., from fertilizers utilized in the Mississippi River
watershed)
3. Supporting services, including waste/chemical decomposition/detoxification
(e.g., natural attenuation, phytoremediation)
4. Cultural services, including recreation and ecotourism
5. Preserving services, including genetic and species diversity of flora and fauna.
Direct and indirect feedback loops for selected indicators link up with changes
in human interventions that, in turn, relate to local and political perceptions and
support for these services. Services can be evaluated in terms of their ability
to provide economic resources that benefit the social network of New Orleans
neighborhoods. By addressing the environmental, economic, and social networks
of New Orleans, key indicators of sustainability are addressed.
4.3 Scale Mismatches in Social-Ecological Planning
and Land Use Governance
With regard to the third crosscutting research question described earlier in

this paper, the sustainable governance of the urbanized New Orleans metropolitan region must rely on both hard structures (e.g., levees and floodwalls)
surrounding the city and the multi-parish enhancement of natural wetland
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habitats (e.g., through natural delta building) on a multi-decadal temporal

scale. Systematic planning interventions in coastal Louisiana are complicated
by mismatches between the natural boundaries of the problem at hand and
those of the jurisdictions having the requisite regulatory authority or planning
capacity. Figure 1 shows four of the five coastal ecosystem-based planning
units (based on combinations of major watersheds/basins) overlaid on parishgoverned jurisdictional boundaries (delineated by different colors of adjacent
parishes). Jurisdictional mismatches exist because settlement (and subsequent
local governance) in coastal Louisiana tends to straddle the high ground on
coastal Louisiana bayou and river levees, while the CPRA hydrologic-based
planning units are often demarcated by these same waterways a condition
counterintuitive to most water-shed based planning in areas with greater
vertical topography.
FIGURE 1
Planning Units in Southeast Louisiana of the States Coastal Protection
and Restoration Authority Master Plan (outlined with solid lines).

Each unit includes one or more of the 9 major hydrologic basins in coastal Louisiana with Units One, Two,
Three-A, and Three-B being delineated by the Mississippi River, Bayou Lafourche, and Bayou du Large
(graphic by Jonathan Tate)
472
In this case, New Orleans as a municipal land use authority has planning
and regulatory jurisdiction over only a small fraction of the pertinent area.
The official regional planning commission created by the Louisiana legislature
for the five parishes around New Orleans is a policy body without regulatory
authority and also falls short in terms of geographic coverage relative to the
larger coastal system implicated in planning for coastal ecosystem planning
units One and Two (Figure 1). Agencies of the state and federal government
are positioned to maintain and protect the larger system and regulate uses that
impact coastal waters and wetlands, but may not have the mandate or political
will to intervene in land use matters involving private property. These agencies
include the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration (OCPR),
Louisiana Recovery Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers.
The foundation for examination of land use priorities in the New Orleans
metropolitan area includes the flood advisories established by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after Hurricane Katrina, the
proposed resettlement and land use proposals developed through the Unified
New Orleans Plan (UNOP) and other relevant urban/regional plans, the
recent investments through the Louisiana Recovery Authority in targeted
reinvestment areas established by New Orleans Office of Recovery and
Development Administration (ORDA), the Comprehensive Master Plan for
New Orleans currently under development (NOLA 2009), and other recommended flood risk adaptation activities (e.g., land swaps and voluntary structural elevations).
Regarding the New Orleans-specific documentation above, Goody Clancy
(Boston, MA) was contracted by the City of New Orleans to develop a
Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP) and Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance
(CZO) that, if adopted, would have the force of law. As of the summer of 2010,
the final CMP had been submitted to the City Planning Commission and
CZO public meetings and development were in progress. Guiding principles
and key features of the plan are summarized in Table 1. This planning process
has also established a Sustainable Systems Working Group (SSWG) with a
research and community outreach process completed in the summer of 2009.
Sustainable recommendations in the Master Plan will contain the following
elements (GCA 2008):
1. Community Facilities and Services
a. Major components of non-transportation-related infrastructure, including
water and sewer, electric, gas, and waste disposal
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473
b. Location, typology and characteristics of key community facilities,

including schools, libraries, community centers, health clinics, police, fire,
courts, and criminal justices
2. Transportation, including all roads, bridges, public transit, pedestrian amenities, bicycle, port, and airport infrastructure and systems.
3. Broad aspects of sustainability, environmental quality, and resilience as they
relate, in particular, to green design, energy efficiency, flood protection, storm
water management, hazard mitigation/emergency preparedness, and coastal
restoration.
The CMP includes a general recommendation that the City of New Orleans
create a climate plan that addresses how the city should respond to global
warming (NOLA 2009). Adaptation and mitigation measures recommended
within the next five years to respond to changing global weather patterns include
preserving wetlands inside and outside the Citys levee system to reduce neighborhood flooding and elevating houses above projected 500-year flood levels
(generally three to six feet) following the anticipated 2011 completion of current
levee reconstruction efforts. This working group recognizes that the future safety
and resilience of New Orleans will depend on multiple lines of defense from
storm surge and relative sea level rise (Lopez 2005) (Figure 2). This strategy
includes coastal wetlands and barriers, levees and pumps, internal drainage
improvements, and land use planning and regulation.
FIGURE 2
Multiple lines of defense concept (adapted from graphic produced by the
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, from the CPRA Master Plan)
474
TABLE 1
Guiding Principles and Key Features of the Draft New Orleans Master Plan
Guiding Principles
Master Plan Key Features
U The
U A
future of New Orleans must be shaped

by an honestly optimistic assessment
assessment of its risks and opportunities.
U Geography and water shape value and
culture as well as drive risk.
U New Orleans cannot survive as a viable
community if it must evacuate frequently
U A 1-in-100 year level of ood protection is
essential but not adequate and is less than
the City ad the Nation were committed to
prior to Hurricane Katrina
U The levees, pumps, and wetlands the
City currently relies on are all that can be
expected for the foreseeable future.
U The State Master Plan and Corps of
Engineers plans are not a substitute for
effective action at the City since the authorization, funding and construction process for
bold and effective action on next generation
storm protection, coastal restoration, and
climate change will be measured in decades
time the City does not have.
U New Orleans can increase its near term
protection and resilience by how it chooses
to live with its levees, pumps, and wetlands.
U No part of the City is immune from risk,
though risks are not uniform across the City.
Plan for water, not against it.
U No part of the City should be left out of its
recovery and redevelopment, but the timing
and nature of recovery and redevelopment
does and will vary.
U It is not possible to immunize the City from
risk; we must make it resilient to risk.
1-in-500 year minimum level of protection

from storms
U A city that does not have to evacuate (except
under extraordinary circumstances)
U A city planning for current risks and future
risks specically those associated with
rising seas
U A city that views water as an asset
U Land use and water management practices
that reduce risk, enhance land values and
increase resilience to water, storms and other
environmental hazards
U Plan for, and reduce, subsidence at the city
level.
U Plan for, and manage, interior hydrology and
storm water to reduce ooding risk.
U Encourage regional cooperation and
planning.
U Support and advocate for improvements to
long range storm protection system
U Support and advocate for coastal conservation and restoration at the State and federal
levels.
U Support for and advocate for effective
responses to rising seas and climate change.
U Encourage residents to build smart.
U Harden essential infrastructure against wind
and water risk.
U Community involvement shared responsibility, collective benet
U Develop smart evacuation options (e.g.,
evacuate to locations within a community
when appropriate) and accommodate
evacuees when they return.
While the Master Plan/Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO) project

provides an opportunity to include this approach to resilience in the vision
for New Orleans future, the structural and non-structural land use provisions
needed for most of this lie outside the jurisdictional boundaries of Orleans parish
and are subject to a fragmented and uncoordinated land use planning and governance structure for implementation.. The recent escalating costs of restoration
and levee protection, along with the decline in the price of domestic oil and gas
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475
revenue from Louisiana (which reduces the States ability to generate matching
revenue for coastal restoration and protection projects), is currently stagnating
the implementation of the coastal plan.
Even with adequate funding and access to land, the construction of more
robust levees and wetlands will likely take at least a generation to implement. In
the face of the dramatic wetland loss and relative sea level rise occurring in many
parts of deltaic Louisiana, this may make only the thin ridges flanking the Mississippi River, various bayous in rural coastal Louisiana, and the dense impounded
areas near and below sea level in the City of New Orleans salvageable for human
habitation at the end of this century.
The current master planning process in New Orleans parish is dedicated to
providing recommendations for sustainable built and natural habitats within
the parish boundaries and surrounding parishes. The highest priority for infrastructure is a systemic infrastructure plan with improved agency coordination
and investments that increase flood/hurricane resistance. However, a lesser level
of support exists to date for investments in high-density areas and a low priority
exists to invest in existing flood-resistant areas.
For example, from the public comments received to date in response to the
series of community meetings convened as a part of the master planning process,
a high priority was placed on adopting the Dutch system of water management
(as in the Room for the River program adopted by the Netherlands government
in 2006) to hold more water in the city with more canals and retention ponds and
to repair/improve pumps and levees (Clancy 2008). However, low public support
exists on instituting a comprehensive water management system or to use parks
or vacant land for water storage, due to concerns about flooding, mosquito-borne
disease, and a prevailing notion that the best way to manage water is to keep it
outside of the citys boundaries. These seemingly contradictory impulses have
not been resolved into a citywide recommended master plan or strategy.
Further complicating the transition from residential use to a more natural
ecostructure (e.g., water, green space, urban forest, etc) in areas of the city where
a low percentage of residents are returning is a lack of public trust in government
and developers. Maps produced in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the Bring New Orleans Back Commissions (BNOBC) Urban Planning Committee depicted portions of low lying
residential areas converted into wetlands or green space (Figure 3) at a time prior
to the development of the Road Home Program, which provided for voluntary
buyouts and restoration grants to homeowners. Thus, conversions to uses other
than residential are generally not only seen as decreasing the market value of
surrounding residential property, but also as potential plots to deny residents the
right to return to their former homes.
476
FIGURE 3
Parks and Open Space Plan Outlining Potential Areas for Future Parkland
as Presented to the General Public by the Bring New Orleans Back
Commission Urban Planning Committee on January 11, 2006
In both the ULI and BNOBC cases, these maps and proposed land uses were
met with public hostility. The City government did not endorse these recommendations and, instead, encouraged residents to repopulate the entire city. As
of the summer of 2009, nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, the City has
numerous areas where less than 50% of residents have returned (GNOCDC
2009). Green and Olshansky evaluated the extent to which New Orleans
homeowners exercised the buyout options in the Road Home program (i.e.,
selling their property to the Louisiana Land Trust and not returning to their
pre-Katrina property). As depicted in Figure 4, numerous significant clusters of
sellers have emerged from this voluntary program. Not surprisingly, all of these
clusters are in lower lying areas of the city that were impacted the most from the
flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and are, in several cases, in the
same regions of the city where the BNOBC Urban Planning Committee recommended land use changes to encourage open park land (Figure 3).
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477
FIGURE 4
Signicant Census Block Clusters with Many Sellers
The Lower 9th Ward offers a promising case study in New Orleans where
community-based planning efforts have explored a number of rebuilding and
land use strategies that embrace sustainability concepts. As early as June 2006, the
Lower 9th Ward and Holy Cross Neighborhood produced a sustainable restoration plan which served as the foundation for its contribution to the Unified
New Orleans Planning process (HCHDL9W 2006). Key concepts examined in
the plan include structural improvements (e.g., energy efficiency and renewable
energy) and open/degraded space ecostructural interventions (e.g., cypress
swamp restoration, urban forestry) that promote safety, survivability and,
ultimately, carbon neutrality. For example, the lower elevation impacted areas
of the Lower 9th Ward, the community is supporting restoration of the adjacent
Bayou Bienvenue to provide storm surge protection, wastewater assimilation
from the neighborhoods water treatment plan, carbon sequestration, and recreational services. For residential areas with little reoccupation of homes and a
high percentage of those participating in the States buyout option, ideas ranging
from urban farming, urban forestry, and community gardens and parks have
been proposed.
If a new residential use does not materialize for these buyout properties
throughout the city, a land use change and new active use would likely increase
the market value for surrounding repopulated parcels in those neighborhoods
478
and would be most fortuitous. But whether these clusters will see significant
permanent land use changes incorporating water and/or park systems remains
to be seen. However, with maintenance of community engagement, the passive
stormwater runoff and retention as well as the aesthetic and recreational
ecosystem services of these adaptation measures can lead to greater community
support for investments in these interventions. To that end, the ability for the
City and its residents to see water as not only a threat, but also an asset (i.e.,
living with water not against it) will be a critical evolution from current
prevailing norms.
LAND USE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
5.1 Natural Versus Engineered Systems
Engineered structures like levees and floodwalls are at odds with the natural
delta-building processes that created Louisianas coastal zone. However, given
the human settlement patterns in Louisianas deltaic plain, urban and regional
levees and floodwalls continue to be planned in combination with targeted, more
natural freshwater and sediment diversions in unpopulated areas to maintain
as much ecostructure as possible. The construction cost estimates for proposed
urban protection (New Orleans metropolitan area) and regional levee systems
(Figure 10) have varied widely and steadily increased since original estimates
developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shortly after Hurricane Katrina.
These infrastructure cost uncertainties are the result of changes in construction costs each year due to the fluctuating price in oil, increased concern over
stability of existing levee structures, increased costs associated with acquiring
suitable building materials (e.g., clay for regional levees), increased costs of likely
mitigation (e.g., land buyouts), and other design recommendations based on new
predictive models to achieve the 100-year level protection that both these levees
are designed to achieve (Table 2). While costs for the Orleans metropolitan levee
system have generally ranged from $3.5 billion - $9.5 billion (protecting approximately 1 million current residents), costs for the proposed regional coastal levee
(protecting approximately 120,000 current residents), originally estimated at
$4-5 billion, could double. This could further escalate up to ten-fold if costs for
the Morganza-to-the-Gulf (MtG) Levee system increase from the original $882
million estimate to $10.77-11.2 billion, as tentatively proposed by Arcadis Corp
a contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers.
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479
TABLE 2
Cost Projections for Repair of New Orleans Metro Area and Regional
Coastal Levees and Corresponding Residential Populations
New Orleans
Metro Area
Repair/
Construction Cost
$3.5-9.5 billion ($7.2

billion)
Southeast
Louisiana
$4-5 billion [$882
M for Morganza to
Gulf (MtG) 72-mile
section]
$10.7-11.2b for MtG
(perhaps lower at
$1.4-$1.5b if 30%
increase)
Reference(s)
(Walsh 2007; ENS
2006; Jonsson
2007)
(Schleifstein 2008)
Area Protected
115,616 acres
(Orleans Parish)
550,990 acres
(Jonsson 2007)
Residential Pop.
Protected
1-1.3 million
(320,000 in Orleans
Parish est.)
120,000
(BIMPP/GNOCDC
2008)
Construction
cost/resident
(not including
long-term
maintenance)
$2,692-$9,500
$33,333-$41,667
Uses 2006/2007
estimate above.
$43,333-$54,167
Assumes 30% cost

overrun based on
Governors Ofce
statement (Schleifstein 2008)
$423,000-$528,750
Assumes 12.69
multiplier on earlier
estimates based on
new contingencies
(Schleifstein 2008)
Concern regarding the uncertainties in levee costs are only exacerbated

by additional uncertainties regarding their ability to physically protect their
respective populations with a 1% probability of flooding in any given year as
well as the uncertainties regarding what a 1 in 100-year flooding event really is,
given the effects of climate change and other endemic environmental conditions
described previously. For example, the recent 500-year flooding events in the
Mississippi River Basin came just 15 years after a similar 500-year event in 1993
(Paulson 2008). As shown in Table 2, even if construction costs remain at their
original estimates with the aim of protecting New Orleans metropolitan residents
and Louisiana coastal rural residents, costs will be between:
480
1. $2,692-$9,500 per resident in the New Orleans metropolitan area; and

2. $33,333-$41,667 per resident in the rural areas.
The Louisiana Speaks Regional Plan for south Louisiana developed by
Calthorpe Associates is a recent attempt by the State of Louisiana to apply smart
growth and New Urbanist approaches to what is arguably the largest coastal
master plan to be developed in modern history in the United States, covering
more than 3 million acres of wetland and terrestrial rural and urban systems
(LRA 2007). While this plan demonstrates success in incorporating restoration
of coastal wetlands, construction of levees, reinvestment in historic communities,
investments in new transportation and other infrastructure, and communitybased development from tens of thousands of citizens and stakeholders, it
implicitly contains a number of challenges:
1. It does not incorporate the latest knowledge of relative sea level rise impacts
on Louisianas deltaic region;
2. It assumes that the integrated coastal wetland restoration projects and large
scale levee protection measures will be funded, implemented, and function
collectively to maintain the current level of wetland habit, which is an issue
hotly contested and uncertain at best; and
3. It promotes new growth around existing communities that would then warrant
the investments in infrastructure described in the plan when, in fact, the population of rural coastal parishes like Plaquemines parish, for example, are continuing
to decline, particularly since the hurricanes of the past three years (Adelson 2009).
5.2 Structural and Non-Structural Measures
How best to prioritize residential, commercial, recreational, and conservation land

use in the Gulf Coast region remains an unresolved issue that has been extensively
researched and discussed. The Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force
(IPET) was established in October 2005 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to
evaluate the performance of the New Orleans hurricane protection system during
Hurricane Katrina and to provide assessments of remaining vulnerabilities of the
urban and coastal systems (NAE/NRC 2008; NAE/NRC 2009).
The IPET conducted its evaluations in five areas:
1. Design and status of the hurricane protection system pre-Katrina;
2. Storm surges and waves generated by Hurricane Katrina;
3. Performance of the hurricane protection system during and after the storm;
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481
4. Social-related consequences of Katrina-related damage; and

5. Risks to New Orleans and the region posed by future tropical storms.
Overarching IPET conclusions regarding structural and non-structural
options include (54):
1. Comprehensive flood planning and risk management for the New Orleans
metropolitan region will be based on a combination of structural and nonstructural measures, the latter including relocation options, floodproofing
and elevation of structures, and evacuation studies and plans;
2. Better risk communication also must be part of more effective mitigation and
an improved state of preparedness; and
3. Structural measures, such as levees and floodwalls, should not be viewed as
substitutes or replacements for nonstructural measures, but rather as complementary parts of a multi-tiered hurricane protection solution.
In terms of living with a prevalence of flooding, Kahan et al. (2006) looked at
lessons for the Gulf that could be learned from the experiences of four catastrophic
floods in the second half of the 20th century. They suggest that there has been an
evolution in thinking about flood management that has taken place in the past
50 years from flood control to integrated water resource management (IWRM).
IWRM is a shift from a near-exclusive focus on structural ways of controlling
floods (such as building dams, levees and the like) to non-structural flood control
systems such as laws and regulations, administrative management and economic
levers, and technical measures other than construction (Kahan et al. 2006). The
principles of IWRM are:
t efficiency to make water resources go as far as possible and achieve the desired
level of protection at as little cost as possible;
t equity across different social and economic groups; and
t FOWJSPONFOUBMTVTUBJOBCJMJUZ UPQSPUFDUUIFXBUFSSFTPVSDFTCBTFBOEBTTPDJated eco-systems (Kahan et al. 2006).
The most recent IPET recommendations support a long-term plan for relocation
in vulnerable areas, particularly, since the restoration and flood control measures will
leave many residents in coastal parishes vulnerable to increased flooding for generations to come. More specifically, IPET supports that the planning and design for
upgrading the current hurricane protection system should discourage settlement in
areas that are most vulnerable to flooding due to hurricane storm surge. The voluntary
relocation of people and neighborhoods of particularly vulnerable areas with
482
adequate resources designed to improve their safety in less vulnerable areas-should

be considered as a viable public policy option (NAE/NRC 2009). When the primary
presenting issue is flood protection, non-structural measures are manifested in such
examples as zoning to prohibit development of floodplains, flood insurance requirements and limitations, storm surge barriers instead of levees in some places, land
swapping to relocate residents into lower-risk (e.g., higher or better protected) areas,
and even returning some of the land to the water (Kahan et al. 2006).
One of the challenges of non-structural approaches to flood control in the
Gulf region is that there are many different actors, including the federal and state
governments, local governments, engineers, the private business sector, and
communities, all having differences in preference for different measures. The
benefits and costs of various strategies are poorly understood, particularly given
uncertainties in regional economic growth.
Another major issue is the heavy reliance on structural approaches to reduce
flood risk versus non-structural (e.g., zoning, planning, easements, etc) measures.
With regard to structural approaches, the science and engineering uncertainties
regarding environmental trends (e.g., rate of sea level rise and subsidence) and
performance of restoration and protection structures (e.g. levees built on unstable
soils) make the success of these approaches highly speculative. In addition,
uncertainty about the future level and distribution of protection and restoration
will continue to affect investments in the built and natural environment and
the individual and collective decisions that ultimately shape the scope of reconstruction. Non-structural measures to consider are also not well defined and
there is a general lack of awareness of available options, and what the experiences
have been when various measures have been attempted in similar and dissimilar
situations worldwide. Furthermore, the high reliance on voluntary participation
structure-raising of homes and property buyouts of vulnerable residents in coastal
Louisiana as proposed in the CPRA master plan is of concern (CPRA 2007).
5.3 United Houma Nation Case Study of Adaptation and Mitigation
One promising case study of community-based adaptation and mitigation to

climate change in Louisiana is that of the United Houma Nation (UHN). The
UHN constituents lie primarily outside levee protection systems described above
and within the coastal area depicted in Figure 1 at the southern extreme of the
LaFourche-Terrebonne delta. For centuries, UHN settlements were physically
and culturally integrated with a vibrant healthy ecosystem that sustained and
protected their settlements. This deep connection with natural ecostructure is
eloquently expressed by historian Daniel DOney who wrote Understanding the
Houma without acknowledging their relationship to waterways is like trying to
understand a shadow without acknowledging the existence of light.
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483
The tension between coastal communities cultural connection to a delta system

and its rapid erosion is a common phenomenon in vulnerable deltas in both the
developed and developing world. Thus, the experiences of the UHN, because
they live on the most rapidly eroding delta in the world, provide lessons for other
deltaic communities. For generations, European colonization, warfare, disease,
land dispossession, and coastal erosion have threatened the UHN. During the
20th century, the 16,000 members of the UHN were faced with declining livelihoods and displacement due to accelerated coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion,
and the decline of the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary. Estimates suggest that
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 directly affected over 7,000 tribal members
with nearly half of these displaced. Hurricane Katrina left over 1,000 tribal
members homeless in small settlements through lower Plaquemines, St. Bernard,
and Jefferson Parishes and the storm surge from Hurricane Rita inundated lower
Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes devastating 4,000 homes of tribal members
(Yoachim 2008).
Following the storms, the UHN mobilized to provide immediate relief
and support in the form of shelter, food, and necessities to members. With
recovery efforts continuing, there is recognition within UHN tribal communities that, to survive, members must have their homes elevated or relocate
inland to higher ground. Perhaps the greatest concern of the Houma people
is community cohesion. While the needs of individual Houma citizens are
addressed, the tribe is very concerned that the historic Indian communities
are themselves at risk. Indigenous existence is based on a connection between
people and place (in this case, a physical and cultural connection to water
natural resources) and this is the foundation of all that is indigenous culture.
So, for the UHN, the immediate needs must be balanced against the long-term
sustainability and survivability of the community. In the near-term, the UHN
has begun to develop an emergency response plan with the intent to be certified
as a Community Emergency Response Team by the Department of Homeland
Security with a core of trained members of the Houma nation available to serve
as first responders in their communities.
In terms of long-term adaptation to climate change, the UHN is embarking on
a relocation strategy that is among the first for coastal communities in the United
States to date. The hope for the UHN will be to identify new lands that maintain
their connection to water while reducing their vulnerability to periodic and
disaster-related flooding through non-structural and structural measures. While
the mechanism for land acquisition and assemblage is still being researched,
land policy options, including land trusts, are emerging as the most critical tools
(Meffert, Etheridge and Tate 2009).
484
5.4 Easements, Mitigation Land Trusts, and Severance of Surface/

Mineral Rights
Even with the best science and engineering informing the optimal balance of
ecostructure and hard structures for Louisianas urban and coastal planning,
the implementation of land use interventions (and legal consequences) remains
the biggest challenge the State of Louisiana faces on adaptation and mitigation
measures. Jurisdictional challenges are exacerbated by the high proportion of
private property ownership in Louisianas coastal zone (80%) and laws that tend
to favor private property owners. The amount of science and engineering-related
research conducted in the Louisiana coastal zone is vast relative to that often
conducted in developing countries. While uncertainty and debate will continue
over the ability of large-scale habitat restoration and levee construction to protect
urban and rural settlements from the effects of climate change, there is general
agreement on the basic natural ecological functions that are key to reducing
population vulnerability and maintaining healthy, viable communities.
The carbon sequestration benefits of Louisianas coastal wetland and forested
habitats is emerging as an increasingly significant driver in exploring various
land use policies that promote restoration and conservation of these private
and public lands. For example, an acre of restored bottomland hardwood in
the lower Mississippi floodplain sequesters up to 300 tons (average of 100 tons)
of carbon dioxide over the next 100 years (Wayburn 2009). In addition, the
highly productive fresh to brackish marshes of Louisianas coastal zone contain
some of the highest amounts of soil organic carbon in the United States, and
thus also represents great potential for carbon sequestration (Markewich and
Russell 2001).
Even with the legal challenges described above, there are several land policy
opportunities in coastal Louisiana that can provide for large-scale adaptation
and mitigation while preserving the rights of Louisianas citizenry. As described
above, land policy opportunities extend to the coordination and expediting
of restoration and protective measures for critical landforms, including bays,
shorelines, and peninsulas of urbanized and rural areas of coastal Louisiana.
Sustainable development practices include compact development, preservation of
open space and natural resources, neighborhood scale storm water management,
water efficiency, brownfield redevelopment, and overall smart growth principles.
Recommendations including these were included in the reports submitted to
the City of New Orleans and the general public prior to 2007 (Urban Design
Committee 2006). While these recommendations were not initially put into
practice by New Orleans municipal government due to sociopolitical and jurisdictional concerns, among other reasons, the New Orleans Office of Recovery
and Development Administration and Coastal Protection and Restoration
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485
Authority have subsequently endorsed many of them (CPRA 2007; CPRA 2009;
NOLA 2009).
Although not yet implemented in Louisiana, rolling easements are one
viable near-term adaptive land policy in coastal Louisiana. Rolling easements are
easements placed along shorelines that prevent property owners from holding
back the sea but still allow them to develop their land (Emmer et al. 2007). In
other words, these easements do not restrict further development or redevelopment of private property until it erodes, such that the government would
compensate them for their eroded land if it were to be used for the public good
(e.g., for coastal restoration). Although rolling easements do not aggressively
address long-term mitigation strategies, they can be a useful near-term strategy
that obtains early buy-in from the private land owners for a future public land
use with minimal near-term costs and no initial limitations on development of
non-eroded land.
One of the more creative financial mechanisms to reduce risk and maximize
conservation and restoration is the State Conservation and Mitigation Trust
Fund, recommended by the Louisiana Speaks Initiative and supported by the
Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA 2007). This fund would allow the State to
acquire fee ownership or surface rights to high-risk lands or acquire permanent
conservation easements. Given the prevalence of private property ownership in
coastal Louisiana, this would allow potential sellers the option for retention of
underlying mineral rights (through legal severance of surface and underlying
rights) and, thus, enhance the potential for voluntary relocation to less vulnerable
areas. There are successful precedents for this approach with Louisianas coastal
restoration efforts. For example, on property with State-owned surface rights,
the State can allow a landowner access for private oil & gas exploration purposes
with the caveat that it be maintained and closed in a manner that does not disturb
natural and built elements of the conservation or restoration intent.
Although severance of surface and mineral rights provides for a useful alternative to complete property transfer, these mineral rights certainly complicate
the acquisition of land rights in south Louisiana. Given Louisianas relative
abundance of natural gas and oil reserves in its coastal region, the subsurface
mineral rights are often more valuable than most other practical surface land use
rights, particularly when these properties are not at or adjacent to population
centers and/or land ridges or levees. Therefore, the extent to which mineral
rights can be retained by a property owner while surface rights are utilized for
coastal habitat conservation or restoration enhances the ability to implement
these projects. While Louisiana law does not generally allow for permanent
severance of surface rights from mineral rights, exceptions have been granted in
the cases where that severance would promote coastal restoration, protection, or
conservation efforts.
486
Given the high private property ownership rate in coastal Louisiana and that
large scale restoration efforts involve a multitude of properties and landowners,
even if the majority of land rights are to be acquired through direct purchase,
lease, or donation, it is highly likely that, for any given project, some entities will
refuse to enter into those agreements. For these properties, there will be no other
option than eminent domain proceedings. Until recent legislation, Louisiana was
the only one of the 50 United States that allowed compensation for full extent
of loss in the case of eminent domain, which effectively fatally crippled most
projects that involved any uncooperative landowner. However, with Constitutional Amendment #4-Act 853 of the 2006 Regular Session (SB 27 by Senator
Reggie Dupre), compensation for this expropriation for flood control or coastal
restoration is now defined at the fair market value, which is a step towards largescale restoration at non-prohibitive cost and time-consuming implementation.
APPLICATIONS OF THE NEW ORLEANS CASE STUDY TO

THE DEVELOPING WORLD
The rapidly growing urbanized regions in low-lying coastal settings worldwide

face numerous habitat, infrastructure, and non-structural challenges due to
expected sea-level rise in the next century and beyond. However, the severity
and timing of adverse impacts will vary, depending on endemic conditions
including topography; local relative sea-level issues (e.g., with subsidence adding
to vulnerability); and the probability of natural disasters, including major storms,
tsunamis, and other phenomena.
Within this context, New Orleans is often described as a canary in the global
warming coal mine (Trnqvist and Meffert 2008). Regardless of how this particular
city will be rebuilt, New Orleans and its deltaic surroundings offer an opportunity
to adapt both a coastal urban center and its inextricably-linked surrounding natural
ecosystem such that natural ecosystem functions and economic goods and services
can work together to the best extent possible. More specifically, New Orleans
physical viability into the 21st century depends, to a large extent, on the ecological
health of its surrounding coastal wetlands in terms of the resultant economic
and storm surge protection values of these habitats. Conversely, the justification
for large-scale restoration of these habitats lies with the goods and services these
wetlands provide the world and the protection they give to densely populated areas
and strategic port systems. New Orleans, in this sense, is an urban and natural
laboratory that can provide new knowledge and understanding with applicability
to larger cities like Shanghai, Tokyo, and New York City and similar regional deltaic
forms in the developing world including, but not limited to, the Mekong Delta in
Viet Nam and the Ganges/Brahmaputra/Meghna (GBM) river and deltaic systems.
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487
In this paper, we argue that the New Orleans, Louisiana case study can be
used as a model system in a developed country that can help inform policies
and practices in the developing world, utilizing natural processes and resources
whenever possible for climate change adaptation. As evidenced by discussions
earlier in this paper of the vast amounts of research and planning that have
focused on gradual environmental degradation and post-disaster recovery
of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico coast, coastal Louisiana is a datarich urban and ecological case study that can help inform scientific understanding and land use planning in more data-poor developing countries
that are experiencing similar global threats. Global climate change does not
discriminate between the post-industrialized and developing nations in the
world, other than in the level of vulnerability they exhibit and differences in
investment capacity and priorities (Halsnaes and Verhagen 2007).
Of particular relevance are delta regions and their urban center, increasingly
vulnerable to SLR and storm surges like Dhaka, Bangladesh, and its GBM river
system (Figure 5). Cities like Dhaka can benefit from lessons learned in coastal
Louisiana not only in terms of climate change adaptation (and related restoration
of delta systems for storm surge protection) but also, indirectly, in terms of urban
poverty alleviation. This latter benefit, although perhaps not immediately intuitive,
is due to the fact that the vast majority of new immigrants to Dhaka come from
Bangladeshs rural areas, with many of these immigrants migrating north from
the delta regions because of their rapid erosion. While the body of peer-reviewed
literature related to climate change impacts on the GBM system is expanding in
recent years (Ali 1999; Brouwer et al. 2007; Erwin 2009; Karim and Mimura 2008;
McDougall 2007; Mirza, Warrick and Ericksen 2003), a thorough comparative
analysis of Louisiana and Bangladesh trends and options for future adaptation has
not yet been published.
Coastal Louisiana and Bangladesh are on the same order of magnitude
but with Bangladesh exceeding Louisiana in almost every metric of resource
abundance and vulnerability. Flows of the Mississippi River are 600,000 cubic
feet per second (cfs) on average and are about one-third of the GBM combined
flow (1,511,750 cfs average). Whereas Louisianas coastline is 639 km along the
northern Gulf of Mexico, Bangladeshs coastline is 710 km along the Bay of
Bengal. (Karim and Mimura 2008) The coastal zone of Bangladesh comprises
19 administrative districts encompassing a land area of 47,201 km2 (Figure
6) compared to Louisianas 19 coastal parishes with 21,448 km2 of designated
coastal zone area. A three-foot rise in sea levels could inundate nearly 20% of
Bangladeshs territory proportionately on the same scale as Louisiana. As
mentioned earlier, the 9mm per year of relative sea level rise in Louisiana is
greater than the 4-7 mm per year being experienced in Bangladeshs coastal
zone. (Karim and Mimura 2008).
488
In terms of human vulnerability, Bangladesh and Louisiana vary depending

on whether one is assessing coast-wide or urban exposure. In terms of overall
human vulnerability, Bangladesh exceeds Louisiana with 14M people residing in
its coastal zone (541 residents per km2) compared to Louisianas 2M coastal zone
residents (93.3 residents per km2). However, in terms of urban centers, while
both Dhaka and New Orleans are relatively flat, Dhakas average elevation is 4m
(between 1 and 14m) while the vast majority of New Orleans is less than 4m in
elevation (Lewis 2009), with 50% of Orleans parish being below sea level, making
New Orleans urban infrastructure even more vulnerable to the near term effects
of climate change, in particular relative sea level rise (Campanella 2007).
Similar comparative practices can be examined in terms of predicting vulnerability to increasingly intense tropical storms and providing maintenance and
restoration of these natural coastal habitats that furnish storm surge protection
and other ecosystem services. US and Japanese models, for example, have
been used to enhance storm surge predictive capacity of Bangladesh in recent
years (Karim and Mimura 2008; AMS 2008). Recently, when cyclone SIDR was
forming in the Bay of Bengal on November 12th, 2007, a storm surge modeler,
Dr. Hassan Mashriqui, at Louisiana State University used his Gulf Coast datarich model for Louisiana to predict a 12 foot storm surge for Bangladesh that
would go 20-50 miles inland (Society AM 2008). After communicating this
prediction to Bangladeshs disaster office (their equivalent of FEMA), they were
able to evacuate 3.2 million residents. Although 3,500 casualties still occurred,
countless lives were saved.
Bangladesh has the Coastal Greenbelt Project to slow down surge waves and
stabilize coastal land (afforestation project) (Erwin 2009). However, Bangladeshs
development priorities also include more immediate concerns regarding poverty
alleviation: expanding energy access to the poor, increased food production as
well as adaptive measures against flooding, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion,
and droughts (Halsnaes and Verhagen 2007). Thus, as modeled by Hallegatte and
Hourcade, developing countries that have a high prevalence of natural disasters
(e.g., increased flooding and/or intensity of storms) also have significant impediments to long-term economic development. This is because significant GDP
losses result from short-term climate change impacts and preclude investments
in long-term economic adaptation measures (Hallegatte and Hourcade 2005).
CHAPTER 18
489
FIGURE 5
The Coastal Regions of Bangladesh and Major Rivers in the Western
Coastal Zone (reprinted from Karim and Mimura 2008 with permission
from Elsevier)

BAY OF

490
FIGURE 6
Flood Risk Map and Planning Districts for Coastal Bangladesh

BAY OF BENGAL
Reprinted from Karim and Mimura 2008 (69) with permission from Elsevier.
In this sense, although the general quality of life is higher than developing
countries, coastal Louisiana is similarly challenged in terms of investments in
long-term adaptation. With four major storm surge-related flooding events in
the past three years resulting in hundreds of billions in total damage to the Gulf
coast, and more than $150 billion from Hurricane Katrina alone (Hallegatte
2008), Louisiana may not be able to raise necessary funds to maintain its current
level of natural functioning. For example, although the State of Louisiana has
increased its restoration and flood control needs with investments at $1.4 billion
over the next four years from a combination of state and federal sources (Kirkham
2009), the current master plan will cost up to $100b (CPRA 2009). Even with
these financial limitations, there are lessons learned in terms of Louisianas
Mississippi River freshwater and sediment diversion projects that can be applied
to increasingly flood prone delta systems. Case studies have emerged in Beel
Bhaina, for example, where water and sediment from the Ganges is now diverted
into shallow lands prone to flooding and saltwater intrusion to promote natural
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491
wetland accretion and offsets to erosion exacerbated by sea level rise (Sengupta
2009). In some places in coastal Bangladesh, sediment-laden river water sped
up by a series of man-made dams and channels has actually gained land over the
last 35 years, much like the sediment rich waters whose delta-building capacity
has been enhanced in Louisianas Atchafalaya River and Wax Lake deltas (CPRA
2007; LCWCRTF 1993).
CONCLUSIONS
Through qualitative analysis and synthesis of available literature, this paper used
the City of New Orleans and its surrounding Louisiana coastal wetlands as a case
study to examine the following hypothesis: restoring and enhancing ecosystem
services (i.e., ecostructure) of urban systems in the context of regional natural
systems increases the ability of these urban systems to adapt to and mitigate the
effects of climate change. In addition, climate change adaptation and mitigation of these complex systems required both regional appropriate jurisdictional
oversight and local governance.
What are the main ecological drivers of change on regional and local scales that
impact urban resilience following a disaster and adaptation to climate change?
The fate of New Orleans and other delta cities worldwide is one of increasing
vulnerability during the next century and beyond. However, these communities
have always been proximate to the natural periodic and catastrophic threats
that face them and can survive as long as they are adaptable and live with these
prevailing gradual environmental trends (e.g., coastal erosion, sea level, rise, and
subsidence) and systemic shocks (e.g., hurricane storm surge damages). New
Orleans and coastal Louisiana are worth restoring and conserving because of the
vast tangible and intangible economic, ecological, and cultural values intrinsic to
their ecosystems and human communities. These include a significant vibrant
and culturally rich population in New Orleans as well fisheries, oil, gas and other
infrastructure elements in coastal Louisiana.
What is the role of ecosystem services and land use transformation in promoting
human well-being and safety, reducing vulnerability, and enhancing adaptation and
mitigation to climate change? Based on our findings, Louisianas coastal wetlands
have limited ability to maintain elevation relative to rising sea level and to sustain
the ecosystem services described above. Thus, the future design of the natural
and built environment must also accommodate periodic flooding and increased
vulnerability to storm surge (Day and Giosan 2008). Regional plans need to incorporate both adaptation and mitigation to address the chronic vulnerabilities of this
integrated urban and natural system; opportunities exist for creative structural and
non-structural interventions and policies described above.
492
What are the spatial, jurisdictional, and temporal scales required to ensure
sustainable governance of urban systems? The Louisiana coastal master plan is an
ecologically-based strategy that seeks to protect local urban developments like New
Orleans and sustain critical regional fisheries and port economies in the face of
anticipated relative sea level rise and potential increased storm intensities associated
with climate change. This strategy is multi-decadal with large-scale restoration
project timelines being 20 years or greater. The spatial scale of the States master
plan is the entire coastal zone including the deltaic plain of the Mississippi River
and the adjacent western coastal habitats, thus involving numerous parishes, cities,
and towns that must coordinate their governance boundaries with corresponding
hydrologic basin management strategies for success.
The prevailing practices in place on the urban, regional, and statewide scales
have largely relied on adaptive measures. Many opportunities for mitigation remain
including 1) increased GHG sequestration through ecosystem services provided by
the restoration of natural delta processes and wetland creation, 2) GHG regulation of
oil and gas industries in the State, and 3) GHG reductions through increased use of
renewable energy sources. However, most of these measures remain early in development and are largely voluntary and market-driven on local, state and federal levels.
Coastal restoration projects implemented to date are largely smaller in spatial and
temporal scale and limited in terms of restoring large-scale natural processes.
There is reason for optimism that there will be an increased emphasis on
climate mitigation and adaptation at both the city and coast-wide scales. On
the local urban scale, New Orleans Comprehensive Master Plan advocates
implementation of mitigation measures described above within its jurisdictional boundaries and advocating for them on a regional scale. The State of
Louisiana is also advocating large-scale coastal restoration and other structural
and non-structural adaptation measures.
The challenge remaining ahead rests primarily on two issues limited funding
and land use policy implementation on the local urban and regional coastal scales.
While the State has a long record of rapid implementation of takings of land for
the purpose of adaptive measures like levees and pumps, its record on takings
or other creative land use options that maintain private landownership for large
scale coastal restoration adaptive measures is limited. From this perspective,
the science and engineering behind citywide and coast-wide adaptation is wellstudied, whereas the legal and financial hurdles require much more investments
in decision-making and policy.
The $4 billion initial investment in CPRA-recommended regional levee systems
(including the 72-mile Morganza-to-Gulf levee) is an expensive adaptation
investment that, while potentially providing near-term protection from flooding
for the Houma urbanized area and its residents, could ultimately lose time, money,
ecosystem services, property and life, if large-scale coastal wetland restoration
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493
projects are not also prioritized. In other words, these regional levee systems
will not be stable if their surrounding natural wetlands are not stable. Because of
the existing and future likely prospects of funding for large-scale levees, coastal
restoration, and other flood protection, more institutionalized investments in
non-structural measures to protect Louisianas coastal communities is critical.
Specific potential actions that should be examined carefully include:
1. Relocation of thousands of rural inhabitants in the next 10-20 years - particularly those in vulnerable coastal areas outside of the proposed levee protection
system (e.g., UHN members described previously).
2. Relocation of up to 120,000 rural (e.g., Buras) and potentially urban (e.g., Houma) inhabitants in areas marginally protected by regional levee systems and
increasingly at risk due to sea level rise and disasters in the next 50-75 years.
3. Re-examination of permanent versus temporary structures for lodging or
other longer-term residences in these vulnerable areas so that regional economies can be maintained.
4. Implementation of a State Conservation and Mitigation Trust Fund to promote conservation easements and/or land buyouts and including the option
of separation of land, mineral or other rights associated with currently owned
private property.
To accomplish this, scientists and engineers must work closely with designers,
economists, planning practitioners, community representatives, and political
leadership at the conception of demonstration projects and policy development.
Lawmakers, planners and architects must not only seek out the best and worst
case studies to inform their practice but embrace the scientific and engineering
underpinnings for the most sound application and maintenance of ecosystem
services. Urban systems like New Orleans can ultimately be more resilient to
gradual and catastrophic events, and therefore more sustainable, when their
contextual natural and social environments are resilient as well.
Delta habitats are among the most fertile lands in the world and can continue
to provide fisheries, agricultural products, and other ecosystem services to their
coastal rural and urban communities and the rest of the world. In the case of
the many urbanized and engineered delta systems worldwide, maximizing the
natural processes that created these dynamic systems in the first place may also
prove the cheapest and most practical way to protect their human populations
from the effects of climate change into the next century. These inextricable
links between the natural and built environments are at the core of ecostructure
solutions in the New Orleans case study and, with appropriate attention to institutional differences, have application to similar deltaic regions worldwide.
494
While the original ecostructure hypothesis in this paper remains neither

proven nor disproven, it is a question for which an answer will play out in the
decades to come as the large-scale efforts to restore natural delta building are
implemented and thereafter have a chance to perform successfully. The 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, despite its near-term and
potential long-term threat to this fragile ecosystem, further supports the value of
natural processes in sustaining deltaic habitats. The Mississippi/Atchafalaya rivers
and related freshwater diversion projects have been successful tools for keeping
the oil out of these habitats in the first place. This event has also catalyzed the
development of a recovery plan that increases support for rapid implementation
of these restoration projects, and supports accelerated investments in renewable
energy options for the region, thus also helping to mitigate climate change.
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CHAPTER
19
Governance and Climate Change:

Assessing and Learning
from Canadian Cities
Christopher Gore,* Pamela Robinson, Richard Stren
1. INTRODUCTION
Canada hosted one of the first international meetings to address climate change
in 1988. The Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere helped focus
the attention of national governments on the emerging international challenge
presented by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
But in Canada, this event did not translate into national leadership to address
climate change. While many Canadian government scientists and academics
have emerged as leaders in research and international policy development, a
succession of national government consultation processes and strategies since
the early-1990s produced no significant national policy framework or action
to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nor any meaningful reduction
in emissions (Rabe 2007; MacDonald and Smith 1998; MacDonald 2008). In
2006, emissions in Canada were 22 percent above 1990 levels and 29 percent
above Canadas Kyoto target (Environment Canada 2006a; 2006b; 2006c).
Many pragmatic reasons exist to explain why Canada has been ineffective
at reducing emissions, particularly the size of the country and the associated
The authors thank Eleanor Rae and Alia Hanif for their research support on this paper.

498
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use of automobile and truck transportation to cover long distances, as well as

its cold climate. Political and intergovernmental reasons are also significant.
Canadian provinces have very diverse economic interests that affect their
incentive to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For example, Ontarios
economy has been highly dependent on manufacturing and the automobile
sectors, while the natural gas and oil sectors are dominant in Saskatchewan and
Alberta. Meanwhile, British Columbia has independently introduced a carbon
tax and Quebec has promoted climate action for some time due its reliance on
hydroelectric power. Hence, provincial incentives to address climate change are
diverse. Therefore, if the national government were to implement a meaningful
strategy to reduce emissions it would have to address the countrys pragmatic
challenges and an intergovernmental scenario requiring deep compromise. No
effective national climate strategy in Canada can be developed in the absence
of provincial support. Yet to date, provincial interests have been too diverse
and irreconcilable. Indeed, if Canadian provinces were treated as independent
states, two provinces (Alberta and Ontario) would rank among the 50 largest
sources of greenhouse gases in the world, followed quickly by Quebec, British
Columbia and Saskatchewan (Rabe 2007).
But there is another important reason to move the discussion about Canadian
climate action and policy away from a national-provincial focus: Canadian
cities are national and international leaders in climate action. Yet, in spite of
their initiatives, they have hardly figured in any national or provincial strategy
to reduce GHG emissions (Robinson and Gore 2005; Gore and Robinson
2009; Gore 2010; Climate Group 2005). Cities have largely been taking action
independent of the national government and provinces. The lack of national
attention to the leadership of Canadian cities is compounded by the absence of
formal municipal powers in the constitution and the absence of any national
strategy to support cities generally (Bradford 2007a; 2007b).
This paper examines and explains why Canadian cities have taken action
to reduce GHG emissions, while also adapting to and mitigating climate
change. The paper also inventories the activities of select medium to large
Canadian cities (populations between 300,000 and 2.5 million). The paper
offers a simple yet unique approach to analyzing action. Action is classified
as an initiative, output or outcome. Initiatives are policy goals that the city
has made to reduce GHG emissions directly or indirectly, such as improving
building efficiency. Outputs are the specific programs that operationalize
the policy goal (initiative). Outcomes are results or achievements from the
initiatives and outputs. The paper applies each of these categories to three
dimensions of city action land-use planning; governance; and institutions.
Land-use planning initiatives are actions tied directly to changes in land-use
such as increased density, growth management strategies, or transit and trans-
500
portation. Actions under the category of governance are initiatives, which

have a principle goal of engaging non-government organizations, the general
public or the private sector in climate change or GHG emission reduction
initiatives. Examples of governance initiatives would be public education
programs and community visioning exercises. Lastly, institutional actions
are classified as initiatives that a municipal corporation is undertaking or are
intergovernmental in character (municipal with subnational or national or
inter-city or inter-municipal). Examples of institutional actions range from
greening municipal buildings to partnerships or collaborations with other
governments.
The initiatives documented include shorter-term technical actions and
medium and longer-term actions that require more complex coordination with
citizens and the private sector. The goal of the chapter is to highlight how and
why cities in a country with limited national leadership have chosen to act. This
provides an opportunity for cities starting to initiate action, both in states that are
actively engaged in national GHG emission reduction efforts and those that are
not, to understand how cities in Canada have independently taken action and
how future collaborations with other cities and levels of government might evolve
to better mitigate and adapt to climate change.
2. LOCAL CANADIAN CLIMATE LEADERSHIP:

THE CHARACTER OF ACTION
Canadian cities and municipalities are typically characterized as creatures of
the provinces. This is because municipalities have no recognized power in the
constitution of Canada, or in national legislation, and are not legally recognized as a formal level of government. Some scholars challenge the idea that
Canadian municipalities are powerless (Magnusson 2005), but on the whole,
when considering municipalities and cities in Canada, the history of intergovernmental relations has been one where municipal governments small and
large take actions only insofar as they are permitted, and have very limited
capacity to challenge provincial or national policy goals. A classic example of
this is the creation of the City of Toronto in 1998. The provincial government
amalgamated the former City of Toronto with five surrounding municipalities
despite overwhelming public opposition expressed through public meetings
and a popular referendum.
With respect to climate change research and policy in Canada, the real structural and imagined weakness of Canadian municipalities remains prominent.
Most historic and contemporary research and writing on Canadian national
climate change policy has been silent on the role and leadership of municipal-
CHAPTER 19
501
ities and cities. Some esteemed Canadian urban scholars have also argued that
even though Canadian cities may be active in responding to climate change,
they will remain policy-takers not policy-makers (Sancton 2006). Yet, despite
this, both in relation to climate action and other policy areas, research suggests
that this view needs careful reconsideration municipalities can and do lead
(see Pralle 2006).
2.1 Cities and Climate Action in Canada: The Scope of Action
One of the central organizations responsible for promoting the role of cities in
GHG emission reductions is the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
FCM represents Canadian municipalities nationally. In the 1980s, FCMs
national relevance and membership suffered owing to its engagement in prominent national political debates such as national unity (Stevenson and Gilbert
2005). In turn, in the 1990s, FCM repositioned its focus and has regained prominence and membership, in part by being more focused on specific policy issues
that resonate with municipalities nationally and that are not so divisive, such as
calls for national funding of city infrastructure and transit. One area that FCM
has been particularly active is in the promotion of sustainable communities. The
Partners for Climate Protection Program (PCP) is one aspect of this focus. The
PCP program helps municipalities reduce corporate and community greenhouse
gas emissions through knowledge sharing and grants. In 2011, over 78% of
Canadian citizens resided in a municipality that had made a formal commitment
to inventory and take action to reduce GHG emissions under the PCP program
(FCM 2009). This commitment is formalized by a city councils agreement to
join. Cities that participate in the PCP program agree to work to reduce GHG
emissions in corporate operations 20% below 1994 levels, and 6% below 1994
levels throughout the community within ten years of joining.
FCMs PCP program parallels the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Cities for Climate Protection Program (CCP).
Prior to partnering with ICLEI to create the PCP program, FCM had its own
emissions reduction program called the 20% Club, which started in 1995 members committed to reduce their corporate emissions 20 percent below 1994
levels. Given that ICLEIs international headquarters used to be in Toronto,
it was a natural extension for Toronto and other Canadian cities to be early
leaders in emission reduction efforts and to work with the international body.
As of March 2010, 200 municipalities representing every province and
territory in Canada were members of the PCP program; many have been
members for a decade or longer. Table 1 lists participation by province and
territory.
502
TABLE 1
PCP Members by Province and Territory (March 2010)
Province/Territory
Number of Participants
Alberta
16
British Columbia
61
Manitoba
20
New Brunswick
17
Newfoundland
Northwest Territories
Nova Scotia
13
Nunavut
Ontario
48
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon
Total
200
In 2006, a majority of Canadas largest municipalities were also PCP members

36 of 50. This figure, in addition to the high level of urbanization in Canada,
helps to partly explain why such a large proportion of Canadas population lives
in a municipality committed to GHG reductions. Table 2, provides a list of the
50 largest municipalities by population in 2006, the status of their membership,
when they joined, and what milestones they have completed in the PCP and
ICLEI five milestone system of action as of March 2010. It is important to note
that data on milestones is derived from municipal self-reporting. Therefore, if
a municipality has not updated its progress with FCM, FCM would not present
this. This presents problems relating to the reliability of municipal performance
and the ability to compare city performance. For example, according to Torontos
own records, it has completed all of FCMs milestones. However, FCM does not
record this. The information in Table 2 is derived from FCM.
CHAPTER 19
503
TABLE 2
Fifty Largest Canadian Municipalities and Participation in FCMs Partners
for Climate Protection (PCP) Program (FCM reporting)
Province
Population
2006
PCP Member
Date Joined
Corporate
Milestones
2010
Community
Milestones
2010
1. Toronto
Ont.
2,503,281
1990
2. Montreal
Que.
1,620,693
September 1998
3. Calgary
Alta.
988,193
1994
4. Ottawa
Ont.
812,129
February 1997
5. Edmonton
Alta.
730,372
1995
6. Mississauga
Ont.
668,549
December 1999
7. Winnipeg
Man.
633,451
November 2006
Municipality
8. Vancouver
B.C.
578,041
1995
9. Hamilton
Ont.
504,559
November 1996
10. Quebec
Que.
491,142
January 1997
11. Brampton
Ont.
433,806
NO
12. Surrey
B.C.
394,976
July 1996
13. Halifax
N.S.
372,679
February 1997
14. Laval
Que.
368,709
March 1997
15. London
Ont.
352,395
November 1994
16. Markham
Ont.
261,573
February 2007
17. Gatineau
Que.
242,124
NO
18. Vaughn
Ont.
238,866
NO
19. Longueuil
Que.
229,330
NO
20. Windsor
Ont.
216,473
December 2002
21. Kitchener
Ont.
204,668
January 1997
22. Burnaby
B.C.
202,799
November 1994
23. Saskatoon
Sask.
202,340
December 2004
24. Regina
Sask.
179,246
1994
25. Richmond
B.C.
174,461
June 2001
26. Oakville
Ont.
165,613
June 2004
27. Burlington
Ont.
164,415
June 2002
28. Richmond Hill
Ont.
162,704
September 2000
29. Greater Sudbury
Ont.
157,857
1997
504
TABLE 2, continued
Province
Population
2006
PCP Member
Date Joined
Corporate
Milestones
2010
Community
Milestones
2010
30. Sherbrooke
Que.
147,427
NO
Municipality
31. Saguenay
Que.
143,692
NO
32. Oshawa
Ont.
141,590
April 2009
33. St.Catherines
Ont.
131,989
NO
34. Levis
Que.
130,006
NO
35. Barrie
Ont.
128,430
March 2001
36. Trois-Rivres
Que.
126,323
NO
37. Abbotsford
B.C.
123,864
June 2002
38. Cambridge
Ont.
120,371
NO
39. Kingston
Ont.
117,207
April 2001
40. Guelph
Ont.
114,943
April 1998
41. Coquitlam
B.C.
114,565
March 1997
42. Whitby
Ont.
111,184
NO
43. Thunder Bay
Ont.
109,140
March 1997
44. Saanich
B.C.
108,265
July 1996
45. Chatham-Kent
Ont
108,177
NO
46. Kelowna
B.C.
106,707
January 2001
47. Cape Breton
N.S.
102,250
NO
48. St. Johns
N.L.
100,646
January 2001
50. Waterloo
Ont.
97,475
June 1999
2.2 Canadian Cities and Climate Change: Explaining Action
In 1998, the Canadian federal government launched a national climate consultation process. The process established sixteen expert sector tables to examine
the impacts of climate change and to identify actions each sector may take to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions as it moved towards a national implementation
strategy. One of the expert tables created was a municipalities table.
In its final report, the Table advanced a remarkable observation: municipalities in
Canada directly or indirectly control or influence more than 50% of national GHG
emissions (Municipalities Table 1999). This calculation was later reconfirmed by an
independent source (Robinson 2000). The report also noted that the facilities, infrastructure, lands and resources of municipalities are at considerable risk from climate
CHAPTER 19
505
change an observation consistently reinforced by the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change (IPCC) (IPCC 2007). The Municipalities Table stated categorically: municipal governments have been leaders in recognizing the issue of climate
change, in identifying opportunities for action, and in implementing initiatives and
programs. Many are prepared to play an active role as a contributing partner to a
national GHG reduction initiative (Municipalities Table, 1999; 2-3).
Despite this decade-old proposition, and the significant volume of national
emissions municipalities influence, successive Canadian federal governments
have not seriously engaged cities and municipalities as active partners in climate
action. This is not to say that the federal government has entirely ignored the
national role municipalities play in the well-being and maintenance of infrastructure and the environment. FCM received a large, one time cash contribution
($300 million) from the former federal Liberal government in 2005 to advance
community sustainability goals. In 2008, the federal Conservative government
also made a municipal share of the federal gas tax permanent. These actions,
however, will not reduce the infrastructure deficit cities in Canada confront
(Slack and Bird 2007) and do not represent specific or consistent efforts to work
with cities to develop a collaborative, intergovernmental strategy to reduce GHG
emissions. In this light, it is important to understand why cities in Canada have
taken action largely independent of other levels of government.
In 1999, Robinson surveyed municipal staff responsible or potentially
responsible for GHG emission reductions in all Canadian municipalities with
a population over 10,000 392 in total (Robinson 2000). The survey aimed to
document what action municipalities were taking and what were the barriers to
action. With a response rate of 60.3%, an important window into the motivation
for action was revealed. Respondents were classified as either No-Action or
Action municipalities. For municipalities that had not taken action, a number
of barriers were acknowledged, including that climate change was not an issue
for local government and/or was a federal government issue; it was not a priority
for Council; it was difficult to address at the local level; and staff lacked training,
time and financial resources (Robinson and Gore 2005). Municipalities that
were taking action also acknowledged many of these barriers, but also revealed
important reasons for action that have been confirmed by other research
(Lindseth 2004; Bulkeley and Betsill 2003; Zharan 2008).
First, in relation to participation in a global community or network of
other actors, cities are motivated to take action because it is deemed to make
an important global contribution. Cities also take action due to genuine citizen
support, encouragement and collaborations with citizens. Pragmatically, actions
to reduce GHG emissions are also deeply connected to other goals and co-benefits
such as human health improvements through improved air quality, cost savings,
adaptability to real or potential vulnerabilities due to climate change, and overall
506
improvements in short, medium and long-term urban sustainability. Common

programs aimed to achieve multiple benefits, including GHG reductions, are:
changes in building codes and standards; greening of corporate operations;
landfill gas capture; promotion of public transit and non-automobile transportation; and changes in land-use.
These types of climate actions are common to North American municipalities but they do not illustrate the specific activities individual cities have taken,
nor whether some actions are more commonly used. Do corporate emission
reduction strategies dominate municipal action or are municipal leaders
reaching out to work with citizens, businesses, and other levels of government
in an effort to reduce emissions collectively? Are cities making efforts to address
the more vexing contributions to climate change that are tied to human behavior
and lifestyle preferences? That is, are cities confronting land-use issues such
as automobile-oriented, low-density residential development (Robinson 2006;
Robinson 2009; Bailey 2007)? Given that many Canadian cities are recognized
as national and international leaders in climate action and have been engaged in
this action for many years, the next section inventories the initiatives, outputs
and outcomes of a range of medium to large Canadian cities along three dimensions of climate action: institutional, governance and land-use planning. This
inventory provides lessons about what actions cities in Canada have deemed
administratively and politically possible opening up the opportunity for other
cities to learn from this experience.
3. INVENTORY OF LAND-USE PLANNING, GOVERNANCE

AND INSTITUTIONAL ACTIONS: A SELECTION
OF MEDIUM TO LARGE CITIES IN CANADA
In the proceeding pages, the climate-related institutional, land-use planning, and
governance actions of eight Canadian cities are inventoried: Vancouver, British
Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; Edmonton, Alberta; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Ottawa,
Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Table 3
summarizes some of the prominent climate-related information of each city, and
also notes the population growth rate for each city from 2001 to 2006. The cities
are not randomly selected. The cities represent medium to large Canadian cities
across the country that have demonstrated some leadership in climate action.
It is also noteworthy that with the exception of Winnipeg, each city has been a
member of FCMs Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program for over ten
years. Many municipalities, some less than 1,000 people, are also members of the
PCP program. But in the interest of trying to draw lessons from Canadian cities
that are relevant to other cities in the world it was deemed more appropriate to
CHAPTER 19
507
inventory cities of a medium to large size as it is more likely that larger cities will
have the capacity and resources to undertake mitigation activities. We recognize
that this limits the applicability of lessons in Canada, given that Canadian cities
have not made adaptation to climate change a high priority, whereas this will be
a central priority in many cities in the global south.
TABLE 3
Prole of Eight Medium to Large Canadian Cities
Municipality
Province
Population
2006
Population
Increase
(2001 to
2006)
PCP
Member
Date
Joined
Corporate
Milestones
Community
Milestones
Toronto
Ontario
2,503,281
0.9%
1990
Montreal
Quebec
1,620,693
2.3%
September
1998
Calgary
Alberta
988,193
12.4%
1994
Ottawa
Ontario
812,129
4.9%
February
1997
Edmonton
Alberta
730,372
9.6%
1995
Winnipeg
Manitoba
633,451
2.2%
November
2006
Vancouver
British
Columbia
578,041
5.9%
1995
Nova
Scotia
372,679
3.8%
February
1997
Halifax
Tables 4 through 11, document the host of initiatives undertaken by these

eight cities, the outputs of these initiatives, and where information was available,
the outcomes. With the exception of Toronto, this information is derived from
secondary sources and from general knowledge of the authors. The tables illustrate that each city has developed some unique, city-specific initiatives, particularly in relation to efforts to reach out to citizens. These governance initiatives,
however, do not represent a common and dominant approach to climate change
in Canadian cities.
The strongest similarity between cities is that the first priority action is to
reduce corporate emissions. Indeed, technical fixes are responsible for reducing
corporate emissions most quickly and most dramatically in a short period of time
(Robinson 2006). Hence, when scanning the institutional actions of cities, most
are engaged in activities relating to building and/or lighting energy improvements and landfill gas capture. The reasons for embracing corporate, institutional
actions are straightforward: they require minimal or no community buy-in,
508
creating little political debate; they usually produce direct returns with respect to
cost savings; they produce quick, verifiable reductions in emissions; and actions
to reduce corporate emissions are promoted as important first steps by ICLEI
and FCM. For example, in 1990, 72% of Torontos GHG emissions were from
methane gas generated by landfill sites and the waste collection system (Climate
Group 2005). Through a landfill gas capture program at one site, the city is able
to generate about 44 MW of electricity, an annual reduction of 1 million tons
of CO2 equivalent, and annual revenues in excess of $2 million (Environment
Canada 1999; Climate Group 2005). With respect to other institutional activities,
all leading cities are members of FCMs PCP program, inevitably providing incentives and knowledge to execute activities. What is not evident with respect to
institutional action is the presence of clear, specific collaboration with provincial
or federal governments. As earlier noted, while infrastructure and transit funding
is provided by the federal and provincial governments, no constructive process
has been established to share the burden of response to climate change between
levels of government.
The two other dimensions analyzed are governance and land-use planning
initiatives. From a governance perspective, many cities are advancing
innovative efforts to work with citizens and communities. In most cases,
however, these efforts have come about after undertaking corporate actions.
The logic of this sequencing is intuitive: cities must address their own
challenges and demonstrate independent leadership before reaching out to
the community and it is easier for cities to get their own proverbial emissions
house in order before turning to the community. Two reasons help explain
the move to build relations with the community. First, once cities have
undertaken or demonstrated efforts to undertake climate action through
technical changes, ongoing and continued reductions will be difficult to
achieve without addressing how humans use energy and burn fuel factors
tied to consumption patterns and lifestyle. Second, citizen awareness of and
interest in addressing climate change continues to be strong, even in the
midst of the global recession. A 2008 poll revealed that 83% of Canadians
agreed, Canada should commit to strong action on global warming without
waiting for other countries (Pembina 2009). At the same time, poll results
about what Canadians are willing to individually do to address climate
change are mixed, with some suggestions that citizen willingness to make
sacrifices has diminished over time. Either way, if cities are taking action, it
is likely that they will try to tap into the climate consciousness of citizens,
particularly through education programs and engagement activities. These
two factors seem to also be influential for cities that have more recently come
to embrace climate action, such as Winnipeg, which appears to be reaching
out to community members earlier on than other Canadian urban leaders.
CHAPTER 19
509
Finally, one of the areas that cities in Canada do not appear to be prioritizing
for action is in land-use planning. While some cities have implemented treeplanting activities and several are pursuing improvements in public transit infrastructure, few cities are directly identifying the emission reduction benefits of
growth management and increased density. Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto
all prominent climate leaders in Canada are examples of cities that are
making explicit connections between land use and emissions. However, the
majority of cities investigated have few if any specific initiatives making these
connections. Two reasons can be offered for this: 1) most provinces have final
oversight over land use planning, and, therefore, cities may have to navigate a
difficult legal intergovernmental quagmire if they want to significantly amend
long-range planning, or they may be waiting for provinces to lead in this area; 2)
the promotion of densification and reductions in car dependency in Canada are
extraordinarily divisive policy areas, which openly challenge the preference for
and legacy of suburban development in most Canadian cities. Therefore, efforts
to challenge land-use preferences in the name of climate change will inevitably be
one of the most difficult actions city governments take in future.
In the subsequent tables land-use planning initiatives are identified first,
followed by governance initiatives and then institutional initiatives. NA indicates
that the information was not available. The cities are presented starting in western
Canada, Vancouver, and moving eastward to Halifax.
510
TABLE 4
Vancouver, British Columbias Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use
Planning
Initiatives
Eco-Density
Transportation
alternatives
Governance
Initiatives
Community
engagement
Land-Use Planning Outputs

-
Applications for re-zoning must meet LEED Silver

certication
Sites greater than 2 hectares seeking rezoning must

meet new sustainability performance criteria
New priority areas: laneway housing; basement

apartments and removal of barriers to green
building
Vancouver Transportation Plan and the Downtown

Transportation Plan
Translinks 10-year Outlook: expanding transit

services;
U-Pass, Sky Train expansion, B-Line and

Community Shuttle bus service (helping the shift
from drivers to transit users);
Streetscape Amenities program: racks and lockers,

bike stations, information about bicycle parking,
converting parking spaces to bike parking, etc.
Way to Go School program and Off-Ramp:

sustainable transportation practices for school travel
Governance Outputs
Expanding and applying existing community programs

such as Way to Go, Action Schools, Cool Schools,
BOMAs Go Green Program, etc.
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
NA
NA
Governance Outcomes
NA
CHAPTER 19
511
TABLE 4, continued
Institutions
Initiatives
Participation in
FCM Partners for
Climate Protection
(PCP) Program
Institutions Outputs
Institutions Outcomes
NA
NA
Building efciency
Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs): retrotting

buildings;
NA
Vehicle and fuel

efciency
Idle-free program, supporting efcient vehicle operations

and maintenance,
NA
Landll gas
recovery
Vancouver Landll Gas Recovery and Cogeneration

Project
Between 2000 and 2003,

Vancouver implemented a largescale landll gas recovery and cogeneration project that reduced
GHG emissions by 75% (200,000
tonnes per year) while also
generating electricity to power
11,000 homes and a nearby
greenhouse
Streetlights and
trafc lights
retrotting
Replacing incandescent lights with LED and low-wattage

compact uorescent bulbs
Electricity used for street lighting

decreased by 24% from 1990 to
1999 due to evolutions in lighting
technologies. The City predicted
another 29% decrease between
1999 and 2010
Corporate
demand-side
management
Improving commuter choices and energy usage

behaviours: implementing a Coordinator-Civic Employee
Sustainability Program
NA
Residential energy
efciency
Energuide for Existing Housing (EGH) program: assessing

home energy performance and nding opportunities
for energy savings; use of federal grants and nancial
incentives
NA
Commercial and
new building
efciency
Use of the LEED rating and auditing system in

construction of new buildings and retrotting
NA
Corporate eet
Right-sizing vehicles, equipment replacement programs,

shift to alternatively-fuelled and electric vehicles, eet
demand management, hybrid technologies, carpooling,
NA
NA
Corporate
waste reduction
and landll gas
recovery
Corporate building
efciency
Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs) that may

include: Interdepartmental energy committees;
Savings sharing funds
Energy Efcient Purchasing Policy: use of

EnergyStar products, reducing electrical
consumption, etc.
NA
Sources, Vancouver: City of Vancouver, EcoDenisty. April 19, 2009. Available at: http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/; Cool
Vancouver Task Force, The Climate-Friendly City: Community Climate Change Action Plan: Creating Opportunities. March 29,
2005. Available at: http://www.sustainablecommunities.fcm.ca/Partners-for-Climate-Protection/milestones/British-Columbia.asp.
512
TABLE 5
Calgary, Albertas Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning
Initiatives
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
Plan-it Calgary
Integrated landuse and mobility plan; intended

to align with the 100-year imagineCALGARY
sustainable community plan.
NA
Support of public
transit
Hertz car rental discount to customers with a transit

pass
NA
Transportation
improvements
Car Heaven program: recycle your old car and get a

6 month transit pass or $1000 towards a new vehicle
Governance
Initiatives
Fostering civic
partnerships;
Governance Outputs
Transportation improvements
Governance Outcomes
Energy Management Ofce (EMO)
NA
Residential water
conservation
Water Saver Kits; Toilet Rebate Replacement

Programme; Public Education; Water Utility By-Law
for new buildings
NA
Creating a community
vision for Calgary
imagineCalgary project: creating a 100-year

sustainability plan for the city of Calgary
NA
Climate Change
awareness
Climate Change and You newsletter and information

sheets, sent out by the City of Calgary
NA
Decreasing
residential energy use
consumption
Energy Star furnace replacement and washer rebate

programs
NA
Reducing commercial
energy use
consumption
Building Owners and Managers (BOMA) Go Green

Program
NA
Encouraging
technology
deployment
CHAPTER 19
513
TABLE 5, continued
Institutions
Initiatives
Participation in FCM
Partners for Climate
Protection (PCP)
Program
NA
NA
Energy efciency of
city buildings
Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) programs:

partnerships between the City and private energy
rms. The nancial rewards reaped from better
energy efciency are repaid to the energy service
company over a ten year contract
After project completion in 2004,

the following City buildings had
been improved: the Calgary Fire
Department; Manchester Yards;
Transportation facilities; the
ENMAX/Alberta Trade Centre;
and the Corporate Properties
Group and Waste and Recycling
Services buildings. Also, it is
estimated that the EPC program
continues to deliver about 30
kt in annual greenhouse gas
emission reductions.
Green Power energy

options
Ride-The-Wind program: partnering with the Citys

electricity supplier, ENMAX Power Corporation to
power local transit with energy from windmills
The Light Rail System (LRT) is

powered entirely by green power
; the programme also includes
a commitment from ENMAX
Power Corporation to provide
90% green power
Data Collection
System
greenHouse gas Emissions & Abatement Tracking

(HEAT): annual reporting of corporate GHG
emissions
NA
Sustainable Building
Policy
Policy: All new buildings in excess of 500m2

must meet or exceed the silver level of the LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
rating system. (Ratings are Certied, Silver, Gold and
Platinum).
Landlls: methane gas

emission reduction
Waste diversion and methane capture projects,

Biocap pilot project, wastewater capture at
Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant, etc.
Streetlight and trafc

signal retrotting
EnviroSmart Streetlight Retrot and LED Trafc

Signal replacement programs: replacing streetlights
with lower-wattage and at lens xtures, replacing
incandescent lights at trafc signals with LED lights
As of the 2006 report, two

facilities using the LEED rating
system had been built (Crowfoot
Library and Cardel Place) and
two were under construction (the
Water Centre and the Country
Hills Multi-Service Centre)
NA
- As of 2003, about 20,000 (of a

total of 37,500) streetlights had
been retrotted, providing the
city with about $1.7 million per
year in energy cost savings
- As of 2003, over a third of the
730 intersections in Calgary with
incandescent lights had been
replaced. Electricity savings
to the city are at just under
$700,000 per year
Source, Calgary: The City of Calgary Environmental Management, Calgary Climate Change Action Plan Target 50: The
City of Calgary Corporate and Community Outlook on Climate and Air Quality Protection. July 2006. Available at: http://
www.sustainablecommunities.fcm.ca/Partners-for-Climate-Protection/milestones/Alberta.asp
514
TABLE 6
Edmonton, Albertas Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning
Initiatives
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
NA
NA
NA
Governance Initiatives
Governance Outputs
Governance
Outcomes
Energy efciency awareness
CO2RE memberships: free to sign up

for newsletters, special promotions, etc.
Partnerships between the

city, NGOs and private sector
CO2RE (Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Edmonton) organization: team
members represent various
organizations such as ATCO Gas,
EcoCity, Sierra Club, Toxics Watch
Society, Urban Development Institute,
Worthington Properties, etc.
Institutions Initiatives
Website and callin contact line,

newsletters and howto publications and
training packages
NA
Institutions
Outcomes
Participation in FCM Partners

for Climate Protection (PCP)
Program
NA
Participation in the Voluntary

Challenge and Registry (VCR)
since 1995
NA
Retrotting existing buildings
At least 21 projects, funded by the

Energy Management Revolving Fund
NA
Transit
Implementing hybrid buses
NA
Wastewater treatment
Conversion of Gold Bars aeration

system to Fine Bubble in 2001
NA
Municipal Fleet
Fuel Sense Program
NA
Sources, Edmonton: CO2RE. Online: www.co2re.ca; City of Edmonton, Corporate Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Reduction Action Plan, Dec 23 2004. Available at: http://www.sustainablecommunities.fcm.ca/
Partners-for-Climate-Protection/milestones/Alberta.asp
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515
TABLE 7
Winnipeg, Manitobas Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning
Initiatives
Transportation

-
Governance
Initiatives
Smart Driving program (fuelefcient driving techniques

courses)
Active Transportation Study:
outlining the interests, gaps,
vision for transportation and
comparisons to other North
American cities (looks at public
transport services, cycling
services, pedestrian services, etc.)
Governance Outputs
Land-Use Planning Outcomes

See Active Transportation Study
at http://winnipeg.ca/interhom/
greenspace/
Governance Outcomes
Partnerships with
green agencies
Membership in the Manitoba Chapter of

the Canada Green Building Chapter
NA
Awareness and
education campaigns;
individual actions
Pembina Trails School Division multiyear program focused on no/low-cost

energy solutions (energy conservation
in classrooms; encouraging students
to create and implement energy-saving
measures)
NA
Transportation
efciency partnerships
Red River Valley Clean Cities Coalition

(RRVCCC) Winnipeg Chapter: voluntary
partnership between government,
business, non-prots, and postsecondary institutions aiming to reduce
idling, promote alternative fuels, vehicles,
etc.
NA
Reduction of water
consumption
Slow the Flow program: Department

of Water and Waste partnering with
Fort Whyte Centre to provide a water
efciency youth education program;
focus on long-term water consumption
reduction
Citys LCD (litres per capita per

day) has dropped almost 30%
since 1990 levels (a trend likely to
continue)
Communication
Environmental promotion website on

Citys ofcial site: containing information,
tips, alternatives, updates, etc.
http://winnipeg.ca/interhom/
greenspace/
www.climatechangeconnection.org
516
TABLE 7, continued
Institutions
Initiatives
Participation in FCM
Partners for Climate
Protection (PCP)
Program
Streetlights and Trafc
Signals
NA
NA
Updating with LED systems
As of July 31, 2006, the

Department of Public Works
had installed about 5,950
LED systems out of a total of
18,700 units
By October 207, 41.73% of
all trafc signal displays had
been replaced, with a total
savings of over 2.2 million
kilowatt hours of electricity1
Landll methane gas

recapturing
Brady Road Landll project
NA
Civic Vehicle Fleet
Winnipeg Fleet Management Association

(WFMA) works to reduce size of citys
eet, shift towards hybrid vehicles
and alternative fuels, prevent idling.
(e.g. Health Communities Dont Idle
campaign/voluntary Idle Free Zones
signposts)
Upgrading civic
facilities
Partnership with Manitoba Hydro to

enhance efciency of city buildings
e.g. 2 swimming pools have had

solar panels installed, etc.
Building energy
efciency and
retrotting
PowerSmart projects; LEED standards

adopted
e.g. retrotting of Pan Am Pool

complex, a project that reduced
GHG emissions by approximately
46 tonnes
Fleet has been reduced by

about 30%, from over 2300
vehicles to under 1600. 12
hybrid vehicles have been
incorporated into the eet (as
of July 2007)
Idle free zones posted at
various civic sites; City of
Winnipeg has committed
to creating an Idle Free
Administrative Directive for
idling guidelines for the citys
eet
Source, Winnipeg: City of Winnipeg. Active Transportation Study Available online: http://winnipeg.ca/interhom/
greenspace/
1The City of Winnipeg, Climate Change Action Plan: Quaterly Report October 2007). Available online: http://
winnipeg.ca/Interhom/GreenSpace/ClimateChange.stm
CHAPTER 19
517
TABLE 8
Toronto, Ontarios Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning
Initiatives
Land-Use Planning Outcomes
Ofcial Plan (long range

policy document)
Land use intensication and transit-oriented

design
NA
Encourage green economic

development clusters.
Emphasis on renewable energy cluster and

sustainable design cluster
NA
Governance Outputs
Governance Outcomes
Seven new light rail lines to be built by
2015.
Transit City plan
In collaboration with Toronto Transit

Commission and funded by Metrolinx (regional
transportation planning authority) new
investment in public transit infrastructure
Local food procurement
Require city-run facilities to purchase a certain

% of food from local producers; require all large
food retailers to indentify food kilometers on 10
commonly eaten produce items;
NA
Energy conservation and

renewable energy
Expand and continue all Toronto Hydro

programmes to support energy efciency and
conservation
NA
LiveGreen Toronto
Citys initiative to engage local residents in a

range of activities to reduce GHGs.
http://www.toronto.ca/livegreen/index.html,
community grants being made to support
activities
Better Buildings
Partnership
Using a revolving loan fund, the BBP provides

loans to public, private and institutional building
owners to complete building energy and water
retrots; the loan is repaid using the reduction in
utility bills over a xed repayment schedule.
By 2007, 636 buildings were registered; 47

million ft of oor area was retrotted oor;
2,530 person years of jobs created, estimated
$161 million in economic impact and annually
194,500 tonnes of CO2 were reduced.
Building energy efciency

and retrotting
Retrot of 50% of single family homes and

small businesses by 2020; nance mechanism
developed for high density building retrot;
procurement of renewable energy on City owned
properties; mandatory green building standards
by 2012; cut small engine use by 50% by 2020;
eliminate use of all incandescent bulbs in Citys
buildings; conversion of street lighting to LED by
2020; reduce electricity used for water treatment
by reducing water consumption by 50% by 2020;
expand deep lake cooling to meet 90% of space
cooling needs on waterfront and downtown by
2020; conserve 90 MW electricity by 2012
NA
Fuel conversion
City eet conversion to biodiesel by 2015;

require haulage rms within city to use biodiesel
NA
Clinton Climate C40

Climate Leaders Group
Network to expand capacity of cities to reduce

GHG emissions
NA
Landll gas capture
Expand methane collection at additional landlls
Renewable energy
Fulll 25% of energy demand in Toronto urban

area by 2020
NA
Urban greening
Double existing tree canopy to 34%
NA
Landll gas capture at Keele Valley Landll

has resulted in 149,000 tons of CO2 offset as
a result of not having to use coal to produce
electricity; and a capture of 1.8 million tons of
methane.
Sources, Toronto: Toronto Transity Commission. TTC Transit City. April 20, 2009. http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects_and_initiatives/Transit_city/index.jsp; Toronto Better Buildings Partnership, http://www.toronto.ca/bbp/; Clinton Climate
Initiative. www.c40cities.org/; http://www.c40cities.org/bestpractices/waste/toronto_organic.jsp
518
TABLE 9
Ottawa, Ontarios Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning Initiatives
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
Sustainable land-use planning and

community greening
Greenspace Master Plan and the Ofcial Plan for the City of
Ottawa: concentration on compact development and mixed
zoning, carbon sinks through tree-growing programs
NA
Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and the

Transportation Master Plan (TMP): investing in the
accommodation of walking, cycling, transit capacity and
service; investing in rapid transit and intelligent transport
system that can forecast and improve transit ow. Other
strategies include: anti-idling campaigns, International Walk to
School Day, Car Free Day, TravelWise Awards, Eco-pass, etc.
NA
Governance Outputs
Governance Outcomes
Promoting residential sector

energy efciency
Envirocentre Partnership, part of the federal Energuide for

Houses program
Based on an average GHG

reduction of 3 tonnes per
household, the program has
the potential of reducing
10,000 tonnes of GHGs
Energy efciency improvements
Local Improvement Charges through the Pembina Institute
NA
Energy and water efciency

awareness
Employee Energy Efciency Program: an internal program for

City employees designed to increase efciency at home and
in the workplace
NA
Smog management
Smog Action Plan
NA
Participation in FCM Partners for

Climate Protection (PCP) Program
NA
NA
Green Buildings
LEED ratings system and ASHRAE promotion
NA
Waste management
Integrated Waste Management Master Plan (IWMMP): focus

on waste diversion, reducing packaging, landll gas utilization
and green procurement
NA
Alternative energy and community

energy planning/conservation
programs
Efcient appliances, reduction of water use, district energy,

renewable energy, and co-generation
NA
Air quality management
Winter Air Quality programs; Smog Alert programs; Noise and

odours; Street Cleaning and Pollen reduction measures
NA
Landll gas co-generation
Partnership between the City and Energy Ottawa to heat

between 5000 and 6000 homes from the Trail Road and
Nepean landll sites
NA
Water efciency
Outdoor Water Use Strategy, Non-Revenue Water Strategy,

Indoor Water Use Strategy, Education and Awareness
Strategy, Monitoring and Reporting Strategy
NA
Streetlight and trafc signal

retrotting
NA
Reduction of building energy use

in industrial, commercial, and
institutional sectors
Better Buildings Partnership: using proven technologies to

conserve energy through promotions and nancial incentives.
Stakeholders from community groups, home owners, home
heating oil companies, industry, commerce, etc.
NA
Fleet Emissions Reductions Strategy (FERS):
NA
Source, Ottawa: Air Energy Initiatives, Environmental Management Division, Planning and Growth Management Department, Air
Quality and Climate Change Management Plan for the City of Ottawa. November 2004. Available at: http://www.sustainablecommunities.fcm.ca/Partners-for-Climate-Protection/milestones/Ontario.asp
CHAPTER 19
519
TABLE 10
Montreal, Quebecs Land-Use, Governance and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning Initiatives
Transportation and Air Quality
Reducing Greenhouse Gas

Emissions/Improving Air Quality
Transportation Plan (2005)

By-law and public awareness about vehicle idling
Reducing illegal outdoor parking spots in city
centre
Minimize trafc on Mount Royal
Promote car sharing
Enhance cycling infrastructure (Montreal-wide
cycling network)
Promote sustainable transport through the
workplace (public transport, carpooling, biking,
walking, etc.)
Replace citys 500 sub-compact automobiles with
energy efcient vehicles
Replace 106 six-cylinder gasoline engine vans with
four-cylinder engine vans (by 2011)
Implement compensation mechanisms for carbonneutral business travel
Tree Policy
Support the Quartiers 21 Projects: support

nancially at least 2 new locally innovative
environmental projects and one project that follows
Montreals Integrated Urban Revitalization projects
Multiply contact points with water (create at least 5
new contact points along riverbanks, parks, etc.)
Reduce urban heat islands (greening strategy,
downtown green projects)
Promotion of urban agriculture
Residential Environments
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
Governance Outputs
By-law about idling has

been passed; needs
follow-up on enforcement
and awareness
NA
Governance Outcomes
NA
Encouraging sustainable
development practices in industry
and business
Industrial design contest to reduce quantity of waste

treated
NA
Biodiversity and protection of

natural resources
Sign a partnership agreement with the Secretariat of the

Convention on Biological Diversity
NA
Public participation and

mobilization
Public Consultation and Participation Policy
NA
Residential Environments
2007-2010 Cleanliness and Maintenance Plan: putting

emphasis on coalitions of partners, businesses,
community organizations, etc; communications campaign
to accent the civic role and responsibility of the Montreal
resident; education and awareness education programs
NA
International contribution to
sustainable development
- Become a United Nations University regional expertise

centre for education on sustainable development
NA
Participation in FCM Partners for

Climate Protection (PCP) Program
Commitment to Sustainable
Development Plan
- Organizations committing themselves to achieving one

or more of the actions in the Sustainable Development
Plan report (encouraged to complete 5 actions, with at
least one feature action)
Waste management
- Metropolitan Waste Management Plan (PMGMR)
Energy efciency of buildings
- Updating and construction energy efcient municipal

buildings
By late 2006, over 70

organizations had committed
to performing actions from the
start-up phase (2005-2006) plan.
In early 2007 these organizations
were asked to extend their
performance in keeping with the
redened 26 actions outlined in
the 2007-2009 Phase report
NA
Energy efciency of buildings
Source, Montreal: City of Montreal. Montreals First Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development: 2007-2009 Phase. Available at:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/developpementdurable
520
TABLE 11
Halifax, Nova Scotias Land-Use, Governance
and Institutional Climate Actions
Land-Use Planning
Initiatives
Land-Use Planning
Outputs
Land-Use Planning
Outcomes
NA
NA
NA
Governance Outputs
Governance Outcomes
Energy efciency and climate

change awareness
Naturally Green newsletter

available online
Participation in FCM Partners
for Climate Protection (PCP)
Program
NA
NA
NA
Source, Halifax: Halifax Regional Municipality, Welcome to Naturally Green. http://www.halifax.ca/

environment/index.html
4. CONCLUSION: LESSONS LEARNED

FROM CANADIAN CITIES
This paper began by acknowledging an important yet poorly understood phenomena
in Canada: despite the lack of climate change action on the part of the national
government and provincial governments, Canadian cities are leaders in climaterelated initiatives and GHG emission reductions. Indeed, the City of Torontos Better
Buildings Partnership program a program it pioneered now serves as a model
for the C40, Clinton Climate Initiative. In Canada, this leadership suggests that
response to climate change should not be treated like other policy areas in the federation. Debate about who should do what is misplaced, will only fuel further intergovernmental tensions, and will not succeed in producing a comprehensive national
strategy to address climate change. Hueglins call (2007) to consider how much of
what each level of government, including municipal institutions, should do is particularly important and appropriate for future climate change action. This parallels
the arguments of some urban scholars who have identified the need for interscalar
coordination, whereby local policy action must be integrated into broader social and
economic policies (Bradford 2007b). Coordination is important. The climate actions
of cities in Canada and globally should not serve as a reason for subnational and
national governments not to act. Instead, these actions put the onus on subnational
and national governments to support and conform with the leadership of cities, and
to take initiatives in areas where cities cannot lead or will not lead, such as in the
regulation of emissions across national or international jurisdictions. Whatever the
future of coordination, it must not compromise the leadership of cities. This point
highlights other important political and associated institutional lessons.
CHAPTER 19
521
Cities do not need other levels of government to tell them how to mitigate climate
change. Through changes to their own operations, Canadian cities show that they
can independently take action that has meaningful impacts. Hence, globally, cities
need not be encumbered by the inaction of other levels of government. Climate
action produces co-benefits to cities, such as improvements in air quality and
reductions in energy costs. These potential co-benefits, however, will likely be
realized through knowledge sharing, capacity building, and technology transfers.
Municipal networks play an important role in facilitating knowledge transfer.
But in the absence of the financial and technological resources to execute
programs, the power of knowledge can be limited. The approach to project
financing employed by international organizations like the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) may be a useful model for city climate-related actions. GEF funds
the incremental or additional costs associated with transforming a project with
national benefits into one with global environmental benefits. In turn, the GEF,
or a new facility that specifically funds the incremental costs of transforming city
infrastructure investments or improvements into ones that also reduce GHG
emissions is appealing because of the potential to produce global benefits at the
same time as direct benefits to cities and citizens. The Clinton Climate Initiatives
approach to reducing the costs of energy-efficient infrastructure and technology
is also an important model. By negotiating with manufacturers to reduce costs
for energy-efficient technology, the initiative pools the purchasing power of
cities. This model is important to consider at a national or regional scale as well.
The creation of a Clinton Climate Initiative-like entity in countries or regions
seems to have significant merit for producing co-benefits to cities, their citizens,
and the global climate. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Green
Municipal Fund (GMF) is a national example of such an entity. The Fund provides
grants and below-market loans to municipalities to undertake environmental initiatives and GHG reductions. Since its inception in 2000, the GMF has committed
more than $375 million in financing to support almost 700 sustainable community
development projects, including sustainable community plans and feasibility studies,
as well as loans and grants for capital projects (FCM 2008). Cities should not carry
the burden of responding to climate change when national governments cannot.
Therefore, any future technology transfer or infrastructure or climate-related urban
financing must produce specific and real co-benefits to city governments and citizens.
Cities in Canada show that achieving co-benefits through institutional programs are
real, significant, and achievable.
In addition to urban leadership, cities in Canada show that achievements in climate
action take time. Toronto is recognized as an international leader in climate action
but it began its actions in 1988. Its achievements, like other cities, are the result of
careful, prolonged action and political commitment. Recent research on US metropolitan areas also suggests that cities that have high levels of civic and environmental
522
capacity are more likely to engage in GHG emission reduction efforts (Zharan et al.
2008). Despite this, after ten to twenty years of climate leadership, many Canadian
cities are only now establishing concerted and specific efforts to engage citizens in
climate campaigns. Hence, while the presence of strong state-society relations in cities
may correlate with environmental action, it is not a precondition for climate action.
The climate-related initiatives and outputs of Canadian cities, particularly at the
institutional level, are fairly consistent. These independent actions, along with the
networks and programs many Canadian cities participate in, provide examples that
other cities may carefully consider. It is unclear whether Canadas national government
will build on the climate leadership of its cities in the near future. But in the absence
of stronger collaboration with the national government and provinces, Canadian cities
will continue to lead because the benefits of action are locally tangible, and globally
meaningful an outcome that should resonate with other cities around the world.
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MacDonald, D., and Smith, H. 1999. Promises Made, Promises Broken: Questioning
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CHAPTER
20
Climate Change Adaptation Planning

in Toronto: Progress and Challenges
Jennifer Penney,* Thea Dickinson, and Eva Ligeti
Summary
The City of Toronto is one of the first Canadian cities to establish a citywide
process to respond to its vulnerability to climate change. In 2008, Toronto
developed Ahead of the Storm, a climate change adaptation strategy. This case
study describes past, current and potential future impacts of climate change on
Toronto, along with the steps taken to develop the adaptation strategy. These
steps include the creation of an Adaptation Steering Group and the development
of an initial framework document. The strategy was underpinned by existing
programs that provide protection from current weather extremes and included
short term actions as well as a longer-term process for developing a comprehensive strategy. The City is in the early stages of implementing the strategy. This
paper also reflects on some of the barriers to the integration and mainstreaming
of adaptation into City plans and programs.

524
CHAPTER 20
525
1. INTRODUCTION
In the last decade, public awareness of climate change has increased dramatically
in Canada, and changing weather trends, extreme weather events, and associated
impacts are being blamed rightly or wrongly on climate change. Municipalities are responsible for many affected services and infrastructure: electricity distribution; water supply; stormwater management; the state of local roads, bridges,
and culverts; public health; social welfare; and more. As a consequence, a growing
number of local governments are considering how to respond to climate change.
Toronto is Canadas largest city and has often been a leader in the development and implementation of many new environmental policies. In 2008, after
almost a year of planning, the City adopted a new Climate Change Adaptation
Strategy (City of Toronto 2008a) and is now in the early stages of implementing
it. Although Toronto is not the first municipality in Canada to undertake explicit
adaptation planning Halifax has that distinction lessons learned from
Torontos experience are likely to influence the development and implementation
of adaptation programs elsewhere in the country.
2. CONTEXT
2.1. The City of Toronto
Toronto is situated on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario, the smallest of

North Americas Great Lakes.
It is the capital of the province of Ontario and Canadas largest city, with
approximately 2.7 million inhabitants in an urban region of more than 5 million
people. Toronto is one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world. According
to the 2006 Census, 49.9% of Torontos population is foreign-born. Children
(0-19 years) made up almost 24% of the citys population in 2009 while 12% of
the population is over the age of 65 (Toronto Region Research Alliance 2010).
Despite the influx of new immigrants, Torontos population is gradually aging.
Toronto has a humid continental climate moderated by its location on Lake
Ontario. The city experiences warm, humid summers and cold winters with some
snow and periods of freezing rain.
2.2. Emerging Climate Change Impacts and Concerns
Until recently, the City of Toronto paid greater attention to reducing greenhouse
gas emissions than to local climate change impacts and the need for adaptation. This has begun to change as Torontos weather has become noticeably
526
more extreme. In the last four years, Toronto has suffered through the hottest
and smoggiest summer in the Citys history (2005), the most intense rainfall and
costliest flood (also 2005), one of the driest summers on record (2007) followed
by the wettest summer (2008), and the snowiest winter in 70 years (2007-2008).
These weather events drew the Citys attention to the following expected
climate change impacts:
2.2.1
Heat Waves and Declining Air Quality
Torontos summer temperatures have climbed an average of 2.7C in the last forty
years, due to a combination of climate change, the urban heat island effect and the
increase in Lake Ontarios surface temperature caused by the use of the Great Lakes
as heat sinks by nuclear and coal-fired power plants (Rhodes 2008). The incidence
and duration of heat waves has also increased. In response to this, Toronto Public
Health (TPH) launched a heat alert and response system in 1999. TPH also
commissioned a study which evaluated mortality due to heat waves (Pengelly et
al. 2005). The study estimated that heat waves currently contribute to an average
of 120 deaths annually in Toronto. However, as a result of climate change, heatrelated mortality is projected to double by 2020 and triple by 2080, in the absence
of effective adaptation (Pengelly et al. 2005). Hotter weather and prolonged heat
waves also negatively affect air quality. Pengelly et al. estimated that 1,700 people die
prematurely in Toronto and about 6,000 are hospitalized each year from exposure
to smog and other air pollutants. The study predicted that these figures would rise
20% by 2020 and 25% by 2080 as a result of climate change.
Rising summer temperatures also have a significant impact on Torontos
electricity demand, which soars on hot days and triggers the purchase of electricity
from coal-fired generating stations in the Ohio Valley. This increases greenhouse
gas emissions, and intensifies air pollution and smog in Southern Ontario, which
is downwind of these plants. The increase in demand also strains the electrical
transmission systems, increasing the risk of brownouts and blackouts.
2.2.2
Intense Rainfall and Flooding
For some time Toronto Water has been concerned about the escalating intensity of
rainstorms, which caused eight local floods between 1986 and 2006 (DAndrea 2007).
A three-hour storm on August 19, 2005 dropped more than 150 mm of rain on some
areas of the city and cost at least half a billion dollars in flood damages the most
expensive natural disaster ever in Ontario (Yakabuski 2008). Impacts included: flash
floods of creeks, rivers and ravines; the erosion and collapse of stream banks; more
than 4,200 flooded basements in homes and commercial properties; and damage to
parks, trees, roads, water mains, gas mains, underground electrical and telephone
cables, sanitary sewers and bridge foundations, as well as vehicles (DAndrea 2007).
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2.2.3
527
Record Snowfalls and Freezing Rain
Although changes in snowfall trends in Southern Ontario are not considered

statistically significant up to the year 2000 (Zhang et al. 2001), a number of extreme
snowfall events have occurred in Toronto since the late-1990s. For example, 118
cm of snow fell in a two-week period in January 1999, more than usually falls
in an entire winter. Torontos former Mayor requested help from the military
to clear away one million tons of snow from the downtown area. Snow clearing
that month cost $70 million, more than twice the Citys budget for the entire
year (Environment Canada 2006). Major snowstorms were also experienced in
2001, 2002 and 2005. In the winter of 2007-8 snowfall totaled 194 cm, the most
snow the city had seen in 70 years. This resulted in multiple power outages, traffic
pile-ups and airport closures, and snow-clearing costs again greatly exceeded
the budget for the year. The City attributes record snowfalls to later freeze-up of
the Great Lakes, resulting in more moisture in the air when winter storms arrive
(City of Toronto Transportation Services 2009). Also of concern are freeze-thaw
cycles, which damage roads as well as trees and plants, and increases in freezing
rain, which result in traffic accidents and deaths.
2.2.4
Impacts on the Urban Forest
Torontos trees make the city more beautiful and more livable. In 2007, the City
of Toronto committed to doubling its tree canopy from 17 to 34% coverage by
2050 to cool the city, reduce stormwater runoff, absorb some air pollutants and
sequester carbon (City of Toronto 2007a). Climate change will challenge the
Citys ability to meet this goal. Torontos canopy has actually declined 4 5 %
in the last 15 years. Increases in heat, erratic precipitation, storms, and exotic
pests all exacerbated by climate change make life difficult for urban trees
(Johnston 2004; Wieditz and Penney 2007).
TAKING ACTION ON ADAPTATION
3.1. Including Adaptation in Torontos Climate Change Plan
Despite growing awareness of climate change impacts, when a new City Council
decided in late 2006 to create an ambitious new climate change plan, adaptation
was not yet top of mind. Adaptation was included in the plan at the urging of the
Clean Air Partnership (CAP), a local non-governmental organization. CAP had
published A Scan of Climate Change Impacts on Toronto (Wieditz and Penney) in
2006, and met individually with the Mayor and many City Councillors to discuss
the need to adapt to avoid the worst impacts. CAP also hosted two workshops for
528
City of Toronto staff on the issue. Two key City Councillors the Chair and Vice
Chair of the Citys Parks and Environment Committee became convinced that
adaptation was necessary. As a consequence, the City incorporated a commitment
to investigate Torontos vulnerability to climate change in Change is in the Air, the
Citys climate change plan, adopted in the summer of 2007 (City of Toronto 2007b).
3.2 The Adaptation Team
To guide this work, the Toronto Environment Office (TEO) established an

Adaptation Steering Group. The group consisted of policy and program staff from
14 City Divisions and Agencies expected to be impacted by climate change. TEO
also set up and chaired a core group of seven staff to undertake the day-to-day
work of mapping out an adaptation plan and managing the public consultation
process. This group met almost weekly from September 2007 until April 2008.
Six departments Toronto Public Health, City Planning, Toronto Water,
Transportation Services, Urban Forestry and Financial Services expressed
great interest in a citywide adaptation project, as did the Toronto and Region
Conservation Authority, which had been working hard for several years on
the issue. However, there were pockets of resistance in some areas. A few staff
expressed skepticism about climate change. Others felt that uncertainties in the
science especially about the frequency and intensity of storms and changes in
precipitation patterns precluded taking action at this time. Some staff members
were concerned about additional workload, and others felt that new adaptation
measures would likely prove too costly in light of the financial pressures on the
City. The Deputy City Manager advised staff, however, that the adaptation project
required their cooperation.
Over eight months, the Adaptation Steering Group completed a framework
document that outlined the issues, developed a broad adaptation strategy, and
ushered it through a public consultation process.
3.3 Building Capacity and Engagement
Many members of the Adaptation Steering Group had little previous experience in assessing climate change impacts or planning to adapt and they faced a
steep learning curve. The Chair of the group undertook a number of activities to
provide information on impacts and adaptation to group members and in some
cases to engage other key City staff. These activities included:
t Compiling information about what other municipalities were doing on the issue;
t Encouraging attendance at workshops and conferences to increase familiarity
with concepts and issues in climate change impacts and adaptation;
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t Participating in the regular webinars of the new Alliance for Resilient Cities
as well as meetings of its U.S. counterpart, the Urban Leaders Adaptation
Initiative; and
t Organizing meetings with the Climate Change Scenarios Network, the Public
Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee, the Canadian Institute of
Planners, and others to help the City with thinking about climate change scenario modeling, infrastructure risk assessment and other adaptation-related issues.
To increase internal engagement, the Chair of the Adaptation Steering Group
arranged individual meetings with key divisions, including: Insurance and Risk
Management, Community Development, Water Infrastructure Management, the
Citys Emergency Management Working Group, the Economic Development
Office, Toronto Public Health, Toronto Hydro and the Executive Environment
Team. These meetings included presentations about climate change and its
potential impacts in the region and engaged officials in discussions about what
they might need to do to respond. TEO also met with the Mayor and with the
Chair of the Parks and Environment Committee to brief them on the developing
adaptation strategy and public consultation process.
The Adaptation Steering Group invited a number of climate and adaptation
scientists, analysts from the insurance industry and infrastructure engineers
to join an Expert Panel to provide advice. Members of the Expert Panel made
presentations at two key meetings: an internal meeting with senior staff from the
Citys Divisions held in November 2007, and a large public meeting of the Citys
Parks and Environment Committee in January 2008, attended by more than
100 members of City staff, local environmental organizations, the public and
the press. The Expert Panel presentations gave City staff and political officials a
sobering preview of potential climate impacts on the City, including the costs of
not taking action to prepare for expected changes.
3.4 Developing a Framework Document
The Adaptation Steering Group developed a framework document to help

inform internal and public discussion about climate change impacts and adaptation. This document proved harder to compile than expected. The issues were
new for many of the members, and the group was attempting to devise, without
a good precedent, a comprehensive strategy for a large and complex city. Several
international cities had begun adaptation planning, but few had made detailed
information available about their processes, so there were few examples to follow
(Penney and Wieditz 2007). When the first draft was completed, fourteen City
departments made detailed and in some cases divergent recommendations,
which had to be considered in reworking the document.
530
The final framework document was called Ahead of the Storm: Preparing
Toronto for Climate Change (City of Toronto 2008b). It provided information
on the impacts Toronto can expect from climate change, explained why
adaptation is necessary and recommended a long-term process for developing
a comprehensive adaptation strategy for Toronto. This longer-term process has
nine steps:
t Create the internal mechanisms and processes for the development of a comprehensive, multi-year adaptation process;
t Engage the public, business and other stakeholder groups;
t Incorporate climate change adaptation into City policies and high level
plans;
t Use best available science to analyze how climate is changing locally and what
the future is likely to bring;
t Use this analysis to identify Torontos vulnerabilities to climate change;
t Conduct a risk assessment to identify priority impacts requiring adaptation
action;
t Identify and assess adaptation options to reduce the risk;
t Develop and implement climate change adaptation strategies; and
t Monitor climate change, evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation initiatives in protecting the City from continuing changes, and adjust strategies when necessary.
Ahead of the Storm identified a number of existing programs that serve to
provide protection from current weather extremes, and which provide a basis
for building a more comprehensive adaptation program aimed at protecting
against future impacts of climate change. The framework document also
proposed a number of short-term projects that could be undertaken immediately, and could help address current and future impacts. Some of these projects
are included in Table 1.
The Toronto Environment Office produced a shorter highlights version of
the framework document to help in the public consultation process. This report
was distributed in print form and made available on the City of Toronto website.
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531
TABLE 1
A Selection of Short-term Adaptation Projects Recommended
in the Toronto Strategy
Recommended Short-term
Adaptation Projects
Anticipated Benets
Study of Recent Regional Climate

Trends and Future Climate
Projections
Improved information on expected climate

extremes as well as likely gradual changes to
permit better decision making on adaptation
planning and for use in next generation
watershed plans.
Climate Change Vulnerability and

Risk Assessment of City Operations
Improved understanding of where vulnerabilities are and ranking of risks to help prioritize
adaptation actions
Updating of regional extreme

precipitation intensity, duration and
frequency curves
Improved ability to design storm drainage

infrastructure for extreme runoff events
Scan of methods used in other

jurisdictions for assessing vulnerability to heat
Leading to development of heat-related vulnerability assessment tool to provide strategic direction

for Torontos Hot Weather Response Plan
Analysis of when and where green

roofs could be required
Support for a new Green Roof by-law expected

to reduce demand for air conditioning and storm
water runoff
Urban Heat Island research to

inform land use planning policy
approaches to cooling the City
Identication of Torontos hotspots, what causes

them, and strategies to reduce them
Climate change vulnerability risk

assessment of major road culverts
and bridges
Informing upgrades to infrastructure, and

reducing the risk of infrastructure failure due to
extreme weather, so that disruptions to the public
and signicant insurance claims can be minimized
Expand parkland naturalization and

naturalization of lands surrounding
water and wastewater facilities
Increased canopy cover in our parks and open

spaces from 30% to over 50% and reduced
stormwater runoff
Introduce a new standard for

supporting healthy tree growth by
continuous soil trench systems in
commercial areas
Extended life of trees from 6 years to 35 years

in commercial areas, increasing shade, and
reducing energy demand for cooling
Elimination of new reverse slope

driveways
Reduced ooding during extreme precipitation

events
Source: Adapted from Ahead of the Storm (City of Toronto 2008b)
532
3.5 Consulting the Public and Other Stakeholders
The Toronto Environment Office held six meetings to consult the public and
stakeholders on Ahead of the Storm. Each of the meetings began with a presentation of the main issues and recommendations from the document. Attendees
were then invited to discuss the impacts they felt were key, any gaps they saw in
the Citys analysis and action the City should take.
Many of the participants at the consultation meetings struggled with the concept
of climate change adaptation. They were much more familiar with and many were
more committed to mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than
adaptation. Business representatives were quick to understand some of the potential
impacts of climate change, since several had experienced the adverse economic effects
of power outages, floods and other results of extreme weather (David MacLeod,
personal communication, May 26, 2008). As a result, business groups had a strong
focus on emergency response issues. All the meetings recommended that the City
should increase and broaden education programs to make Torontonians aware of the
threats of climate change and potential adaptation solutions.
3.6 Political Commitments and Early Implementation
Following the public consultations, the Toronto Environment Office prepared

a Staff Report on a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy with recommendations
for Council (City of Toronto 2008a). The report was adopted unanimously by
Council on July 15, 2008. The main commitments of the report and the implementation to date are as follows:
3.6.1
Incorporate Explicit Goals for Adaptation of Infrastructure and Buildings

into Torontos Ofcial Plan
Torontos Official Plan comes up for review in 2010. As instructed by Council, City
Planning is currently developing specific commitments for climate change mitigation and adaptation to include in the Official Plan (Lisa King, personal communication, April 4, 2009). Because the Official Plan guides all land-use planning and
development for the City, this will ensure that climate change impacts are taken into
account in all new developments and major redevelopments.
3.6.2
Incorporate Climate Change Adaptation Initiatives into Planning and

Budgeting of all City Agencies and Divisions for 2009
In the fall of 2008, Torontos Deputy City Manager required all City Divisions to
incorporate climate change mitigation and adaptation into their programs and
to identify climate change activities in their budget submissions for 2009. This
directive was announced just a few months before the new budgets were due;
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533
as a result, few brand new climate change adaptation initiatives were included
in Divisional plans. However, adaptation was highlighted in Division plans
and budget submissions in a way that had not occurred previously, and several
existing programs were strengthened or expanded in order to better address
current climate extremes and future climate change. For example:
t The Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division successfully appealed for extra
funds to expand the maintenance of existing trees, increase tree planting and
support research into effective ways of improving the health and growth of
urban trees and increasing the tree canopy (City of Toronto Parks, Forestry
and Recreation 2009). These activities are aimed at achieving the Citys goal
of doubling the tree canopy in the next 40 years, and reducing the urban heat
island effect and stormwater runoff among other benefits. Urban Forestry has
also altered and diversified tree species being planted to better withstand the
expanded range of pests and more extreme conditions expected under climate
change.
t For several years, Toronto Water has incorporated concerns about climate
change into its planning and programs. Recently, the Division identified 31
areas within the City prone to flooding and sewage backup as a result of more
extreme rainfall and is undertaking a detailed analysis for each area to identify
ways to reduce the risk of future flooding. Toronto Water expects to allocate
several hundred million in capital projects over the next ten years to address
this issue (Toronto Water 2008). The Division is also implementing a Water
Efficiency Plan that is expected to reduce pressures on the water supply system
in cases of drought. Toronto Water is also collaborating with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority and adjacent municipalities to update standards
for stormwater infrastructure to better protect against intense rainfall.
t Toronto Public Health is conducting research in order to identify and map Toronto populations vulnerable to heat, with a view to developing a more targeted heat response system that may be more effective in protecting citizens
during hot days and heat waves. With the support of the Medical Officer of
Health, the Environmental Protection Office at Toronto Public Health is also
trying to insert climate change concerns into a broader strategic review of priorities (Stephanie Gower, personal communication, April 4, 2009).
t In 2006, City Council adopted a Green Development Standard prepared by
City Planning. It set demanding environmental standards for new City-owned
buildings and encouraged developers to apply the standards to private developments as well (City of Toronto 2007b). Several requirements of the Standard serve to reduce Torontos vulnerability to climate change by: mitigating
the urban heat island effect; enlarging the urban forest; increasing shade for
534
pedestrians; using permeable surfaces to reduce flooding, promoting on-site

water storage and reuse; and encouraging drought resistant plantings. Planning
officials are also piloting community-scale renewable energy generation and
local distribution systems designed to enhance neighborhood energy security.
This year the City revised the standard and as of September 2009, its minimum
requirements (Tier 1) apply to all new developments in the City. The City will
offer incentives to developers to achieve a higher standard (Tier 2) as well. City
Planning is also working with Toronto Building on a by-law that will require
green roofs on new buildings and establish construction standards for them.
t The new Eco-Roof Program, managed by the Toronto Environment Office, was
launched March 2009 and provides a financial incentive for existing commercial, industrial and institutional buildings to install green roofs or cool roofs on
their buildings. This expands on the previous Green Roof Pilot Program run
by Toronto Water in 2006-7. Green roofs absorb rainfall and slow the flow of
stormwater, potentially reducing urban flooding from intense storms. They also
insulate the buildings below them, cooling them naturally, reducing the need for
air conditioning in hot summers, and reducing peak demand for electricity and
pressure on the grid during hot days and heat waves. Cool roofs reflect solar
radiation, reduce heat in buildings, and lower demand for electricity as well.
Although these initiatives are all encouraging indicators of the integration
of adaptation into City programs, some of the short-term adaptation projects
proposed for specific Divisions in Ahead of the Storm were not included in 2009
budget proposals and some Divisions did not include any adaptation initiatives
in their proposals. None of the new or expanded programs have utilized future
climate projections to establish specific adaptation targets, though this may change
when the Toronto Environment Office has concluded its study of recent climate
trends and future climate projections for the region. (See section 3.6.4 below.)
3.6.3
To Investigate a Funding Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation Planning

and Actions, Including the Creation of an Extreme Weather Reserve Fund
In January 2009, the City created an Environmental Protection Reserve Fund.

Among other goals, the Fund is expected to support the development of Torontos
long-term adaptation strategy and for related projects such as Deep Lake Water
cooling and expanding the tree canopy. The City committed $500,000 from this
fund for the climate and risk assessment studies described in the next section.
At the recommendation of the Citys Financial Services Division, Council also
created the Extreme Weather Reserve Group of accounts to offset budget deficits
arising from unexpected and unbudgeted extreme weather costs to City programs
and services (City of Toronto 2009a). Such a fund could help pay the costs of
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535
extreme weather events like the 2005 flood or the unprecedented snowfalls of
2007-8 without diverting finances from other City priorities. Unfortunately,
Council decided that the funds for the Extreme Weather Reserve Group are to be
provided out of end-of-year surpluses. Given the current economic climate, such
surpluses seem unlikely in the near future, which leaves City operating budgets
vulnerable to extreme weather events.
3.6.4
To Establish a Process for the Development of a Longer-Term,

Comprehensive Adaptation Strategy
The City has two current projects to support development of a longer-term adaptation strategy. The Toronto Environment Office is working with a consultant, as well
as with Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and the
Toronto Region Conservation Authority, to analyze Torontos current and expected
future weather patterns. Particular attention will be paid to the magnitude,
frequency and probability of extreme events and the main drivers that contribute
to them. The study will identify the tools and data that can be used to predict future
weather and climate for the region, which should be useful in planning, especially
for long-lived infrastructure (City of Toronto 2009b). Expected to be released in
2010, the study should be of value for the whole of southern Ontario (Christopher
Morgan, personal communication, April 4, 2009).
The Toronto Environment Office has also hired a consultant to develop a
risk assessment methodology for identifying and prioritizing environmental
risks that the City faces. This tool is being piloted by two Divisions within the
City Transportation Services and Shelter, Housing and Support to assess
the risks that climate change poses for the operations of these Divisions. This
task is still underway at the time of writing. If the pilot is successful, the Citys
other Divisions and Agencies are expected to use the methodology to undertake
detailed climate change risk assessments, which should inform the development
of a more detailed adaptation strategy.
3.6.5
To Help Establish and Develop an Urban Climate Change Network
The idea for a Toronto Urban Climate Change Network (TUCC Network)
was proposed at the first consultation meeting on Ahead of the Storm, which
brought together academics from three local universities, representatives from
the environmental departments of the provincial and federal governments, and
non-governmental organizations with knowledge of adaptation issues. Participants in this consultation supported the idea of an ongoing forum where they
could promote collaboration and practical research that could help in the implementation of adaptation policies and programs in the Toronto region. With City
Councils approval, TEO set up the TUCC Network in the fall of 2008.
536
FIGURE 1
Organization of Torontos Adaptation Work
Mayor and Council
Mandate creation of Climate Change adaptation strategy
Adopted staff report and recommendations
Approves budget for adaptation activities
Executive Committee
Receives program and policy recommendations from Parks and
Environment Committee
City Manager & Deputy City Manager

Executive oversight of climate change adaptation
Allocates staff and other resources
Executive Environment Team
Parks
& Environment
Committee
Received public
deputations on
the adaptation
framework
Recommended
approval of staff
report & adaptation
process
Toronto Environment Ofce
(Chaired by Deputy City Manager)

Receives progress reports on adaptation work
Ensures support by Divisions for the Adaptation
Steering Group
Responsibility for climate change adaptation coordination

Prepared staff report and recommendations for Council
Overseeing research on Torontos current and future climate
Developing new Toronto-specic risk assessment tool
Manages interaction with external collaborators
Environmental Risk Management Committee
(formerly the Climate Change Adaptation Steering Group)

Includes representatives from many City Divisions and some
arms-length agencies
Developed Ahead of the Storm, the Citys climate change
adaptation framework
Consulted the public external stakeholders
Collaborating on the development of a detailed climate change
impacts risk assessment
Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation

Provided advice on development of the adaptation
strategy
Made deputations to the Parks and Environment
Committee
Other External Collaborators

(e.g. Environment Canada, academic researchers)
Work with the City on research of value in the
development of regional climate knowledge &
adaptation programs
City Divisions and Agencies

(e.g. City Planning, Public Health, Toronto Water)
Responsible for undertaking Divisional risk assessments,
developing detailed plans and taking action on climate change
adaptation in specic areas of responsibility
Note: This chart has been adapted from a diagram by David Macleod of the Toronto Environment Ofce, but has not been
approved by the City. It is provided for illustrative purposes only.
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537
One of the first activities of the Network was to organize the Forum on Infrastructure and Climate Change Adaptation (Forum) in April 2009, designed
to promote the integration of climate change considerations into urban infrastructure projects that are currently on the upswing because of new economic
stimulus investments. A large number of City staff attended this Forum and
participated actively in its discussions, which focused on potential climate change
impacts for five broad areas of infrastructure:
t Transportation;
t Drainage and water;
t Buildings;
t Natural spaces; and
t Energy.
For each area, roundtable groups at the Forum identified critical vulnerabilities, key data needs and priority areas for action. Additionally, the Forum strongly
recommended the creation of a Toronto Climate Change Adaptation Working
Group of decision-makers to encourage the uptake of adaptation actions in the
private and public sectors and in the community. The City agreed to convene this
group, but as of April 2010, this has not been done.
4. DISCUSSION
Toronto is one of a handful of North American cities (Chicago, New York, Los
Angeles) that has made a commitment to comprehensive climate change adaptation. It is still too early in the process to provide a full assessment, but the overall
outlook is quite positive.
The work of the last three years has led to a substantial increase in the awareness
and engagement of City politicians and staff on this issue. Staff members including
senior staff from most of the Citys Divisions have attended a variety of presentations and workshops on climate impacts and adaptation and participated in discussions on ways to move the agenda forward. There is an increased understanding
that a number of existing programs that protect against the effects of existing climate
variability can also provide a strong basis for future adaptation efforts.
In addition to these internal activities to increase awareness and engagement,
the City has reached out to community members and to other organizations that
have an interest in adapting to climate change by means of public and business
consultations on Ahead of the Storm and by establishing the Toronto Urban Climate
Change Network. The proposed Adaptation Working Group, expected to include
538
both public and private decision-makers, would expand this outreach further. The
City is also heavily involved with a new Ontario Regional Adaptation Collaborative, which should raise the profile of climate change adaptation throughout the
province, and stimulate an even wider range of discussion and activity.
Adaptation is beginning to be explicitly incorporated into City-wide plans
and high-level policies, starting with Torontos Official Plan. The requirement for
Divisions to specifically address mitigation and adaptation in their budget submissions is also a major step forward in mainstreaming adaptation thinking and action.
Several City Divisions have integrated climate change adaptation activities into
their individual planning and programs, and embarked on short-term projects to
assess potential climate impacts and the adequacy of current responses. Some are
in the process of strengthening existing programs that provide protection from
extreme weather.
This array of current projects and activities is not yet welded together into a
detailed long-term strategy, however, and there are both internal and external
barriers to the development and implementation of such a strategy.
First, it is hard to get decision-makers to commit to what could be expensive and
far-reaching adaptation projects and retrofits where they are not convinced about the
extent and the timeline of expected changes. There is still considerable uncertainty in
climate change projections and in the identification of impacts for the region (Ontario
Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation 2009). TEO has undertaken two research
projects to tackle these issues, both of which will report by the end of 2010. A number
of climate modeling projects that involve scientists from Environment Canada and
universities in Southern Ontario are also likely to provide better regional projections
in the near future. The Toronto Regional Conservation Authority is also working with
Environment Canada, other Southern Ontario conservation authorities, and municipalities on a study to develop new Intensity, Duration and Frequency curves to better
anticipate the frequency and intensity of future localized storms. All of these activities
should reduce knowledge and uncertainty barriers.
While the City has dozens of staff working on projects and programs related
to climate change mitigation, it has not made a similar commitment with
respect to adaptation. Activity by the Adaptation Steering Group with representatives from most City Divisions diminished after City Council adopted
the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, at a time when the hard work of
implementing an integrated strategy needed sustained attention. This group
has now been reconstituted as an Environmental Risk Management committee
with a broader mandate that includes adaptation. This could result in the
mainstreaming of adaptation within City Divisions, but might also result in
dilution of the adaptation effort. This remains to be seen.
Another issue is financial resources. The global economic recession hit the City
hard. This resulted in Torontos decision to base its new Extreme Weather Reserve
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539
Fund on end-of-year surpluses which look unlikely in the near future. Like
other cities, Toronto has a major infrastructure deficit stemming from cutbacks
in spending by governments at all levels during the previous two decades, The
Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates Canadas municipal infrastructure
deficit at $123 billion (Mirza 2007). While the need to replace crumbling infrastructure may be regarded as an opportunity for incorporating adaptation into new
transportation, water, stormwater and other systems, available financing to upgrade
or replace existing systems is inadequate. Where new funding is available such
as that provided by the federal governments economic stimulus package there
is pressure to get projects built quickly, which is likely to reduce the integration of
climate change adaptation measures in the projects.
Despite these challenges, it is important to recognize the leadership that
Toronto has shown as one of the first urban centers in Canada to acknowledge
the need for climate change adaptation and to take substantive action to tackle the
problem. Toronto has made significant headway in the development and implementation of climate change adaptation plans and activities. It will be important
for the City to maintain focus and momentum in order to weld together a coordinated and comprehensive strategy out of the array of activities on which it has
embarked, to protect its citizens from the impacts of climate change.
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Wieditz, I., Penney, J. 2007. Climate Change Adaptation Options for Torontos Urban Forest.
Toronto: Clean Air Partnership.
Yakabuski, M. 2008. Adapting to Climate Change: The Insurance Industrys Role. Presentation to a Special Meeting of the City of Torontos Parks and Environment Committee,
Toronto, Ontario, January 22, 2008.
Zhang, X., Hogg, W., Mekis, E. 2001. Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Heavy
Precipitation Events over Canada. Journal of Climate 14 (9): 192336.
CHAPTER
21
Climate Change and Urban Planning

in Southeast Asia
Belinda Yuen,* Leon Kong
Summary
The challenge of climate change is real and urgent in Southeast Asia. Southeast
Asia is one of the worlds fastest growing regions. This paper presents a desk
review of the state of climate change research and policy in Southeast Asia. It
highlights the challenges, knowledge gaps as well as promising practices, with
a specific focus on urban planning interventions to increase cities resilience to
climate change. The discussion reflects on how urban form and planning can
support peoples sustainable choices in terms of transportation, housing and
leisure activities, and conveys the drivers and barriers to urban planning as a
strategy of climate proofing. Issues that can be addressed through appropriate
urban policy, planning, design and governance are highlighted.

Q
541
542
1. INTRODUCTION
Southeast Asia is a sub-region of Asia. It is located south of China and east of
India, extending more than 3,300 km from north to south and 5,600 km from east
to west. Much of Southeast Asia is within the tropical climatic zone with temperatures above 25C throughout the year. The region is strongly influenced by the
Asian monsoons, which bring significant amount of rainfall to parts of Southeast Asia. There are 11 countries in Southeast Asia, of which 10 are members of
the regional economic organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).1 Timor-Leste is expected to join ASEAN in the near future. Economic
cooperation and socio-cultural exchange aside, ASEAN offers a regional framework to discuss major issues faced by Southeast Asia, including climate change.
As with the rest of Asia-Pacific, Southeast Asia has witnessed strong population,
urban and economic growth in recent decades. Its population has more than trebled
from 178 million in 1950 to 560 million in 2006. Accounting for 8.6 percent of the
worlds population, Southeast Asia has a land area (4.5 million square kilometers) that
is 3.1 percent of worlds land area. It has a combined gross domestic product (GDP)
of US$1,100 billion and a total trade of about US$1,400 billion (2006). There are
huge variations between countries, in terms of land and population size, economic
performance, governance practices, cultural traditions, ethnic groups, religions and
languages. Indonesia is the largest country, both in terms of land area (1.89 million
square kilometers) and population (236 million). It ranks 5th in world population.
Southeast Asia also contains several post-conflict states (for example, Cambodia
and Timor-Leste) and some of the worlds poorest countries (for example. Myanmar
and Lao PDR). Much of Southeast Asia is low-income despite economic growth in
recent decades. Only two countries, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore, are highincome economies. A third (38.6 percent) of Southeast Asian population lives with less
than US$2 a day while 7.4 percent lives with less than US $1 per day. The Gini coefficient, a common indicator of income inequality, has increased in some economies,
for example, from 30.4 in 1992 to 34.6 in 2002 in Lao PDR, from 42.9 in 1994 to 46.1
in 2000 in the Philippines and from 35.7 in 1993 to 37.5 in 2002 in Vietnam. These
socioeconomic circumstances often spill over to the environment and impact on the
climate, for example, problems of fire (such as when the poor uses fire as part of their
land management), haze and biodiversity damage from unsustainable resource use.
This paper presents the desktop review of the state of climate change research
and policy in Southeast Asia. The next section (Section 2) will review the climate
challenges of rapidly developing Southeast Asia. Section 3 will examine the state of
climate change research and policy in Southeast Asia. It will identify the knowledge
gaps as well as promising practices, with specific focus on urban planning interven1ASEAN
was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original Member Countries, namely, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July
1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999.
CHAPTER 21
543
tions to increase the cities resilience to climate change. Section 4 will seek to reflect
on how urban form and planning can support peoples sustainable choices in terms of
transportation, housing and leisure activities, and convey the drivers and barriers to
urban planning as a strategy of climate proofing. Issues that can be addressed through
appropriate urban policy, planning, design and governance will also be highlighted.
2. SOUTHEAST ASIA AND ITS CLIMATE CHALLENGE

While Southeast Asia is one of the worlds least urbanized regions, its urban population is growing at unprecedented rates, 1.75 times faster than the worlds urban
population (Table 1). Human settlements degand the pressure from human activities and economic growth have expanded with urbanization. On a local basis, these
factors have the potential to increase the vulnerability of ecosystems and communities to climate change. In 2006, 38 percent of people in Southeast Asia lived in urban
areas. By 2030, this proportion is projected to increase to 56.5 percent (United
Nations, 2004). In some countries, for example, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and
the Philippines, the urban proportion may rise beyond 60 percent. Singapore is 100
percent urbanized. In the process, villages have become towns and in some cases,
mega-cities,2 expanding rapidly often without proper planning.
TABLE 1
Southeast Asia Urbanization
Level of Urbanization
Estimates and Projections (%)
Rate of Change (%)
1990
2000
2010
2020
1990-2010
2010-2020
World
43.0
46.7
50.8
55.1
0.83
0.82
Brunei
65.8
71.1
75.7
79.3
0.70
0.48
Cambodia
12.6
16.9
22.8
29.6
2.96
2.61
Indonesia
30.6
42.0
53.7
62.6
2.81
1.53
Lao PDR
15.4
18.9
22.6
27.6
1.91
1.99
Malaysia
49.8
61.8
71.8
78.1
1.83
0.84
Myanmar
24.9
28.0
33.9
41.0
1.55
1.89
Philippines
48.8
58.5
66.4
72.3
1.54
0.85
Singapore
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
0.00
0.00
Thailand
29.4
31.1
34.0
38.9
0.72
1.36
Timor-Leste
20.8
24.5
28.7
34.0
1.60
1.71
Vietnam
20.3
24.3
28.8
34.7
1.77
1.84
Source: UN-HABITAT 2007a: 352.
2Jones
(2002) has estimated that 11 percent of Southeast Asian population lives in mega-urban regions. The
population of Greater Jakarta, Manila and Bangkok each exceeds 10 million and growing.
544
Rapid urbanization strains the municipalitys capacity to meet infrastructure and

other urban service demands. Some 28 percent (57 million) of the regions urban
population is living in slums. In some large, primate cities such as Phnom Penh,
Jakarta and Manila, it is not uncommon to find a quarter or more of the population
living in informal settlements. In metro Manila, for instance, 61 percent of its
people are squatters. These informal settlements are often located in unsafe areas,
which generate further risks to life, health and property, leaving them vulnerable to
climate change. The region faces a range of urban environmental challenges, from
rapidly expanding but poorly planned cities to forest fires, polluted air and water,
inadequate water supply, sanitation and energy, deficient drains and flooding fears.
Increasingly, as much as 80 percent of national gross domestic product is
generated within urban areas, usually through industrialization and foreign
direct investment. Southeast Asia, like the rest of developing Asia, until the recent
global economic slowdown, has been rapidly expanding its economy, leading to
tremendous environmental changes. The economic growth of Singapore one
of 4 Asian tigers through industrialization and increases in foreign direct
investment, is occurring in the second tier countries of Thailand, Indonesia,
Philippines, Malaysia, and more recently, Vietnam. In many cases, the industrialization-led economic growth based on the development approach of grow first,
clean up later has been synchronous with rapid urban population growth, land
use change and major environmental problems, including pollution and contamination of inland and coastal waters, deforestation and overexploitation of water
resources and biodiversity, eroding the regions environmental sustainability. The
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has ranked Jakarta, Indonesia
and Bangkok, Thailand, among the worlds most polluted mega-cities.
Environmental degradation is a major challenge in the region. Institutional
responsibilities for urban environmental management are often unclear and weak,
especially over problems of cross-boundary pollution (UN-HABITAT, 2003; von
Einsiedel, 2004). Besides weak governance, the other contributing factors include
economic development and new lifestyle, which has seen an explosion in the demand
for private cars and energy consumption. Rising energy demands are currently being
met by the burning of fossil fuels that pollute and generate increasing volume of greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Energy production and consumption in Southeast Asia
remain largely business as usual, generating enormous quantities of wastes into the
environment. In 2006, the greater proportion, 71.4 percent of electricity and 92.4
percent of heat production in Southeast Asia is from coal (Table 2). At the same
time, many people (59.2 percent) in Southeast Asia still have no access to electricity,
especially in the rural areas (International Energy Agency, 2002). Much of Cambodia,
for example, has no electricity. Phnom Penh, the capital, uses about 85 percent of the
countrys electricity production, leaving the rest of the country with the remaining 15
percent. Blackouts are a regular feature in many of its towns.
CHAPTER 21
545
TABLE 2
Electricity and Heat Production in Southeast Asia, 2006
Production from
Electricity (GWh)
Heat (TJ)
Coal
2,575,094
2,311,306
109,762
Oil
141,906
Gas
251,490
67,219
Biomass
5954
12,697
Waste
2638
Nuclear
94,713
Hydro*
515,702
Geothermal
17,126
Solar PV
109
Solar thermal
Wind
4147
0
0
Tide
Other sources
Total Production
3,608,878
2,500,984
Source: International Energy Agency Statistics, http://www.iea.org/Textbase/stats/electricitydata.asp.

Note: * Includes production from pumped storage plants.
Southeast Asia as a whole has a low per capita emission of carbon dioxide when
compared with the developed world over the medium term. Its emission by 2030 is
expected to be 4.2 tons per capita compared with 6.7 in China, 10.8 in Japan, 21.9 in
Australia and 23.0 in the United States (APERC, 2006). The low per capita emission
is consistent with its low per capita income level. However, the per capita emission
on a regional basis masks national variation. Two of its 11 countries, namely,
Indonesia (0.48 percent) and Thailand (0.24 percent) are among the worlds top
10 countries of historical responsibility for global carbon dioxide emissions (18502000).3 Their emissions are comparatively small against that of the United States
(29.6 percent) and European Union (27.1 percent). In 2002, Singapores per capita
carbon dioxide emission was 12.2 tons and expected to reach 18.8 tons by 2030.
Energy production and consumption in Southeast Asia are projected to
produce a fourfold increase in total carbon dioxide emissions from 2002 to
2030, assuming status quo in energy production and consumption pattern. The
emission figure will be twice that of Japan, almost a third that of USA and a
quarter that of China in 2030. Control of GHG emissions is crucial for Southeast
Asia. Additionally, wet rice agriculture produces methane, which contributes to
GHG emissions. Forest fires related to the 1997-98 El Nino event have released
approximately 1.2 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere (Van der Werf et al,
3Data obtained from the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool of the World Resources Institute. Available at: http://cait.wri.org/.
546
TABLE 3
Some Major Disasters, 1980-2000, in Selected Countries
Cyclones
Number
of Events
Annual
Average
Droughts
Loss of Lives
Annual
Average
Per
Million
Number
of Events
Annual
Average
Loss of Lives
Annual
Average
Per
Million
Cambodia
Indonesia
0.29
60.29
0.34
Lao PDR
0.19
2.67
0.6
Malaysia
0.1
12.86
0.6
Myanmar
Philippines
5.57
863.19
14.35
0.24
0.38
0.01
Thailand
0.71
30.24
0.54
Vietnam
2.24
435.24
6.4
Earthquakes1
Number
of Events
Annual
Average
Floods
Loss of Lives
Annual
Average
Number
of Events
Per
Million
Annual
Average
Loss of Lives
Annual
Average
Per
Million
Cambodia
0.29
48.52
4.08
Indonesia
1.62
193.24
1.04
2.48
120.29
0.67
Lao PDR
0.43
3.29
0.75
Malaysia
0.43
4.43
0.24
Myanmar
0.29
9.05
0.20
Philippines
0.57
120.57
2.03
1.76
75.71
1.22
Thailand
1.33
78.52
1.37
Vietnam
1.00
137.90
1.98
Source: UN-HABITAT (2007a): 369.

Notes: 1. Include events equal or greater than a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale.
denote no information.
CHAPTER 21
547
2004). According to the United Nations Environment Program, these forest fires
are among the most damaging in recorded history. The loss of natural forest and
tropical forest dieback will vastly increase global carbon emissions. Typically,
clearance of 1 hectare of tropical forest will release about 500 m3 of carbon into
the atmosphere (Jones et al, 2003).
The region contains some of the worlds major biodiversity such as the
lowland rainforest of the Indo-Malayan archipelago. Forests are commonly
converted to cropland, paddy and pasture to respond to growing population
and urbanization needs or lost through illegal logging. Areas affected include
Kalimantan and Sumatra of Indonesia, Sarawak and Sabah of Malaysia and
the mountainous areas of Mekong region in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar and Thailand. Indonesia, for example, has lost 60 percent of its
total forest (64 million hectares) over a period of 50 years, from 1950 to 2000,
and the loss is continuing at the rate of 2 million hectares per year. Biodiversity is under threat. Hundreds of mammal and bird species have been
declared threatened (UNEP, 1999). Widespread bleaching of coral reefs has
been reported in Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia (Preston et al,
2006). Forest under legal protection is not safe; some 56 percent of protected
lowland forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia, has been wiped out in recent years,
from 1985 to 2001.
Without effective management, rapid urban growth is expected to
exacerbate existing problems of poverty, slums, pollution, water, sanitation,
etc. With few exceptions, most municipalities cannot cope with the challenges
of rapid urbanization. All the countries in Southeast Asia, with the possible
exception of Singapore, are developing countries with little capacity to
manage urbanization and climate impacts. Many are struggling to cope with
the current climate variability to which they are exposed, including cyclone,
earthquake, tsunami, rainfall extremes, floods and droughts with severe
damage and loss of life (Table 3). Take the Nargis cyclone (2 May 2008). Its
winds exceeding 190 kilometers per hour swept through Myanmars biggest
city, Yangon, for more than ten hours, flattening homes, uprooting trees,
destroying power lines and creating a disaster of a scale that the country
has not dealt with before. In Indonesia, some 75 to 80 percent of all natural
disasters during the period of 2003-06 were linked to climatic change (The
Brunei Times, 2008). Elsewhere, heavy rainfall and typhoon in 2008 have led
to flooding in many Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines,
Indonesia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.
If global climate modeling is correct, the regions annual temperature will
increase in the order of 0.4-1.3C by 2030 and 0.9-4.0C by 2070 while winter
rainfall is projected to decrease (less than 10 percent by 2030 and approximately
20-30 percent by 2070). The effect of a rise in global sea level on the region
548
may be as much as 3-16 cm by 2030 and 7-50 cm by 2070. The regions coastal
communities would experience climate damages in the decades ahead (Table
4). Several of the Southeast Asian countries are island-states or in low-lying
river deltas. The Mekong river delta of Vietnam and many small islands in
Southeast Asia are most at risk. The cost for protecting Southeast Asia against
sea-level rise of more than half a meter is estimated to be US $300 billion
(Preston et al, 2006). According to the Asia Times, 26 May 2007, Southeast
Asia is possibly one of the most vulnerable areas in the global climate-change
scenarios. Extreme climate events are expected to occur more frequently. The
Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Indonesia are among
the countries identified as climate change hotspots (Yusuf and Francisco,
2009). They are particularly vulnerable to some of the worst manifestations of
climate change expected in the coming decades.
CHAPTER 21
549
Vietnam
Timor-Leste
Thailand
Singapore
Philippines
Myanmar
Malaysia
Lao PDR
Indonesia
Brunei
Climate Change
Impacts
Cambodia
TABLE 4
Estimated Impact of Climate Change to Southeast Asia
Sea-level rise < 30 cm

Sea-level rise 30-50 cm2
Sea-level rise >50 cm
Temperature rise <2C7
Temperature rise 2-4C
Temperature rise >4C
10, 11
12
9,13
11
Source: Preston, L B, R Suppiah, I Macadam and J Bathos 2006.

Notes:
1. About 69 91 percent of land area in Mekong Delta, Vietnam affected by sea-level rise during ood
season (Wassmann et al, 2004).
2. About 29,808 km of shoreline affected in Southeast Asia with direct costs of US$226 million per year
(Darwin, 2001).
3. About 34,000 km2 of land area lost in Indonesia affecting 3.1 million people (UNEP, 2006).
4. About 86 100 percent of land area in Mekong Delta, Vietnam affected by sea-level rise during ood
season (Wassmann et al, 2004).
5. About 7,000 km2 of land area lost in Malaysia affecting about 500,000 people (IPCC, 2001).
6. About 40,000 km2 of land area lost in Vietnam affecting 26.9 million people (UNEP, 2006). About 15
percent of dry land lost in Vietnam and 8 percent of GDP (Tol, 2004).
7. Large-scale damages to coral reef ecosystems in the region (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999). Coastal southeastern Asia becomes suitable for malaria transmission (Rogers and Randolph, 2000). Epidemic potential for
malaria, and dengue in Southeast Asia changes by +7 +45 percent, and +24 +47 percent, respectively
(Martens et al, 1997).
8. About 4 8 percent of species extinct in tropical woodlands and forests (global estimate) (Tol, 2004).
Population at risk for malaria in Southeast Asia declines by 1 million (van Lieshout et al, 2004). Number of
people experiencing increase in water stress in Southeast Asia increases by 0 10 million (Arnell, 2004).
9. Number of people experiencing increase in water stress in Greater Mekong4 increases by 0 105 million
(Arnell, 2004).
10. US$64.5 billion in cumulative health costs associated with treatment of infectious disease in Indonesia;
total climate change losses equivalent to US$766 billion in Indonesia (Asia Development Bank, 1994).
11. Vegetation biomass in southern Southeast Asia (Hadley Centre, 1999).
12. Change in runoff of -12 +7 in Lake Lanao Reservoir and -12 +32 in Angat Reservoir, Philippines
(Jose and Cruz, 1999).
13. About 1.1 3.5 percent decline in Thailands GDP (Mendelsohn et al, 1998).
4The
Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) comprises Cambodia, the Peoples Republic of China, Lao Peoples
Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
550
3. CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH AND POLICY

Sustainable development remains a critical urban challenge. Unlike many developed
countries, sustainable development is not particularly hot in Southeast Asia given
the general desire to grow. Most Southeast Asia countries still do not have much
action on climate change and GHG emission even though 10 of the 11 countries have
ratified the 1997 Kyoto Accord to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (Table 5). Equally, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, Dec 2007 has reiterated, among others, the need for enhanced
action on climate change efforts. Economic development seems to remain the top
priority on developing country governments agenda, including Singapore. None of
these countries has mandatory obligations to reduce GHG emission. Public awareness and concern on climate change appear not as strong as those in the developed
world. In Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia, for example, climate
change is perceived more as an international concern rather than a domestic matter
(Williamson, 2007). In post-conflict countries such as Timor-Leste where up to 70
percent of its infrastructure has been destroyed during the violence, the pressing
concerns are security and economic reconstruction to rebuild its infrastructure and
strengthen government and civil institutions. Climate change is not seen as a priority
in Timor Leste and not mentioned on the government website. The region has to
urgently shift towards a sustainable development model of green growth paradigm.
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Vietnam
Ratication of the 1997

Kyoto Accord to the
1992 United Nations
Framework Convention
on Climate Change
National climate change

strategy or actions plan
Climate Change
Actions
National climate change

committee or inter-agency
task force
Brunei
Malaysia
Lao PDR
Indonesia
Cambodia
Myanmar
TABLE 5
Climate Change Actions
Development plan mentions climate change

Green building movement
Green neighborhood
CHAPTER 21
551
Eco-city planning
Study of vulnerability to
climate change
Implementation of CDM
Urban planning policy for

climate change
Vietnam
Timor-Leste
Thailand
Energy efciency policy
Building control act for

climate change
Clean air policy
Promotion of renewable
energy
Clean & renewable energy
research and development
Develop resilient water
resource
Singapore
Philippines
Myanmar
Malaysia
Lao PDR
Indonesia
Cambodia
Climate Change
Actions
Brunei
TABLE 5, continued
10
11
12
Source: Country, city council, renewable energy and green buildings movement websites.
Notes:
1. The Ministry of Environment (2001) has developed the National Action Plan on Climate Change. In August
2003, CCCO started implementation of a new project, the National Adaptation Program of Action to Climate
Change with nancial support from GEF through UNDP.
2. Indonesia released the National Action Plan for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation at the end of 2007. The
document still demands revision by related sectors, academics and experts. See The Brunei Times, 10 July 2008
http://www.bt.com.bn/en/opinion/2008/07/10/tackling_climate_change_the_nest_way.
3. Funded by USAID.
4. The Ministry of Environment has set up a separate ofce called Cambodia Climate Change Ofce (CCCO) in
June 2003.
5. Science, Technology and Environment Agency has a key role to coordinate across all ministries and local
authorities to manage the overall environment throughout Lao PDR.
6. An ADB climate change project in 1991 assessed Philippines vulnerable sectors and areas to climate change
including agriculture, water resources and coastal areas.
7. Pragmatic integrated transport plans for the main urban centre and the formulation of an overall urban
transport policy including the possibility of mass public transport are high priority of Lao PDR government facing
rapidly increasing volumes of motorized trafc in urban centers.
8. Brunei has national programs include improvements of transportation infrastructure to reduce trafc congestion,
cogeneration power station to reduce emissions of pollutant gases, and full use of unleaded gasoline to reduce air
pollution. http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/64F00DEF-F568-4A03-8855-13C2958D0B4B/0/BRU.pdf.
9. Energy efciency programs in the Philippines are directed by the Department of Energy and guided by an
Energy Plan that currently covers the period from 2002 to 2011. See Renewable Energy and Energy Efciency
Partnership http://www.reeep.org/index.php?id=9353&text=policy-db&special=viewitem&cid=72.
10. Renewable Electricity Action Plan 20022012. See Renewable Energy and Energy Efciency Partnership
http://www.reeep.org/index.php?id=9353&text=policy-database&special=viewitem&cid=30.
11. A World Bank-assisted project in 1997 has demonstrated renewable energy technologies as off-grid electrication options to reduce inefcient use of fossil fuels in diesel generators in rural areas.
12. Solar energy desalination project in North Jakarta district.
552
Climate change, major drought and flooding are refocusing attention on

the environment and sustainable development. Increasingly, more initiatives
have been taken, particularly post-Agenda 21 and with international aid, for
example, the International Council for Local Government Initiatives (ICLEI)
Cities for Climate Protection in Southeast Asia and UN-HABITAT Sustainable
Cities Program to make Southeast Asian cities more sustainable. Grants
(technical assistance) and loans (for example, GEF funds) are the dominant
type of project funding. Many cities in Southeast Asia, including medium-sized
cities such as Penang in Malaysia now have sustainable development initiative.
This is an encouraging development, especially as Roberts and Kanaley (2006,
p437) pointed out, Asias future is urban. It is in developing sustainable cities.
In this regard, ASEAN provides an important inter-governmental framework
for regional cooperation on climate change and sustainable development. A
milestone is the ASEAN Declaration on Environmental Sustainability signed
by the country leaders at ASEAN 40th anniversary and 13th ASEAN Summit
(Nov 2007) in Singapore. The Declaration recognizes the need to encourage the
development of an ASEAN Climate Change Initiative and support the development of environmentally sustainable cities.5 In the area of climate change,
the following are stated in the Declaration:
t To work closely with the international community to better understand and
adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, including, in particular, the
related issues of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sinks;
t To agree that the pursuit of climate change and energy security policies should
avoid introducing barriers to trade and investment;
t To intensify cooperation on the joint research, development and deployment
of low emission technologies for the cleaner use of fossil fuels, recognizing
that fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in our energy mix;
t To take concrete measures to promote the use of renewable and alternative energy sources such as solar, hydro, wind, tide, biomass, bio-fuels and
geothermal energy, as well as, for interested parties, civilian nuclear power,
while ensuring safety and safeguards that are of current international standards, and environmental sustainability throughout the full life cycle of production and use;
t To improve energy efficiency in key sectors of energy use through capacity
building and information sharing of best practices in managing energy use
and the adoption of appropriate technologies and practices;
5http://www.aseansec.org/21060.htm.
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553
t To undertake effective measures towards open and competitive regional and

international markets geared towards providing affordable energy at all economic levels to facilitate the adoption of energy-efficient and low-emission
technologies.
While progress is being made, especially among countries with higher income,
the state of sustainable urban development and climate knowledge in Southeast
Asia remains largely patchy. There are major differences within and across
countries. The countries with relatively low adaptive capacity include the poorer
countries of Cambodia and Lao PDR while Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam
are countries with relatively high adaptive capacity (Yusuf and Francisco, 2009).
International development agency project/program-based activities provide
an important source. Many of these activities relate to capacity building, data
gathering and policy development in specific project/program interest areas.
They generally reflect specific project/program scope and are designed to improve
project management and implementation rather than capacity development per
se. Capacity development is absolutely pertinent to bringing change to Southeast
Asian cities. Improving the effectiveness and cooperation between organizations
in setting priorities and developing capacity that is less donor-driven and more
demand responsive is needed. The knowledge gap is real.
Of the 28 planning schools in Southeast Asia, apparently none has teaching
program on climate change. Education on planning for climate change is urgently
required. Very few are having research on sustainable urban development. Many
of the existing climate research are in the field of technologies, for example, air
quality, water and energy such as fuel cells, bio-energy and bio-fuels. A focus on
technology though common is too narrow for Southeast Asia. There are signs
of change. In the face of rapid urbanization and global warming, the case for
sustainable city research is strong and fast emerging as an important agenda.
As Blakely (2007, p9) argues in the wider urban planning literature, Sustainability is now firmly part of the lexicon of planning and is the best grounding for
climate change research. Post-tsunami has seen the setting up of disaster risk
management and geo-technology research center in Indonesia.
Several regional networks (for example, the Partnerships for Disaster
Reduction Southeast Asia, the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network)
and research centers have been set up. More funding is being put into research
on the environment, climate change and city including at the national level.
Knowledge has become urgent as more and more Southeast Asian cities seek
the development of a sustainable city for future urban living. LESTARI at the
Universiti Kembangsaan Bahasa and National Hydraulic Research Institute of
Malaysia (NAHRIM) Research Centre for Water Resources, Government of
Malaysia, the latest regional water knowledge hub for climate change adaptation,
554
and the National Environment Research Institute set up in 2007 at National

University of Singapore, Singapore, are some examples of the new kind of interdisciplinary research institutions set up in Southeast Asia to research the issues
of sustainable city.
Even private sector has joined the arena. For example, Siemens Singapore
in April 2009 has set up a Siemens city of the future exhibition and solutions
center to profile innovative solutions and technologies for city management of
future smart, safe and mobile cities. New holistic and interdisciplinary research
results on Southeast Asian sustainable urban development can be expected
in the years ahead when the actors get into doing the interdisciplinarity and
disseminate their findings. In the frontline of dynamic and unprecedented
growth, urban research needs to break new ground, refocus on the interdisciplinary economic, social, technological/environmental issues of sustainable
city, and seek holistic, integrated, multi-disciplinary solutions to the urban
and climate challenges of Southeast Asian cities. The conventional business
as usual mode will not work; business unusual suggests thinking outside the
box-thinking, approaching, organizing and also funding sustainable urban
development research in new ways.
Even as individual countries and the regional body of ASEAN have declared
the need for improving energy efficiency, use of clean energy technologies and
renewable and research, only one country, Singapore, presently seems to have
more activities on climate change and lead the region in seeking more regional
efforts over this issue. Singapore has started to promote climate change related
research and development after signing the Kyoto Accord in late 2006. It is master
planning and developing an eco-city in China in partnership with the Chinese
government. It is promoting water technology and renewable energy by investing
in R&D, including the establishment of research institutes, provision of funding
and test-bedding platforms to improve their performance and cost-effectiveness.
It has set up an Energy Efficiency Singapore Program Office (E2PO) comprising
members from the relevant government and research institutions. E2PO has
developed a national plan to promote energy efficiency, comprising actions in
several areas:
t 1SPNPUJOHUIFBEPQUJPOPGFOFSHZFDJFOUUFDIOPMPHZBOENFBTVSFTCZBEdressing the market barriers to energy efficiency;
t 3BJTJOHBXBSFOFTTUPSFBDIPVUUPUIFQVCMJDBOECVTJOFTTFTTPBTUPTUJNVMBUF
energy efficient behavior and practices;
t #VJMEJOHDBQBCJMJUZUPESJWFBOETVTUBJOFOFSHZFDJFODZFPSUTBOEUPEFvelop the local knowledge base and expertise in energy management;
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555
t 1SPNPUJOHSFTFBSDIBOEEFWFMPQNFOUUPFOIBODF4JOHBQPSFTDBQBCJMJUZJOFOergy efficient technologies.

Energy production is a major consideration. Several other countries have
also started to converge on renewable energy. Malaysia, the Philippines and
Thailand have all established renewable energy strategies and targets. Malaysia,
for example, has a Five Fuel Diversification Policy since 2000, a small renewable
energy power program, Biogen program with a target (2005) of 5 percent or 500
mw of power capacity. The Philippines renewable energy policy framework 2003
includes a target (2003-2013) of 100 percent increase of renewable energy power
capacity while Thailands strategic plan for renewable energy development 2003
sets a target by 2011 of 9 percent renewable energy share in primary energy and
4 percent renewable energy power capacity.
Energy efficiency policy in Thailand appears one of the most advanced in
ASEAN. The driver is the Thai governments vision to establish Thailand as
the Regional Energy Centre for Southeast Asia. It has implemented a Strategic
Plan for Renewable Energy Development. Solar, wind, biomass, biogas, hydro,
bio-fuels, geothermal and fuel cells are included in the Strategic Plan as well as
energy efficiency (Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy, 2005).
Its Department of Energy Development and Promotion and Energy Policy
Office are pursuing activities such as consumer education, industrial energy
audits, thermal/electricity energy efficiency demonstration projects and end-use
studies. In the Philippines, the case of integrating GHG emission reduction and
avoidance strategies into the citys operations of waste management, land use
planning, transport improvement and building retrofits such as in the Cagayan
de Oro, Philippines ICLEI project could serve as a promising practice for other
cities (ICLEI, 2009). Cagayan de Oro is greening its energy supply and making
demand-side improvements with the target to reduce GHG emissions by 10
percent against forecasted emissions growth.
There are increasing efforts, both commercially and promoted by government,
to develop and expand bio-fuel production; bio-diesel from palm oil is especially
favored. Although bio-fuel is often pitched as a sustainable energy source, there
is concern that the rush to develop it may result in more destruction of old forests
to clear the way for oil-palm plantations, contributing to the problem of slash and
burn, and haze. There is also a regional shift towards more natural gas, which
is desirable in terms of its lower carbon-dioxide emissions. By 2006, 78 percent
of Singapores electricity was generated by natural gas using highly efficient
combined cycled technology, one of the highest in the world. But natural gas has
its obstacles, including delays in constructing pipelines and issue with upstream
production, which often releases carbon dioxide unless engineering measures are
taken to re-inject the gas.
556
More hydropower is likely to be used, especially in the Mekong region. But,

again there are environmental concerns as to the impact of the river damming
on downstream river life and communities vulnerable to drought. Vietnam, in
particular, is finding this a major problem, with its exceptionally dry seasons
during the past two to three years, leading to low water levels in the reservoirs
behind hydro-dams and competition in supply for farmers down river for rice
irrigation and for power generation. Nuclear power has also emerged as a serious
possibility in several countries, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and
Myanmar. Again, there are many issues here, ranging from economic feasibility
to safety and weapons-proliferation concerns that require research and policy
development to address. Policies and mechanisms conducive to knowledge
dissemination and technology transfer among countries including between
advanced developed countries and Southeast Asia are clearly required.
4. URBAN PLANNING INTERVENTION

Even though global climate change awareness has been around for some time,
it is only in recent years that cities and urban planners in the region appear to
consider the environment in their planning of competitive and livable cities. Many
countries have begun to address climate change issues in different ministries.
Some have even formulated national climate change policy (see Table 5). Increasingly, environmental sustainability is mentioned in development plans. In 2008,
ASEAN presented the first ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable City award to
10 cities/townships/districts in ASEAN that have made exemplary effort towards
environmental sustainability. These 10 cities are: Brunei Darussalam: Temburong
District, Cambodia: Municipality of Phnom Penh, Indonesia: Palembang City,
Lao PDR: Luang Prabang District, Malaysia: North Kuching City Hall, Myanmar:
Taungyi City, Philippines: Puerto Princesa City, Singapore: South West Community Development Council, Thailand: Bangkok City, Vietnam: Ha Long City. By
and large, climate change is not mainstreamed in development plans.
Mainstreaming of climate change in development planning is critical.
UN-HABITAT (2007b) has reiterated that urban planning is important in
managing climate change because well-planned cities provide a better foundation
for sustainable development than unplanned cities. Both adaptation and
mitigation actions of environmental change require urban planning. Among
others, urban planning and development control could help to mitigate the urban
heat island effect by creating open spaces and parks as heat sinks in urban areas,
reduce the urban ecological footprint by planning for more efficient, compact
and mixed use city forms and a shift to public transport-based movement. In
the urban and planning literature, there is a gradual shift of focus on mitigation
CHAPTER 21
557
actions to a concern with longer term adaptive measures of, for example,
preventing flooding and landslides, protecting or relocating vulnerable settlements, improving drainage and preventing new developments in areas likely to
be affected by sealevel rise or floods, among others. The integrative planning of
a future climate regime has significant implications for Southeast Asian urbanization, especially in mega-cities and vulnerable areas. Raising the policy profile
of climate change within the context of sustainable development is crucial in
realizing the vision of a sustainable Southeast Asia.
Land use change has impact on the carbon balance of ecosystems. Practices
that detract environmental sustainability cannot be promoted. At its simplest,
the common planning typology of land use zoning determines land cover types.
Land cover types affect energy and water consumption as well as waste and traffic
production and GHG emissions (Pauleit and Duhme, 2000). In many developing
countries, local authorities lack the mandate and human capacity to handle urban
planning and its enforcement mechanisms. As the Asian Development Bank
(2008) concluded in its review of managing Asian cities, capacities are deficient
in key areas of urban management, economic and social planning and environmental management in many Asian cities, Southeast Asian cities included. The
comparative newness and unprecedented scale of urbanization has accentuated
the problem. Improved technical competence in urban planning is required at all
levels of government.
Beyond the demand for professional urban planning education, most developing countries in the region are facing the problem of weak capacity of local or
municipal government. Visions are lacking. Planning is generally short-term,
physically oriented and unable to respond effectively to change. Newer and
more innovative planning approaches are in order. There is also the issue of plan
implementation. Plans that reflect sustainable development principles carry no
meaning if they are not implemented. There is an urgent need to strengthen
the institutional capabilities that are prerequisite to effective plan implementation. More attention has to be given to the functioning of the planning system
and as such, to legislation, regulations and processes that are out of date or are
insufficiently reformed to be able to deal with the major challenges of the 21st
century. Strong government leadership is indispensable, particularly where
there is a need to create policy conditions and a multi-stakeholder process for
plan implementation. Proper modalities should also be developed to monitor
plan implementation and ensure its continued relevance to changing conditions and dynamics.
Well-planned cities are not only efficient but also make sustainable use of
resources including space, energy and water. Take Singapore. The strong state
commitment to planning has transformed the city from third world to first
world (Lee, 2000; Yuen 2004). Its comprehensive, integrative planning has led
558
to the efficient use of space, clustering many people in a relatively smaller land
area, often through high-rise high-density settlements. Research has indicated
that denser urban areas emit less radiant heat energy per parcel than do more
expansive developed areas (Stone and Rodgers, 2001). The co-location of
high-rise, high-density urban form, services and employment is purposefully
designed to configure a hierarchy and location of community facilities that
reduce or minimize travel by private car and enhance walking and usage of public
transportation while enhancing quality of life. Its deliberate greening policy at
the building, neighborhood and city levels gives careful consideration to the
relationship between the built and natural environments, creating a garden city
and increasing the cooling potential of its built-up areas. Additionally, since
2007, green buildings have been encouraged. These buildings adopt various
energy efficiency ways and designs to minimize impact on climate change,
including the use of recycled or recyclable materials for construction.
Singapore is building its first eco-friendly precinct of 700 public housing flats,
expected to complete by 2011, to promote sustainable green living. There will be
more greenery provision, which is expected to lower the surrounding temperature by as much as 4C. Solar panels on the roof of buildings will power the
common corridors, improving energy resource utilization and saving 80 percent
of the energy used. On the industrial front, it has built an industrial park on
Jurong Island planned on the principle of industrial symbiosis where the waste
or by-product of one enterprise becomes the resource or input of another. While
Singapore may have its unique characteristics, its strong commitment to planning
bears testimony to planning in action. In the era of climate change, cities must be
planned to develop sustainably from the start.
More than ever, sustainable urban development is now the key theme of
urban planning and is fundamental for climate change policy. Energy efficient
buildings and built form, renewable energy sources, climate responsive design
and standards together with open space and green areas are important to ensure
a sustainable neighborhood. Cities can take proactive measures to reduce
emissions from vehicles. Motor vehicles a major source of carbon dioxide
emissions are set to increase in Southeast Asian cities. In per capita terms, car
ownership is still low. But, in large urban areas, growing car ownership continues
to congest cities, pollute the atmosphere and endanger community health through
vehicle exhaust. Alternative urban form aside, better public-transport systems,
from buses to rail and sustainable transport options are clearly critical. Bangkok,
Thailand, long notorious for traffic jams and air pollution, is now benefiting from
its light rail and underground rail system as well as stricter standards and controls
on gasoline quality. In Vietnam, the fastest-growing economy in the region, there
are plans for mass-transit systems for the large and fast-growing cities of Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh.
CHAPTER 21
559
Urban planning, though essential is not sufficient, in addressing climate change.

Population, economic development, technology advancement and government
policies on energy and environment are key drivers of GHG emissions and interlinked in a complex web of interactions. Energy production and use, for example,
are sensitive to changes in the climate. The climate change effects on energy supply
and demand will depend not only on climatic factors but also on the patterns of
economic growth, land use, population growth and distribution, technological
change and social and cultural trends that shape individual and institutional actions.
Understanding these major driving forces will enable the setting of corresponding
adaptation strategies and policies to address climate change. To succeed, climate
proofing requires concerted action across all sectors. This includes cooperation
and joint programming on population, economic growth, GHG emissions control,
R&D, application of clean technologies, renewable energy and eco-city policies to
ameliorate GHG emissions, among others.
Collaboration across planning, enforcement and compliance regimes can
strengthen the integration of environmental concerns into the wider development agenda. As demonstrated by the Singapore experience, the government
plays a critical role in the coordination approach and creating policies, incentives
and disincentives and plans that encourage sustainable urban development, in
environmental education and training, and enforcement of policies and regulations. To improve the resilience of Southeast Asian cities to climate change, it is
imperative to also implement institutional strengthening and capacity building
to ensure that the institutions and human capital have the knowledge on climate
change and are able to make effective decision, allocate resources and manage
risk and implementation.
5. CONCLUSION
The challenge of climate change in Southeast Asia is real and urgent. Climate
change is likely to amplify some of the existing urban and environmental stresses
and vulnerabilities of its urban communities, many of which are living in coastal
and low-lying areas and rapidly expanding mega-cities. A business-as-usual
scenario is unlikely to support a sustainable Southeast Asia. Measured against
this situation, Southeast Asian responses to date have been largely inadequate
even though several important steps have been taken and a number of essential foundations, both at country and regional levels, have been established for
further action. For example, ASEAN leaders have recently signed the Declaration
on Environmental Sustainability and the ASEAN cooperation in environment
has established a common agenda and forged consensus on some policy goals
for sustainable development as well as action to address trans-boundary haze
560
pollution, nature conservation and biodiversity, marine and coastal environment

problems. Another milestone is the establishment of the ASEAN sub-regional
climate review meeting in 2000 to closely monitor the weather condition
especially during the dry seasons to prevent and mitigate the damages from
recurrent fires and haze. Yet, its forests, rivers and land remain environmentally
vulnerable.
While there is no standard model solution and sustainable development
may be more complicated than the commonly acknowledged economic, social
and environmental dimensions in practice, the importance of sustainable
development as the guiding principle to climate proofing cannot be neglected.
The mainstreaming of climate issues into national strategies and development
planning is crucial. In all cases, planning offers an important entry point, shaping
urban form in very particular ways with implications on climate change. The
proactive development of newer and innovative planning is essential for better
environmental management and sustainable development in this vein. The
emergence of plannings central role has reinforced the need for truly crosssectoral integration to be in place as well as capacity development so as not to
overburden the already weak implementation capacity.
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PART
Economic and Social

Aspects of Climate Change
and Cities
CHAPTER
22
Does Climate Change Make

Industrialization An Obsolete
Development Strategy
for Cities in the South?
Le-Yin Zhang*
Summary
This paper attempts to explore the implications of climate change for economic
development strategies in cities in the South. In particular, it examines whether
climate change makes industrialization an obsolete development strategy for
these cities. It starts by examining the effects of climate change and the challenges
posed for the cities concerned, followed by a discussion of the role of industrialization in economic development and climate change. It then investigates how these
issues affect Southern cities by considering the experiences of Shanghai, Mumbai
and Mexico City. In conclusion, the paper hypothesizes that climate change will
make industrialization a more, not less, important development strategy, even for
those cities that are currently affected by pre-mature deindustrialization.

564
CHAPTER 22
565
1. INTRODUCTION
In a world of rapid urbanization and global integration, climate change represents
only one of the many challenges that cities in the South have to grapple with in the
coming decades. It is nevertheless a fundamentally important challenge for these
cities because failing it will not only diminish their own long-term prospects, but
also let the world seriously down.
This is for several reasons. First, developing countries already produce more
than half of the total global emissions, and this share is rising fast. Non-OECD
emissions of carbon dioxide exceeded OECD emissions by 7 percent in 2005,
and are projected to exceed those from the OECD countries by 72 percent in
2030 (International Energy Agency 2008). Therefore, although developing
countries are under no formal obligation at the present to mitigate, this is bound
to change. Second, any prospective changes in terms of mitigation obligation will
primarily affect cities in the South, as they embody a majority of the economic
activities there.1 Third, concerns about climate change have the potential to bring
forward a new energy system and, associated with it, a new international trading
environment. If some of the legislative changes (e.g. cap-and-trade scheme in
USA) currently proposed are to become reality, this could substantially alter the
comparative advantage of developing countries, with great impact on cities in
their role as bridgeheads of international trade.
Therefore climate change can affect and be affected by economic development pathways in a fundamental way. This is why climate change has to be
mainstreamed through economic development strategies (Zhang 2008). Accordingly, this paper attempts to explore the implications of climate change (and its
impact) for economic development strategies in cities of developing countries.
In particular, it examines whether climate change makes industrialization a less
viable development strategy for these cities, since industrial activities are a major
source of emissions in the South (see Figure 2).
The paper starts by examining the effects of climate change and the challenges
that it poses for developing cities, especially in terms of industrialization. This
is followed by a discussion of the role of industrialization in economic development, and the relationship between industrialization and climate change
issues, highlighting tensions as well as synergy between the two. The paper then
examines how these issues are affecting developing cities by considering the
experiences of Shanghai, Mumbai and Mexico City. It concludes that industrialization still represents a viable and, to some extent, indispensable development
strategy for these cities in the context of climate change, even for those that are
affected by pre-mature deindustrialization.
1Urban-based
economic activities account for up to 55 per cent of gross national product (GNP) in low-income
countries, 73 per cent in middle-income countries and 85 per cent in high income countries (UN-HABITAT 2006).
566
2. CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

2.1 The Challenge of Climate Change
Climate change mitigation poses a potentially serious challenge for developing

countries. As Table 1 shows, although tCO2-eq emissions per capita in these
countries were only one-fourth of those in Annex I countries by 2004, they
had already exceeded the so-called emissions budget by a factor of 4 and were
responsible for more than half of the total emissions.2 On the other hand, GHG
emissions per unit of GDP were 50% higher in non-Annex-I countries, which
means that there is significant scope for mitigation in developing countries.
Moreover, even if there is no immediate obligation to mitigate, there is growing
economic incentive to do so in the context of an emerging global carbon market
and the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol (Zhang 2008).
However, since their population and economic growths are generally faster
than in developed countries, faster reductions in emissions intensity will be
needed in order to offset these growths so as to achieve de-carbonization. As the
Kaya Identity suggests (see Equation 1), this can be achieved by either reducing
energy intensity (i.e. energy/GDP), or reducing the carbon intensity of energy (i.e.
CO2 emissions /energy). Key strategies include improving energy use efficiency,
industrial restructuring (i.e. reducing the weight of energy-intensive economic
activities) and energy switch (i.e. reducing the weight of emission-intensive fuels).
Kaya Identity (Nakicenovic et al. 2000 ):
Equation 1: CO2 emissions = Population X (GDP/Population) X (energy/GDP) X (CO2 emissions/energy)
Equation 2: CO2 emissions = Population X (GDP/Population) X (CO2/GDP)
TABLE 1
Distribution of global GHG emissions (2004)
Grouping
tCO2 eq/
cap
KgCO2 eq/
US$GDPppp(2000)
Share in Global Totals (%)

Population
GDP
Emissions
Annex I
countries
16.1
0.683
19.7
56.6
46.4
Non-Annex I
countries
4.2
1.055
80.3
43.4
53.6
Source: Rogner et al. 2007, p.106, Figure 1 .4a and Figure 1 .4b. a: all Kyoto gases including those from land-use.
2The
Third Assessment Report (Banuri et al 2001, p. 89) notes that stabilization of CO2 in the atmosphere at 450
ppm would require limiting global carbon emissions to about 3 billion tons by 2100, equivalent to 0.3 tonne of
carbon per capita. The last is equivalent to 1.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
CHAPTER 22
567
On the other hand, developing countries face an even greater challenge in

adaptation. This is principally concerned with reducing vulnerability and
developing adaptive capacity (Burton, Diringer, and Smith 2006), although by
definition adaptation should also aim to exploit the beneficial opportunities.
When defined as the likelihood of injury, death, loss, disruption of livelihoods
or other harm (Eriksen and OBrien 2007, p.338), vulnerability inevitably
affects populations whose livelihood or wellbeing is already undermined by
high incidence of poverty. However, developing countries are more at risk also
because of their geography, greater reliance on agriculture and lower adaptive
capacity (Burton, Diringer, and Smith J. 2006; McCarthy et al. 2001; World Bank
2008). This places premium on non-agricultural productive activities and factors
that strengthen their adaptive capacity, which include economic resources,
technology, information and skills, infrastructure, institutions and equity (Smit
et al. 2001)in other words, the products of industrialization.
Thus developing countries need to take action in both mitigation and
adaptation, aiming at reduction of emissions, reduction of poverty and vulnerability, and the strengthening of adaptive capacity. What does this mean for their
economic development strategies?
2.2 The Implication For Economic Development in the South
The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) (Nakicenovic et al. 2000)

is relevant here. Guided by the Kaya Identity and building upon a common set
of driving forces, including global population growth, economic development,
technological diffusion, energy systems and land use, and assuming that no specific
climate policies are implemented, the SRES outlines a set of four alternative scenario
families comprising 40 SRES scenarios. These scenarios indicate a wide range of
CO2 emission possibilities, ranging from less than 10 GtCO2 to almost 35 GtCO2
by 2100 (see Figure 1). The corresponding CO2 concentration and global mean
temperature increase (from 1990 to 2100) varies respectively from 500 to 1000 ppm
and from 1.3oC to 5.8 oC, with the B1 scenario offering the lowest emissions. The
drivers of the six illustrative scenarios are summarized in Table 2.
Figure 1 and Table 2 demonstrate a striking range of future possibilities. First,
with everything else being equal, the A1 scenario, characterized by fast economic
growth and population growth, could either lead to extremely high emissions or
intermediate to low emissions, depending on the nature of the energy systems.
Second, combining a service-based economy with cleaner energy produces B1,
a scenario of very low emissions (lower than the level of 1990). Third, a combination of intermediate growth rates for the economy and population, and lower
degree of global convergence would result in B2, characterized by relatively
low emissions level, which is nevertheless higher than the level of 1990. Finally,
568
the worst scenario would be A2, characterized by slow economic growth, fast
population increase, less global convergence and very high emissions level. These
contrasting scenarios point to one conclusion: the rate of economic growth is
not the decisive factor for mitigation. Much will depend on the kind of energy
systems developed and the economic structure.
FIGURE 1
Emissions Scenarios
Source: Nakicenovic et al. 2000, Figure TS-8. Each colored band shows the projected emissions of the
six illustrative scenarios.
However, it would be mistaken to conclude from the SRES that developing

economies should bypass industrialization or pursue de-industrialization at all
costs. This is true despite the fact that industry is a major source of emissions.
Industry accounts for 19.4% of global GHG emissions in 2004, and including
energy supply increases industrys share to more than 40% of total emissions
(IPCC 2007).
Moreover, the share of industry related emissions is even higher in developing
countries. According to Price et al (2006), the SRES divided all emissions under
four headings, namely industry, building, transport, and agriculture. Analysis
of the detailed non-agricultural emissions data shows that the share of industry
in non-agricultural emissions declined from 55.4% in 1971 to 49.8% in 2000 in
these countries. However it is projected to rise to 51% in 2020 under scenario A1
and 51.9% under scenario B2 (see Table 3 and Figure 2).
CHAPTER 22
569
TABLE 2
Emissions Scenarios and Drivers
Key Drivers Of Emissions
Illustrative
Emissions
Scenarios
Economic
Growth
A1
Fast
A2
slow
B1
fast
B2
Intermediate
Economic
Structure
Population
Growth
Global
Convergence
Peaks in
mid-21st
century, then
declines
Fast
Continuously
increasing
Towards
a service
and
information
economy
Energy Systems
A1FI
Fossil
energy
intensive
A1T
Non-fossil
energy
sources
A1B
Balanced
energy
sources
slow
Same as A1
Cleaner technology
Slower, more
diverse than
B1 and A1
Similar to
A2, but at
lower rate
Source: Own elaboration on the basis of Nakicenovic et al. 2000, p. 22
TABLE 3
Historical and Projected Non-Agricultural GHG Emissions by Developing
Countries
Year
CO2 Emissions (MtC)

Industrys
Share of
Total (%)
Developing
Countries Share
in Total NonAgricultural
Emissions
Industry
Building
Transport
Total
1971
288
127
105
520
55.38
14.3
2000
1016
593
430
2039
49.83
34.5
2020 (A1)
3147
1361
1668
6176
50.96
53.2
2020 (B2)
2001
833
1019
3853
51.93
44.0
Source: Price et al. 2006. Own calculation. 2020 (A1) and 2020 (B2) represent respectively projections for
SRES A1 and SRES B2 scenarios. Developing countries here include: centrally planned Asia, other Asia,
Latin America, Sub Saharan Africa, and Middle East/North Africa.
570
Interestingly, the data (see Table 3) show that high industrial emissions
in developing countries does not mean high share of global non-agricultural
emissions by these countries. Indeed, the data show that, under scenario B2,
although industrys share is as high as 52% in total non-agricultural emissions
in 2020, these countries share in total emissions could be as low as 44%. This
is prime facia evidence that increased industrial emissions, a likely outcome of
industrialization, do not have to mean high emissions for developing countries.
In other words, there is no reason to think that industrialization will become less
viable because of the need for CO2 mitigation.
FIGURE 2
Importance of Industry-Related Emissions
Composition of Carbon Emissions in Non-agricultural Sectors
100
80
60
40
20
0
1971
2000
2020(A1)
2020(B2)
Year
Industry
Building
Transport
Source: Table 3.
Having said this, there are other important reasons why industrialization
cannot be abandoned as a development strategy. We explore this below.
CHAPTER 22
571
3. INDUSTRIALIZATION AS AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

STRATEGY FOR SOUTHERN CITIES
3.1 Why Industrialization?
According to Martinussen (1997), economic development refers to the process

whereby the real per capita income of a country increases over a long period
of time while simultaneously poverty is reduced and the inequality in society is
generally diminished, or at least not increased. It is characterised by the structural transformation of the economy, or systematic changes in the allocation of
factors of production and in improved techniques of production (Meier 1995:7).
Industrialization, changes in demand and trade patterns, and urbanization are
key aspects of such changes (Kuznets 1966; Syrquin 1988). A principal objective
of any economic development strategy is to enhance the prospects for sustained
economic growth, poverty reduction and structural transformation.
Industrialization, a process in which the share of industry (especially
manufacturing) in both national income and employment increases in a country
(Dasgupta and Singh 2006: 18), has traditionally played an important role in the
economic development of almost every country (Chenery, Robinson and Syrquin
1986). Indeed, it distinguishes three stages in the process of their economic
development: 1) primary production, when the production of primary goodstypically agricultural products- dominates the economy; 2) industrialization; and
3) developed economy, characterized by de-industrialization, the process when
manufacturings share in employment and then in GDP declines while the weight
of services increases. During the course of industrialization, per capita income
was found to rise from $400 to $2100 in 1970 dollars (equivalent to a change
from $1,734 to $9,127 in 2007 dollars) in a selection of 38 significant economies.3
The process of industrialization is the most dynamic phase in the course of development, characterized by fast economic growth and technological progress, shift of
resources from less to more productive activities and the building-up of the so-called
social overhead (i.e. basic infrastructure) (Young 1928; Kaldor 1966; Kaldor 1978).
Many of the benefits of industrialization derive from the economies of scale uniquely
associated with the manufacturing industry. The Kaldors growth laws state:
t There exists a strong positive correlation between the growth of manufacturing output and the growth of GDP;
t There exists a strong positive correlation between the growth of manufacturing output and the growth of productivity in manufacturing
t There exists a strong positive relationship between the growth of manufacturing
output and the growth of productivity outside of manufacturing (Thirlwall 2003)
3The
2007 amounts are calculated by using the GDP deflator provided on http://www.measuringworth.com/
uscompare/ .
572
Moreover, industrialization is also an effective means for poverty reduction

(Fukunishi et al. 2006). Cross-country experiences have shown that, to lift a large
number of people out of poverty, one of the essential ingredients is to provide
the poor with the opportunities to use their most abundant asset, namely labour
(World Bank 1990, p. 51). In this regard, export-oriented industrialization is
particularly effective, as it enables the exploitation of a market much larger than
the domestic market, and creates jobs for a significant number of semi-skilled
workers. It also has positive impact on distribution.
Industrialization could also fundamentally strengthen adaptive capacity by
diversifying the economy and promote socio-economic features that strengthen
adaptive capacity. One of the most interesting works in this area is a study by
Roberts & Parks (2007). From analyzing a universe of more than 4,000 climaterelated disasters across the world over the past two decades, these authors found
that, when other factors are held constant, national poverty explained virtually
none of the trends in deaths and homelessness. Instead, they found that people
living in more urbanized nations were less likely to be killed, made homeless,
or affected by climate related disasters than people living in more rural nations.
Furthermore, a narrow export base explained about 1/3 of homelessness, from
1/7 to 1/3 of deaths, and about 40% of national patterns in who were affected by
climate-related disasters. Since industrialization effectively increases the diversity
of exports and strengthens urbanization, it can in turn reduce some common
causes of vulnerability.
The above discussion demonstrates that industrialization remains a viable and
important development strategy in the context of climate change. Despite this
connection, some metropolitan cities in developing countries are already experiencing de-industrialization.
3.2 De-Industrialization
De-industrialization, evidenced by the fall in the share of manufacturing employment or an absolute fall in such employment (Dasgupta and Singh 2006), has
both demand-side and supply-side causes (Rowthorn and Ramaswamy 1999).
The experiences of London and Glasgow (Graham & Spence 1995; Lever 1991)
demonstrate that two other factors are influential in the de-industrialization of
metropolitan economies. First, competition for increasingly expensive real-estate
could drive manufacturing activities out of the urban centre. Second, mis-guided
policy attempts to de-congest established urban areas have similar effects.
However, de-industrialization
e-industrialization has predictable and predominantly negative consequences for low-income economies. It generally slows down overall productivity
rise (i.e. economic growth and income rises) and causes unemployment and
dereliction. It affects the semi-skilled labours most strongly, but also has wider
CHAPTER 22
573
repercussions around the economy. The crux of the matter is that such negative
effects can not be compensated in low-income economies by the growth of other
productive economic activities (e.g. knowledge-based and high-value added
services) due to the lack of requisite skills and other kinds of capital.
Unfortunately, however, many developing countries are apparently undergoing
de-industrialization while still at a low level of development (with a per capita GDP
of around US$3000). Dasgupta and Singh (2006) describes this as pre-mature
de-industrialization. They identified two paradigms of de-industrialization since
the 1980s: 1) the Indian type, where manufacturing employment is not expanding
in the formal sector, but is growing within a large informal sector, and there is nevertheless expansion of manufacturing products. 2) The Latin American and African
type, where contraction in manufacturing stops the economy from achieving its full
potential of growth, employment and resource utilization. In the context of climate
change, since manufacturing produces the material inputs for infrastructure (and
for construction), pre-mature de-industrialization would reduce these countries
ability to develop infrastructure and more generally adaptive capacity.
3.3 The Way Out: Industrialization Coupled with De-Carbonisation
The above analysis suggests that there is synergy as well as tension between industrialization and climate change policy goals. While industrialization accelerates
productivity and technological changes, reduce poverty and vulnerability, and
facilitates the development of adaptive capacity, industry presently also produces
a large amount of emissions. So what is the way out?
The Kaya Identity indicates that in order to retain the benefits of industrialization, the only way out is de-carbonization (i.e. the reduction of emissions
intensity). This means that industrialization has to be combined with de-carbonisation to remain a viable economic development strategy.
Difficult as this may sound, de-carbonizing industrialization is probably
more feasible than it appears. An important insight in the clean industrial production literature is that new paths are always pioneered outside
the dominant regions. (Robins and Kumar 1999, p.78). Such precedents
include the American invention of mass production of automobiles and the
Japanese pioneering of lean manufacturing. On the other hand, existing energy
research suggests that emissions reduction depends on technological progress,
retirement of inefficient technologies, changes in the structure of energy
systems and patterns of energy services (Nakicenovic et al. 2006), all of which
are enhanced by industrialization. This explains why developing countries are
projected to continue to reduce energy intensity more quickly than developed
countries because of the greater scope for technological advancement and
improvement in energy use (IEA 2007).
574
The decarbonization of industry, while still in its infancy, is indeed already

happening. For example, a study by Chandler et al. (2002) of mitigation experiences in six large developing countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa
and Turkey) shows that efforts undertaken by these countries, often unrelated to
climate policies, have reduced their emissions growth over the past three decades
(1970s-1990s) by approximately 300 million tons a year. In particular, energy
intensity started to fall from 1995 in India and declined by an average of 4%
per annum during 1977-1997 in China. More importantly, these countries have
significant scope for further mitigation: experts estimated that India could reduce
projected emissions over the next 30 years by nearly one-quarter for less than
$25 per ton of carbon equivalent. Another encouraging sign is that, according
to a recent HSBC report (Robins, Clover and Singh 2009), it is China and South
Korea, not USA, that lead the green investment league table in their fiscal stimulus
packages in response to the on-going global financial turmoil started in 2007-08.
The Chinese investment is more than twice as large as the USAs.
In conclusion, we have reasons to hypothesize that climate change does
not make industrialization an obsolete development strategy for cities in the
South. On the contrary, it may even make it more important than ever before.
This is because, in comparison with de-industrialization, decarbonising industrialization has much greater potential to reduce emissions intensity, to reduce
poverty and vulnerability, and to strengthen adaptive capacity in these cities. This
is summarized in Table 4.
TABLE 4
Summary of Strategies and Their Potentials
Strategies and
Outcomes
Potential to
Reduce Emissions
Intensity
Reduce Poverty
and Vulnerability
Strengthen Adaptive
Capacity
De-industrialization
Decarbonising
industrialization
Source: Own elaboration. Note: H = High; M = Medium; L= Low.
CHAPTER 22
4.
575
EVIDENCE FROM THREE CITIES
In this section, an attempt is made to examine how the issues raised above are
affecting Southern cities with case studies of Shanghai, Mumbai and Mexico City.
To start with, each of these three cities is the most important economic powerhouse of their home economies, which are of course at different levels of development. As Table 5 shows, both GNI per capita and emissions per capita is highest
in Mexico and lowest in India. However, emissions per capita in China are very
close to Mexicos, although its GNI per capita is less than one-fourth of Mexicos.
This is explained by the differences in their energy systems and economic structures: as Table 6 shows, industry is much more important in Chinas economy
than Mexicos. Furthermore, Table 5 shows that economic growth is much faster
in China than in Mexico or India.
TABLE 5
Country Proles for China, India and Mexico
GDP Annual Growth (%)
Emissions (metric
tons per capita)
(2004)
GNI per Capita

(Atlas method, US$)
(2004)
1990-2000
2000-05
India
1.24
630
4.2
4.7
China
3.86
1500
10.6
9.6
Mexico
4.29
6930
3.1
1.9
Indicator
Source: World Development Indicators 2007.
Interestingly, measured by absolute fall in manufacturing employment,

China started to de-industrialize the earliest in 1992 (partly as a correction of
its over-industrialization before the onset of its economic reform), followed by
India in 1997 and Mexico in 2000 (Table 6). In terms of industrial value-added
as percentage of GDP (a less reliable indicator for industrialization/de-industrialization due to short-term price changes), China and India appear to have
followed a trend of industrialization/re-industrialization since 2000, whereas the
trend in Mexico is less clear.
576
TABLE 6
De-industrialization in China, India and Mexico
Manu.
Employment
(1,000)
1990
Manufacturing Employment (1,000)

China
India
53040
6118
1991
1992
Mexico
28
28
46
26
28
48
27
26
49
30
36
3838
6767
1997
7068
32400
6119
5749
5178
2005
2007
India
42
55417
1995
2003
China
3628
1993
2000
Mexico
Industry Value-Added as % of GDP
5449
Source: International Labour Organisation (1998 -2009); World Development Indicators online database.
At the city level, all three cities have de-industrialized, although to different
extents and with varying levels of importance for manufacturing (Table 7). Of the
three cities, Shanghai is the most industrialized with industrial jobs accounting
for 32% of total employment in 2006. Mexico City was the earliest to begin
de-industrializing, beginning probably even before 1970, followed by Mumbai
(from early 1980s) and finally Shanghai in 1990. Interestingly, these cities have
done so for quite different reasons, in addition to normal demand and supply
factors. In Mumbai, this was largely due to the effects of the 1981 textile workers
strike and the land ceiling policy (Pacione 2006). In the case of Mexico City, the
rise of manufacturing along the USA-Mexico border and de-concentration policy
played a role (Grajales forthcoming). Finally in the case of Shanghai, the governments prioritization policies as well as surging domestic demand for services are
responsible (Zhang 2003).
CHAPTER 22
577
TABLE 7
De-industrialization Trends in Mumbai, Shanghai and Mexico City
Greater Mumbai
(Manufacturing
employment as % of
total employment)
Shanghai (Industrial
employment as % of
total employment)
1960
21.26
1970
23.80
1980
1985
42.90
35.97
23.78
53.88
1990
28.47
1995
18.61
49.96
1998
2000
2006
23.78
44.30
1988
1993
Mexico City
Metropolitan Area
(Manufacturing share
in GDP)
19.21
17.84
39.72
32.13
Sources: Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (2001); Grajales (forthcoming) and
Shanghai Statistical Yearbook (various years). Industrial employment for Shanghai covers manufacturing
and utilities.
Although the lack of comparable data precludes any attempt to quantify the
effect of de-industrialization, it is evident that the three cities perform differently
in economic terms. Grajales (forthcoming) notes that from 1980 to 1998, Mexico
City Metropolitan Area progressively slid down the national labour productivity
league table for metropolitan areas from the 8th place to 19th place. Mumbais
annualized GDP growth rate registered 8.5% from 2001/2 to 2006/7, which
is only slightly above the national growth rate of 8% for the same period (The
Economic Times, 20 Jan. 2008). Its economic structure, characterized by a small
manufacturing sector and a large group of low value-added other services, is a
likely contributor to this outcome (Figure 3: De-Industrialization in Mumbai). In
comparison, Shanghais GDP grew by 12.5% per annum between 1992 and 2007,
compared with 9.4% per annum for the national average (1992-2006). It would
seem that economic structure matters here too.
578
FIGURE 3
De-Industrialization in Mumbai

Industrial Transformation of Greater Mumbai, 1980 to 1998

Source: Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority 2001.
There is also evidence that industry is not where the greatest mitigation
challenge lies. This is clearly illustrated by the experience of Shanghai. While
energy consumption has declined significantly in industry, it has risen rapidly in
the rest of the economy and in the household sector (by 14.64% between 2005
and 2006 in the latter) (Table 8 and Table 9). Furthermore, while energy intensity
is higher in the secondary sector (especially in industry) than elsewhere, it is
falling fast, by 6.18% from 2005 to 2006 alone. By contrast, energy intensity is
increasing (although only slowly) in the tertiary sector. These mean that the
greatest mitigation challenge will be to contain the growth of energy consumption
outside industry even in Shanghai, the most industrialized city of the three.
TABLE 8
Allocation of electricity consumption in Shanghai in 1990, 2000 and 2007
Year
Industry
(%)
Agriculture
(%)
Households
(%)
The Rest
(%)
1990
83.5
2.7
5.5
8.4
2000
70.3
1.6
9.5
18.6
2007
65.8
0.5
12.2
21.5
Source: Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2008.
CHAPTER 22
579
TABLE 9
Unit energy consumption of different economic activities, Shanghai, 2006
Indicators
Energy /GDP
Unit
Amount
Change Over 2005

(%)
TSC/Yuan
8370
-3.71
- Primary sector
TSC/Yuan
9840
-7.79
- Secondary
TSC/Yuan
11120
-6.08
TSC/Yuan
11600
-6.18
- Tertiary
TSC/Yuan
4950
0.13
Household energy
consumption
1,000 TSC
7535.1
14.64
Energy/value added
Of which: industry
Source: Shanghai Statistical Bureau 2006. TSC stands for tons of standard coal.
5. CONCLUSION
This paper has attempted to examine the implication of climate change for
economic development strategies for Southern cities, focusing on the question
whether climate change makes industrialization an obsolete strategy. Through
the lens of Kaya Identity, industrial history, and theories of industrialization and
de-industrialization, and considering the development experiences in Shanghai,
Mumbai and Mexico City, it demonstrates that this is not so. Indeed, it advances
the hypothesis that climate change will make industrialization a more important strategy than ever before. The implications are several-fold. First, addressing
climate change does not call for the abandonment of industrialization, or
pre-mature de-industrialization. Second, however, industrialization cannot carry
on with its present mode of developmentindustries must be de-carbonized for
the sake of local and national long-term prosperity as well as global sustainability.
Finally, if the preliminary trend of decreasing energy intensity in Shanghai is any
guide, then this can be achieved. Further research is needed, however, to formulate the practical ways forward.
580
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CHAPTER
23
Adaptation and Mitigation:

What Financing is Available
for Local Government Investments
in Developing Countries?
Thierry Paulais,* Juliana Pigey
Summary
This article reviews specific funding available for adaptation and mitigation investments of cities, and discusses the mismatch between needs and financing tools.
These funding sources are insufficient, highly fragmented and not really tailored
to local governments. They are narrowly sector-based and risk being counterproductive in the urban context. Furthermore, they are complex and costly to
access, or else targeted to sovereign borrowers. The article makes proposals to
adapt these finance tools, re-introduce local authorities in mechanisms from
which they are presently excluded, and create incentives in their favor. Finally,
it proposes an initiative for cities in fragile states, based on greater involvement
of wealthy Northern cities and the recourse to a specific financing mechanism.
Key Words: Adaptation, Mitigation, Financing, Investments, local governments

Q
583
584
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

The cities eligible for development assistance will be relatively harder hit than others
by the direct and indirect impacts of global warming. Across the African continent,
the reduction in arable land per capita due to the combined effects of desertification
and demographic growth risks triggering unprecedented migratory flows to the cities
(Collier et al. 2008). In other parts of the world, such as the Pacific and Indian Ocean
regions, rising sea levels and more frequent hurricanes will force people to relocate
homes and businesses (Dasgupta et al. 2007). The economic and environmental
repercussions of these migrations and displacements, coupled with the inevitable
social tensions they bring, will put a strain on local government (African Development Bank 2009).
Unfortunately, these events will affect urban areas already suffering from serious
dysfunctions and deficiencies in housing, water and electricity supply, sanitation
and drainage, and management and governance. Furthermore, urban economies,
particularly large metropolitan areas, with massive levels of energy use (especially
for electricity and urban traffic) will ultimately bear the ineluctably increasing cost of
fossil fuels as well as the additional cost of alternative energy solutions (IPCC 2007).
Generally speaking, urban governments, which run local public services that emit
large quantities of greenhouse gases (waste, transport, etc) and who are responsible
for implementing policies to effectively reduce emissions (standards and incentives
for public and residential buildings, urban traffic, urban planning, etc...) will be under
greater pressure to carry out mitigation investments (Reid and Satterthwaite 2007).
These countries local authorities will ultimately have to shoulder a growing
share of the responsibilities and of the investment outlays for at least two reasons.
First, this is a structural trend, which appears as a corollary of development: local
governments carry out a large proportion of public investment in industrialized
countries (over 65 percent on average for Europe), but a low proportion in the
least developed countries (less than five percent for Africa). Secondly, central
government budgets will be required for core government functions (social, justice
and security sectors), whose relative costs are rising, in areas where there is a particularly acute need (world food shock, among others) and for national and regional
climate change policies and actions.
This observation should have prompted special initiatives to enable local governments to finance mitigation and adaptation investments and actions. Yet the fact of the
matter is that this has not happened. On the contrary, current investment financing
facilities, which work at national level and/or are difficult to access and unreliable
(Anderson and Chandani 2008), have not been designed for local governments at all.
Moreover, instruments strictly intended for climate change investments could
rapidly show their limitations in urban areas where there are many, complex
sector interdependences (Satterthwaite et al. 2007). More seriously, addressing
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climate change separately from environmental issues in general, and urban

management in particular, could even prove counterproductive.
Perhaps most importantly, the financing currently available via these specialized
instruments appears to cover only a minute proportion of the estimated investment
needs. Ordinary local investment financing tools need to be mobilized, and they
themselves have limited intervention capacities, just as the local authorities borrowing
capacities are limited. In these circumstances, it is vital to seek leverage by mixing
different types of resources from diverse sources and to set up incentive policies to
encourage local governments to make this type of investment a top priority.
It is in the least developed countries that the situation of cities could turn out
to be particularly dramatic. A large number of these countries are in regions
where the effects of global warming will be the most severe (Collier and al. 2008;
Toulmin 2009); and the local government sector in these countries is often a
sparse affair, with few human and financial resources, little borrowing capacity,
and limited or no access to the capital markets. If these cities are to effectively
or at least partially address mitigation and adaptation, specific assistance and
financing arrangements will probably have to be found.
This paper develops this argument in five sections. The first section looks
at mitigation and adaptation in a general urban context. The second section
presents the different financing tools in place and their investment capacities,
and discusses whether cities have the possibility of gaining access to them,
directly or indirectly via financial intermediaries. The third section looks at
different solutions available for channeling financing through local governments,
especially for mitigation/adaptation investments. The fourth section looks into
solutions that could create leverage for existing financing, and develop incentives for local authorities to invest in adaptation/mitigation even though they
have other legitimate priorities. The fifth and last section explores possible ways
of providing specific resources and assistance to the cities most in need, such as
those in post-conflict countries and fragile states.
2. A VERTICAL, SECTOR-BASED APPROACH

IS NOT SUITED TO URBAN CONCERNS
In practice, mitigation and adaptation/ actions can rarely be taken independently
of their surrounding environment. Any investment in urban areas interacts with
sectors other than that in which the investment is made, and therefore needs to
be part of an integrated approach (this is even the case of the seemingly most
straightforward actions, for example, replacing high-energy emitting light bulbs
with low-energy light bulbs in street lamps, since it is necessary to develop specific
collection systems for the used bulbs.). In most cases, climate change investments
586
overlap with environmental and urban policy issues, and with the citys economic
and social life. This can be seen from the following examples.
2.1 Adaptation
Protecting coastal cities from rising sea levels cannot be addressed without
considering drainage and sanitation, as well as soil use. In Algiers, the Bab el
Oued flood disaster in 2001 (800 dead) was caused by a downstream malfunctioning drainage channel that due to the rise in the sea level (because of the
combined high tide and high winds) no longer drained. Yet upstream, there was
an unprecedented volume of water to be drained due to the torrential rainfall,
as well as poor maintenance of the drainage system and, most importantly, soil
erosion in the city heights caused by uncontrolled deforestation and urbanization. In Lom, where part of the city centre is at sea level and rainwater has to
be drained by lift stations, it is vital to protect the offshore seawall and keep the
drainage channels in working order. Yet the lagoon, which serves as a flood
control reservoir, and the lift stations cannot keep pace with the increase in
water volumes prompted by soil erosion because of the expansion of informal
urbanization in the citys heights.
2.2 Mitigation
In the transport sector, exclusive lanes and ways for buses and trams are seen
as one of the best means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is surely
the case, to the extent that potential negative externalities of such investments
induced alternate traffic patterns, increased urban spacing are identified and
addressed at the same time. And, in a city where the informal sector provides
transport services, setting up a formal public transport system means that the
entire transportation supply has to be re-considered. At the same time, this
system could have negative effects on local finances due to escalating operating
costs, and a negative impact on employment if the changes in the informal
sector are not carefully managed and assisted.
In the waste disposal sector, methane capture in solid waste landfills is a
relatively easy mitigation action (Dessus and Laponche 2008). Yet from the urban
managers point of view, the fact that the landfill can be partially financed by
carbon funds is not enough to make it a good investment. The local authoritys
investment is justified for environmental reasons in the broad sense; and a landfill
is only worth the sum total of the parts of the waste disposal sector (collection,
intermediate storage and transport). Given that this sector is generally the largest
item of operating expenditures, any investment decision could weigh on the local
government budget balances for years to come.
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In these examples, a strictly technical climate change approach to the

situation is not sufficient to solve the problem and can even lead to negative
indirect effects for a city. For instance, applications for carbon fund financing
have been made by solid waste landfill operators who are ostensibly the sole
beneficiaries, without any mention of the existence and costs of running the
upstream branch that supplies the site. The sector-based approach and even
a sub-sector approach in the present case if one considers that climate change
is part of the environmental agenda and vertical funding are not well suited
to projects in urban areas, which, by their very nature, call for a transversal and
territorial approach.
3. FINANCING FALLS FAR SHORT OF NEEDS AND IS NOT

SUITED TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT
There are two main types of funding: the mechanisms based on market financing
(carbon finance, in particular) and the funds that provide subsidies and concessional finance. Table 1: Funding Sources for Mitigation, and Table 2: Funding
Sources for Adaptation present a summary and description of these subsidy and
concessional funding mechanisms and their respective goals. What is immediately
striking is the complexity of the institutional landscape: such fragmentation must
surely undermine the effectiveness of the whole. It adds to the opaqueness of a
set-up that no one can easily see as coherent, so much so that, in some countries,
the donors themselves have decided to set up bodies to group and coordinate the
financial flows and actions of these different instruments (Ayers 2009).
The majority of these funds concern intangible actions (studies, training,
planning, action plans, research and development, pilot initiatives, etc.).
Among these are the National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPA), which
define investment programs for urgent adaptation needs. Yet the financing
capacities of these funds are only capable of covering a small fraction of investments needs. And needs estimates are highly approximate. In mitigation, the
hypotheses considered for emissions reduction levels and the largest emitters
efforts set annual investment needs for the developing countries at anywhere
between US$80 billion and US$500 billion (World Bank, 2008). In adaptation,
the different sources and methods estimate needs somewhere between US$10
billion and US$90 billion per year (Oxfam 2007).
Carbon finance, notably through the Clean Development Mechanism,
is to-date the most important source of mitigation financing for developing
countries. The total amount of funding which can be expected is based on
various estimates, due to the fact that they are based on hypotheses for future
carbon prices. It should be noted that a number of experts consider these
588
TABLE 1
Funding Sources for Mitigation
Financing
Instrument
Managed
by
Amount
Nature of
Support
Purpose
Beneciaries Status
Urban Finance
friendly?
UNFCC and Kyoto Protocol Instruments

Global
Environment
Facility
GEF
Target:
USD $1 bn.
Commited:
$352 mn.
Project
GEF Trust Funds

allocated to pilot
adaptation activities in
developing countries
(project support)
Eligible project must

generate global
environmental benets
Clean
Development
Mechanism
GEF
USD $15 $25 bn
Project
Carbon emissions
reduction (CER)
credits market
High transaction
costs and high level of
knowledge required to
justify projects, as well
as up-front investment
costs
Project
Promote scaledup demonstration,

deployment & transfer
of low-carbon
technologies for power
sector, transportation,
and energy efciency
in buildings, industry &
agriculture.
Potential opportunity
for urban municipalities
to participate in joint
exercise to discuss with
government, industry,
and other stakeholders
to develop a countryled investment plan.
Mostly targeted at
sovereign and private
sectors
Multilateral Development Bank Instruments

Clean
Technology Fund
(CTF)
World Bank
Strategic
Climate Fund
(SCF) Scalingup renewable
energy
USD $ 4.3 bn
USD $70 mn
Bilateral Instruments
Cool Earth
Partnership
Japan
USD 8,000
mn
Assistance for
improved access to
clean energy
German
International
Climate Initiative
(GICI)
Germany
USD $40-$80
mn/year
Sustainable energy
projects / Funded
by auctioning up to
10% of Germanys
allowances from EU
ETS (2008-2012)
Environmental
Transformation
Fund International
United
Kingdom
USD $1.6 bn
over 3 years
from 2008
Support to programs
and projects to
address climate
change
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TABLE 2
Funding Sources for Adaptation
Financing
Instrument
Managed
by
Amount
Nature of
Support
Purpose
Beneciaries - Status
- Urban Finance
Aware?
UNFCC AND KYOTO PROTOCAL INSTRUMENTS

Strategic
Priority on
Adaptation
SPA (2003)
GEF
USD $50
million
Allocated for
22 projects
Project
GEF Trust Funds

allocated to pilot
adaptation activities in
developing countries
(Project support)
Not clear how/if urban

municipalities can
access. Eligible project
must generate global
environmental benets /
incremental costs linked
with increasing resilience
funded by SPA
Special Climate
Change Fund
(SCCF)
GEF
USD $90.3
million
Total / USD
$67.5 million
allocated to
15 projects
Project
Finance adaptation
activities related
to climate change
complementary to
those funded by GEF
Trust Fund
Not clear how/if urban

municipalities can
access. Climate change
affects core development
sector: agriculture-waterhealth-infrastructure
/ Finances additional
costs of adaptation
Least
Developed
Countries Fund
(LDCF)
GEF
USD $172
million
Project
Finance preparation
& implementation of
NAPAs to address
urgent/immediate
adaptation needs
of LDC Parties; 38
NAPAs completed;
24 submitted projects
to GEF for approval;
19 approved (as of
21-Oct-08)
Depends on how
country involves
urban municipalities in
preparation of NAPAs.
Climate change affecting
core development
sector: agriculture-waterhealth-infrastructure
/ Finances additional
costs of adaptation
Adaptation
Fund
Adaptation
Fund Board
/ GEF is
Secretariat
/ WB is
Trustee
USD $4001500 millionn

/ of which
about USD
91 millionn
available
Programmatic
Funded from 2% levy

on transactions under
the CDM; to nance
adaptation programs/
projects in developing
countries party to
Kyoto Protocol
Countries are
beneciaries /
can designate
implementation agents,
eventually urban munis?
Principles: Funding on
full adaptation cost
basis; short projects
development-approval
cycles; country-driven
projects
590
TABLE 2, continued
MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT BANK (MDB) INSTRUMENTS
Strategic
Climate Fund
(SCF) : Pilot
Program
for Climate
Resilience
(PPCR)
World Bank
Global Facility
for Disaster
Reduction
and Recovery
(GFDRR)
World Bank
Target USD
$1 billion
/ Available
USD $240
million
Budget /
SWAPs /
Coordinated
investment
programs
Grant & concessional

nance to 5-10
countries to integrate
climate resilience with
development planning
& poverty reduction
strategies and fund
investments identied
in the plans. Mobilizes
new/additional funding
Urban issues not directly

addressed but potential
of link to urban issues in
the planning. Access via
MDBs, so via sovereign
Technical/nancial
assistance to
mainstream disaster
reduction in national
development
strategies/plans
Urban areas are at

high risk, depend on
involvement of urban
sector in strategy
preparation. High risk
low & middle income
countries
BILATERAL INSTRUMENTS
Cool Earth
Partnership
Japan
USD $2,000
millionn
Assistance in
adaptation to climate
change / improved
access to clean
energy
Global Climate
Change Alliance
(GCCA)
European
Commission
USD $84
million
Draws on EU ETS
proceeds to help
most climate change
vulnerable developing
countries (LDCs /
SIDS)
German
International
Climate Initiative
(GICI)
Germany
up to USD
$40 million/
year
Support adaptation /
Funded by auctioning
about 10% of
Germanys allowances
from EU ETS (20082012)
UNDP-Spain
Millennium
Development
Goals
Achievement
Fund
UNDPSpain
USD $22
million
Interventions to
improve environmental
management / service
delivery at local /
national levels; efforts
to enhance adaptive
capacity
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forecasts to be overestimates, as they take into consideration the volume of

carbon market transactionsmarkets in which the same credit is sold twice, on
average, and thus double-counted. For example, the CDM is expected to have
provided US$15 billion to US$25 billion in direct resources by 2012 and the end
of the Kyoto Protocol; these are hypothetical amounts, which will ultimately be
compared to the effective payments (United Nations UNFCCC 2008). The
other important imminent source of funding comes in the form of the Climate
Investment Funds (CIFs), made up of the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) and
the Clean Technology Fund (CTF). The SCF also targets mainly mitigation, via
a forest program and a renewable energy program. A small share of the SCF
(US$ 240 million) is earmarked for pilot adaptation operations. The CTF has
an allocation of over US$4.3 billion and will provide concessional financing
for low-carbon investment in the energy and transport sectors, and energy
efficiency in building, industry and agriculture (World Bank 2008).
Carbon finance provides, in principle, financing which is additional to traditional Official Development Assistance (ODA) (Oxfam 2008). However, in
practice, it appears that the subsidy provided by CDM is, in part, pushing aside
traditional ODA and leads, therefore, to a substitution effect rather than an
additional effect. Furthermore, a review of approved CDM operations indicates
a strong geographical concentration on a small group of countries (China, India,
Brazil), as well as sectoral concentration (almost half of financial volumes are
related to hydrofluorocarbon gas from the chemical industry) (Pfeifer and Stiles,
2008, World Bank, 2006). This reveals methodological problems (only effectively
measurable emissions reductions are financed), which are at the present time
difficult to avoid, and can be considered a result of the vertical nature of this
financing mechanism.
Adaptation funding is set to benefit from the gradual operationalization of the
Adaptation Fund, created in late 2007 and due to be financed by a two percent
tax on CDM transactions. This fund could free up between US$400 million and
US$1.5 billion by 2012, depending on carbon prices.
It is hard to estimate what share of these investments the private sector might
pick up. Yet no matter what, investment needs are expressed in billions whereas
the unit of account for each of these funds is in the tens of millions, or at best
hundreds of millions. That gives an idea of the extent of the funding shortfall.
In addition to this lack of financing, local authorities also face a problem with
the characteristics and even accessibility of the available financing.
On the one hand, a market mechanism like the CDM theoretically lends itself
well to local urban financing under the management of a local authority or one of
its divisions such as a local utility or a private partner in the case of a service
concession. Urban projects which receive the most benefit from this type of
financing include essentially the waste sector, public street lighting and transport.
592
At present, however, public transport projects are difficult to fund with carbon
finance mechanisms due to the methodological issues for the measurement of
emissions reductions, as mentioned above. Carbon finance provides additional
funding that could prove decisive to include an investment in a citys program
that might otherwise have been excluded.
From the perspective of local governments, effective recourse to CDM is
stymied by a certain number of constraints and limitations. Firstly, the uncertainties currently surrounding the markets continuity after 2012 are hardly likely
to set investors minds at rest, even if some funds are committed to purchase
contracts beyond this date (Figueres and Newcombe 2007). Then there is the
fact that this instrument is complicated to use, demands know-how beyond that
of most people, and calls for sophisticated appraisals that can prove extremely
expensive when compared with the resources obtained. These resources
moreover have the disadvantage of being quite uncertain, given the volatility of
the market and the time it takes to register the project and then establish the
volumes the project will earn in reality; it is essential to not draw up a financing
plan on the basis of over-optimistic assumptions. Last but not least, even if
carbon finance provides revenues ex post, it has difficulty addressing the question
of initial financing. Some funds can make advances of up to 20 or 25 percent
of the amount of a purchase contract, but this requires a guarantee. The future
revenues of an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) can theoretically
be backed by up-front financing, but such a structure obviously adds cost and
increases the complexity of the operation.
The indirect effect of these constraints and uncertainties is to make carbon
finance a tool better suited to large-scale projects, for which appraisal costs can
be recouped, in a sector for which a simple and reasonably precise measurement
approach exists and, for which financing is available.
For example, we can cite the project for the controlled landfill for Greater
Amman, which simultaneously obtained a World Bank loan and an ERPA. The
World Bank loan is for USD $18 million to the municipality, but with State
guarantee. The ERPA of the Carbon Fund for Europe amounts to 900,000 tons
of CO2-equivalent from now through the end of 2014. Captured methane
will be used for electricity generation. We know that the profitability of these
projects will be improved a posteriori by the revenues, but in varying proportions that are problematic to determine precisely in advance: many parameters
come into play such as the volume of waste, its composition and the climate.
There is a floor below which projects do not provide a sufficient return to be
eligible for carbon finance. For large projects, the additional revenues can
account for 15 to 50 percent of the investment (and up to 75-80 percent in the
case where revenues can be earned from sales of generated electricity and if it
can be sold at high prices). A city seeking to finance several projects has to wade
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through the same appraisal and registration procedure for each project, with
the same uncertainties every time.
The day the uncertainties about the future of carbon finance are lifted, the
mechanisms that currently govern its implementation will have to be revised. It
would be wise for carbon finance to move towards holistic urban approaches:
i.e. to finance programs of operations based on overall performance. To meet
this objective, methodologies to consolidate/improve emissions reductions
measurements in the sectors of waste, energy and transport are currently
being developed. Furthermore, it is likely that if the donors set up simple
and inexpensive up-front financing arrangements on the strength of pledges
based on future revenues from purchase contracts (eventually incorporating
a guarantee to cover possible revenue fluctuations, within agreed upper and
lower limits), this could have a significant mobilizing effect.
On the other hand, a tool such as the CTF has a precise global instrumental purpose: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has huge sums of
financing to allocate, and consequently disbursement challenges to meet.
Yet the CTF takes a wholesale approach: the targeted investments are large
(electricity generation, for example) and the recipients are explicitly central
government, that is, sovereign borrowers. These borrowers could admittedly onlend these loans to local governments, but the existence of a threshold
for fund eligibility (given as an investment amount) makes this prospect
unlikely. For example, if the CTF looks into the possibility of financing investments in public transport for a local authority, it would only be with central
governments approval, under its guarantee and within a national program
concerning a number of sites (World Bank 2008).
Local urban authorities are clearly absent from the CTFs operational strategies. This could be due to the nature and volume of the investments targeted,
but it is also most likely due to the more prosaic reason that most of the
multilateral donors can only lend to central governments or with the central
governments guarantee (termed sovereign loans). Although initiatives have
recently been taken to enable these donors to work with what is known as the
sub-sovereign market, these commitment volumes are still relatively low (for
example in the World Bank-IFC Subnational Program portfolio). There is still a
reluctance from most of the multilaterals to deal directly with these borrowers. It
is significant that local government is absent from the CTFs stakeholders, given
that these stakeholders cover a good dozen types of players: private sector bodies,
scientific and technical experts, civil society representatives, indigenous peoples
representatives, etc.
594
4. CHANNELING FINANCING TO LOCAL URBAN AUTHORITIES

There are two main cases: countries with financial intermediation tools for local
government, and those without.
4.1 Where a National Intermediation Tool Exists
A financial intermediation agent (municipal development fund type) can act as

a wholesaler to obtain foreign financing for a group of municipalities from the
CTF or other sources (with a central government guarantee, if necessary). This
technique of grouping together borrowers is also used to give small and mediumsized local authorities access to good financing conditions on the capital markets.
In countries where financing can be found on the markets, this gives them the
opportunity to secure financing in local currency. Once the financing is secured,
the intermediary redistributes it on a retail basis in keeping with the disbursement needs for the cities respective projects (and consequently also plays a cash
flow role).
The intermediation agent can also play a simple supporting role in implementation. Such is the role, for example, of Moroccos municipal fund, the Fonds
dEquipement Communal (FEC) in the loan that the World Bank granted to the
central government for a national solid waste program. Under this program, the
government has tasked the FEC with helping the municipalities and operators to
put together program dossiers and negotiate them with the CDM. The additional
resources obtained from carbon finance would be shared between the local
authorities and the operators. Under the agreed arrangements, the operators
finance the investments and pass these costs on in the form of fees. The local
authorities should be able to use carbon finance to reduce the impact of these fees
on their operating budgets, although the bulk of these budgets remain covered by
central government allocations.
4.2 Where No National Intermediation Tool Exists
Some large cities in emerging countries have set up local investment funds to
access loans or the capital markets. In the Peoples Republic of China, for example,
where the local authorities are not authorized to borrow, the government arranged
for special bodies to be created in the late 1990s. The local authorities own Urban
Development and Investment Corporations (UDIC), in which they hold assets and
liabilities. UDICs are used to finance infrastructure projects, mainly by means of
bank loans, public-private partnerships (such as concessions and build, operate,
transfer [BOT] arrangements), as well as property development (e.g. building
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leases, etc). They delegate the developer for new investments and supervise the
management of existing investments.
Vietnam has set up similar bodies in the form of local development investment
funds (LDIF), the largest of which to date is the Ho Chi Minh City Investment
Fund (HIFU). The main difference between these funds and the Chinese model is
that they are financial institutions whose role is to collect medium- and long-term
resources, take direct holdings in projects, and take shares in construction and
civil engineering companies. These funds can issue bonds, provided they are
authorized to do so by the local authority.
These two types of local institutions are examples of structures that can receive
funds from the CTF or other sources (and possibly hybridize them, see following
section) and implement the adaptation and mitigation investments at a rational
territorial level (World Bank 2008).
In small countries where there is no reason to set up such local and national
bodies, funds for local government investments can be transited through the
retail banks. It is widespread practice for donors to grant credit lines to banks
and to distribute retail subsidized financing to private-sector companies to meet
environmental standards. The same principle could well be applied to local
authorities. Cities in Cape Verde, for example, have access to financing for their
investments from the retail banks, which are refinanced by a donor (in this case
the French Development Agency). A project assistance and preparation unit has
been set up by the national association of municipalities (Associaao Nacional dos
Municipios Cabo-verdiano) to manage and stabilize the system.
5. HOW TO CREATE LEVERAGE AND INCENTIVES

FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Finding sources of leverage is vital given the huge gap between adaptation and
mitigation investment needs and currently available funding capacities. As we
have seen, in the urban environment, it is difficult in practice to distinguish
between climate change investment and pure development investment. One way
of facilitating the implementation of dovetailed strategies would be to effectively
consolidate these two sources of financing.
Yet in addition to the availability of financing, the question of incentives is also
crucial to the least developed countries cities. These cities are confronted with
both a surfeit of needs, some of which are vital, and a shortage if not a complete
lack of resources for investment (Reid and Satterthwaite 2007). For these cities,
the cost of not taking mitigation action is zero and investment in adaptation is
second or third on the list of priorities.
Incentives can come from the governments, mainly in the form of additional
596
allocations from the central government budget for investments to meet a given
mitigation or adaptation goal. Incentives can also take the form of tax provisions, interest rate subsidies and even the transformation of loans into grants,
contingent upon achieving predetermined goals, obviously provided that the
funds for such mechanisms are made secure in the aid systems.
Examples of the different leverage and incentive techniques and measures are
the hybrid loan, credit enhancement, the buydown loan, whose characteristics
change depending on output, and obviously the various tax incentives for the
private sector as either investor or operator.
The hybrid loan is the result of a subsidy injected into a financial product (if this
product is already subsidized, the new contribution acts like an increase in the grant
element) to reduce its rate or change its characteristics (length and/or grace period)
to adjust it to the nature of the investment. The hybridization can be perpetuated by
the creation of a revolving fund (a model that can combine tax incentive provisions).
Such a mechanism could be used for local authorities, but also private operators.
For example, the United States introduced this model in the 1980s, using subsidies
granted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Different states set up
State Revolving Funds, within which these subsidies are hybridized with market
resources to create subsidized loans for authorities undertaking a certain type of
investment. The reimbursements of these loans replenish the fund, which is also
regularly topped up by federal subsidies. The system has since been extended to the
drinking water sector, involving private-sector players. Revolving funds have been
used for larger scale leverage operations, for example by setting up guarantee funds
to improve the retail banks financing conditions.
Some projects in the transport sector use similar set-ups, such as the Dakar
cars rapides bus project and the Cotonou motorcycle taxis project (projects
financed respectively by the World Bank and the French Development Agency).
The idea is to foster the renewal of the stock of passenger vehicles by encouraging
(private) owners to buy new, cleaner vehicles that emit less greenhouse gases.
These projects use a fund designed to subsidize the scrapping of obsolete vehicles
and a bonus paid to buy a clean car. They are underpinned by microcredit and
mesocredit establishments that can lend to operators, possibly grouped into
cooperatives to stand surety. These operations benefit from tax measures applied
to the private sector, whether central government measures (reduced VAT or
customs duties on certain types of vehicles) or measures implemented by the
local authorities themselves (total or partial exemption from operating fees for a
certain length of time, for example).
The buydown is a hybrid loan model that incorporates the principles of outputbased aid, whereby the loan interest is reduced or cancelled and the loan can be
totally or partially transformed into a grant on the basis of actual project or program
achievement of measurable targets set in advance. If performance is below par, the
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loan is not adjusted. Such a mechanism is ideal for a very soft loan with a grace
period. The grace period means that output can be assessed before the loan enters
the capital reimbursement phase. This type of financial product plays both an
incentive and empowerment role. What comes into play is not the availability of the
financing, but the price beneficiaries will ultimately pay for it, and, consequently,
their capacity to launch further operations with the same budget constraints.
Credit enhancement: donors or specialized institutions provide partial
guarantees destined to meet specific objectives for loans provided or bonds issued
by financial operators. The guarantee improves the operators rating and enables
him to access resources at better conditions, which he in turn passes on to the
borrowers. This solution is used for local authorities that undertake a certain type
of operation and for microcredit institutions, which increasingly use the capital
markets for their financing. Examples are the lines of credit designed to provide
attractive rates for households and small businesses in the informal sector to
finance the purchase of solar panels, energy-saving equipment, etc.
These types of incentives therefore call for special financing arrangements
upstream of and/or alongside existing funds. In some of the least developed countries,
donors have set up decentralization support instruments. These are funds (such as
the Agence Nationale dInvestissement des Collectivits Territoriales in Mali, or the
Commune/Sangkat Fund in Cambodia) that supplement the central government
allocations to the municipalities with subsidies, and are generally the receptacle for
the budgetary aid put in place by donor pooling. They finance operating expenditure
in certain sectors (especially the social sector) and investment expenditure. These
systems could be used to set up incentive instruments, but they focus mainly on
small urban authorities and local rural authorities, and their impact on investment is
limited insofar as they generally do not have the possibility to lend.
Intermediation tools such as national development funds and special local entities
modeled on the UDICs or the HIFU/LDIFs lend themselves well to leverage and/
or incentive arrangements of the buy-down type. Such structures are able to both
provide advice to the local authorities which remains a priority goal given the
limited absorption capacities and put together packages featuring this type of
financial product.
To increase these intermediation tools financial resources, their financing would
have to be diversified and linked or even mixed using various mechanisms. The
development funds are traditionally funded by central government budgets and
also by the donors, in the form of concessional loans (generally in foreign currency)
or subsidies, depending on the case. Yet, as we have seen, some of these funds have
started to finance themselves directly on the financial markets and in local currency.
One of the objectives of these structures, depending on the size and depth of
the market in which they operate, should be to position themselves as a credible
alternative to national and regional institutional investors, and even sovereign
598
funds, and to attract local savings. Another of their objectives should be to

capture the potential new generation resources whose appearance has drastically
changed the international aid architecture: carbon finance, obviously, but also
remittances (which represent more than international aid in volume terms for
some countries) and grants from major foundations (some of which now post
much greater intervention capacities than many bilateral agencies). The foundations may be more inclined than the cooperation agencies to make use of the
leverage inherent in the above-reviewed incentive models, provided investments
are targeted in their areas of intervention and funding traceability is guaranteed.
Upstream, at the level of international aid mechanisms, the search for new
resources to fill the current shortfall in financing capacity for climate change
investments has become a priority issue. A certain number of proposals have been
made by different countries and institutions in order to meet this need. These
proposals are not covered here, since they are beyond the scope of this article (for
an overview of these proposals, see Mller 2008). The following section looks at
a type of initiative that could facilitate priority investments in cities in the least
developed countries, post-conflict countries and fragile states.
6. TOWARDS A SPECIAL INITIATIVE FOR CITIES

IN FRAGILE STATES OR TRAPPED CITIES
Cities in post-conflict countries and fragile states amass handicaps. Their basic
investment needs are huge, their implementation capacities are low, and solvency
and access to borrowing are minimal or nonexistent. Management and governance problems aggravate their lack of appeal to private investors, and, to a
certain extent, donors as well. Moreover, donors, like the states, face pressing
needs in areas such as healthcare and food security. So many cities, mainly in
Africa, see their economic, financial, social and environmental situation deteriorate from year to year (this, it must be said, in a climate of widespread indifference). They spiral downwards in all areas, sucked into poverty traps hence the
term trapped cities from which it is virtually impossible to escape without
outside help (Paulais 2006).
This help does not necessarily imply massive investment sums to begin with,
since absorption capacities are relatively low. Yet setting recovery in motion does
call for emergency programs in infrastructures and basic services. This means that
resources have to be available, not necessarily to finance these programs directly,
but to facilitate their implementation. It also means securing a long-term undertaking from committed foreign partners to give the management authorities the
wherewithal to gradually develop their capabilities.
Urban sector assistance has not developed many financial engineering or
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policy innovations in recent years. The healthcare sector has seen the appearance
of a new tool, the GAVI Alliance, whose financing is underpinned mainly by
borrowing on the markets on the basis of advance pledges from donors. This
means that urgent actions way beyond current financing capacities can be taken
(HM Treasury-DFID 2003).The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership
specialized in vaccination campaigns. Its members are made up of donor states,
vaccine industry firms, research institutes, UN agencies, international donors
and the Gates Foundation (which donated the initial grant). One of the Alliance
bodies, the International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm), raises
funds for the programs by issuing bonds on the capital markets. These bonds
are guaranteed by binding 10-year to 20-year commitments by the donor states.
Consequently, they are given a AAA rating by the rating agencies. The Alliances
funds, including funds collected on the markets, are passed on as subsidies to
the recipient countries, but these countries must co-finance the programs that
concern them. The GAVI Alliance is an innovation in the international aid
landscape: an eclectic partnership that has created a simple mechanism, financed
by leverage on the capital markets.
This set-up takes advantage of rallying power of the vaccination cause on the
international scene. Although mitigation/adaptation for poor cities is probably
less gratifying in terms of image, the possibility of creating a similar initiative for
trapped cities is worth discussing.
This initiative would be a public-private partnership setup with market service
firms (groups working in water, electricity, solid waste and the environment,
transport, etc.), donors, regional development banks, major foundations (some
of which are already involved in the urban sector, such as the Gates Foundation),
sovereign states and rich Northern cities (individually or through their associations). The African continents sovereign funds might be interested in joining
this initiative, which, after all, concerns primarily the African economies and
their productivity. Given that these funds - Nigeria, Botswana, Libya, Algeria,
Sao-Tom and Principe, Sudan- represent a cumulative capital of some US$120
billion (African Development Bank 2009), the allocation of just a fraction of their
annual earnings would already be significant.
The role of the Northern cities in this partnership would concern institution
building, where they have a legitimate part to play, in keeping with multiannual
commitments. Yet there is the question of their involvement beyond this type
of action: given that the wealth of large cities in the North is comparable with,
if not greater than, many sovereign states (the metropolitan areas of Paris and
London each account for a GDP amount much greater than those of Belgium
or of Sweden, for example), there is good reason to ask whether their solidarity
is not financially undersized. These cities have the economic clout and credit
quality to mobilize funds, namely by making commitments against guarantees
600
and with ad-hoc revenues from paid services (for example, a recent law in
France authorizes local authorities to add surcharges to water rates to finance
international solidarity projects in the same water sector; another law authorizes them to sign multi-year cooperation agreements with Southern cities). In
addition, the weakness of the institutionalized relations between these associations of cities, donors and major foundations suggests that many opportunities
remain to be explored.
The idea of this initiative would not be to pass on all of its funds to the recipient
cities in the form of subsidies. This approach would deplete investment resources
prematurely. The initiative itself should seek leverage at the local level using the abovedescribed mechanisms, with one of its goals being precisely to promote systems in
which strengthened local authorities manage to secure local resources for themselves.
The global financial crisis has affected the investment sector as a whole, and
a large number of PPP projects in developing countries have been cancelled or
postponed (Harris and Pratan 2009; Leigland and Russell 2009). An initiative
to help trapped cities with a partnership that collects part of its resources on
the markets and from private partners or local authorities in the North, when
they themselves have suffered drops in revenues, might be met with a certain
amount of skepticism. However, we would point out that the World Banks first
issue of Green Bonds on the Swedish market in 2009 aroused a great deal of
interest and raised US$350 million. A second issue in Japan was also a clear-cut
success. With the crisis raging, investors have shown interest in AAA-rated
products, which meet ethical and environmental concerns about climate change.
This gives a glimpse of a potential future with new forms of partnership such as
the partnership mentioned for the poorest cities. The financing of mitigation/
adaptation investments of trapped cities could become a rallying point.
In the end, this proposal to launch an initiative to support cities in post-conflict
and fragile states, leads us back to a general conclusion: the access of local governments to available financing is limited by both the complexity and the fragmentation
of these mechanisms. Furthermore, the increasing role of cities in the implementation of urban investments is still largely underrated by the international development and scientific communities. Compounded by the lack of specific urban
financing mechanisms, there is considerable risk that the effectiveness of mitigation
and adaptation measures in cities will be significantly compromised.
CHAPTER 23
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References
African Development Bank and African Development Fund. 2009. Impact of the Global
Financial and Economic Crisis on Africa. Tunis: ADB
Ayers, Jessica. 2009. International Funding to Support Urban Adaptation to Climate
Change. Environment & Urbanization IIED 21 (1): 22540.
Collier, Paul, Gordon Conway, and Tony Venables. 2008. Climate Change in Africa.
Oxford Review of Economic Policy 24 (2): 33753.
Dasgupta, Susmita, Benoit Laplante, Craig Meisner, David Wheeler, and Jianping Yan.
2007. The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative
Analysis. Policy Research Working Paper 4136, World Bank, Washington, DC.
Dessus, Benjamin, and Bernard Laponche. 2008. Rduire le mthane : lautre dfi du
changement climatique. AFD Working Paper 68. AFD, Paris.
Figueres, Christiana, and Ken Newcombe. 2007. Evolution of the CDM: Toward 2012 and
Beyond. http://www.globalclimateaction.com.
Harris, Clive, and Kumar V. Pratan. 2009. What Drives Private Sector Exit from Infrastructure? Economic Crises and Other Factors in the Cancellation of Private Infrastructure Projects in Developing Countries. Grid Lines 46, PPIAF, Washington D.C.
HM Treasury. 2003. The International Finance Facility. Journal of International Development 16: 6
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2007. Climate Change 2007:
Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Fourth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva.
Leigland, James, and Henry Russel. 2009. Another Lost Decade? Effects of the Financial
Crisis On Project Finance For Infrastructure. Grid Lines 48, PPIAF, Washington D.C.
Mller Benito. 2008. International Adaptation Finance: The Need for an Innovative and
Strategic Approach. Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, EV 42.
Oxfam International. 2007. Financing Adaptation: Why the UNs Bali Climate Conference
must Mandate the Search for New Funds. Oxfam Briefing Note.
Paulais, Thierry. 2006. Le financement du dveloppement urbain dans les pays mergents :
des besoins et des paradoxes. Revue dEconomie Financire 86. Paris
Pfeifer, Gregor, and Geoff Stiles. 2008. Carbon Finance in Africa. Policy Paper presented
at the Africa Partnership Forum, Addis Ababa, November 17-18.
Reid, Hannah, and David Satterthwaite. 2007. Climate Change And Cities: Why Urban
Agendas are Central to Adaptation and Mitigation. IIED Sustainable Development
Opinion, December 2007.
Satterthwaite, David, Saleemul Huq, Mark Pelling, Hannah Reid, and Patricia Romero
Lankao. 2007. Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Areas. The possibilities and
constraints in low- and middle-income nations. London : IIED.
Toulmin, Camilla. 2009. Climate Change in Africa. London: Zebra.
UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). 2008. Investment
and Financial Flows to Address Climate Change: An Update. Bonn, Germany.
World Bank. 2006. State and Trend of the Carbon Market 2006. A Focus on Africa.
_____. 2008. The Clean Technology Fund. Washington, DC: World Bank.
CHAPTER
24
High Cost Carbon

and Local Government Finance
Patricia Clarke Annez,* Thomas Zuelgaray
Abstract
Global climate change has certain unique features in terms of optimal policy.
Some of these have been discussed already at the global level and some at the
national level. But what is the impact of these features on local government
finance? This paper examines the impact of high cost carbon on municipalities
finance. We compare municipalities finance in India (State of Maharashtra) and
in Spain. We conclude that raising energy prices will create an adverse fiscal shock
for local governments, the magnitude of which will depend on the structure of
spending. Smaller, less diversified governments currently operating at a low level
of service and with a very small operating deficit will be harder hit, precisely
because the most basic services tend to be energy intensive, and their energy bill
is high in relation to their scope for borrowing to weather the shock. However, all
municipalities would appear to be hard hit and a system of compensation from
national government would be needed to avoid disruption to essential services.

602
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603
1. INTRODUCTION
Global climate change has certain unique features in terms of optimal policy.
Some of these have been discussed already at the global level and some at the
national level. This paper contends that these features will also have implications
for fiscal federalism and this area has yet to be given much consideration. Cities,
in particular, need to consider the following points.
1. Climate change is a global externality. Accordingly, any reduction in carbon
emissions1 has equal value for mitigating climate changeno matter where
the reduction takes place.
2. This implies that the optimal Pigovian tax for reducing carbon emissions is
the same worldwide, and a fortiori, nationwide. In this way, the cost of reducing global emissions will be minimized because all potential emitters face the
same incentive to reduce emissions and will thus face price signals to reduce
emissions at least cost first.2
3. Partitioning the world into different groups who must reduce emissions looking only at their opportunity set rather than the worldwide set of opportunities for least cost emissions reductions will increase the world wide cost of
mitigation. Thus, any policy for mitigation should seek to adhere as closely as
possible to the principle of a uniform carbon price. Otherwise the efficiency
cost of a major reduction of a critical input economy-wide will be increased,
and this is neither desirable nor necessary.
4. This does not imply that all emitters should bear equally all the economic and
financial costs of reducing emissions. An equitable policy response requires
separating these two aspects of policy formulation. It is quite likely to be the
case that considerable negotiations will be needed to create a credible system for
burden sharing that will compensate poor countries for the costs they must bear
to address a problem that is not of their making because their contributions to
the existing greenhouse gas (GHG) stocks are minimal. Even future emissions
will not materially change this calculus when considered on a per capita basis.
5. Nonetheless, the long term strategy should to move at a suitable pace toward
uniform pricing of the marginal GHG emission. This implies that the costs of
energy will have to increase in developing countries.
1Following common practice, we refer to all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as carbon. This is merely a
shorthand for purposes of simplicity. Optimal policies will have to distinguish between GHGs based on their
different forcing factors (effect on climate). Abstracting from certain scientific uncertainties, these are relatively
easily reduced to broadly accepted carbon equivalence factors.
2For purposes of simplicity, we ignore questions of phasing here. It may well be politically impossible to raise
carbon prices equally worldwide in the immediate or even medium term.
604
6. Whether or not carbon taxes or cap and trade systems (C&T) are used to drive
up the cost of carbon and reduce emissions, this principle still holds. There are
important differences between cap and trade and carbon tax systems, but for
the purposes of this paper, the only one that matters is fiscal. A carbon tax,
by definition, gives rise to government revenues. C&T systems need not. For
our purposes, we will assume that governments would sell emissions permits
to obtain an equivalent quantity reduction, so the C&T and carbon tax would
have the same revenue implications. Therefore, for simplicity, we discuss carbon
taxes in this paper, and leave any discussion of the desirability of a tax vs. C&T
outside our discussion.
7. This paper explores a third element of necessary policiesfiscal burden sharing, ie. Possible intergovernmental imbalances that would arise because different levels of government will be exposed to different combinations of higher
costs and higher revenues. Discussions have already started regarding the
international implications of burden sharing. This paper would delve into the
question of intergovernmental burden sharing between sub-national governments, including municipal, and national governments, and to a lesser extent,
the question of how to manage the interpersonal burden sharing within the
national economy.
1.1 What is the Impact of High Cost Carbon
on Local Government Finance?
High cost carbon affects municipal finances from the expenditure side. How
significant an effect this will be depends on the functional responsibilities of local
government. Interestingly, some of the most basic functions are also some of the
most carbon intensive. For example, garbage collection/disposal, street lighting,
water delivery, transit, and operating schools and other municipal buildings are
energy intensive responsibilities of the local government.
High cost carbon could also affect the revenue side for municipalities.
However, it is quite likely to be the case that municipalities revenue bases are
much less sensitive to energy costs than are their expenditure bases. Moreover,
local government revenue sources are often not well structured to capture higher
energy prices. For example, water charges in many places in India are charged
as a fixed cess (fee) on top of property taxes, and would thus not have any ready
mechanism for responding to higher energy costs. In contrast, solid waste
collection fees, frequently charged out as a fixed percentage of the electricity bill
might fare better. Likewise, Municipalities that receive a share of gasoline taxes,
such as in Spain, could fare better than most of those in South Asia where taxation
of energy has been kept at the federal level.
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605
To make an assessment of the initial impact of higher carbon taxes on

municipalities, the carbon content of their revenues and expenditures needs
to be measured, along with the price sensitivity of both flows. A more general
equilibrium assessment would look at the impact once higher carbon prices had
worked their way through the price system to understand both the medium and
longer term impacts. It is probable that unintended fiscal imbalances could be
provoked at the sub-national, especially municipal, level due to higher carbon
taxation, if there are no compensating measures designed into the tax system.
This paper uses municipal revenue and spending data to develop a simple model
of the financial impacts of higher energy costs in various scenarios. The purpose of
this exercise is to illustrate the direction of impacts and interactions that may occur
in different municipal finance contexts. This rough modeling exercise is intended
to sensitize local, central and provincial governments to the likely implications of
higher energy prices so that appropriate compensatory measures are considered as
part of an overall package of policies for mitigating GHG emissions. Without such
measures, there are likely to be unintended consequences that could include a rapid
run up of municipal indebtedness or cutbacks of servicesall of which might be
avoided by properly redistributing tax revenues across levels of government.
2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

A large literature already exists on the establishment of an environmental tax
and its impact on economy. However, this literature rarely takes into account the
case of the developing countries. Moreover, if a literature on the relation between
governmental tax and sub national government tax exists, in the case of environmental tax this analysis is almost always posed in the context of unitary government. All this literature seeks to evaluate the optimal environmental tax. Major
contributions to this end have been made by Bovenber, Goulder, Parry and many
co-authors in the mid 1990s using general equilibrium system.
The relations between national government taxation and sub-national
government can be found in the work of Besley and Rosen on the vertical externalities in tax setting with the cases of gasoline and cigarettes taxes. Estimating the
magnitude of the responses of federal tax when federal government increases its
taxes, they find that there is a significant positive response of state taxes. However
they suggest more research to estimate how analyses of efficiency consequences of
federal excise taxes would change when effects upon state tax rates are taken into
account. They also warn us that if a positive interdependence between federal and
state tax rates exists, then there is a risk that non-cooperative tax setting between
federal and state governments results in excessive taxation of common tax bases.
Fredriksson and Mamun (2007) also study the vertical externalities in cigarette
606
taxation. They suggest that an increase in the federal cigarette tax may reduce the
average state cigarette tax rate. They conclude that a federal tax hike may reduce
state tax revenue via declines in two areas: the state tax base and the state tax rate.
Not many works have been done related to our subject in the case of developing countries. However, we can quote the work of Raja Chelliah and his book
Ecotaxes on the question of environmental tax. On matter of sub-national
government finance and intergovernmental transfers, we can quote the work
Anwar Shah with his guide to intergovernmental fiscal transfers. Another work
linked to our subject is the paper of Ahmad and Stern on effective carbon taxes
and public policy options. This paper based on the Indian case evaluates which
level of government might be responsible for the administration of this kind of
tax. Their conclusion is that such a tax has to be a central excise and that it is not
desirable to introduce differentiation into state level VATs, at least for the Indian
case. Their conclusion corresponds to our start point for this paper, which is a tax
administered at a central level and harmonized between all the countries.
3. Structure of Municipal Finances

To examine the questions described above regarding the impact of higher energy
costs on municipalities, we considered two different groups of municipalities,
those in Maharashtra, India and those in Spain. For both sets of municipalities, we
have reasonably detailed data on the structure of expenditures and revenues. The
data for Spain are at the national level, thus covering all municipalities. For India,
no such data exists, so we validated this data by comparing it with somewhat
more aggregated data from Kundu (2002) for the city of Ahmedabad, and from
Mohanty and others (2007) for the 35 metropolitan cities in India. The structure
of expenditures and the types of revenue sources in both these alternative data
sources, while more aggregated than our Maharashtra data, appear reasonably
similar, which gives us some confidence that the more detailed Maharashtra data
is representative.
These two examples represent systems that differ in important aspects,
including the sources of revenues, the structure of functions devolved and
spending, among others. A good knowledge of the structure of municipalities
expenditure is essential to understand how their finances will be affected by a
fluctuation of the energy price. Since there appears to be no direct measurement
of energy consumption for municipalities in either country, we approximate the
energy consumption by separating into different categories the different type of
expenditures by intensity of energy consumption. We have also reviewed the
structure of revenue flows, to understand which of these may be sensitive to
energy prices.
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607
3.1 Revenue
India and Spain have both decentralized many functions to sub national government: states for India and provinces for Spain. However, there is a considerable
difference in how the municipalities are financed in India and in Spain. Spain is
examined as a whole because most Spanish municipalities have similar revenue
structures (except for the Basque province). For India we choose to study the
Maharashtra State, because the State Finance Commission of this state made
a great effort to collect data on municipalities finances--work that only a few
Indian states have made so accurately.
For the Spanish municipalities finances we relied on the interesting work
of DEXIA3 on finances and competences on sub national government in the
European Union.
3.1.1
Spanish Municipalities
In Spain in 2005, 23% of the sub-national governments revenue went to municipalities, which represents the amount of 43 EUR billion, or 4% of GDP. The
revenue came fairly equally from taxes (33%), grants (36%) and other sources
such as fees and asset sales (31%), as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1
Sources of Revenue for Spanish Municipalities
Spanish Municipalities Revenue
in 2005
Tax revenue
MM*
% of Total
Revenue
14 201
33,1
of which own-source tax
(13 482)
(31,4)
of which shared tax
(719)
(1,7)
15 540
36,2
of which general grants
(7 085)
(16,5)
of which earmarked grants
(8 455)
(19,7)
13 132
30,6
of which asset sales
(106)
(0,2)
of which fees
(8 094)
(18,9)
42 873
99,9
Grants
Other
Total
Source: DEXIA (2005). *MM = Million
3DEXIA, Collective work under the direction of Dominique Hoorens, (2008) : Sub-national government in the
European Union. DEXIA Editions, July 2008
608
Tax Revenue
Spanish municipalities have own taxes revenue and revenue from shared taxes.
Their own taxes represent 95% of municipal tax revenue. Municipalities raise
several local taxes, the most important are shown in Table 2, below:
TABLE 2
Own-Source Tax Revenue for Spanish Municipalities
Municipalities
Own-Source Tax Revenue
% of Total
Municipal
Revenue
MM
% of Tax
Revenue
Tax on property
6 800
48
16
Tax on construction,
installations and works
2 200
15
Tax on motor vehicles
2 000
14
Tax on economic activities
1 300
Tax on capital gains in urban

areas
1 200
13 500
95
32
Total
Municipalities with more than 75000 inhabitants and capitals of provinces

receive shared tax receipts. A summary of these shared tax revenues are shown
in Table 3:
TABLE 3
Shared Tax Revenue for Spanish Municipalities
Municipalities
MM
% of Tax
Revenue
% of Total
Municipal
Revenue
1,7% of the Personal Income Tax
370
2,6
0,9
1,8% of the VAT
250
1,8
0,6
99
0,7
0,2
719
5,1
1,7
Shared Tax Revenue
2,0% of the excise taxes

Total
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609
There are several pathways through which energy price increases could affect
this municipal revenue base. For own-source revenues, however, all of these
would be second order effects, since none of the revenues are directly tied to
energy prices. These second order effects could be significant if, for example, the
relative price of housing and motor vehicles, for example, were to decline in the
face of higher energy prices. A Computable General Equilibrium model (CGE)
would be an excellent tool for exploring these impacts. In this simplified model,
municipal own-source revenue is assumed to be unaffected by fluctuations in the
price of energy. However, in the case of Spain, we consider that the shared excise
taxes fluctuate with the fluctuation of the price of energy because this tax includes
a hydrocarbon tax. Currently, this excise is a per unit charge, and would thus not
fluctuate with energy prices. However, a carbon tax that is ad valorem, could at
least be shared following the current sharing principle.
Grants
Municipalities receive an unconditional grant from the central government: the
municipal share of the State Tax (Criteria are population, fiscal effort and the
inverse of fiscal capacity). It represents 17% of total revenues.
Municipalities also receive earmarked grants for specific investment projects
such as transport infrastructure. They represent 20% of total revenues.
Other revenue
User charges on services or administrative functions supplied to all citizens, fees
and asset sales are the other sources of financing available to Spanish municipalities.
3.1.2
Indian Municipalities (Maharashtra)
Maharashtra has two forms of Urban Local Bodies (ULB): Municipal Corporations and Class Municipal Councils. The Municipal Corporations include megacities like Mumbai which are interesting in their own right, but quite different
from the smaller cities and towns covered in the Municipal Councils. Class
Municipal Councils form depend on the population. In Maharashtra there are
three types: A, B and C municipal councils representing in this order the most
populous cities to the least4. We amalgamated the sum of incomes and expenditures of the three types of municipal councils.
The structure of revenues in Maharashtra is different from the Spanish municipalities. Grants from the state government represent two-thirds (64%) of the total
revenue for municipalities in Maharashtra (compared to 37% in Spain), whereas
4The budgets for Spanish municipalities taken from Dexia include capital budget items. However for the Indian
municipalities, the capital budget items were insignificant and fluctuated greatly across municipalities and over
time. Since we were concerned with the reliability of this data, we did not include capital budget items on either
the cost or revenue side for the Maharashtra municipalities.
610
own Source Tax revenue represents just 17% of the total. This is partly a consequence of the difficulty to collect taxes for Indian municipalities. Moreover, the
absence of a system of shared taxes explains why grants in municipalities revenue
are so important. The general revenue structure and a breakdown of Maharashtra
own-source tax revenues are shown in Table 4 and Table 5 respectively.
TABLE 4
Sources of Revenue for Maharashtra Municipalities
Municipalities Revenue in 2000
Rs.MM
% of Total Revenue
Tax revenue
1 875
16,6%
Grants
7 272
64,2%
Other
2 178
19,2%
Total
11 326
100,0%
Source: Maharashtra State Finance Commission (2000).
Tax Revenue
Indian municipalities have own taxes revenue but no revenue from shared taxation.
Municipalities raise several local taxes, the most important are the following:
TABLE 5
Own-Source Tax Revenue for Maharashtra Municipalities
Municipalities
Rs.Mm
% of Tax
Revenue
% of Total
Municipal
Revenue
1,038
55
9,2
578
31
5,1
Own-Source Tax Revenue
Property Tax
Water Charges
Conservancy and Sanitation
21
0,2
Street Lights
0,1
0,0
License Fees and

Entertainment
Building Rents
Total
67
0,6
171
1,5
1 875
100
16,6
Source: Maharashtra State Finance Commission (2000).
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611
Grants
Grants from the States represent 64% of municipalities revenue. Municipalities
receive financing from about 30 state grants. Most of these grants are for specific
purposes, although incentive grants are provided to encourage better performance
in collecting water charges and property taxes. The most important grants are:
Dearness Allowance Grant, Grant for reimbursement of salary and leave salary
of Chief Officers, Land revenue and non agriculture assessment grant, Entertainment Grant, Stamp Duty Grant, Pilgrim Tax, Minor Mineral Grant, Profession Tax
Grant, Road Grant, Octroi Compensation Grant (Octroi have been abolished in
2000), Primary Education Grant, Slum Improvement, Incentive Grant.
Many of these grants compensate municipalities for local taxing powers
that were repealed, most notably octroi. The principles upon which they are
distributed are not uniform, and often times are ad hoc. This lack of predictability
affects planning of expenditure strategies for municipalities.
Other Revenue
Other revenue represents 19% of municipalities revenue. These sources include
parking fees, permit fees, service fees and user charges, rent from commercial
complexes, development fees for granting permission to construct buildings on
vacant plot, and other fees and charges etc.
3.2 Expenditures
Here we explore expenditures for Spanish and Indian municipalities side-byside. The structure of expenditure is very different between Spanish and Indian
municipalities. Whereas Spanish municipalities spend 30% of their revenue in
capital expenditure, almost all the revenue of Indian municipalities is spent in
current expenditure, most of which is dedicated to staff cost.
Functions assumed by municipalities are not the same either, even if there are
some in common such as water supply, garbage collection etc However these
common expenditures do not represent the same percentage of the total expenditure in the two countries. In the following we will detail these expenditures
under the point of view of energy consumption.
In 2005, Spanish municipalities expenditure reached 43.5 EUR billion, which
represents 13% of total public expenditure in Spain, and 4.5% of GDP. These
ratios are among the highest in the European Union. 70% of municipalities
expenditure is current expenditure, of which 45% (representing 30.6% of total
expenditures) is staff costs. The remaining 30% are capital expenditure.
In contrast, municipalities expenditure in Maharashtra, India reached 11 121
Rs.MM. This expenditure is almost entirely current expenditure, as the reported
capital expenditure is minimal.
Municipal expenditures for India and Spain have been itemized by function
and are shown in Table 6 and Table 7, respectively. It should be noted that for
612
India, differentiation is made between obligatory functions such as water supply,

fire brigades and street lighting, versus discretionary functions such as urban
poverty alleviation and destruction of harmful animals. For both Spain and
India, it is expected that different municipal functions will require energy inputs
at varying degrees of intensity.
Unfortunately, there is little published data on the actual use of energy in
different municipal functions. This is because separate activities are often not
ring-fenced and actual energy usage is not tracked. Therefore, we imputed energy
intensities to different activities based on the likely profile of energy use. To do
so, we created three different categories of spending based on energy intensity
of total spending, and made reasonable assumptions about the extent of energy
use in each, which we then vary later in sensitivity testing. We categorized the
different functions according to percentage of costs incurred for energy: insignificant (0%), significant (20%) and intense (90%). These imputed intensities reflect
fairly conservative assumptions on intensity of energy use by category.
TABLE 6
Energy Intensity of Municipal Expenditures in Maharashtra, India
Energy
Consumption
Sector
General Administration, Salaries,
Pension & Pensionary Benets etc
Insignicant
Signicant
28,7%
3 389
0,3%
35
total
29%
3 423
Fire Brigade (O)
0,3%
32
Slaughter Houses (D)
0,0%
Education, Libraries,Free Reading Halls

etc. (D)
9,3%
1 099
Museums, Art Galleries, Recreation

Centres, Playgrounds, Gardens etc. (D)
0,7%
87
Epidemics & Public Health (O)
1,4%
169
32,8%
3 873
45%
5 263
total
Roads (O)
8,1%
953
Street Lighting (O)
3,3%
386
Sanitation, Solid Waste Management &

Drain, Mechanical & Electrical etc (O)
5,6%
664
Water Supply (O)
9,6%
1 133
total
Total
Budget
(Rs.Mm)
Administration of Shops &

Establishment Act 1948, & Markets (D)
Other Expenditure
Intense
% of Total
Expenditure
27%
3 137
100%
11 822
CHAPTER 24
613
TABLE 7
Energy Intensity of Municipal Expenditures in Spain
Energy
Consumption
Sector
General public services
1. Insignicant
2. Signicant
3. Intense
Total
% of Total
Expenditure
33
Budget (
MM)
16 432
Social protection
4 068
total
42
20 500
Education
2 200
Health
622
Recreation, culture and religion
11
5 351
Public order and safety
3 882
total
25
12 055
Housing and community

amenities
10
4 693
Economic affairs
14
6 998
Environment protection
10
4 993
total
34
16 684
100
49 239
We used the same coefficients for the municipalities in Spain and India for
simplicity, since there is little data available to determine whether these differ.
Thus what drives the differences between the two is the distribution of spending
by function. Of course, with better data, such estimates could be refined.
In comparison to Spanish municipalities, we observe that the share of functions
not using energy is more important in the Spanish case than the Indian. This is
somewhat surprising given that a large share of Indian municipality spending is
for payrolls. Actually the difference is the share of spending for services that use
little energy. Spanish municipalities have program of social protection, it represents almost 10% of their expenditure. In Indian municipalities the amounts
spent on that type of programs is much smaller.
By contrast, a larger share of the Indian municipalities spending is for activities where the consumption of energy is significant. This is due to the important
number of public buildings that require energy for heating and cooling as well as
public transport which appears in the category other expenditure.5 Since public
transport and environment are important items in this category, we chose to
categorize this spending as having a significant energy content, i.e. 20%.
5Unfortunately, the expenditure accounts of Indian municipalities include a large item (other expenditures)
greater than 30% of total, which includes a large number of disparate items. More breakdown of those items
would be needed to get a better sense of how energy intensive spending is.
614
Functions with an intense consumption of energy are more important in Spain

mainly due to the amounts spent on public transport infrastructures, industry,
communication etcand construction and upkeep of social housing which do
not exist in India municipal expenditures. Functions of Indian municipalities
which appear in this category are essentially water supply, garbage collection,
street lighting and sewage, representing 27% of total expenditure.
Using the breakdown of spending and assumptions with regard to energy
intensity, we find that despite all of the differences in the basic structure, both sets
of municipalities (Spain and India) end up with roughly one-third of spending
being energy price sensitive.
4. ECONOMIC MODEL
We now present the model used to simulate the impacts of higher energy prices
on municipalities finances with a view to understanding the effects of policies
that increase the price of traditional energy. For these simulations, we will establish three different scenarios. In the first one, we allow municipalities to increase
their deficit in the face of higher energy costs. This implicitly assumes that higher
deficits can be financed. In the second one and the third, the initial deficit will be
constant, and municipalities will have to decide to make cuts in their expenditure.
To simplify, we will consider only two prices. First the average unit price
of energy (whatever the source of energy) PE in municipal expenditures. The
other price PNE is the average unit price of all the municipal expenditures except
energy goods.
At these prices are associated quantities. QE is the quantity spending on
energy and QNE the quantity of spending that do not consume energy.
Notations:
PE: Unit price of energy

PNE: Unit price of municipal expenditures not linked to energy
QE: Quantity of spending on energy
QNE: Quantity of spending that do not consume energy
R: Municipalities revenue
RE : Revenues linked to energy prices
RNE: Revenues not affected by energy prices
CHAPTER 24
615
E: Municipalities expenditure
EE : Expenditures only linked to energy prices
ENE : Expenditures not affected by energy prices
X: Municipalities deficit
Equations:
Ei = Pi .Qi (Equation of expenditure)

R + X = E (Budgetary equation)
4.1 Scenario 1: Decit Endogenous
In this scenario we consider the deficit as an endogenous variable. QE is also a

endogenous variable which depend on the fluctuation of the energy price with
an elasticity . PE, the new energy price, is the exogenous variable. All the rest
is constant. The aim is to highlight the impact of fluctuation in energy price on
the municipalities deficit. The full derivation of the following equations has been
omitted, but can be obtained by contacting the authors.
The budgetary equation is: PE .QE + PNE .QNE = R + X = E
We shock the price of energy:
PE .QE + PE .QE ) + PNE .QNE = R + X + R + X) = E + E
The new budgetary equation is:
With :
PE . QE + PNE .QNE = E
PE = PE +
[(
) ]
P
QE = . E 1 + 1 . QE
PE
E = R + X
616
Then we have two different cases due to structural differences between Spanish
and Indian municipalities sources of income.
Indian case :
Incomes of Indian municipalities are not sensitive to the price of energy. Thus
energy prices only affect the cost base and spending: R = R, and X = E - R
We have therefore the new deficit:
Spanish case:
Spanish case is more complex because some of the municipal incomes came
from shared tax which is linked to the hydrocarbon price. Municipal incomes are
therefore composed of a part which is not linked with energy price, and another
which fluctuate with the price of energy (with an elasticity R):
R = RE + RNE
with elasticity:
After several intermediate steps, the form of the new incomes is given by:
R = RNE + RE
With:
[ (
)]
P
R = R + R and RE = RE 1+ R. E 1
PE
For the simulation, we will take: R = 1 . This merely assumes that any increase
in energy prices and tax revenues will be passed through fully in the taxes shared
with the municipalities. As municipal revenues increase, they must decide how
to spread income between the two types of spending, energy sensitive and
non-energy sensitive. We assumed to share this increase in income between
energy and non-energy expenditures according to their share in total spending
after the price shock.
CHAPTER 24
617
a is the percentage of new energy expenditure in total new expenditure:
And b is the percentage of non-energy expenditure in total new expenditure:
Finally :
EE = PE .QE a . R
ENE = PNE .QNE = b . R
And :
X = EE .ENE R
4.2 Scenario 2: Non-Energy Expenditures Endogenous
In this scenario, we consider the municipal deficit as a constanta municipality

cannot increase its deficit. With this consideration, the quantity QNE becomes
an endogenous variable of the model. However the elasticity of QNE face to PE
is considered to be zero. QE remains an endogenous variable and PE an exogenous one. All the rest is constant.
Equations and development are the same than for the scenario 1, except that
QNE has became the endogenous variable instead of E . Therefore we obtain:
PE . QE +PNE . QNE = E
With:
PE = PE +
[(
) ]
P
QE = . E 1 + 1 . QE
PE
QNE
E PE . QNE
PNE
618
Indian case: In the Indian case, this is the final equation.

Spanish case: In the Spanish case, we still have the incomes which are endogenous.
Then:
P .Q
E
= PE .QE a . R
PNE . QNE = PNE . QNE b . R

With a and b the percentages of non-energy expenditure in total expenditure if
the total expenditure was endogenous variable.
We finally obtain:
4.3 Scenario 3: Non-Energy Spending Endogenous, Redistribution

of Expenditure Shares
This scenario is similar to the scenario 2 because deficit is a constant and QNE an
endogenous variable. Difference is that we consider that the cost of this fluctuation in energy price on quantity of goods and services supply by municipalities will
be redistributed between quantities spending on energy and non energy. In this
case, the local government chooses to keep the part of each energy and non energy
expenditures in total expenditure after the shock of the energy price constant.
PE . QE+PNE . QNE = E
With :
PE = PE +
[(
QE = .
) ]
PE
1 + 1 . QE
PE
CHAPTER 24
619
is the percentage of energy expenditure in new total expenditure, and the one
of non energy expenditure :
The final equation is given as:
With :
PE = PE +
[(
) ]
P
QE = . E 1 + 1 . QE
PE
E the variation of total expenditure if E would be an endogenous variable
Indian case: In the Indian case, this is the final equation.

Spanish case: In the Spanish case, we still have the incomes which are endogenous. So we finally obtain on the same structure than equation founded in
scenario 2:
QNE =
E PE . QE E a R
PE
PE
PNE
620
5. SIMULATIONS AND RESULTS

Using the preceding economic model, we simulated the three scenarios with
different parameters to evaluate the impact of an increase of the energy prices
on municipalities finance. In this part we will discuss the results, bringing back
the model results to the reality facts. We will also analyze the influence of the
different parameters on the model.
5.1 Initial Conditions
First of all we input the initial conditions for the two different types of municipalities of our model.
TABLE 8
Initial Conditions for Economic Model of Maharashtra Municipalities
India
R (Incomes)
(Rs.Lakhs) E (Expenditures)
X (Decit)
113 Part of energy

259 consumption:
Insignicant:
0%
118
221
Signicant :
20%
Intense :
90%
4 962
Ee (Energy expenditure)
Qe (Quantity
38 754 of energy
consumed)
Ene (Non energy

expenditure)
79 467
Qne (Quantity
of non energy
goods
consumed)
38 754
79 467
CHAPTER 24
621
TABLE 9
Initial Conditions for Economic Model of Spanish Municipalities
Spain
R (Incomes)
42 Part of energy
873 consumption :
Insignicant:
( MM)
E (Expenditures)
49
239
Signicant:
20%
Intense:
90%
X (Decit)
0%
6 366
Ee (Energy expenditure)
Qe (Quantity
17
of energy
427
consumed)
17 427
Ene (Non energy

expenditure)
Qne (Quantity
31 of non energy
812 goods
consumed)
31 812
Initially the unit prices of energy and non energy good are input to value 1.
That explains the equality between quantities and expenditures in these charts.
The types of municipalities in India and Spain are too different to compare
the sums that appear in these charts. We can, however, compare the distribution
of the finances. The part of Ee6 and Ene7 in the total expenditure are almost the
same for India and Spain as we saw in the structure of municipalities (see chapter
-II-). By contrary, the ratio deficit over expenditure X/E is much higher in the
Spanish case. That will have consequence on the increase of deficit in the scenario
1. Of courses it is possible that this ratio is undervalued in the Indian case with a
deficit relatively low. But this fact will not influence the aim of our results as we
work on the comportment of the deficit face to a shock of energy price and not
its original level.
Elasticity of the municipalities quantity of energy good face to the price of
energy is an important parameter. In the literature we found elasticity around
-0.4 and -0.2 (depend on long/short term: -0.2 short term provided by INSEE8
and the RAND9) for individuals.
6Expenditure on energy.
7Spending on good not using energy.
8INSEE: Institue National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques. French national institute for statistic and
economic studies. Danielle Besson, Insee (2008): Consommation dnergie: autant de dpenses en carburants
quen nergie domestique. Insee Premire N1176, fvrier 2008.
9The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions
that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. Michael Toman, James
Griffin, Robert J. Lempert, (2008): Impacts on U.S. Energy Expenditures and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions of
Increasing Renewable-Energy Use. Published 2008 by the RAND Corporation.
622
We expect a municipality to have lower short term price elasticity for energy
spending, since reducing energy expenditures could involve reductions of critical
public services like street lighting and garbage collection. Soft options like using
public transport rather than a car are not possible for these public services. But
with time and technological progress this elasticity will become higher in absolute
terms. That is why we will separate short term and long term. Short term will be
assigned an elasticity of -0.1 and long term -0.4 which represent extreme values.
5.2 Simulations and Results Scenario 1
In scenario 1 the deficit is endogenous. This means that municipalities are able
to borrow to finance an increase in their deficit which bears the brunt of the
increase in the price of energy. Municipalities refuse to reduce their spending on
goods non using energy, and the reduction of their spending on energy in just
influence by the elasticity and no other political reason.
Results:
5.2.1
Short term: Elasticity = -0.1
FIGURE 1
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Municipal Decit
CHAPTER 24
623
As it was predictable, the deficit increases with the increase of the price of
energy. First observation is that for an increase of 20% of the price of energy,
deficits in India (Maharashtra) rose by 140% and by 50% in the Spanish case (see
Figure 6). It is therefore easily understandable that a municipality cannot sustain
such an increase of energy price. An increase of 5% already leads to an increase
of 50% of the deficits in India. Expenditures are too sensitive to energy price to
be able to sustain an increase of 5%. The intuition behind this result is essentially
that in municipalities with limited resources and functions and financial capacity,
their deficit is relatively small in relation to their energy related spending. A
significant increase in the price of energy could put them in financial distress.
The percentage impact on the deficit in Spain is much less significant for the
same increase in the energy price, even though the percentage of spending that
linked to the price of energy is relatively similar. This is because the baseline Spanish
municipalities deficit in relation to total spending is much higher, indicating significantly more access to deficit finance than in the Indian case. That explains that the
increase of deficit is lower in the Spanish case. Figure Omitted illustrates this by
tracking the ratio of the deficit to total expenditure as the energy price increases.
This ratio moves similarly for both Spanish and Indian municipalities.
If we examine the quantity of energy consumed (see Figure 7), we first note
that both groups reduce energy use substantially even though energy spending
increases. Because of the relatively low elasticity with respect to price, the price
increase much outpaces the capacity to conserve on the quantity of energy
consumed, at a rate of 10 to 1 for an elasticity of 0.1.
% Increase of Qe
FIGURE 2
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Quantity of Energy Expenditures
624
To summarize scenario 1, for the short term, a small increase of energy price
has the desired effect of reducing the quantity of energy consumed, although it
is quite limited. This comes at the cost of an increase in the deficit for both sets
of municipalities, a very dramatic one in the Indian model. The impact of the
shared tax on energy is limited because it is very small in relation to the increase
in spending. If we examine Spain with and without this shared tax, the increase
of deficit is 1% lower for a 70% increase in the price of energy.
5.2.2
Long term: Elasticity = -0.4
Over the long term, with technical progress and investments in new technologies,
municipalities are better able to reduce consumption in the face of higher energy
prices. We represent this longer term scenario by increasing the price elasticity to
-0.4. The results are shown in Figure 8 below.
Before discussing the results, it is worth noting that there is nothing automatic
about moving from the short to the long term scenario. As we saw above, municipalities will face chronic deficits as a result of energy price increases, and will thus
have no fiscal space for investment in energy efficient technologies. Their creditworthiness ratios will all be deteriorating as spending increases, yet they will need
to borrow to finance current spending. Without some concessional finance or
grants, it is hard to imagine moving to this longer term scenario.
FIGURE 3
Long-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Municipal Decit
CHAPTER 24
625
In the long terms with an elasticity of -0.4 we see that the impact of an increase
of energy price on deficit is, as expected much less than in the previous case. This
time for an increase of 20% of the price of energy, deficits in India rose by 80%
and by 30% in the Spanish case (see Figure 8), as opposed to 140% and 50% in the
previous case. The quantity of energy consumed declines much more than in the
earlier case (see Figure 9). This scenario illustrates that the longer term impact
on municipalities deficit is much less serious, although still substantial, provided
they are able to invest in energy saving technologies.
% Increase of Qe
FIGURE 4
Long-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Quantity
of Energy Expenditures
5.3 Simulations and Results Scenario 2: Fixed Fiscal Decit
In scenario 2, we assume that municipalities are not able to expand borrowing

to absorb the impacts of an energy price increase. The deficit remains fixed at its
initial value and spending must be restructured to cope with higher energy costs.
In this scenario, we assume that spending on energy based goods responds as
in scenario 1, based on the elasticity with respect to price. All other spending is
reduced to meet the fixed deficit target.
626
Results :
5.3.1
Short term : Elasticity = -0.1
In this scenario, the impact of an increase of energy price on the quantity spending
on energy is the same as before. We still have a decrease of 1% of quantity for a
10% increase of energy price. Now it is the quantity spending on activities that do
not use energy (Qne) that must be reduced to meet the deficit target. As discussed
above, this would cover items like social welfare spending, salaries, including
teachers in the case of Spain, and general administration. The intuition behind
this formulation is that the energy spending is related to basic services that must
be maintained. If fiscal restraint is needed, the salary bill, social safety nets and
administration costs are more likely candidates for spending cuts.
This set of assumptions results in fairly dramatic cuts in non-energy spending.
Qne decreases by close to 20% when the energy price rises by 50%. Such a 20%
across the board cut in non-energy spending seems hardly conceivable for any
municipality, even those most committed to belt tightening.
Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the quantities of goods and services provided by
local governments in response to higher energy prices in a fixed deficit scenario.
The first line Qe plus Qne shows the total impact of the higher prices on ability to
spend. The two others show how it is divided between energy and non-energy if
one seeks to protect energy public services and absorb the shock with more discre-
% Increase
FIGURE 5
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Municipal Expenditures
in Maharashtra, India (Scenario 2)
CHAPTER 24
627
tionary spending. It seems highly unlikely, however, that such dramatic cuts could
actually be sustained. Hence it is more likely that spending in both areas would
have to be cut in a scenario of strong fiscal restraint. This is examined in scenario 3.
% Increase
FIGURE 6
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Municipal Expenditures
in Spain (Scenario 2)
5.4 Simulations and Results Scenario 3
This scenario is similar to the scenario 2 in that the municipalities deficit is

constant. The difference is that in this scenario the burden of an increase of
energy price will be shared between the quantity spending on goods non-using
energy (Qne) and quantity spending on energy (Qe). Now municipalities will
choose to cut even more in their quantity of spending on energy to preserve a
little more the quantity spending on goods non using energy (and so payroll
and the wages). How do they choose to share the burden? Municipalities are
assumed calculate their deficit as if they will be allowed to let it run after the
price shock. They then reduce pro rata all expenditure categories by the same
percentage to reach the desired new level of spending. The result is that Qe
will decrease more significantly than in the scenario 2, and Qne will reduce less
than in the previous scenario.
628
Results:
5.4.1
Short term : Elasticity = -0.1
As in the scenario 2, we follow the evolution of Qne. As expected the reduction

of Qne is less important than in the scenario 2 (compare Figure 7 and Figure 8
with Figure 5 and Figure 6). For example, for a 50% increase of energy price,
Qne decreases by 12% in scenario 3 whereas Qne decrease by 22% in scenario
2. The results are similar for both India and Spain. The wedge between the two
scenarios increases as the energy price increases. Nonetheless even with this more
even handed sharing of the pain of higher price increases, the burden on public
services, social safety nets, and required reductions in salary bills is dramatic and
hardly likely to be sustainable.
Of course, Qne is preserved because Qe decreases more rapidly than in
scenario 2. If we take a look at the evolution of the total quantity (Qe + Qne), it
decrease more rapidly than in scenario 2 for both Spanish and Indian municipalities. Overall, this shows there is no escaping the costs of higher energy prices.
While scenario 3 is a more balanced strategy, if deficits cannot be accommodated,
public services suffer considerably as energy becomes more expensive.
% Increase
FIGURE 7
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variatiion on Municipal Expenditures
in India (Scenario 3)
CHAPTER 24
629
% Increase
FIGURE 8
Short-Term Impact of Energy Price Variation on Municipal Expenditure
in Spain (Scenario 3)
5.5 Sensitivity to the Elasticity Parameter
One of the most important parameters of the model is the elasticity of quantity of
spending on energy with respect to the price of energy. To evaluate its influence
on the model, we will see its impact on the deficit (scenario 1) for an increase of
energy price by 50% (see Figure 9). As we see, elasticity has a strong influence on
the increase of deficit. That is why we examined different values (-0.1 short term
and-0.4 long term) to examine the impact on the deficit. The longer the period
of adjustment, the higher one would expect the elasticity to be. This sensitivity
thus illustrates that this problem is more one of a temporary adjustment, albeit
over a period of decades most likely, provided assistance is provided to facilitate
adoption of improved technologies that will in turn decline in price. This graph
indicates that, at very high elasticities, ie in a very long term, responding effectively to higher energy prices can lower the overall energy bill for municipalities,
and thus reduce a significant element in their cost base.
630
FIGURE 9
Sensitivity of Decit to Elasticity of Expendituresof Energy Expenditures
Increase of the deficit with variation of the elasticity (Energy Price increase = 50%)
500%
400%
% Increase of deficit
300%
200%
100%
0%
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.6
-0.7
-0.8
-0.9
-1
-100%
-200%
-300%
Elasticity
6. CONCLUSIONS
This paper sought to examine the fiscal effects for local governments of very sensible
policies for climate change, the most efficient policy for reducing GHG emissions
applied economy-wide, that is, application of higher energy prices throughout the
global economy to elicit reductions in GHG intensive energy use. These price
changes are necessary to provide incentives to invest in energy saving technologies,
to improve management practices etc. If designed correctly, such green taxes would
provide a fiscal boon to government in general, because taxes (or their equivalent in
auctioned permits) will bring substantial revenues to government.
What this paper does is look beyond the unitary government to examine the
impacts for different levels of government with different taxation powers and
different spending profiles. We used data on the spending and revenue profiles of
two sets of local governments, those in Maharashtra, India, and those in Spain.
In both cases, we found stylized facts that are quite representative of local governments world-wide. Local government revenues are not highly sensitive to the
price of energy. Therefore, there will be no fiscal gain for local governments if
energy prices increase, as they must do.
On the other hand, many of the public services that local governments
provide are energy intensive. The ability to substitute away from using energy
CHAPTER 24
631
in providing these services is quite limited in the short term, even more limited
than for individual consumers. For example, garbage cannot be hauled in public
transport, but must instead rely upon conventional trucks until alternative
technologies are available. So municipalities will have difficulty reducing their
energy bills in the short term.
As a result, raising energy prices will create quite an adverse fiscal shock for
local governments. Our analysis illustrates just how adverse this shock will be, and
how the structure of spending affects the magnitude of the fiscal shock. Smaller,
less diversified governments currently operating at a low level of service and with
a very small operating deficit will be harder hit, precisely because the most basic
services tend to be energy intensive, and their energy bill is high in relation to
their current deficit financing envelope. However all municipalities would appear
to be quite hard hit. Whether the shock is absorbed in deficit spending or in fiscal
restraint, there will be a substantial shock. The pain results from the difficulty of
reducing energy spending quickly in the short term.
The policy implications are clear, and they consist in reconsidering fiscal federalism in light of the climate change challenge. The level of government taxing
energy will be running large surpluses corresponding to these dramatic fiscal
crises provoked at the local level in the scenarios we have examined. Compensation for local governments hard hit by high energy bills makes sense both to
protect the financial integrity of local governments and ensure reasonable service
delivery. It makes a great deal more sense to compensate these local governments plunged into a crisis that is not of their own making using the extra funds
generated at higher levels of government that are generating revenues from
energy taxation.
This also makes more sense than the alternatives. Asking municipalities
to cover these energy induced deficits by hiking their own taxes or charges
would just involve burdening consumers already hit by higher energy prices
for their own consumption and could quite likely lead to a tax payer rebellion.
Asking them to reduce critical public services like solid waste management to
meet a local budget constraint when surpluses are swelling at higher levels is
counterproductive. It would also lead to an unintended increase in government
saving that throws the overall government fiscal stance out of balance. This
notion of compensation of local governments is similar to that which has been
occasionally been proposed for private consumers hit by carbon taxes (or the
impacts of a cap and trade system). There it has been argued that the carbon
tax proceeds could be redistributed to the general public through a reduction
in something like the payroll tax. The key is to find a reasonable compensation
system that is not tied directly to energy spending, which would blunt incentives to conserve. Something like a poll credit (as opposed to a poll tax) might
have the desirable properties.
632
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Suboptimality of First-Best Decision Rules. Land Economics 81 (3): 32136.
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RAND Corporation.
CHAPTER
25
Mobilizing Private Sector Resources

Toward Climate Adaptation
and Mitigation Action in Asia
Jacob Park*
Summary
This paper will explore the current state of and future outlook for mobilizing
private sector resources in the Asian post-climate 2012 policy context, with a
special emphasis on the energy poor and environmentally fragile urban population. Two issues and questions will be explored in this paper. First, what is the
current state of and future outlook for public and private investments to address
global/Asian climate change concerns? Second, what new triple bottom line
strategy of financing climate change action is required to respond more effectively to the urban climate change dilemma in Asia?

Q
633
634
1. INTRODUCTION
In the 15 years since the adoption of the Kyoto climate change protocol in 1997,
increasing scientific concerns about climate change, growing inevitable sense of a
global climate regulatory regime, and accelerating use of Kyoto Protocol market
mechanisms have propelled many new types of private sector responses to global
climate change around the world, ranging from energy efficiency and clean
technology focused policy approaches, voluntary carbon mitigation programs,
and mandatory emissions trading regimes.
There has also been a rapid increase in high level calls for increased financial
resources devoted to climate adaptation and mitigation activities. Most notably,
European Union proposed in Fall 2009 that the industrialized countries should
give developing countries US$74 billion a year by 2020 and should begin with
an annual US$7.5 to 10 billion from 2010 to 2012 in fast start finance (Barber
2009). Underscoring the serious financial dimensions of creating a long-term
sustainable climate change solution, Oxfam (2009) stated in a recent report that
an additional US$42 billion in humanitarian need will be urgently required to
help developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change.
The urgency in which the funds are needed to address climate adaptation and
mitigation activities are not contested; what is less clear is where the necessary
funds will come from. This chapter1 will explore the current state of and future
outlook for mobilizing private sector resources (financial, technological, and
organizational) in the Asian post-climate 2012 policy context, with a special
emphasis on the energy poor/environmentally fragile urban population. While
the percentage of climate projects sourced from Asia nearly doubled in 2007 and
Asia continues to attract the bulk of the Clean Development Mechanism related
investments, it remains unclear how and to what degree the relative health of
the voluntary carbon market address the long-term sustainability needs of the
Asian energy poor/environmentally insecure urban population. Two issues and
questions will be explored in this chapter
First, what is the current state of and future outlook for public and private
investments to address Asian climate change concerns? Finance is one of the
building blocks of the Bali Action
Plan. Like other parts of the world, Asian countries will be under a lot of
pressure to accelerate the mobilization of bilateral/multi-lateral aid and private
investment flows to address regional climate change concerns. Second, what
new triple bottom line strategy of financing climate change action is required
to respond more effectively to the urban climate change dilemma in Asia? Since
1I gratefully acknowledge the support and comments received at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
Policy Forum on Energy Security and Post-2012 Climate Regime Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand in
August 2008 in shaping the analysis presented in this paper.
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635
industry currently accounts for one-third of the energy consumed worldwide

and growing carbon and energy footprint of China, India, and emerging Asian
countries, there is a urgent need to improve our understanding of the complex
global/Asian regional policy interplay between private sector and climate change
governance as part of an overall goal to build a sustainable post-2012 climate
policy framework.
2. CURRENT AND FUTURE OUTLOOK FOR PRIVATE

AND PUBLIC INVESTMENTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL
AND ASIAN CLIMATE ACTIVITIES
2.1 Dening the Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Investment
Need
The Bali Action Plan stated the importance of mobilizing financial resources
and investment to support climate change-related mitigation, adaptation and
technology cooperation activities, including improved access to adequate,
predictable and sustainable financial resources and financial and technical
support mobilization of public- and private-sector funding and investment,
including facilitation of carbon-friendly investment choices financial and
technical support for capacity-building in the assessment of the costs of adaptation in developing countries, in particular the most vulnerable one (Nakhooda
2008; UNFCC 2007a).
Despite the obvious importance, it is unclear what constitutes or how one
might define a sustainable level of financial resources and investments in
climate change-related mitigation, adaptation and technology cooperation activities. On the lower end of the cost estimate, the World Bank (2008) estimates
that up to $100 billion in mitigation and $30-70 billion in adaptation spending
will be required in 2030, 80 percent of which will have to be financed by the
private sector. At the high end of the estimate, the Stern Review (2006) suggests
committing 1 percent of the global GDP, somewhere between $350 and $480
billion each year to cut GHG emissions. At the middle of the cost estimate, the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change report (UNFCCC
2007[b]) states that additional mitigation-related investment and financial flows
of $200-210 billion as well as $20-30 billion in adaptation-related investment
and financial flows would be necessary in 2030 just to return GHG emissions
to current levels, with 86 percent of the investment and financial flows being
generated from the private sector. (UNFCC 2007b).
According to Asian Development Bank (2009) report, Economics of Climate
Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review, there are also growing number
636
of regional and global financial (both private and public) resources to address
climate adaptation and mitigation activities. However, these financial resources
are likely to fall way short of what will be required to address climate adaptation
and mitigation programs, activities, and projects in Southeast Asia.
2.2 Measuring the Global and Asian Climate Financial
and Investment Flows
The global carbon market grew to $64.0 billion in 2007, more than doubling
the figure from 2006, according to a recent World Bank report (Capoor and
Ambrosi 2008). The report also notes that the emissions allowance market,
which consists of the Chicago Climate Exchange ($72 million); New South
Wales GHG Reduction Scheme ($224 million); and the European Union
Emission Trading Scheme ($50.0 billion) also saw a doubling of both value (to
$50.3 billion) and number of allowances transacted (to 2,109) from the 2006
level. The global carbon market doubled or tripled in value for all segments
(including secondary CDM, Joint Implementation, and other Compliance &
Voluntary Transactions) except for projects in developing countries which
saw a leveling off of market volumes transacted under the CDM from 537
million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2006 to 551 MtCO2e
in 2007. $9.5 billion was also invested in 2007 in 58 public and private funds
that either purchase carbon directly or invest in projects and companies that
can generate carbon assets, while CDM has been able to leverage $33 billion in
additional investment for clean energy.
The emerging carbon market has resulted in financial and investment
benefits for a number of Asian countries. China and India have been active as
CDM project hosts, with China accounting for 46 percent and India 36 percent
of all CDM projects in Asia (see figure 1). China accounted for 73 percent of all
new CDM projects in 2007 (see figure 2). Worldwide, China, India, Brazil, and
Mexico represent the market leaders with the four countries playing host to as
much as 80 percent of all projects in recent years. In Asia, China, India, South
Korea, and Vietnam are in the top five countries in terms of certified emission
reduction (CER) credits received. The country that has arguably gained the
most in terms of climate change-related financial and investment flow is South
Korea, who received about 18 percent of all the CER credits worldwide so far
and is currently the third largest recipient of CER credits, after China and India
(see figure 3). Although China and India have more than 15 times the number
of CDM projects in South Korea, these two countries only have twice as much
CER credits as compared to South Korea. This is not likely to continue as most
people expect South Korea to be re-classified as a developed country after
2012 (Forelle 2008).
CHAPTER 25
FIGURE 1
CDM Projects in Asia by Country
Thailand
2%
South Korea
2%
Vietnam
1%
Sri Lanka
1%
Others
1%
Indonesia
3%
Philippines
3%
China
46%
Malaysia
5%
India
36%
Source: UNEP Riso Centre 2008.
FIGURE 2
Location of CDM Projects in 2007
Brazil
6%
R. of
Latin America
5%
ECA
1%
Africa
5%
R. of Asia
5%
India
6%
China
73%
Source: World Bank 2008.
637
638
FIGURE 3
Asia and Certied Emissions Reduction (CER) Credits
Source: Charles Forelle 2008 French Firm Cashes in Under UN Warming Plan, Wall Street Journal, July 23, A1.
If South Korea has done surprisingly well in terms of garnering climate

change-related financial and investment flows, China is the place where the
future global carbon market is likely to be determined. Worldwide Fund for
Nature (WWF) recently analyzed the CDM market in China and had the
following conclusions (WWF 2008):
t The rapid rise of economic development and energy demand has reduced the
potential environmental dividend of the increase in renewable energy and
CDM growth in China (see figure 4). Given the dramatic increases of total domestic energy consumption, the overall environmental impact of renewable
energy will be lower than what can otherwise be achieved.
t CDM can be useful tool for policy makers in steering the market towards achieving national policy objectives and CDM has played a significant role in supporting the growth of renewable energy sector, particularly in the wind sector.
t CDM contributed to improving market transparency and efficiency in renewable energy and industry sectors. Through formalizing project development
actions both at the local level and at the international level, CDM has improved
market transparency and the provision of reliable data in relevant sectors.
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639
FIGURE 4
China and Clean Development Mechanism
Source: Worldwide Fund for Nature 2008.
The development of CDM and the voluntary carbon market is a positive

market-based trend in addressing the climate change threat. But, it should
be noted that the Kyoto Protocol and related market/policy mechanisms like
CDM were designed to address climate mitigation, not adaptation (Keane and
Potts 2008). Although it was agreed at the Bali Conference that a 2% levy can be
placed on CDM transactions to fund an Adaptation Fund of some sort, it is not
clear whether such a levy will generate enough funds that will become a basis
of a sustainable funding mechanism. Moreover, institutionally, whether or not
such a Fund will become a reality will depend on what kind of post-2012 climate
change regime will be realized at the December 2009 UNFCCC conference in
Denmark.
2.3 Challenge of Financing a Sustainable Asian Urban Future
Beyond what South Korea, China, and Asia as a region have received in terms
of financial and investment flows through the global carbon market, additional
financial and investment flows might be generated within Asia through Japans $10
billion Cool Earth Partnership, which is expected to provide as much as $2 billion
per year over the 2008-2012 time period (Porter et al. 2008). Asian Development
640
Banks Energy Efficiency Initiative may be able to allocate as much as $1 billion in

terms of new project financing, while the proposed carbon investment fund that is
expected to finance around 40 carbon reduction projects (Minder 2008).
Given the scale of energy, environmental, and climate change challenges
confronting Asia, it remains unclear what level of energy- and climate changerelated financial and investment resources is going to be sufficient. Whatever the
amount that will be required, the Asian urbanization process is likely to have a
profound impact on both the amount and scope of the climate adaptation and
mitigation activities. In 1960, Asia had only one megacity, defined as an urban
center with a population with more than 10 million people or more. Today, there
are over a dozen megacities in Asia. By 2015, 12 of the 22 megacities in the world
are projected to be in Asia and by 2030, Asia will account for more than half of
the worlds urban population 2.7 billion out of a total global urban population
of 4.9 billion people (East-West Center 2009). According to the East-West Center
(2009) report, this shift in human living patterns produces new challenges in
virtually every aspect of Asias human organization.
U.S. Agency for International Development (2007) recently examined some
of the most serious Asian energy, environmental, and climate change challenges
and noted the following:
t Developing Asia currently accounts for about 23 percent of global CO2 emissions (6 million out of 26 million metric tons (Mt)), and its share of global
emissions is projected to increase to nearly 50 percent (20 Mt out of 40 Mt) of
global CO2 emissions by 2030.
t Coal use in developing Asia is projected to increase nearly four-fold during
the period 2006-2030. Together, China and India are slated to consume 57
percent of the worlds annual coal supply in 2030, up from 40 percent in 2004.
t If current trends continue, the increased demand for transportation will lead
to a 2.6-fold increase in oil demand in developing Asia during this period, and
a corresponding three-fold increase in CO2 emissions.
The key issue in determining whether the threat posed by climate change
in the Asian context will persist, be dramatically worse, or improve is likely to
be shaped whether or not the $6 trillion in new energy and other related infrastructure investments in China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and
Vietnam, which account for 96 percent of the GDP in developing Asia, that
will be made over the next two decades will be environmentally sustainable
(UNFCCC 2007b).
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2.4 Japanese Environmental and Energy Financial Innovation

Case Study
Japan provides an excellent case study of how the different if not conflicting
challenges of energy security, economic development, and environmental
stewardship can be reconciled. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, Japanese
industry was suffering from oil boycotts and embargoes as well as a general
slowing down of the world economy. Fortunately, there was broad consensus in
Japan at that time that only a massive mobilization of energy efficient technologies and investments in resource productivity would save Japanese companies
from an overdependence on oil imports and increase its industrial competitiveness (Hayashi 1990).
Although the overall level of capital expenditures dropped sharply as the
result of the economic recession stemming from the 1973 oil shock, Japanese
companies continued to place a high business priority on energy-efficient
technologies. Between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s, the ratio of pollution
prevention investments as a percentage of total capital expenditures increased
from 3 percent to a high of 20 percent. While Japans GDP grew 1.7 times from
1973 to 1987, its annual energy consumption level essentially remained flat,
which means that the overall rate of energy consumption declined by more than
40 percent (Watanabe 1995).
The focus on energy efficiency and innovation has provided Japan with an
important shield against unpredictable swings in the global energy market. The
key component of its overall strategy is investing in energy efficient and environmental technology R&D, which has resulted in noteworthy economic dividends
and efficiency gains. Japan on average consumes half as much energy per dollar
worth of economic activity as the European Union or the United States, and
one-eighth as much as China and India in 2005 (IEA 2008).
Japanese industry has managed to keep its overall annual energy consumption
unchanged at the equivalent of a little more than a billion barrels of oil since
the early 1970s, even as the economy doubled in size during the countrys boom
years of the 1970s and 80s. Japanese steel industry, for instance, invested about
$45 billion in developing energy-saving technologies between 1972 and 2006,
or about $1 billion annually for more than 30 years (Fackler 2008), while the
Japanese government announced that it will inject about $30 billion into the
environmental and energy sector R&D will focus on R&D over the 2009-2013
time period (IEA 2008).
The key lesson from the Japanese experience in terms of energy-related
financial and investment flows is that the importance of financing extends beyond
just the disbursement of money. It has ultimately lead to the creation and development of a country or a regions capacity and knowledge for environmental and
642
energy market innovation. To achieve the desired results, the increased financial
and investment flows to address climate change need to be linked to a set of institutional structure and public policy which can facilitate and create business-led
eco innovation. The increased flows will have to be completed by fiscal reforms
that encourage innovation in renewable energy sources by decreasing the relative
price of the use of renewable energy compared to fossil fuels, or by providing
upstream tax incentives for private sector investments in R&D and capital
investment (Johnstone and Hascic 2008).
3. MOVING TOWARD A NEW TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE STRATEGY OF FINANCING CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION ACTION IN ASIA
The socio-economically trans-nationalized character of environmental problems
like climate change means that any global or regional solutions are going to
present many problems, barriers, and most likely, a number of unintended
consequences. Compounding the complexity of the problem is the challenge of
making sure that any climate solution helps or at least does not hurt the poor,
energy insecure, and economically marginalized groups in the region. How can
the post-2012 Asian climate adaptation and mitigation strategy be economically
efficient and market friendly and at the same time, be socially and environmentally equitable? Three issues and questions will be examined in the context of
designing and building a new triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental) strategy of financing climate change action in Asia.
3.1 Invest in a Sector-based Carbon Mitigation Strategy
for Asian Industries
One of the more interesting developments arising from the increasing awareness of global climate change and the sharp rise in energy prices has been the
growing awareness of concepts like carbon footprint or food miles (the distance
travelled between farm to plate). In the business sector, with the assistance of
groups like the carbon disclosure project and other similar initiatives, measuring,
reducing, and managing the carbon footprint of industries has become an important business priority.
Of course, not all industries have the same level and scope of carbon footprint
concerns. It is estimated that the commercial and residential building sector in
the U.S. consume 65% of all electricity generated, 12% of fresh water supplies,
40% of all raw materials, as well as contribute to about 33% of all greenhouse
gas emissions. Even in a newly industrializing country like Mexico, the building
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643
sector consumes 25% of all electricity generated and contributes to about 20% of
greenhouse gas emissions (CEC, 2008). In the case of China, two billion square
meters are constructed; about 50 percent of the floor space built worldwide.
Consequently, the Chinas building sector represents not only an important
regional as well as global climate mitigation challenge (GDI 2008).
For the developing Asia region, it is important to acknowledge the uncertainty
and complexity of quantifying and assessing the economic impact of putting a
price tag on carbon, and this will be of particular importance to electric utilities
and other companies in energy-intensive sectors in developing Asia, as they are
significantly more carbon intensive compared to Japan/OECD advanced industrialized countries. For instance, a Japanese electric utility produces on average
only a third of the carbon emissions per unit of electricity as compared to a
typical Chinese electric utility.
In terms of social equity considerations, any attempt to lower the carbon
intensity and/or reduce energy consumption through the introduction of a
carbon tax and/or cutting the fuel subsidy is likely to impact (at least on the
short-term) the poor/economically marginalized population through increased
prices and/or transitional costs. Reducing the various fuel subsidies in Asian
countries will reduce the market distortion such subsidies are causing the market
and improve the market acceptability of more environmentally-friendly energy
options. However, additional policy measures may be necessary to minimize the
short-term economic impact on the poor.
3.2 Finance Community-based Ecosystem and Clean Energy
Micro-Enterprises
SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) represent the dominant form of

business organization worldwide, accounting for more than 90-95 percent of the
business enterprises worldwide depending on the country or the region. Most
critically in terms of market development, SMEs can have a multiplier effect on
the economy by accelerating employment, raising incomes, and helping build
new products, services, and business models that fundamentally alter an industry
(Yago, Roveda, and White 2007).
Despite the surge in the popularity of the micro-credit/enterprise model
worldwide, SMEs remain underserved by financial markets in emerging and
developing economies. Weak business climates as well as an underdeveloped
financial system severely limit SME business development in industrialized (most
notably in Japan) and developing Asia. If these SMEs are unable to raise capital to
take advantage of new opportunities to design new products and services, then
small firms are less likely to become bigger and more successful companies (Yago,
Roveda, and White 2007).
644
This is what many development experts refer to the missing middle

dilemma, where SMEs are caught in the middle of the business financing cycle
where they are too large to cater to micro-credit/enterprise financing and too
small and unstable in terms of cash flow to attract financing from commercial
banks. Microsoft, Ebay, and Google were all once SMEs in the U.S. and received
many rounds of venture capital and other financing before becoming a worldrenown multinational business enterprise.
The high financial inflexibility and low business scalability have been traditionally regarded just as economic development issues, but they are also emerging
as critically important environmental and social concerns. According to the World
Resources Institute (2008), forestry, fishing, farming and other types of ecological
extractive activities can be the basis of a powerful model for ecosystem- as well
as renewable energy-based business enterprise that delivers continuing economic
and social benefits to the poor, even as it improves the natural resource base.
Helping the poor to increase their environmental income through good
resource stewardship and competent business models can contribute to reducing
rural poverty and building more resilient rural communities that can better
withstand the complex environmental and economic challenges posed by climate
change. Without adequate financial and organizational resources, coupled with
necessary land tenure and other policy reforms, these rural communities will not
be able to effectively engage their local, national, and even international markets.
The development of these ecosystem-oriented micro-enterprises is a critical
one for developing Asia because nearly 90% of poverty occurs in rural areas,
which is even higher than the global rate of 76%. Moreover, the vast majority of
the about 2.4 billion people in developing countries that lack access to clean and
reliable sources of energy live in the Asian and Pacific region. To meet the basic
cooking needs of these 2.4 billion people, it is estimated that no more than 1%
of the current global commercial energy consumption is required, while financially viable and technologically feasible off-grid electricity sources are currently
available to households and business enterprises. Increased use of efficient and
renewable systems improve energy security of the Asian rural communities by
avoiding excessive dependence on imported fuels, developing local sources and
diversifying energy portfolios and suppliers (UNESCAP 2005).
While the need is greater than the supply, there are a number of social/
environmental investment funds and business development technical assistance
providers in the U.S. (e.g. the New Jersey-based E+Co that work on sustainable
energy issues, and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Root Capital that help
support biodiversity-oriented business enterprises) and Europe that provide
support for Asian energy and social micro-enterprises like Desi Power (India),
Solar Electric (Philippines), Lotus Energy (Nepal).
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3.3 Build Climate Resilience Through a Market-Based

Adaptation Strategy
The insurance/financial industry is specifically mentioned in the UNFCC as a

possible tool to address climate change. Article 4.8 of the Framework Convention
requires all Convention Parties to fully consider actions, including actions related
to insurance, to meet the specific needs and concerns of developing countries
with respect to the adverse impacts of climate change. While the bulk of the
weather-related insurance losses occur in the wealthy industrialized countries,
most of the human suffering occurs in the poor developing countries. Between
1985 and 1999, the wealthy countries accounted for 57 percent of the $984 billion
in total economic losses and 92 percent of the $178 billion in insured losses
whereas only 25 percent of the economic losses and 65 percent of the 587,000
deaths took place in the poorest countries.
There are a number of reasons why the poor in Asia and in other regions/
countries remain vulnerable to climate change-related natural disaster risks.
First, the poor often live in areas especially vulnerable to destructive events such
floods, hurricanes, and landslides. Second, disasters can severely depress the food
production of the rural poor. Third, even small reductions in income can have a
dramatic impact on the poor. The poor are unlikely to have enough savings to
withstand the economic shocks of large-scale or multiple catastrophes. Fourth,
damage to water supply and transport infrastructure hurt the poor more than
they hurt the wealthy (Freeman and Muthukumara 2003).
There are a number of emerging market-based adaptation instruments to
address weather and climate disaster type risks including: catastrophe bonds;
contingent surplus notes; exchange-traded catastrophe options; catastrophe
swaps; and weather derivatives. Case in point : Commonwealth and Smaller
State Disaster Management Scheme was established in 2002 to provide affordable
insurance so that the outstanding public sector loans can be continued to
serviced for up to three years following natural disasters. Payouts are triggered
by extreme weather events based on independently verified meteorological data.
Based on preliminary studies undertaken in Ethiopia, Morocco, Nicaragua, and
Tunisia, the World Bank is investigating the possibility of providing weather
index insurance for the agricultural sector, in which a new insurance plan will
pay out for extreme weather events (e.g. where rainfall is dramatically lower than
the regional average), as opposed to waiting for a full blown humanitarian crisis
to develop before disbursing development assistance.
One promising (though untested) market-based climate adaptation tool is the
catastrophe bond market, which was developed after Hurricane Andrew devastated the insurance industry in 1992. Most of the bonds are intended to protect
insurers from disasters that happen once or maybe twice in a century, so they will
646
not be applicable to natural disasters that happen frequently like flooding due to
monsoons. In exchange for relatively high interest rates between 5 to 15 percent,
which makes them attractive to many institutional investors, the poor in developing Asia and elsewhere may be able to tap into the international bond market
to get some economic compensation from natural disasters.
4. MAINSTREAMING MARKET-BASED CLIMATE

ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION STRATEGY
IN URBANIZING ASIA
Until very recently, few business strategies for even private companies to protect
themselves against a wide range of weather-related market risks. This is surprising
given that nearly 20 percent of the U.S. economy is directly affected by the weather,
and the business outlook for some of the worlds largest industries energy,
travel, agriculture, entertainment, and others are subject to uncertain weather
fluctuations and disturbances. Business insurance typically provided protection
against catastrophic damages and did little to nothing to protect companies from
a downturn in business as the result of unexpected weather warming or cooling.
It was until the 1990s that people began to realize that it might be possible
to package and trade weather like a commodity if they could quantify and
index weather patterns in terms of monthly or seasonal average temperatures
and attach a dollar amount to each index value. For instance, a ski resort might
purchase a weather derivative to protect itself against an unexpected downturn
in the amount of snowfall. The concept of weather as a tradable commodity was
officially launched as the first weather derivative trade took place in the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange in 1997 and the current market for weather derivatives may
be approaching close to $10 billion.
Unfortunately for the 2.4 billion people in Asia and elsewhere around the
world that lack access to clean and reliable sources of energy, there are little to
no government disaster relief programs and/or government/private insurance
schemes to protect them against natural disasters and other environmental/
public health risk factors that are bound to intensify with global climate change.
While trying to put in place global and regional policies to mitigate greenhouse
gas emissions, an important business, if not an ethical, case can be made for an
effective and equitable climate adaptation solutions so that the economic, social,
and environmental consequences of a warming planet do not fall disproportionately on the global poor.
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Oxfam. 2009. The Right to Survive: The Humanitarian Challenge for the 21st Century.
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Porter, G., Bird N. Kaur N., and Peskett L. 2008. New Finance for Climate Change and
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Stern, N. 2006. Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change. Cambridge, UK:
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_____. 2007b. Investment and Financial Flows to Address Climate Change. http://unfccc.
int/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/items/4053.php.
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CHAPTER
26
The Price of Climate:

French Consumer Preferences Reveal
Spatial and Individual Inequalities
Jean Cavailhs,* Daniel Joly, Herv Cardot, Mohamed Hilal,
Thierry Brossard, Pierre Wavresky
Summary
We use the hedonic price method to study consumer preferences for climate
(temperature, very hot or cold days, and rainfall) in France, a temperate country
with varied climates. Data are for (i) individual attributes and prices of houses
and workers and (ii) climate attributes interpolated from weather stations. We
show that French households value warmer temperatures while very hot days are
a nuisance. Such climatic amenities are attributes of consumers utility function;
nevertheless, global warming assessments by economists, such as the Stern Review
Report (2006), ignore these climatic preferences. The social welfare assessment is
changed when the direct consumption of climate is taken into account: from the
estimated hedonic prices, we calculate that GDP rises by about 1% for a 1C rise
in temperature. Moreover, heterogeneity of housing and households is a source of
major differences in the individual effects of climatic warming.

Q
649
650
1. INTRODUCTION
We investigate the hedonic prices of climate in France.1 First, we show that
climate change impacts GDP through the capitalization of such prices in land
rents and/or wages; this cannot be ignored, then, when assessing the macroeconomic effects of warming. Second, in France, people are not equal when it comes
to warming: inequalities appear between individuals depending on their location
(the elderly migrate to sunnier climates) or their preferences (owner-occupiers of
single detached houses are more sensitive to climate than tenants of apartments).
Consumers climatic preferences are ignored in the global warming debate.
Yet there are grounds for believing that, in their private behavior, inhabitants of
temperate countries put a positive value on warmer temperatures, while very
hot or very cold days are a nuisance: empirical studies converge toward these
two findings. Such climatic amenities and nuisances are attributes of consumers
utility functions. Several consequences follow from this.
First, at the macroeconomic level, allowing for the value of these attributes
modifies economic welfare. In particular, the non-egalitarian effects of global
warming might be greater than the effects sometimes estimated (see Stern et al.
2006): inhabitants of temperate countries (e.g. France, U.K.), where the mean
temperature will rise, will see their welfare increase whereas inhabitants of hot
countries (e.g. Mexico, Egypt), where heatwaves will be more marked, will see their
welfare decline. These direct effects must be taken into account in global warming
assessment, otherwise the international climate negotiations would be distorted.
Second, at the microeconomic level, the contradiction between private optimum
and social optimum might be greater than in the standard case (congestion,
pollution, etc.) because, as global warming improves the private optimum of
consumers in temperate countries while diminishing the global social optimum,
the two effects have opposite signs. It will therefore be more difficult to get citizens
in temperate countries, which are big producers of greenhouse gases, to accept
public policies combating global warming. These private effects must be taken into
account in public announcements and campaigns to heighten awareness of the
hazards of warming. Otherwise, such talk would be given little credence by people
who feel an improvement in their own private welfare.
Thirdly, individuals are not equally affected by warming. Warming does not
have the same effect for someone in an apartment or in a detached house, or for
someone in the city or in the country. The elderly and the young do not have the
same demand for climatic goods. This diversified behavior must also be taken into
account in policies for combating warming or they shall not attain their targets.
1This research was financed by the French Ministre de lEmploi, de la Cohsion sociale et du Logement. It uses data
from Housing Surveys by the Institut national de la statistique et des tudes conomiques (INSEE).
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651
Here we study consumer preferences for climate (mean annual temperatures,

mean January and July temperatures, summer heatwaves, coldest winter days,
annual and monthly rainfall) in France. We use the hedonic price method (Rosen
1974) to determine the price of climatic attributes, which are capitalized in wages
and/or land rents. This enables us to assess the increase in welfare brought about
by a rise in temperatures. We use individual data from housing surveys by the
French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). Econometric estimates are made on real-estate values (owner-occupiers and tenants)
and on wage-earners. Climatic variables are required for the entire country to be
matched with these data. They are obtained by interpolation by local regression
and kriging of readings from weather stations.
Section 2 summarizes the economic literature on climate and presents the
micro-economic analysis. The econometric models, economic and climatic data
are covered in Section 3. The results are presented and discussed in Section 4.
Section 5 concludes.
2. CLIMATE IN ECONOMICS
2.1 The Hedonic Price of Climate
To the best of our knowledge, estimations of the hedonic price of climate date
back to Hoch and Drake (1974). Prominent work was done in the domain by
Cragg and Kahn (1997; 1999). In many other studies since Henderson (1982),
climatic attributes are variables selected to measure among other things the
quality of life or to control for spatial heterogeneity (e.g. Blomquist et al. 1988).
Recently, debate about climate change has led to examination of the effects of
climate on welfare at a global scale (Maddison 2003; Rehdanz and Maddison
2005). The effect of climate on population migrations also has a long history
(Graves 1976; 1980; Graves and Linneman 1979). Cheshire and Magrini (2006)
have recently shown the impact of climate on the growth of urban populations
in Europe.
The findings show that January and July temperatures command significant
hedonic prices (capitalization in wages is negative for winter and positive for
summer), as is generally the case with rainfall, wind speed, and hours of sunshine.
In the U.S., a variation of one standard deviation in any one of these attributes
accounts for 2% to 3% of wages.
Little work has been done in Europe. In a study of Italy, Maddison and Bigano
(2003) conclude that July temperatures and January rainfall have a negative effect
on welfare and that the number of days of clear skies has a significant effect in
Milan. Maddison (2001) shows that mean annual temperatures and rainfall are
significant in a housing-price function in the U.K. Rehdanz and Maddison (2008)
652
show that German households prefer warmer winters with less rainfall. It should
be noted that such research is seldom conducted on individual data, so there is
no way of telling whether or not the results are sensitive to the characteristics of
housing or households.
2.2 Economic Valuation of Climatic Warming
Nordhaus (1991; 1992) pioneered the economic valuation of warming by developing climatic-economic models, which were rapidly followed by others. The
Stern Review Report (Stern et al. 2006) also relies on a climatic-economic model
(Hope 2006). Time is at the core of these studies, whether for very long-term
climatic changes or for inter-temporal economic reasoning. The aim is to compare
the damage and prevention costs so as to find an optimal policy pathway for
reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
The conclusions broadly converged until recently: emission-reducing policies
are required and the optimal pace is to implement them slowly today, and then
intensify them progressively over time. The Stern Review (Stern et al. 2006)
conclusions are the other way around: highly restrictive measures should be
taken immediately. The crux of the divergence is the discount rate. We shall steer
clear of this debate. The divergence also relates to the economic agents capacity
to adapt (Mendelsohn et al. 1994).
2.3 Welfare
Climate, which is an attribute of the consumer utility function, must be allowed

for when calculating social welfare, regardless of the indirect market costs and
benefits generally used in cost-benefit analysis of warming. In this way, the two
strands of the literature just discussed can be unified.
Rosen (1979) and Roback (1982) provide foundations for the reasoning,
which are summarized by Gyourko et al. (1999) in this way. Let the program of a
consumer j at location k be: maxU = U (Zj, Sj, Ak, j), under the constraint:
Zj+ RkSj , Wk , where Z is an aspatial composite good (taken as the numeraire), R
is the land rent, S the area of a residential lot, A a climatic amenity, W income, and
j are characteristics specific to consumer j. The indirect utility function V is
*
V jk = V j Wk , Rk , Ak ) , and at the optimum: V = V jk .
Let also a firms profit be:
where Y is output and p its price, M is capital input and pM its price, L labor, S
CHAPTER 26
653
land, and j are characteristics of firm j. The indirect profit function is:
, and at the optimum
.
Wages and rents at equilibrium are determined from the utility and profit
functions. From the first order conditions, it is easy to obtain the variations in
wages and rents with amenities (indexes denote partial derivatives), which are:
(indeterminate sign) and
Land values rise with amenities. The sign is indeterminate for wages: if the
amenity does not affect firms productivity (PA=0), the amenity is negatively
capitalized in wages. If the amenity has positive productivity, the change in wages
is indeterminate, and rents increase more than in the previous case.
If warming is an amenity in temperate countries, an increase in temperature
ceteris paribus entails an increase in consumers utility because consumers enjoy
a greater quantity of this good. To maintain their utility at the same level the
government has to collect a tax, which swells the public purse. Otherwise, tenants
pay more (cf. (1)) and landowners receive more rent, which is imputed to the
households item in the National Accounts. In both cases, the climatic amenity is
reflected by a gain in GDP brought about by warming.
This effect depends on consumer preferences and firms technology levels, on
assumptions about international trade, and on the initial level of temperature:
all things been equal, GDP will rise in a temperate country, which is sensitive to
warming, and will decrease in a hot country, which is negatively affected.
3. METHODS AND DATA

3.1 Econometric Issues
First, the identification problem is well-known in hedonic literature: the second

step of Rosens method (1974) is required to estimate the supply and demand
functions (see especially Brown and Rosen, 1982), except if supply is priceinelastic (Freeman, 1979), which is the case of climate attributes.
Second, some explanatory variables may be endogenous (Epple 1987), particularly in a housing equation, when the purchaser simultaneously chooses the
price (dependent variable) and the quantity of certain attributes (e.g. the living
space). Thus, we use the instrumental method, using personal characteristics of
(1)
654
the households as instruments, as theory suggests (Epple 1987). Their exogeneity

is tested by Sargans method, and the endogeneity of the covariate(s) is tested by
Hausmans method. The main equation is then estimated by the 2SLS.
Thirdly, there are many and strong correlations among climatic variables. If
multicollinearity occurs (detected by the condition number), we use a second
estimation procedure, Partial Least Squares (PLS) (Wold 1985), which may be
thought of as an intermediate procedure between OLS and principal component
regression (Stone and Brooks 1990). We used a modified version of this algorithm
(Bastien et al. 2005), and a bootstrap approach to determine the distribution of
the PLS estimators of regression coefficients, and to calculate mean confidence
intervals. Finally, the spatial autocorrelation between the residuals cannot be
tested because the data are anonymous: their spatial distribution is unknown.
3.2 The Economic Data
The economic data are mainly from housing surveys conducted by the INSEE.
The climatic variables and the spatial variables (see below) were matched with
these surveys by the INSEE.2
The Mincer-type wage equation (Mincer 1962) was obtained from individual
income data of people in dwellings surveyed in 2002. After excluding state
employees and extreme wages, the sample comprised 19,063 people. The endogenous variable is the logarithm of the annual wage earned in the 12 months
preceding the survey. The explanatory variables are: age, sex, socio-occupational
category, employment rate, employment contract type, highest diploma, nationality, and country of birth.
For housing, we selected households that had moved in recently (within the
last four years). Four equations were estimated for buyers and tenants crossed
with detached houses and apartments. We had a total of 9,640 buyers of singledetached houses, 2,658 buyers of apartments, 3,447 tenants of single-detached
houses and 8,615 tenants of apartments. The data were deflated into 2002
euros. The explanatory variables are: detached housing or housing in apartment
blocks, survey year, floor space, garden area for detached houses (quadratic
form), sanitation facilities (bathrooms and toilets), main room size (quadratic
form), heating type, garage, parking space, cellar, veranda, fireplace(s), date
of construction of the structure (quadratic form), and the date the household
moved in.
2We thank Alain Jacquot and Anne Laferrre for authorizing this operation when they were heads of the Housing
Division.
CHAPTER 26
655
Spatial variables were also introduced into the equations (see Appendix 2).3 Lastly,
variables characterizing the climate were introduced into each of these equations.
3.3 Climatic Data
Climatic variables come from Mto-France (monthly data for the period
19702000). They are: mean annual temperature, temperatures for January and
July, number of days with temperatures of less than 5C in January and more
than 30C in July, mean monthly rainfall, rainfall in January and July, number of
days precipitation in January and July.
These data are recorded by a network of scattered weather stations. Interpolation is used to reconstruct a spatial continuum based on this information (Joly
et al. 2011). First we use regressions between temperature/rainfall and explanatory variables suggested by climatology,4 and then kriging of residuals from the
regressions. As the models and parameters estimated are not identical over an
area of the size of France, interpolation is done for small polygons including the
30 closest stations. The predicted values are computed for each French commune,
and then merged with the housing survey data.
4. RESULTS
We do not comment here on the results of the non-climatic characteristics as they
are not the relevant variables in this paper. Table 1 shows the results of climatic
variables.
For the housing equations, we tested whether the living space was endogenous (because of a simultaneous choice between the size of the housing and
its price). The results show that it is endogenous in three out of four equations
(it is exogenous for owner-occupied of single-detached houses); in this case its
projection is used in the main equations, estimated by 2SLS or by PLS.
The condition number diagnostic shows that multicollinearity occurs between
climatic variables anyway; it is average-sized despite the high Pearsons corre3Urban areas comprise an urban center (urban units with 5000 jobs or more) and a periurban belt (communes
where 40% of active residents commute to work outside the commune but within the urban area). The delimitation
method is similar to that for Statistical Metropolitan Areas in the US but the thresholds are lower.
4A GIS was made up of climatic data, geographical coordinates of the weather stations and a set of explanatory
variables used in regression, made up from two information sources: a land-use image from the Corine Land
Cover (CLC) European database and a digital elevation model (DEM) produced by Frances Institut gographique
national (IGN). Eleven explanatory variables are produced: latitude and longitude, a vegetation index, the
distance to the nearest forest, to the nearest sea or ocean, slope angle, slope orientation, topographic ruggedness,
prominence index, and aggregate theoretical radiation for the summer solstice. Temperature and rainfall are
explained by the best covariates.
656
lation coefficients. Therefore, the PLS estimation was made in any case. In most
of the equations, the results are similar to those of the OLS/2SLS, confirming that
multicollinearity does not affect the estimates too much (probably because of the
high number of observations). From the equation and the estimation method,
the R varies between 0.54 and 0.61.
4.1 Hedonic Price of Temperature and Rainfall
The first finding shown by Table 1 is the lack of significance of the estimates in
the wage equation (the number of January days with rainfall is an exception, with
an unexpected negative sign). In France, climatic amenities are not capitalized in
wages. This is probably because wages are often independent of location (and so
insensitive to climatic amenities), due to labor-market regulations at the national
level. Afterwards, we focus on the real-estate findings.
The mean annual temperature has a positive significant effect on the housing
price for owner-occupiers: a rise of 1C entails an increase in housing prices of
5.96.2% (according to the equation and estimation method). The sign is also
positive for tenants, with values between 2.5 and 3.9%, which are roughly half as
much as for owner-occupiers.
The effect of warmer summers (mean July temperature minus mean annual
temperature) is compounded with the preceding one for single-detached houses:
an extra 1C entails a price increase of 3.7 to 8.4% (depending on the model). This
effect is insignificant for apartments. Hot summer days (more than 30C) have
a significant effect for owner-occupiers of single-detached houses and renters of
apartments. At the median point, an extra day of heat lowers the value of housing
by 4.3% (owner-occupiers) or by 1% (tenants). This effect is quadratic, probably
due to seaside sites where hot summers are appreciated. French households
are insensitive to cold winters, either the January temperature minus the mean
annual temperature or the number of coldest days (less than 5C). These influences may be unimportant because it is easy to protect oneself both by heating
and by winter clothes.
The number of days rain in January and July has a significant effect on realestate values. The January sign is the expected: prices or rents fall by almost
1.22.3% for an extra days rain. The number of days of rainfall in July also exerts a
positive effect on the price of apartments (but not on the price of single-detached
houses), indicating that households pay more for their housing (1.4 to 4.4%) for
an extra summer days rain.
CHAPTER 26
TABLE 1
Results: Climactic Variables
Source: Authors results.
657
658
4.2 Does France Benet from Warming?
It would be beyond the scope of this paper to propose a scenario of climate change
and to assess its effects on French GDP. We propose something less ambitious
here: to show that direct consumption of climate and its capitalization in rents
and/or wages have a significant macroeconomic effect.
Let us set out some simplifying assumptions: (i)in France, the capitalization of the
price of climate into wages can be ignored; (ii) the land and structure combination in
the housing production function is assumed to be constant, which is an acceptable
hypothesis, since the housing stock in France is renewed slowly; (iii) land consumption
by firms is ignored; (iv) housing and workers are internationally immobile. It follows
that warming does not impact on production; the price of warming is capitalized only
in the land rent. French consumers utility increases, owing to the greater quantity of
temperature, entailing a real increase in wealth. GDP therefore rises in real terms. We
also assume there is neither redistribution nor are there indirect effects, and we ignore
the regional effects within France (migrations, etc.).
By way of illustration, we study the effects of a rise of the mean temperature
by 1C from 11.8C to 12.8C. We assume the rise in temperature is uniform
nationwide. July temperatures, and July days of more than 30C (if significant) are
changed when mean annual temperature rises, in accordance with the elasticity
TABLE 2
Effect of a 1 C mean Annual Temperature Rise on Housing Prices and GDP
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659
between these variables. We ignore the effects of warming on rainfall, and the
effects on temperature for months other than July. Table 2 shows the results.
The effects on housing prices are sizeable for single-detached houses (9% or
so), weaker for owner-occupiers of apartments (6%) and negligible for tenants
of apartments (-0.1%). Housing represents 16% of GDP in France. Under our
assumptions, GDP is affected only by the variation in the price of housing
that appears in the Household Account. The effect on GDP of 1 C warming
is therefore equal to one-sixth of housing prices or rents, weighted by the
proportion of the two occupier-statuses (56% for owners and 44% for tenants).
By the OLS/2SLS method, GDP increases by 1.0%, and by the PSL it increases
by 0.8% when temperature rises by 1C. This effect is substantial, contrary to
the result obtained by Rehdanz and Maddison (2008), who concluded that, in
Germany, the selected emissions scenario has a negligible effect because, as the
authors concede, climatic variables are not measured with sufficient precision.
4.3 Who Benets from Warming in France?
We first look at owner-occupiers of single detached housing, who are the most
sensitive to climate characteristics. Table 3 takes the same variables as Table 1 and
adds interaction variables with significant parameters from among those tested.
TABLE 3
Owner-Occupiers of Single-Detached Houses: Results
with Interaction Variables
660
An extra one degree of mean annual temperature has an effect + 2.8% more
than the mean effect in rural areas, or an overall effect of + 9.2% per degree Celsius.
In owner-occupied detached housing in cities, an interaction variable with July
temperatures has a positive parameter, showing that high July temperatures in
cities are enjoyed more in detached housing than in apartments. Heatwave days
have a negative mean effect, but that is reduced (by 1.6%) for houses with gardens.
The effects of severe January weather are less expected than the previous ones for,
while older buildings have smaller parameters, it seems that very cold January
days are appreciated in recent detached housing (built after the first oil crisis in
1974). It may be that this unexpected result derives from inadequate control for
the benefits procured by new or recent housing, which may be correlated with
harsh winters (heat insulation is better in houses in cold regions, etc.).
Climate also has different effects depending on household heterogeneity. We
do not estimate demand elasticity of climate here, as this would require data from
different markets (Brown and Rosen 1982) to ensure sufficient price variability.
Moreover, the second stage of Rosens method involves serious econometric difficulties (Sheppard 1999), meaning that few workers risk using it in practice.
We analyse climate consumption for owner-occupiers of single detached
houses and tenants of apartments. Climate consumption is calculated by dividing
households according to quartiles of income, age of the head of the household,
and number of units of consumption. We do not reproduce the results for income
and household size here, as the variations are very small from one quartile to
another. Table 4 shows the results for the age of the head of the household.
TABLE 4
Climate Consumption According to the Age of Households Head
Source: Authors from INSEE housing surveys.
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661
Consumption of mean annual temperature rises regularly with the age of the
head of the household for owner occupiers of individual houses: those in the last
quartile consume about 0.5C more than those in the first quartile (+ 4%). The
variation between these two extreme groups is 1.3 for the number of very hot
July days (+ 26%) and 0.7 for the number of rainy days in January ( 6%). For
apartment tenants, the variation between the two extreme groups is of the same
sign but is less marked: + 2% for mean annual temperature, + 8% for very hot July
days and 5% for the number of wet winter days.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Climate is a directly-consumed, non-market good that is therefore a direct
component of welfare. Analyses of the consequences of warming by cost-benefit
methods do not allow for this direct effect, leading to inaccurate evaluations.
In this paper, we estimate the hedonic price of climatic attributes (temperature,
rainfall) from individual data on housing and wages in France. Climatic variables
are obtained by local interpolation (by regression and kriging) from weather
stations. Econometric estimates are obtained by two methods (OLS/2SLS and
PLS) for 12,298 owner-occupied houses (9,640 single-detached houses and 2,658
apartments) and 12,062 rented dwellings (3,447 single-detached houses and 8,615
apartments) and on the wage-earners occupying the housing (19,063 people).
The results show that climate is not capitalized in wages (as in France wages
are often independent of location because of national labor regulations) and that
capitalization is quite high in the value of housing, especially for owner-occupiers.
So, housing is worth almost 6% more when the mean annual temperature
increases by 1C. At the median point, an extra day of excessive July heat lowers
housing values by 4.3% (owners) or by 1% (tenants). The effects on housing prices
and rents of mean January temperatures and of the number of days of extreme
cold in winter are insignificant. Rainfall affects housing prices or rents less than
temperature. Moreover, consumption, production and international trade are
together affected by climatic changes; macroeconomic models are required to
extend this analysis in this way; this extension lies outside the scope of this paper.
662
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Urban Economics, vol. 3, ed. Mills, E. S. and Cheshire, P. Applied Urban Economics:
1595635.
Stern, N. (Dir.) 2006. The Stern Review Report: The Economics of Climate Change. London:
HM Treasury: 603.
Stone, M., and R.J. Brooks. 1990. Continuum Regression: Cross-Validated Sequentially
Constructed Prediction Embracing Ordinary Least Squares, Partial Least Squares and
Principal Components Regression. J. R. Statist. Soc. B 52: 23769.
Wold, H. 1985. Partial Least Square. In Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, vol., ed. Kotz,
S., and Johnson N.L., 581-591. New York: Wiley.
664
Appendix 1.
Pearson correlation coefficients between climatic variables
(Example of owner-occupier single-detached houses)
Mean
annual
temperature (C)
Difference
Difference
July
(July-mean
(Januarywarm
annual
mean annual days (>
temperature) temperature) 30 C)
(C)
(C)
JanuaJuly
ry cold days
days (< with
- 5 C) rainfall
Mean annual temperature (C)

Difference (July-mean annual temperature) (C)
1.000
0.115
1.000
Difference (January-mean annual temperature) (C)

July warm days (> 30 C)
January cold days (< - 5 C)
0.026
0.746
-0.951
0.632
1.000
-0.470
1.000
-0.650
0.512
-0.606
-0.128 1.000
July days with rainfall
-0.847
-0.605
-0.242
-0.652
0.030
0.499
-0.794 0.464
-0.802 0.064
January days with rainfall

Source: authors computations by interpolation of Mto-France climatic data.
1.000
0.735
Appendix 2: descriptive statistics

Climatic variables
mean monthly rainfall (mm)
Difference (July-mean monthly rainfall) (mm)
Difference (January-mean monthly rainfall) (mm)
mean
11.6585
7.9623
-7.2442
5.7722
2.9790
66.3353
-12.2074
3.1912
7.0474
10.7308
std
1.4248
0.8668
0.8909
4.0067
1.9270
15.3687
15.7812
12.0487
2.0660
2.2790
Source: authors computations by interpolation of Mto-France climatic data.
min
7
5
-10
0
0
33.9917
-116.925
-38.1917
1
4.8
max
15.8
9.8
-4.3
23.4
14.3
178.025
24.7083
55.0833
12.1
17.1
CHAPTER 26
665
Appendix 2: descriptive statistics

Wage equation
mean
std
senior managerial
0.1357801 0.3425640
intermediate managerial
0.2136579 0.4098990
office worker
0.0538539 0.2257353
personal service providers
0.0791030 0.2699066
skilled industrial worker
0.0925265 0.2897755
skilled self-employed worker
0.0797422 0.2709009
skilled workers (other)
0.0614180 0.2401018
industrial unskilled worker
0.0820860 0.2745030
unskilled self-employed worker
0.0286582 0.1668483
farmworker
0.0143291 0.1188466
full time employment
94.4587972 15.6109294
apprentice
0.0158739 0.1249909
interim worker
0.0294572 0.1690887
limited-tenure employment
0.0798487 0.2710661
age: <19 years
0.0192297 0.1373352
age: 2024
0.0910350 0.2876665
age: 2529
0.1381239 0.3450392
age:3034
0.1565546 0.3633900
age: 4044
0.1401481 0.3471499
age: 4549
0.1252863 0.3310521
age:5054
0.1115432 0.3148120
age:5581
0.0620039 0.2411691
male
0.5760933 0.4941890
4 years higher education
0.1507484 0.3578130
0.1002504 0.3003415
capbepc
0.4090449 0.4916707
no educational qualification
0.1881958 0.3908789
French by naturalisation
0.0346775 0.1829664
European nationality
0.0279124 0.1647263
African nationality
0.0218399 0.1461644
other nationality
0.0044745 0.0667437
born in Europe
0.0112395 0.1054221
born in Africa
0.0132637 0.1144050
born in other region
0.9430032 0.2318426
rural commune
0.1522399 0.3592629
disadvantaged region
0.0770255 0.2666390
market size
31.3590847 54.4587101
poor commune 1000-1500K
0.0698343 0.2548744
poor commune Paris
0.0581154 0.2339677
poor commune 500-1000Kinhabitants
0.0238108 0.1524634
unemployment rate
0.1204421 0.0492953
Sources: Housing surveys (1988 to 2002) by INSEE (Institut national des statistiques et tudes conomiques).
666
Appendix 2: descriptive statistics (continued)

Housing equation
detached house
housing in an apartment block
1988 survey (detached house)
1988 survey (housing in an apartment block)
living space (detached house)
living space (housing in an apartment block)
garden size (detached house)
number of bathrooms (detached house)
number of bathrooms (housing in an apartment block)
poor heating
room size (detached house)
size of the roons (housing in an apartment block)
garage (detached house)
garage (housing in an apartment block)
cellar (detached house)
cellar (housing in an apartment block)
veranda
date of arrival in the housing
before 1948 (detached house)
19491974 (detached house)
19751984 (detached house)
after 1985 (detached house)
before 1948 (housing in an apartment block)
1949-1974 (housing in an apartment block)
1975-1984 (housing in an apartment block)
after 1985 (housing in an apartment block)
fireplace (detached house)
fireplace (housing in an apartment block)
number of storeys of the building
ground floor
urban area, center < 30 000 inhabitants
urban area, center 30 000 50 000 inhabitant s
urban area, center 50 000 100 000 inhabitants
urban area, center 500 000 1 million inhabitants
urban area, center 1 3 million inhabitants
urban area, center Paris
rural commune
peri-urban commune
urban commune
population of the commune < 500 inhabitants
population of the commune 500 2 500 inhabitants
population of the commune 2 500 10 000 inhabitants
Paris
richness of the commune (log) (detached house)
block)
density
unemployment rate
evolution of the population (1990-1999)
coastal commune
commune less than 15 min from the coast
harbor
owners
renters
mean
std
mean
std
0.7838673
0.4116226
0.2857735
0.4518008
0.2161327
0.4116226
0.7142265
0.4518008
0.2316637
0.4219124
0.0569557
0.2317676
0.1774272
0.3820454
0.0789256
0.2696337
0.136445
0.3432744
0.062842
0.2426886
0.2383314
0.4260802
0.0870502
0.2819204
0.060335
0.2381162
0.1217045
0.3269578
0.0500081
0.2179706
0.1967335
0.3975457
0.0410636
0.1984454
0.1886918
0.3912798
0.064726
0.2460517
0.2070967
0.4052422
112.3328838 36.2140997 90.7719756 29.9605117
74.7599699 24.0453159 54.9673825 23.5503152
958.4891079
1146.53
470.3263708 762.0989275
2.5316909
0.8900301
2.2489121
0.7332841
2.1403311
0.5805972
1.8904817
0.4514918
0.1026183
0.303472
0.1370419
0.3439059
23.2651831 6.1306681 22.2538758 5.7007738
22.5275005 4.8642808 23.8414523 6.3841104
0.8655602
0.341142
0.7229475
0.4476076
0.5921746
0.4915229
0.3890888
0.4875718
0.4221992
0.4939356
0.3785901
0.4851061
0.7633559
0.4251019
0.5216483
0.4995601
0.0352903
0.1845201
0.0155861
0.1238728
2.448203
3.8836823
1.0501575
1.0973906
0.1927386
0.39447
0.4078909
0.491514
0.1207469
0.3258498
0.2164201
0.4118636
0.1060166
0.3078748
0.1430229
0.350147
0.5804979
0.4935031
0.2326661
0.4225925
0.1997743
0.3999058
0.3461405
0.3461405
0.3720843
0.4834517
0.3012188
0.3012188
0.1617758
0.3683143
0.10296
0.10296
0.2663657
0.4421409
0.2496808
0.2496808
0.4068465
0.4912713
0.2251233
0.4177241
0.027088
0.1623705
0.0123041
0.1102458
1.0822085
2.8006593
2.9461118
3.3325853
0.0307367
0.1726105
0.1316531
0.3381273
0.0727761
0.2597791
0.0737854
0.2614322
0.0535859
0.2252079
0.0423645
0.2014276
0.0909904
0.2876072
0.0882109
0.2836131
0.0952187
0.2935288
0.0997347
0.2996584
0.126606
0.3325445
0.1713646
0.3768429
0.0799317
0.2711985
0.1060355
0.3078958
0.0822085
0.2746933
0.092522
0.2897734
0.1994694
0.3996181
0.2027972
0.402099
0.1386404
0.345585
0.0984911
0.2979899
0.2803708
0.4491986
0.120461
0.3255133
0.5809888
0.4934173
0.7810479
0.4135532
0.0803383
0.2718272
0.0280219
0.1650422
0.2503659
0.4332414
0.1190516
0.3238626
0.2454871
0.4303931
0.16581
0.3719254
0.1429501
0.3500362
0.1769193
0.3816162
0.106928
0.3090342
0.2273255
0.4191219
0.0387868
0.1930943
0.1169789
0.3214085
0.0202472
0.1408505
0.0669043
0.2498666
3.1395885
0.2465024
3.1136964
0.2197903
3.2023353
0.2443167
3.1802341
0.2627972
1718.28
2324.55
3058.21
2677.59
0.1172443
0.0481474
0.1357735
0.0477133
6.0803383 10.7442968 3.8191013
8.2522482
0.0950561
0.2933043
0.1096833
0.3125076
0.033664
0.1803701
0.0232963
0.1508492
0.0826964
0.2754339
0.0808324
0.2725888
Sources: Housing surveys (1988 to 2002) by INSEE (Institut national des statistiques et tudes conomiques).
CHAPTER 26
667
Appendix 3. Results
owner-occupiers
apartments
single detached houses
OLS
Pr > |t|
estimate
Intercept
1988 survey
1992 survey
1996 survey
2002 survey
living space
garden size (detached house) (square term)
number of bathrooms
poor heating
room size
(room size)
garage
cellar
age of the structure
(age of the structure)
fireplace
urban area, center < 30,000 inhabitants
urban area, center 30,000 50,000 inhabitants
urban area, center 500,000 1 million inhabitants
urban area, center 1 3 millions inhabitants
rural commune
city and suburbs commune
population of the commune 500 2,500 inhabitants
population of the commune 2,500 10,000 inhabitants
Paris
richness of the commune (log)
density
unemployment rate
coastal commune
commune less than 15 mn from the coast
harbor

(July warm days) (> 30 C)
(January cold days) (< - 5 C)
9,87409
-0,15075
-0,13403
-0,13182
/
0,00413
8,105E-05
-7,7E-06
0,08094
-0,14581
-0,00339
-4,13E-05
0,10454
0,06036
-0,03579
-0,00771
3,896E-05
0,05736
-0,07608
-0,05497
-0,03133
0,02523
0,02068
0,00512
0,0727
0,30677
-0,05166
0,09756
-0,14947
-0,10587
-0,04746
0,02858
0,07578
0,24651
0,21586
0,13775
1,647E-05
-1,51771
0,00116
0,09357
0,07437
0,05125
0,0599
0,08037
0,02591
-0,04199
0,00149
0,00669
0,0014
0,00948
-0,02237
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
/
PLS
estimate p value
/
/
-0,04824
-0,02829
-0,02306
0,1059
0,004121
8,006E-05
-7,58E-06
0,08175
-0,1461
-0,001467
-7,57E-05
0,1072
0,06233
-0,03622
-0,007371
3,626E-05
0,05688
-0,09164
-0,06209
-0,04651
0,002651
0,006955
-0,0132
0,05852
0,2921
-0,06905
0,101
-0,1313
-0,08941
-0,03367
0,03163
0,07727
0,2484
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,1125
0,2298
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,0075
0,0853
0,1655
0,2464
0,8114
0,0004
<,0001
0,0014
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,0006
0,0787
0,0001
<,0001
0,2788
/
<,0001
0,1513
<,0001 0,0000175
<,0001
-1,404
0,0012 0,001096
<,0001
0,0897
0,0002
0,0687
0,0001
0,04428
<,0001 0,05726
0,0004
0,06848
0,1814
0,01459
<,0001 -0,0405
<,0001 0,001424
0,4935 0,0009078
0,0504 0,001858
0,0723 0,007804
<,0001 -0,02203
0,005
0,031
0,02
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,499
0,195
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,003
0,382
0,217
0,167
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,065
0,065
0,016
<,0001
/
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,002
<,0001
0,03
0,001
<,0001
0,001
0,37
<,0001
<,0001
0,476
0,011
0,088
<,0001
2SLS
Pr > |t|
estimate
8,892751
-0,3255
-0,06711
-0,05121
<,0001
<,0001
0,0008
0,0156
0,007962
/
/
0,085326
-0,03264
0,015499
-0,00025
0,069522
0,073781
-0,02649
-0,01575
0,00011
0,179896
-0,05553
-0,08103
-0,03667
-0,06716
-0,07155
-0,04401
-0,00629
0,199977
0,007775
0,113623
0,144308
-0,1079
-0,02443
0,052164
0,127807
0,134574
0,523102
0,266095
0,000029
-2,47922
0,00022
0,114716
0,04371
0,057143
0,057262
0,063547
0,046843
-0,01963
0,001413
-0,01368
0,00268
0,042811
-0,01444
PLS
p value
/
estimate
/
<,0001
-0,2287
0,0282
0,04881
0,09578
0,008599
<,0001
0,06
0,012
0,004
<,0001
/
/
/
/
/
/
<,0001
0,2677
0,0151
0,0242
0,0002
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,6089
0,4575
0,7292
0,5151
0,4852
0,6789
0,9516
0,0523
0,9473
0,0143
0,6913
0,0895
0,4655
0,0401
<,0001
0,0005
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,8596
0,0028
0,5505
0,0898
0,0074
0,2275
0,2858
0,2092
0,0481
0,5215
0,1034
0,0001
0,076
0,07643
-0,01739
0,01751
-0,000302
0,05512
0,06694
-0,0269
-0,01583
0,0001106
0,1222
-0,02833
-0,02036
-0,02596
-0,05251
-0,04912
-0,001648
0,00802
0,2212
-0,0147
0,1049
0,01
0,238
0,052
0,125
0,006
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,034
0,075
0,188
0,045
0,01
0,037
0,465
0,382
<,0001
0,295
0,015
-0,04958
-0,01924
0,03206
0,104
0,09113
0,4753
0,305
3,084E-05
-2,253
-6,47E-05
0,09776
-0,009506
0,02094
0,05812
0,04482
0,01777
-0,02498
0,001596
-0,01974
0,002955
0,03886
-0,01427
0,339
0,494
0,158
0,026
0,091
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,46
0,031
0,361
0,428
0,009
0,135
0,359
0,109
0,031
0,229
0,054
<,0001
0,057
Regression results. Explained variable: log(price of the dwelling). Each line of the Table is a covariate. Method: OLS
(exogenous covariates) or 2SLS (instrumental variable method when living space is endogenous) and Partial least squares
(PLS). Sources: Insee Housing surveys and climatic variables interpolated from Mto-France data.
668
Appendix 3. Results (continued)

Tenants
single detached houses
2SLS
estimate
Pr > |t|
Intercept
1988 survey
1992 survey
1996 survey
2002 survey
living space
garden size (detached house) (square term)
number of bathrooms
poor heating
room size
(room size)
garage
cellar
age of the structure
(age of the structure)
fireplace
urban area, center < 30,000 inhabitants
urban area, center 500,000 1 million inhabitants
urban area, center 1 3 millions inhabitants
rural commune
city and suburbs commune
population of the commune 500 2,500 inhabitants
Paris
richness of the commune (log)
density
unemployment rate
coastal commune
commune less than 15 mn from the coast
harbor

(July warm days) (> 30 C)
(January cold days) (< - 5 C)
5,366151
-0,29258
-0,16786
-0,06137
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,0001
0,010031
0,000028
-5,11E-06
-0,00744
-0,15368
-0,0382
0,000397
0,024669
-0,01766
-0,04987
-0,00539
0,000028
0,008148
-0,02982
0,004471
0,049531
0,09808
0,085517
0,09625
0,111507
0,410022
-0,01755
0,067806
-0,1121
-0,06823
-0,00071
0,015431
0,034723
0,046914
<,0001
0,1141
0,123
0,5762
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,0869
0,1876
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,5774
0,3325
0,893
0,0949
0,001
0,0033
0,0048
0,0022
<,0001
0,4869
0,0006
0,0006
0,0091
0,9749
0,5593
0,2597
0,3967
apartments
PLS
estimate p value
/
/
-0,1681
-0,05179
0,06076
0,1143
0,009231
3,36E-05
-6,2E-06
0,008011
-0,1681
-0,03459
0,000356
0,03182
-0,0085
-0,04963
-0,00525
2,66E-05
0,01821
-0,08122
-0,03718
-0,0059
0,02375
0,006764
0,008058
0,02096
0,3225
-0,08567
0,08158
-0,06681
-0,0353
0,03168
0,02043
0,01205
0,001433
<,0001
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,026
0,007
0,318
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,019
0,242
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,168
0,001
0,155
0,563
0,003
0,198
0,186
0,104
<,0001
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
0,016
0,016
0,041
0,03
0,184
0,045296
0,000021
-0,37285
0,003154
0,074546
0,074344
0,056488
0,037957
0,062578
0,033658
-0,00714
0,000237
-0,02078
0,003287
0,008452
-0,01335
0,0979
0,0003
0,018
<,0001
0,0025
0,0116
0,0041
0,0162
0,0678
0,2703
0,4654
0,4755
0,1754
0,006
0,3083
0,0205
0,07457
2,74E-05
-0,1117
0,003377
0,03784
0,01804
0,03074
0,03737
0,03617
0,005734
-0,01138
0,000293
-0,02962
0,004102
-0,0011
-0,01225
0,015
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,01
0,412
0,076
0,005
0,022
0,411
0,115
0,184
0,045
0,001
0,443
0,022
2SLS
estimate
Pr > |t|
5,025905
-0,23613
-0,09425
-0,04786
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,009911
<,0001
PLS
p value
/
estimate
/
-0,1402
-7,4E-05
0,04649
0,09258
0,009648
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
0,010825
-0,04298
-0,00207
-0,00004
0,018138
0,001938
-0,03738
-0,0057
0,000038
0,026604
-0,04999
-0,00873
-0,01514
0,024884
-0,01764
0,041756
0,026326
0,31061
-0,09504
-0,00359
-0,27561
-0,13712
-0,04449
0,027943
0,04156
0,037881
0,245218
0,143893
0,000018
-0,8475
0,004107
0,051313
-0,0052
0,019369
0,027625
-0,00171
-0,0109
-0,02554
0,001056
-0,00454
0,000299
0,013582
-0,02014
0,1886
<,0001
0,141
0,0543
0,0077
0,7562
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,2931
0,0999
0,7845
0,6069
0,3886
0,5334
0,1656
0,3676
<,0001
0,0006
0,8362
<,0001
<,0001
0,0007
0,0146
0,0006
0,0171
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,835
0,0891
0,0005
0,9285
0,5144
<,0001
<,0001
0,6019
0,6781
0,0011
<,0001
0,0174
-0,04495
0,000691
-9,3E-05
0,02286
0,007144
-0,03736
-0,00564
3,79E-05
0,01049
-0,06958
-0,01339
-0,03375
0,004085
-0,02987
0,03093
0,008716
0,293
-0,1041
0,00696
-0,2754
-0,1315
-0,05039
0,006517
0,01647
0,003411
0,2126
0,1523
1,91E-05
-0,7219
0,004039
0,05941
-0,01389
0,003792
0,02504
-0,00223
-0,015
-0,02361
0,000964
-0,00886
0,000511
0,01394
-0,01987
0,267
<,0001
0,441
0,037
<,0001
0,303
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,082
0,001
0,022
0,012
0,393
0,02
0,014
0,316
<,0001
<,0001
0,383
0,001
<,0001
0,009
0,481
0,382
0,475
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,044
0,374
0,004
0,453
0,081
0,001
0,001
0,218
0,308
0,002
<,0001
Regression results. Explained variable: log(rent of the dwelling). Each line of the Table is a covariate. Method: 2SLS
(instrumental variable method because living space is endogenous) and Partial least squares (PLS). Sources: Insee
Housing surveys and climatic variables interpolated from Mto-France data.
0,009
0,421
0,033
0,009
<,0001
CHAPTER 26
669
Appendix 3. Results (continued)

wages
OLS
estimate
Pr > |t|
intercept
senior managerial
intermediate managerial
office worker
personal service providers
skilled industrial worker
skilled self-employed worker
skilled workers (other)
industrial unskilled worker
unskilled self-employed worker
farmworker
full time employment
apprentice
interim worker
limited-tenure employment
age: <19
age: 2024
age: 2529
age:3034
age: 4044
age: 4549
age:5054
age:5581
male
capbepc
no educational qualification
French by naturalisation
European nationality
African nationality
other nationality
born in Europe
born in Africa
born in other region
rural commune
disadvantaged region
market size
poor commune 1000-1500K inhabitants
poor commune Paris
unemployment rate
8,48484
0,56473
0,17879
-0,13727
-0,31372
0,05538
-0,05691
-0,01387
-0,07718
-0,1582
-0,28111
0,01155
-0,5666
-0,34414
-0,34379
-0,57992
-0,34235
-0,17752
-0,06613
0,03424
0,0494
0,1007
0,09387
0,18547
0,09197
0,03469
-0,05641
-0,17576
-0,07915
-0,039
-0,09393
-0,15937
-0,00507
-0,1259
-0,05125
-0,05078
-0,02996
-0,03693
-0,03359
0,0009621
-0,02547
-0,06509
-0,04269
-0,4206
unemployment rate
0,00245
-0,01279
Difference (January-mean annual temperature) (C) -0,02325
-0,00185
-0,000531
0,00531
-0,00819
PLS
estimate
<,0001
/
<,0001
0,5804
<,0001
0,1908
<,0001
-0,1255
<,0001
-0,3122
0,0001
0,0661
0,0002
-0,03917
0,4061 0,00008014
<,0001
-0,06173
<,0001
-0,1618
<,0001
-0,2453
<,0001
0,01154
<,0001
-0,5403
<,0001
-0,3455
<,0001
-0,3403
<,0001
-0,5797
<,0001
-0,3255
<,0001
-0,1621
<,0001
-0,05018
0,0039
0,04886
<,0001
0,0657
<,0001
0,1204
<,0001
0,1116
<,0001
0,1774
<,0001
0,08953
0,0092
0,03026
<,0001
-0,05637
<,0001
-0,1787
<,0001
-0,064
0,2221
0,02423
<,0001
-0,08251
0,001
-0,1198
0,8872
0,01504
0,0017
-0,05516
0,0765
0,003248
0,0012
-0,05159
0,0389
-0,03389
0,0155
-0,03331
0,0096
-0,02752
<,0001 0,0009854
0,0574
-0,03691
<,0001
-0,08159
0,0509
-0,03148
<,0001
-0,3544
0,7347
0,001933
0,5443 -0,002569
0,2086
-0,01892
0,4407 -0,002552
0,8947
-0,00178
0,2469
0,005169
0,0112 -0,007652
p value
/
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,003
0,421
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
<,0001
0,028
<,0001
<,0001
0,006
0,12
<,0001
0,001
0,019
<,0001
0,433
0,002
0,021
0,026
0,062
<,0001
0,015
<,0001
0,053
<,0001
0,395
0,461
0,136
0,176
0,349
0,127
0,011
Regression results. Explained variable: log(wage). Each line of the Table is a covariate. Method: OLS (exogenous
covariates) and Partial least squares (PLS). Sources: Insee Housing surveys and climatic variables interpolated
from Mto-France data.
CHAPTER
27
Social Aspects of Climate Change

in Urban Areas in Lowand Middle-Income Nations
Sheridan Bartlett, David Dodman, Jorgelina Hardoy,
David Satterthwaite,* Cecilia Tacoli
1. INTRODUCTION
Hundreds of millions of urban dwellers in low- and middle-income nations are at
risk from the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. As the number of people
living in cities and towns has grown more than half of the worlds population now
lives in urban areas so too has the number of urban residents vulnerable to climate
change.1 The uneven distribution of vulnerability between and within urban areas
and the way this is shaped by individual and household characteristics (including age,
income-level, health-status, asset portfolio and gender) and by what governments do
(and do not do) means that a better understanding of the social aspects of climate
change in urban areas is highly relevant. Within the attempt to develop this understanding, there is a particular interest in the ways that climate change is exacerbating
or will exacerbate the challenges already faced by low-income urban residents.
This paper considers the implications of climate change for social welfare
and development in urban areas, with a specific focus on understanding the
impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable populations. It moves beyond
describing climate-related risks to assessing the more detailed implications
1This is not to imply that increasing urbanization necessarily brings increasing numbers of people vulnerable to
climate change; it can and should bring decreasing levels of vulnerability.

670
CHAPTER 27
671
for social relations, livelihoods and the provision of social and infrastructural
services to low-income and other particularly vulnerable groups.
This paper draws on the different research projects in which its authors are
engaged, including work on the vulnerability of children (Bartlett 2008a, 2008b),
on the links between disasters, poverty and climate-change in urban areas in Latin
America (Hardoy and Pandiella 2009), on how migration will be affected by climate
change, and the role of migration in adaptation (Tacoli 2009), on community-based
adaptation in the Philippines (Reyos 2009, Dodman and Mitlin 2009), on municipal
government responsibilities for adaptation (Satterthwaite 2008a) and on vulnerability and risk within urban centres in the Least Developed Nations.2 The paper
also identifies existing coping strategies relying on social networks and interactions,
and considers how these can be developed and strengthened into more proactive
mechanisms for adaptation. Thus, there is an interest here in both the potentials
and the limitations of adaptation by individuals, households and communitybased organizations. Obviously, there is also a focus on the role of governments in
adaptation, including the role of infrastructure and how the availability and price of
land for housing influences vulnerability.
The impacts of the increased frequency and/or intensity of floods, storms and
heat waves, water supply constraints and other changes that that climate change
brings or is likely to bring are distributed unevenly within urban areas among
different social groups. Location influences many impacts for instance, storms,
floods or heat waves usually hit particular parts of a city more severely than others.
All impacts are influenced by the quality of housing and the quality and extent of
provision for protective infrastructure and services. In almost all urban centres in
low- and middle-income nations, there are large intra-urban differentials in the
quality and extent of such provision. The unevenness in the distribution of impacts
is also influenced by age and by gender, by the income levels and asset bases of
individuals and households, and by their social capital. Large differentials exist
within any urban population not only in the impacts but also in the potential to
cope with these impacts and with recovery afterwards and this too is influenced
by age, gender and individual and household asset portfolios. Of course, it is also
influenced by the speed and quality of post-disaster response from governments
and international agencies. There is a particular interest here in ensuring that
discussions of hazard, risk and vulnerability in relation to climate change include
a consideration of the differentials among urban populations in the effectiveness
of pre-disaster and post-disaster responses. Climate-change is likely to bring an
ever-growing number and range of extreme-events for which complete protection
is impossible (i.e. there are limits to what adaptation can protect). So adaptation is
also about minimizing the impact of these events.
2This includes work on urban vulnerability and risk by the CLACC network, see www.clacc.net/
672
Responding to the social aspects of climate change will require commitment

by a variety of urban institutions, including community-based organizations,
non-government organizations, local and national governments, and international agencies. The paper identifies points of intervention, from the household
to the international scale, where the activities of these actors can most effectively address the challenges of climate change and support the building of more
resilient urban societies.
2. THE SOCIAL AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

OF VULNERABILITY AND RISK
The risks from climate change are distributed unevenly. For urban populations,
this uneven distribution can be considered at different scales for instance
globally (between countries), within countries and within each urban centre.
Each has relevance for understanding who is most at risk. This paper will focus
primarily on the intra-urban scale, although it will also provide a brief overview
of the distribution of risk in global terms. First it is important to establish just
what the hazards are that contribute to these risks.
2.1 The Hazards in Urban Areas
Table 1 summarizes a variety of possible impacts from climate change on urban

areas, although of course there are large differences between different urban
locations in the severity of each of these hazards or resource constraints and in
the mix of impacts. At least in the next few decades, the main impacts of climatechange are likely to be increased levels of risk from existing hazards.
One of the main ways that climate-change affects urban populations is
through the impacts on health mostly from physical hazards but also from
extreme temperatures, increased risk of some diseases and constraints on food
availability. Urban populations in places where the current burden of climatesensitive disease is high will be disproportionately affected, primarily the urban
poor in low- and middle-income countries (Kovats and Akhtar 2008). Ill-health
and injury are among the most common factors in increasing poverty, both from
loss of earnings and from the additional medical expenses. Table 2 summarizes
the known effects of weather and climate on urban health.
CHAPTER 27
673
TABLE 1
Climate Change Impacts on Urban Areas
Change in Climate
Possible Impact on Urban Areas
Changes in means
Temperature
U increased energy demands for heating / cooling

U worsening of air quality
U high temperature impacts exaggerated by urban heat islands in cities
Precipitation
U increased risk of ooding

U increased risk of landslides
U distress migration from rural areas
U interruption of food supply networks
Sea-level rise
U coastal ooding
U reduced income from agriculture
U salinization of water sources
and tourism
Changes in extremes
Extreme rainfall /
Tropical cyclones
U more intense ooding

U higher risk of landslides
U disruption to livelihoods and city economies
U damage to homes, infrastructure and businesses
Drought
U water shortages
U higher food prices
U disruption of hydro-electricity
U distress migration from rural areas
Heat- or cold-waves
U short-term
U health
Abrupt climate
change
increase in energy demands for heating / cooling

impacts for vulnerable populations
U possible signicant impacts from rapid and extreme sea-level rise

U possible signicant impacts from rapid and extreme temperature change
Changes in exposure
Population
movements
U movements
Biological changes
U extended
from stressed rural habitats
disease vector habitats
Source: Adapted from Wilbanks et al. 2007.
Climate change may affect the availability of drinking water to urban populations, particularly in urban centres lacking adequate water resource management.
In most urban centres this is likely to have the greatest effect on household
supplies in low-income areas, particularly informal settlements. These issues of
water availability are compounded by the lack of space or storage facilities for
water in low-income households. It is difficult, however, to establish the direct
impact of climate change on access to clean water, as a variety of factors social,
political and environmental determine availability.
674
TABLE 2
Summary of Known Effects of Weather and Climate on Urban Health
Health Outcome
Known Effects of Weather
Heat stress
U Deaths
in older people and people with chronic disease increase

with high and low temperatures
U Heat-related illness and death due to heat waves
Air pollution-related
mortality and morbidity
U Weather
U Weather
affects air pollutant concentrations

affects distribution, seasonality and production of aeroal-
lergens
Health impacts of
weather disasters
U Floods,
landslides and windstorms cause direct effects (deaths

and injuries) and indirect effects (infectious disease, loss of food
supplies, long-term psychological morbidity)
Mosquito-borne
diseases, tick-borne
diseases
(e.g. malaria, dengue)
U Higher
Water-/ food-borne
diseases
U Survival of important bacterial pathogens is related to temperature

U Extreme rainfall can affect the transport of disease organisms
temperatures reduce the development time of pathogens in

vectors and increase potential transmission to humans
U Vector species require specic climatic conditions (temperature,
humidity) to be sufciently abundant to maintain transmission
into the water supply. Outbreaks of water-borne disease have

been associated with contamination caused by heavy rainfall and
ooding associated with inadequate sanitation
U Increases in drought conditions may affect water availability and
water quality (chemical and microbiological load) due to extreme
low ows
Source: Kovats and Akhtar 2008.
The vulnerability of the urban poor to floods is evident not only in the
physical impacts including injuries and deaths but also as they often experience
increased rates of infectious disease (including cholera, cryptosporidiosis
and typhoid fever) after flood events (Kovats and Akhtar 2008). Flood-related
increases in diarrhoeal disease have been reported in India and Bangladesh; the
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
concluded that climate change will increase the burden of diarrhoeal diseases
(see Confalonieri et al. 2007). Climate change is also likely to alter the incidence
and geographical range of malaria and in many low-income and densely
populated urban areas this effect is likely to be accentuated.
2.2 Inter-Urban Differentials at the Global Level
The IPCCs Fourth Assessment notes that urban centres and the infrastructure
they concentrate and the industries that are a key part of the economic base
of many such centres are often capable of considerable adaptation in order to
CHAPTER 27
675
reduce risks from the direct and indirect impacts of climate change (Wilbanks
et al. 2007). All large urban centres have had to make substantial adaptations
to environmental conditions, site characteristics, natural resources availability
and environmental hazards to be able to function for instance, creating
stable sites for buildings, putting in place the infrastructure that all cities
require and ensuring provision for water and for managing wastewater and
storm and surface runoff. Successful and healthy cities are proof of the adaptive
capacity of their governments, citizens and enterprises. In any well-governed
city, there is already a great range of measures in place to ensure that buildings
and infrastructure can withstand extreme weather events and that water supply
systems can cope with variations in freshwater supplies. Good environmental
and public health services should also be able to cope with any increase in other
likely climate change-related health risks in the next few decades whether
from heat waves, reduced freshwater availability, or greater risks from certain
communicable diseases.
Thus, the climate change-related risks facing the population of any urban
centre are a function not only of what climate change brings but of the quality of
housing and the quality and extent of provision for infrastructure and services.
Urban populations in high-income nations and a proportion of those in middleincome nations take for granted that a web of institutions, infrastructure,
services and regulations protects them from extreme weather/floods, and will
keep adapting to continue protecting them. Many measures to protect against
extreme weather also meet everyday needs: healthcare services integrated with
emergency services, and sewer and drainage systems serving daily requirements
as well as coping with storms. The police, armed services, health services and
fire services provide early warning, with details of what actions should be taken,
and ensure rapid emergency responses. The costs are paid as service charges or
through taxes and for most people represent a small proportion of their income.
Consequently, extreme weather events in high-income nations rarely cause large
loss of life or serious injury (Hurricane Katrinas impact was exceptional in this).
Although such events occasionally cause serious property damage, the economic
cost is reduced for most property owners by property and possessions insurance
(Satterthwaite et al. 2007).
This adaptive capacity is also underpinned by the fact that most buildings
conform to building regulations and health and safety regulations, and are
served by piped water, sewers, all-weather roads, electricity and drains 24 hours
a day. The institutions responsible for such services are expected to make them
resilient to extreme weather. While private companies or non-profit institutions may provide some of the key services, the framework for provision and
quality control is supplied by local government or local offices of provincial or
national government. In addition, it is assumed that city planning and land-use
676
regulation will be adjusted to any new or heightened risk that climate change
may bring, encouraged and supported by changes in private-sector investments (over time shifting from high-risk areas) and changes in insurance
premiums and coverage. At least for the next few decades, as the IPCCs Fourth
Assessment stresses, this adaptive capacity can deal with most likely impacts
from climate change in the majority of urban centres in high-income countries
(Wilbanks et al. 2007)
Thus, a consideration of risk and vulnerability for urban centres globally
has to consider first which urban centres are facing or will face the largest
increase in climate-change related hazards and stresses and secondly, which
urban centres have the least adaptive capacity (in terms of the quality of
housing, the quality and extent of provision for infrastructure and services
and the quality of local government and local governance). At a global scale,
the urban centres and populations facing the largest increases in climatechange related hazards are mostly in low- and middle-income nations. So too
are most of the urban centres with the least adaptive capacity and the largest
deficit in adaptation. It is also worth noting that most of the urban centres
facing the largest increase in climate-change related hazards and with the least
adaptive capacity are also urban centres with very low levels of greenhouse
gas emissions per person, both historically and currently. Thus, at a global
scale, climate change is bringing, and will increasingly bring, a very large
transfer of risk from high-income people and nations (who are responsible
for generating most greenhouse gases and who have the greatest adaptation
capacity) to low-income people and nations (who have the least responsibility
for generating greenhouse gas emissions, face the largest increases in hazards
and have the least adaptive capacity).
At a global scale, it is possible to point to the high levels of risk and vulnerability for particular urban centres, based on case studies or on climate-change
related risk maps (for instance showing which urban centres are at greatest risk
from extreme-weather events or sea level rise). But there is a limited number of
detailed case studies and limited capacity to predict the likely impacts of climate
change for any particular locality, including how it will change over the next few
decades. At a global level, according to the IPCCs Fourth Assessment Report,
the vulnerabilities of industry, infrastructure, settlements and society to climate
change are generally greater in certain high-risk locations. These include coastal
and riverine areas, and areas whose economies are closely linked with climate
sensitive resources (Wilbanks et al. 2007).
Perhaps the most relevant global trend to consider is the rapid increase in
the proportion of the worlds urban population and of its largest and fastest
growing cities in low- and middle-income nations. Almost all the increase
in the worlds population over the next 20 years and beyond is likely to be
CHAPTER 27
677
in urban centres in low- and middle-income nations (UN 2008).3 The scale
of this growth is also worth highlighting; UN estimates suggest that the
urban population in low- and middle-income nations has grown by more
than 500 million since 2000. So available statistics for instance on the
900 million urban dwellers living in slums and informal settlements in 2000
(UN-Habitat 2003a) or the 850 million to 1.1 billion urban dwellers lacking
adequate sanitation in 2000 (UN-Habitat 2003b) are likely to considerably
understate the scale of the problem. Historically, most of the worlds urban
population and most of its largest cities have been in its wealthiest nations;
today this is no longer so, although they are still concentrated in the largest
economies (Satterthwaite 2007).
A growing proportion of both the worlds total population and its urban
population live in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone and this trend is particularly evident in the Least Developed Countries (McGranahan et al 2007). (Table
3) At present, the data only allow an analysis of the rural and urban populations
settled in the zone that is within 10 metres of mean sea level so this includes
more than the population at risk from likely sea level rise in the next few decades.
But this still indicates the scale of the population close to the coast and in most
nations the increasing proportion of the population here.
TABLE 3
Population and Land Area in the Low-Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ)
by Region, 2000

Source: McGranahan et al. 2007.
3Although on an optimistic development scenario, this may include many middle-income nations that become
high-income nations. But poor economic performance may also mean a far smaller shift from rural to urban
areas than anticipated in many nations (see Potts 2009).
678
2.3 Intra-Urban Differentials
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report notes that poor communities can be
especially vulnerable, in particular those concentrated in relatively high-risk
areas (Wilbanks et al. 2007: 359). This is true even within high-income nations
that are well served by protective infrastructure and services, which often exhibit
large differentials in the risks facing their populations. For example, London is
one of the worlds wealthiest cities, within a high-income nation and with the
resources and capacities that underpin high adaptive capacity. It is included here
in part because there are so few city-based studies that have looked at differentials in vulnerability and risk within urban populations and in part because it is
a reminder that there are groups that are vulnerable to climate change impacts
even in wealthy cities.
Large intra-city differentials in risk are most apparent within low and
middle income countries. As Revi (2008: 219) notes in regard to urban
centres in India:
Ironically, but not surprisingly, the urban residents most vulnerable
to climate change are the poor slum and squatter settlement dwellers
and those who suffer from the multiple insecurities that poor governance, the lack of serious investment in the commons and a strong
nexus between the political class, real estate developers and public
agencies bring to cities. Through a long process of loss accumulation, they are multiply challenged by even small events that impact
their livelihoods, income, property, assets and sometimes their lives.
Because of systematic exclusion from the formal economy of the
city basic services and entitlements and the impossibly high entry
barrier into legal land and housing markets most poor people live
in hazardous sites and are exposed to multiple environmental health
risks via poor sanitation and water supply, little or no drainage and
solid waste services, air and water pollution and the recurrent threat
of being evicted.
For poorer groups, the main impacts of climate change in the next few
decades will include a variety of impacts, both direct impacts (such as more
frequent and/or more hazardous storms and floods); less direct impacts (such
as reduced availability of freshwater supplies in many cities that may reduce
supplies available to poorer groups); and indirect impacts (such as climate
change-related weather events or changes in temperatures that reduce agricultural production and thus increase food prices or damage poorer households
asset bases) (Dodman and Satterthwaite 2008). Within any urban centre, it
CHAPTER 27
679
is common for poorer groups to be disproportionately at risk for a variety of

reasons, including:
t greater exposure to hazards (e.g. through living on flood plains or unstable
slopes)
t lack of risk-reducing housing and infrastructure (e.g. poor quality housing,
lack of drainage systems)
t less adaptive capacity (e.g. lacking the income or assets that allow a move to
better quality housing or less dangerous sites)
t less state provision for assistance in the event of a disaster (e.g. needed emergency responses and support for rebuilding or repairing homes and livelihoods; indeed, state action may increase exposure to hazards by limiting access to safe sites for housing)
t less legal and financial protection (e.g. a lack of legal tenure for housing sites,
lack of insurance and disaster-proof assets).
Note here the concern for hazards and risks that occur because adaptation
has been unable to prevent them. Adaptation to climate change will only be able
to reduce most risks and climate-change induced costs, not prevent them. In
large part, the function of adaptation is to reduce the impact of hazards because
it is not possible to reduce the actual hazards (for instance, a city cannot reduce
the intensity of a cyclone but can reduce its impact through better housing and
infrastructure and good disaster preparedness and response). Climate change
is different in this regard from many of the environmental hazards present in
urban areas in low- and middle-income nations because there is no possibility of
local action reducing or removing the hazard. Thus, a key part of adaptation is
disaster-preparedness and disaster-response. This is an issue that is generally not
well integrated into discussions of adaptation.
Much urban expansion has involved the occupation of floodplains or
mountain slopes, or other zones ill-suited to settlement such as areas prone to
flooding or affected by seasonal storms, sea surges or other weather-related risks
(Hardoy et al. 1992, 2001). These sites are primarily occupied by low-income
households, because all other safer sites are beyond their means. In most cases,
the poor lack formal tenure, and face not only environmental risks but also the
risk of eviction. Houses are frequently built with inadequate materials, and so
provide very inadequate protection against storms, fires, extreme temperatures
and damp. Attention to reducing the risks faced by much of the urban population
from extreme weather (unrelated to climate change) has long been lacking; this
lack of attention puts many people at high risk from the likely impacts of climate
680
change. High levels of risk are particularly evident for those who not only inhabit
dangerous sites, but also those who lack the resources and options to modify
conditions to lessen their vulnerability.
The growing proportion of the worlds urban population living in the Low
Elevation Coastal Zone was noted above; case studies of particular coastal cities
show that most of those most at risk are low-income groups (see Awuor et al.
2008 for Mombasa, Revi 2008 for cities in India and Dossou and GlehouenouDossou 2007 for Cotonou;4 also CLACC and IIED (2009).
In the absence of a strong information base for each locality on the impacts
that climate change is likely to bring over time, the experience of groups that
have been most affected by extreme weather events in the past, and more
generally by climate variability, provides a basis for identifying those likely to
be at risk from these in the future (see Awuor et al. 2008). However, even here
available data are limited. Despite that fact that the combination of hazards and
vulnerability generates environmental risks that are part of everyday life for large
sections of the urban population, the number of deaths, serious injuries and loss
of assets from these is not known. There are some data on the number of deaths
and injuries for events registered as disasters, but this is known to be only a small
proportion of all those killed or injured and/or who lost homes and assets. In part
this is because the criteria for what constitutes a disaster means that only large
disasters are registered in official records for instance only if at least 10 people
died and/or at least 100 were reported as affected. Most of the deaths, serious
injuries and loss of or damage to property caused by extreme weather globally
and within most nations and cities goes unrecorded (United Nations 2009).
Even within the same geographical location, the impacts of climate change
will not affect urban residents in the same way. The assessment of vulnerability
and the ways in which it is socially distributed can perhaps best be addressed
through looking at six key questions (Hardoy and Pandiella 2009):
1. Who lives or works in the locations most exposed to hazards related to the
direct or indirect impacts of climate change (such as on sites at risk of flooding or landslides)?
2. Who lives or works in locations lacking the infrastructure that reduces risk
(e.g. drains that reduce flood risk)?
3. Who lacks information, capacity and opportunities to take immediate short-term
measures to limit impacts (e.g. to move family and assets before a disaster event)?
4See also Bicknell et al 2009 that brings together the city case studies published in Environment and Urbanization
between 2007 and 2009
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681
4. Whose homes and neighbourhoods face the greatest risks when impacts occur (e.g. because of poorer quality buildings that provide less protection for
inhabitants and their physical assets)?
5. Who is least able to cope with the impacts (including illness, injury, loss of
property, loss of income)?
6. Who is least able to avoid impacts (e.g. by building better homes, agitating for
improved infrastructure, or moving to a safer place)?
The first question is on where hazards occur; the rest relate to different
aspects of exposure to hazards and vulnerability to hazards. Below, each of these
questions is followed by a short section considering how vulnerability is related
to age, gender, household/neighbourhood assets and migration. (Age and gender
are then more comprehensively considered in subsequent sections.)
2.3.1
Where Do Hazards Occur and Who Lives or Works in the Locations

Most Exposed to Hazards Related to the Direct or Indirect Impacts
of Climate Change?
In urban areas, when legal land sites available for housing are scarce and/
or unaffordable for low-income groups, the choices for location are limited.
Individuals and households make choices that reflect their constraints, priorities and trade-offs for instance, with regard to location/accessibility, availability, type of ownership (private or state owned), security ( the likelihood
of eviction), possibilities of service provision and regularization, and cost.
Low-income populations often settle on land with high levels of hazard and
little or no protective infrastructure, because this is the only land available
to them. This is a process that has been going on for decades in most cities,
so now a very considerable proportion of the population live on sites at risk
from landslides, floods or extreme-winds. Box 1 gives some examples from
Latin America.
The south of South America is the worlds region with highest increase in
annual precipitation during the 20th century (Giorgi 2003) affecting the hydrological balance in the region, especially in the Rio de la Plata basin. There is
agreement amongst most scholars of the region that increased precipitation
and floods, and changes in wind and precipitation patterns, are associated with
climate change and will increase the risks faced by large sections of the regions
population. Many urban centres here including cities such as Buenos Aires,
Santa Fe and Rosario are already experiencing the effects. These cities, like so
many others, were founded on the margins of major rivers on high land, but as
they grew, so settlements occupied low lands and flood plains.
682
BOX 1
Who Lives in Hazardous Locations: Examples from Latin

American Cities
Buenos Aires: The city has had a signicant increase in annual rainfall over recent decades,
and increasing numbers of intense rainfall events (for example, more than 100 millimetres
in 24 hours) (Rebagliati 2003). Applying the DesInventar methodology that includes disasters that do not get included in ofcial disaster records, between 1990 and 1998, 24
ood events occurred, affecting neighbourhoods of different income levels (Herzer and
Clichevsky 2001). Other data indicate that between 1985 and January 2003, 35 ood
events affected the metropolitan region (Rebagliati 2003). The areas most at risk are the
low-lying lands of the lower basins of the rivers Reconquista and Matanza-Riachuelo and
these lands have high concentrations of informal settlements (Re and Menndez 2007).
Also at risk are the city areas crossed by local streams that drain to the Rio de la Plata
and these were originally settled by low-income population. Later most of these streams
were channeled and covered; the area was upgraded and middle income groups moved
in. However, due to a lack of completion and expansion of infrastructure works and maintenance, oods are again a recurrent problem. Not many in depth studies have looked at
ood events from the perspective of those most affected (Gentile and Gonzlez 2001).
Caracas: The metropolitan district of Caracas has suffered from recurrent disasters. Much
of the city is built on slopes, with many gorges that lead to the main city river, the Guaire.
In recent decades, the population in low-income neighbourhoods (zonas de ranchos) increased far more rapidly than the total population, resulting in far higher population densities (Cilento Sarli, 2007), As the city has expanded, land has become more impermeable,
increasing water runoff. Without planning, low-income neighbourhoods have occupied
unstable land and gorges and, together with their accumulated waste, they act as barriers
to water runoff (Mata and Nobre 2006). In December 1999, Venezuela experienced a one
in 100-year rainfall with massive landslides and oods that killed hundreds of people. The
rainfall was unusual in its intensity, the time of year and in that it was not produced by either
a hurricane or a tropical cyclone. The death toll among people settled on slopes and on
low-lying lands was very high (ibid). The metropolitan area of Caracas occupies a valley
measuring approximately 30 kilometres east to west and ve kilometres north to south.
Although it is a relatively small area, coordination between different administrative units
(municipalities) has proved difcult. Several efforts are underway but there are difculties in
translating a theoretical model of risk management into practice (Jimnez 2006).
Viacha: Intense rains in January 2006 affected several areas in Bolivia, including the city of
Viacha, where the Ro Pallina overowed a result of heavy rains combined with the dumping of city waste into the watercourse and a lack of cleaning and maintenance. Settlements
on the periphery of Viacha have expanded spontaneously and regularization and basic services come after residents have settled; most houses do not have approved plans or legal
tenure. Those most affected by the rains were low-income groups, with the disaster occurring at the same time as an economic and political crisis, making it very difcult to implement
the needed actions in time. Residents recall former oods in 1985 and 1995, when sewage
overowed onto the streets and damp crept into house foundations, but none were as heavy
as the 2006 oods. Demands on local government have been constant.*
* Rehabilitacin urbana en Viacha, La Paz, Bolivia, accessed 4 December 2007 at http://
www.hic-net.org/document.asp?PID=238.
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683
The problem of flooding in many African cities is also worsening. In Accra,

Ghana, heavy rains have been starting earlier in the year than usual, and floods
frequently disrupt economic activities such as small-scale commerce, petty
trading, and artisanal trades, thus affecting the ability to buy food or pay bills.
In Kampala, Uganda, the construction of unregulated shelters has reduced the
infiltration of rainfall and increased runoff, thereby compounding any increase
in rainfall caused by climate change. Residents of low-lying coastal settlements in
Lagos, Nigeria, report that flooding has become more frequent; while residents
of Maputo, Mozambique also argue that flooding has become worse since 1980
(Douglas et al. 2008). In Mombasa, Kenya, it is estimated that about 17 percent
of the citys land area will be submerged with a sea-level rise of only 0.3 metres,
and large additional areas may be rendered uninhabitable as a result of flooding
or water logging, or will become agriculturally unsuitable due to salt stress. This
will particularly affect residents of peri-urban areas where agriculture is practised
(Awuor et al. 2008).
2.3.2
Who Lives or Works in Locations Lacking the Infrastructure

That Reduces Risk?
Two of the best documented aspects of urban development in low- and middleincome nations are first the very large deficit in provision for infrastructure and
services and secondly how this deficit is concentrated in informal or illegal settlements. Thus, many of the urban neighbourhoods most at risk from extreme
weather are made even more vulnerable by the lack of infrastructure and services,
and often by physical changes to the site or its surrounds.
Rather than attempting to summarize the literature on this, one case
will be given, to highlight impacts that arise from a combination of a lack
of attention to infrastructure, increased occupation on hazardous sites and
increased climate-related hazards - the case of flooding in the city of Santa Fe
in Argentina. This city with around half a million inhabitants has increasingly
expanded onto the Ro Salado floodplain. To defend itself from floods, it had
to create embankments and dykes. A flood in 2003 displaced 139,886 persons
(1/3 of the city population) and 27,928 households were affected (Natenzon
2006). Official statistics indicate there were 23 deaths, although local sources
suggest there were at least 100 more than this. There were also 180 cases of
leptospirosis and 200 cases of hepatitis. Economic losses were estimated at
approximately US$ 1 billion (CEPAL 2003) although actual losses were much
larger than this but were hard to measure (for example, work and school
days lost and the impossibility of carrying out informal activities to generate
income). Among the factors contributing to the flood were increased and
more intense rainfall and deforestation and land use changes around the
684
city but the flood caught the city authorities completely unprepared, even
though the Instituto Nacional del Agua (INA) was monitoring water flows
and had informed city and provincial government (Asociacin Civil Canoa
nd). More floods in 20062007 also caught the government unprepared: there
were several deaths, tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated, highways
and roads were flooded and bridges brought down. Again, one-third of the
city became a shallow lake the same part of the city that was hit by the 2003
flood. City authorities recognized that in the last 50 years there had been
no official urban land policies and people had settled where and how they
could, prioritizing proximity to work places or social networks. But the lack
of policies is also a way of doing politics.
The devastating floods experienced by Santa Fe described above were due
in part to incomplete or unmaintained infrastructure. Also, where land use
has not been regulated, nobody enforced recommendations for avoiding the
occupation of low-lying areas. A member of a local foundation complained that
local authorities favour the settlement of at-risk areas by bringing piped water
and electricity to the neighbourhoods where they have their loyal voters
(Valente 2007). Infrastructure to defend certain city areas was meant to be in
place shortly after 1998 but was never completed because of a lack of resources;
and the construction of road infrastructure, such as the highway connecting
the city with Rosario, created barriers to water runoff. Five years previously,
studies had pointed to the need to double the size of the highways bridges.
The pumps and drainage systems installed to evacuate water in protected areas
did not work because of vandalism and lack of maintenance (Natenzon 2006).
Here, as in most cities, the vulnerability of large sections of the population to
extreme weather is related not only to obvious economic and social factors
but also to a complex mix of political factors that include a long tradition of
clientelism that inhibits accountability and transparency (and excludes many
groups), a lack of trust among much of the population in government institutions and civil servants and elected local politicians with a focus on the short
term. It is hard to gain votes by pointing out that a disaster did not happen
(Christoplos et al. 2001).
Besides the fact that piped water, sewers and and proper waste collection
and disposal decrease health risks, when they are in place, excess water drains
more easily, cesspits do not overflow and wastes do not clog drains. In Latin
America, sanitation has improved; however in 2004, 125 million people (14 per
cent of the urban population) still lacked a basic sanitation system (Noticias de
Latinoamrica 2007) and a significantly higher proportion lacked good quality
provision for sanitation and drainage (UN Habitat 2003b). The deficits in
provision for water, sanitation and drainage are much larger in Africa and Asia
and affect a much higher proportion of their urban populations (ibid).
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2.3.3
685
Who Lacks Information, Capacity and Opportunity to Take Immediate

Short-Term Measures to Limit Impacts?
The devastation caused in so many low-income settlements by extreme weather

is not necessarily a matter of a lack of knowledge or capacities on the part of
their residents, although this may be the case for some new arrivals. Residents
of informal settlements are often reluctant to move away from their homes in
response to an approaching storm or likelihood of a flood, even when advised
to do so for instance, for fear of losing valuables to looters, uncertainty about
provisioning for their needs in the places they move to and the worry of not
being allowed back if their house and settlement are damaged. There are also
uncertainties about what the weather forecast actually implies for each home and
household, so decisions are made in the context of stress and uncertainty.
These uncertainties are not necessarily removed by official mechanisms to
inform the population on how to prepare and react in cases of disaster. In the case
of the floods in Santa Fe, the accuracy of the information was in doubt. In addition,
the lack of appropriate information and official evacuation mechanisms stopped
many from evacuating promptly. The sense of insecurity for those living in informal
settlements and the knowledge that looting usually accompanies flooding made
many stay to protect their homes and assets. There is also the worry that they will
not be allowed to return to their homes or settlement or that they will be relocated
to other city areas far away from social and family networks, work and schools.
There are also examples of low-income populations that lack the knowledge
to cope with risk. For example, in Brazil, new migrant populations from the arid
northeast, with no personal experience of mudslides, arrive in Rio de Janeiro
and settle on hillsides. As they clear these areas for their homes, they remove the
protective vegetation cover despite government efforts to protect these areas. The
lack of personal knowledge of local risk and of appropriate building techniques
hinders safer practices although many other factors also contribute, including
the prevalence of crime and violence that inhibit social cohesion. Over the last
15 years, there have been large public programmes to improve conditions in the
favelas, including investment in basic infrastructure, health and education for
half a million poor residents (De Sherbinin et al. 2007).
2.3.4
Whose Homes and Neighbourhoods Face Greatest Risks

When Impacts Occur?
Studies of disaster impacts from extreme weather in urban areas suggest that
most of those who are killed or seriously injured and most of those that lose most
or all their assets are from low-income groups (Satterthwaite et al. 2007, United
Nations 2009). Indeed, many disasters only impact the inhabitants of particular
informal settlements.
686
In informal settlements, houses are usually built incrementally over a number

of years, with diverse materials and often without following accepted techniques
for safe housing. These houses rarely comply with official safety standards and
there are no controls in place. Most buildings are used intensively with high
levels of overcrowding and a mix of living and working spaces. This is often
combined with a lack of maintenance and with environmental conditions (e.g.
humidity from proximity to river edges and coastal areas) that cause rapid deterioration. Houses are not as solid or as insulated as they should be and are often
built on inadequate foundations (many on landfill or unstable land). For instance,
most informal housing begins as a single storey structure, often using many
temporary materials and with little attention given to foundations; over time it
is common for this to develop into more consolidated structures with more than
one storey but it is difficult to retrofit the foundations and structural elements
needed for safe multi-storey dwellings.
It is also difficult within informal settlements to get the needed coordination
between all those living there for needed site-wide measures. In the suburbs of
Buenos Aires, in low-lying lands, each resident contracts trucks to bring solid waste
to their piece of land and later compact it as best they can. There is no coordination
between neighbours, so plots end up on different levels; when it rains, some are
flooded more than others. The natural drainage of the larger site is modified without
incorporating the needed drainage infrastructure. Families often end up with water
in their houses for up to a day when heavy (but not exceptional) rains occur. Houses
built on stilts are rare in Buenos Aires although there are examples, mostly in
traditional low-income coastal areas. Most relatively new low-income settlements
have not incorporated such measures, although building two-storey houses would
allow valuable assets to be moved to the higher floor. However, this cannot always
be done because of the costs and skills necessary to build two-storey houses.
Almost all low-income groups live in housing without air-conditioning or
adequate insulation, and during heat waves, the very young, the elderly and people
in poor health are particularly at risk (Bartlett 2008a). Here, attention is needed
both to the spatial distribution of those most at risk and the spatial distribution
of homes facing the highest temperatures and the least possibilities of temperature control. In most cities, a proportion of the low-income population live in
tenements or cheap boarding houses in central districts with very high densities
and these are often part of heat-islands. Kovats and Akhrat 2008 describe how
the urban heat island effect is caused by day time heat being retained by the
fabric of the buildings and by a reduction in cooling vegetation. This has the effect
of raising night time temperatures by 1-5 degrees in temperate latitudes and up to
10 degrees C in tropical cities, especially during the dry season (ibid).
In northern Mexico, heat waves have been correlated with increases in
mortality rates; in Buenos Aires, 10 per cent of summer deaths are associated
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687
with heat stress; and records show increases in the incidence of diarrhoea in
Peru (Mata and Nobre 2006). Cold spells are also becoming more frequent in
some locations, and without proper heating and housing insulation they are also
difficult to cope with. In July 2007, it snowed in Buenos Aires for the first time in
almost 100 years. There are no available data, however, on death tolls and health
impacts related to unusual and extreme temperatures.
The expansion of the range of dengue, malaria and other communicable
diseases is related to changes in temperature and precipitation. No studies that we
know of specifically associate disease risks and vulnerability to climate change.
However, we can assume that low-income groups will be most at risk as they
live and work in homes and neighbourhoods where public health measures to
eliminate disease vectors are absent or ineffective.
2.3.5
Who is Least Able to Cope with Impacts?
The increased health risks noted above become all the more serious if those
who get sick (or injured by extreme events) have to rely on overtaxed and often
ineffective health care systems, and lose school and work days to health problems
that should have been prevented. Here the speed and effectiveness of postdisaster response has such relevance for helping the groups affected to cope with
the impacts for instance in making immediate provision for safe locations for
those who have been displaced, in rapid and effective treatment for those who
are injured and in supporting those who have been displaced to plan and implement their own individual, household and community recovery (Reyos 2009).
For most disasters, all the above depends on local capacities because they do not
attract the attention of international agencies (United Nations 2009).
Obviously, those with the lowest paying jobs in the informal economy face
particular difficulties in coping. Most of those who work in the informal economy
lack health insurance to cover income lost to illness, injury or death. Income lost
to illness or injury or the accidental death of an income-earner remains one of the
most common causes of impoverishment; so too are the additional costs imposed
on households with sick or injured members from health care and medicines (see
for instance Pryer 1993, 2003).
The vulnerability of low-income individuals or households to virtually all
stresses and shocks, including those that are climate-related, is influenced not
only by income-levels but also by the scale and nature of the assets they possess
or can draw on. The asset-portfolios of individuals, households and communities
are a key determinant of their adaptive capacity both to reduce risk and to cope
with and adapt to increased risk levels (Moser and Satterthwaite 2008). Here,
assets are not simply resources that people use to build livelihoods: they give
them the capability to be and act (Bebbington 1999, page 2029). This is a point
to which this paper returns in the final sections.
688
The factors influencing who is least able to cope with climate-change related
impacts can be divided into personal or situational. Personal factors are related
to the characteristics of the individual who may be affected. Age is perhaps the
most important of these and will be discussed in detail below. Existing health
problems and disabilities, including mental difficulties resulting in impaired
cognition, can also reduce the capacity of people to respond in emergencies. Situational factors may include housing (the type of building and its condition) and
the work environment. People in certain occupations are particularly vulnerable
to heat stress, including those involved in heavy manual labour such as rickshawpullers (Begum and Sen 2005). However, a broad range of social factors also
affect vulnerability, with people living alone or with limited family or social
networks facing more difficulties in coping with shocks and stresses, including
those related to climate change. Among the groups that have particularly high
levels of vulnerability to some or most aspects of climate change are children,
women and migrants; separate sections later in this paper consider why this is
so. Low-income groups in general, women, children and the elderly seldom have
much influence in regard to what is done for disaster preparedness or responses.
2.3.6
Who is Least Able to Adapt to Avoid Impacts?
The large differentials between locations within and around most cities in the
scale and nature of climate-related hazards and in the quality of housing, infrastructure and services means that where you live and work influences your level
of risk. Households and enterprises can buy their way out of risk by choosing
safer sites and sites with good quality buildings and infrastructure. Good governance should be able to greatly diminish these spatial differences in risk, for
instance by ensuring that low-income groups can find accommodation in safe
sites with good infrastructure.
So in large part, adaptation capacity relates to being in or moving to low-risk
locations. Most larger companies and corporations can move from a city-site or
city if climate-change risks increase. It is possible to envisage a trend in new
investments by larger companies and corporations away from cities and city-sites
most at risk from floods, storms and sea-level rise that will hardly affect their
operations. They have long been adept at shifting production to locations where
profits are maximized and it is easy for them to factor in risks from climate change.
But it is difficult to conceive of how many of the largest successful coastal cities
most at risk from storms and sea level rise will manage. Cities such as Mumbai,
Shanghai and Dhaka are very vulnerable to sea-level rise. All are very large (each
has well over 10 million inhabitants), all have had considerable economic success
in the last few decades, all have great importance to their nations economies and
cultures, all concentrate very large investments and economic interests. Many
other cities that have great economic importance for their nation face similar
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689
problems for instance Alexandria, Dar es Salaam and many cities on the coast
of West Africa. Most residents and smaller businesses have far less possibilities of
moving and face far more serious losses if the value of their properties decline.
Many low-income households have their livelihoods and assets tied to particular
cities or city sites. Meanwhile, the movement out of larger companies and corporations also threatens the citys economic base and the livelihoods of those who
worked for these companies or provided goods and services to them or their
workforces.
In many cities, middle- and high-income groups also settle in some neighbourhoods in risk areas near rivers or coastal areas or on slopes, but they have a
choice and the assets (capital, contacts, political influence etc.) to reinforce their
house structures, get protective infrastructure, and lobby for policies and actions
that protect their homes and neighbourhoods; their homes and possessions are
also often protected by insurance (although if hazard-levels increase, insurance
premiums will go up or may not be available).
2.4
Age and Vulnerability5
Children, especially young children, are in a stage of rapid development and are
less well equipped on many fronts to deal with deprivation and stress. Their more
rapid metabolisms, immature organs and nervous systems, developing cognition, limited experience and behavioural characteristics are all at issue here. Their
exposure to various risks is also more likely than with adults to have long-term
repercussions. Almost all the disproportionate implications for children are
intensified by poverty and the difficult choices low-income households make as
they adapt to more challenging conditions. Events that might have little or no
effect on children in high-income countries and communities can have critical
implications for children in poverty.
Urban children are generally better off than their rural counterparts, but this
is not true for the hundreds of millions living in urban poverty. Without adequate
planning and good governance, poor urban areas can be among the worlds most
life-threatening environments (Hardoy et al. 1990; Van den Poel et al. 2007). In
some informal settlements, a quarter of all children still die before the age of
five. Nor does the urban advantage come into play in terms of education and
life opportunities for most of those in poverty. In many urban areas, the risks
children face are likely to be intensified by climate change.
Although children are disproportionately at risk on many fronts, it is a mistake to
think of them only as victims in the face of climate change. With adequate support
and protection, children can also be extraordinarily resilient in the face of stresses and
shocks. Moreover, there is ample documentation on the benefits of having children
5This draws directly from Bartlett 2008b
690
and young people active, informed and involved in responding to the challenges in
their lives, not only for their own learning and development but also for the energy,
resourcefulness and knowledge that they can bring to local issues.
There is not enough hard knowledge about the implications of climate change
for children to present a comprehensive picture. Even where more general impacts
are projected, figures are seldom disaggregated by age. But it is possible to extrapolate from existing knowledge in related areas: work on environmental health in
urban areas, disaster responses, household coping strategies, the effects on children
of urban poverty, childrens resilience, and the beneficial effects of their participation in various efforts all contribute to a picture of the implications of disasters as
well as more gradual changes, and the adaptations likely to be made.
However, various events associated with climate change have clear impacts on
child health and survival:
t Mortality in extreme events: In low-income and many middle-income countries, the loss of life is shown repeatedly to be disproportionately high among
children, women and the elderly, especially among the poor during such extreme events as flooding, high winds and landslides. A study of flood-related
mortalities in Nepal, for instance, found that the death rate for children aged
two to nine was more than double that of adults; and pre-school girls were five
times more likely to die than adult men. The risk for poor households was six
times that of higher-income households (Pradhan et al 2007).
t Water and sanitation-related illnesses: Children under five are the main victims (80 per cent globally) of sanitation-related illnesses (diarrhoeal disease
primarily) (Murray and Lopez 1996) because of their less developed immunity
and because their play behaviour can bring them into contact with pathogens.
This also results in higher levels of malnutrition and increased vulnerability
to other illnesses, with effects on overall development. Droughts, heavy or
prolonged rains, flooding and conditions after disasters all intensify the risks,
which are already very high in poor urban areas; so too may climate-change
related constraints on fresh water supplies in many urban centres.
t Malaria and other tropical diseases: Warmer average temperatures are expanding the areas where many tropical diseases can occur, with children most
often the victims. In many locations, the most serious threat is malaria. Up to
50 per cent of the worlds population is now considered to be at risk. In Africa,
65 per cent of mortality is among children under five (Breman et al. 2004).
Malaria also increases the severity of other diseases, more than doubling overall mortality for young children.
t Heat stress: Young children, along with the elderly, are at highest risk from
heat stress. Research in So Paulo found that for every degree increase above
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691
20C, there was a 2.6 per cent increase in overall mortality in children under
15 (same as for those over 65.) (Gouveia et al. 2003). Risks for younger children are higher. Those in poor urban areas may be at highest risk because of
the urban heat-island effect, high levels of congestion and little open space
and vegetation (Kovats and Akhtar 2008)
t Malnutrition: Malnutrition results from food shortages (for instance as a result of reduced rainfall, other changes affecting agriculture, interruptions in
supplies during sudden acute events) and is also closely tied to unsanitary
conditions and to childrens general state of health. If children are already undernourished, they are less likely to withstand the stress of an extreme event.
Malnutrition increases vulnerability on every front and can result in longterm physical and mental stunting.
t Injury: After extreme events, injury rates go up. Children, because of their
size and developmental immaturity, are particularly susceptible and are more
likely to experience serious and long-term effects (from burns, broken bones,
head injuries, for example) because of their size and physiological immaturity
(Berger and Mohan 1996).
t Quality of care: As conditions become more challenging to health, so do the
burdens faced by caregivers. These problems are seldom faced one at a time
risk factors generally exist in clusters. Overstretched and exhausted caregivers
are more likely to leave children unsupervised and to cut corners in all the
chores that are necessary for healthy living.
For some children in some places, the added challenges brought by climate
change could contribute to an erosion of both their mental capacity and their
opportunities for learning and growth. Abundant research relates lower cognitive
capacity and performance to under nutrition, intestinal parasites, diarrhoeal
diseases, malaria, maternal health and nutrition during pregnancy, as well as
maternal stress during and after pregnancy. Learning is also dependent on
supportive social and physical environments and the opportunities to master
new skills. When supportive environments break down, so do opportunities for
engagement in purposeful goal-directed activities. Disaster can also result in the
interruption of formal schooling for months at a time, and children are more
likely to be withdrawn from school when households face shocks.
Levels of psychological vulnerability and resilience depend on childrens
health and internal strengths as well as household dynamics and levels of social
support. Children who have experienced success and approval in their lives are
more likely to adapt well than those who have suffered rejection and failure.
Poverty and social status can play an important role in this regard. But without
question, the losses, hardships and uncertainties surrounding stressful events can
692
have high costs for children. Increased levels of irritability, withdrawal and family
conflict are not unusual after disasters. Even gradually worsening conditions can
contribute to mental health problems, which are closely tied to unpredictability,
uncertainty and general insecurity. High stress for adults can have serious implications for children, contributing to higher levels of neglect. Increased rates of
child abuse have long been associated with such factors as parental depression,
increased poverty, loss of property or a breakdown in social support.
Displacement and life in emergency or transitional housing have been noted
in many contexts to lead to an erosion of the social controls that normally regulate
behaviour within households and communities. Overcrowding, chaotic conditions, lack of privacy and the collapse of regular routines can contribute to anger,
frustration and violence. Adolescent girls especially report sexual harassment and
abuse. The synergistic and cumulative effects of such physical and social stressors
can affect childrens development on all fronts. As the numbers of displaced
people grow, these dysfunctional environments are likely to become the setting
within which more and more children spend their early years. Childrens capacity
to cope well in these difficult situations has been related to their own active
engagement, opportunities for problem solving and for interaction with peers,
and the presence of at least one consistently supportive adult in their lives.
Even less extreme events can create havoc in families lives, deepening the
level of poverty. When times are hard, children can become an asset that is drawn
on to maintain the stability of the household. Children may be pulled from
school to work or take care of siblings. Some children may be considered more
expendable than others. Many of Bombays young prostitutes are from poor
rural villages in Nepal, where inadequate crop yields lead families to sacrifice one
child so others may survive.
2.5 Gender and Vulnerability
In most urban centres, there are large differences between women and men in
regard to their exposure to climate-related hazards, and their capacity to avoid,
cope with or adapt to them. It usually falls to women and often to older girls
to cope with all the increased risks and vulnerabilities facing children. Within
low-income populations, women often have particular risks and vulnerabilities related to gender relations because of the tasks they undertake and the
responsibilities they bear, the discrimination they face in accessing jobs (which
also means lower incomes), resources (for instance property titles or control
of income or expenditure within households) and services, and their generally
lower status within many households and communities.
One indicator pointing to the higher burdens and stresses faced by women is
the evidence globally of the higher incidence of mental health problems among
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women, especially poor women in low income countries (WHO 2001). This
evidence is not specifically related to climate change, but many of the risk factors
for such common mental problems as anxiety, depression, insomnia and irritability are likely to be exacerbated by some of the effects of climate change. There
is growing evidence, for instance, both from high- and low-income countries,
of significant associations for women between food insecurity and anxiety and
depression (Heflin et al. 2005; Hadley and Patil 2007). More generally, these
common mental health problems are considered to be related to unpredictability, uncertainty and general insecurity (Patel et al. 1999, WHO 2001), These
factors are undoubtedly intensified by many of the effects of climate change.
Women also speak of the punishing workloads they face in the context of
poverty and adversity, and the resulting fatigue, anxiety and problems of the
mind that characterize their days. They describe headaches, unhappiness,
disturbed sleep patterns and just thinking too much as undermining their
capacity to cope adequately with their lives and their children (Aidoo and
Harpham 2001; Avotri and Waters 1999). Mental health problems obviously
also affect men; yet the particular gender-related burdens faced by women may
increase their vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stresses.
These stresses and vulnerabilities often become most evident after events that
destroy or damage homes and neighbourhoods. When homes are destroyed or
damaged, this often affects womens incomes more than mens as they undertake
income-earning activities from home and so lose the income when the house
or the equipment they used is lost. As noted above, where women take most
responsibility for children, they are more constrained in their capacity to move
rapidly for instance to avoid flood waters. Women generally spend more
time in and around the home because they have most of the child rearing and
house management tasks and/or work from home; in some societies, women are
constrained by social norms from being able to leave the home. Where homes
and settlements are at particular risk from climate shocks, these factors all act
to increase the level of risk faced by women. This helps to explain why many
climate-disasters have mortality rates among women significantly higher than for
men. Although the Indian Ocean Tsunami was not related to climate change, its
impacts illustrate differentials in vulnerability; in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka,
Oxfam America found mortality in women was between three and four times
that of men (Renton and Palmer 2005).
For populations that have to move either temporarily or permanently it
is rare for womens needs and priorities to be addressed or even considered in the
temporary or resettlement accommodation. There are also case studies showing
the particular disadvantages and risks that women face after disasters and,
within this, instances of the particular problems faced by women-headed households and widows (Enarson, 2004). Within the chaos of temporary camps and
694
even of more permanent resettlement, little attention is paid to housing, settlement

forms and services that address the personal safety of girls and women, with
higher risk of gender-based violence, abuse and maltreatment associated with
household stress and/or displacement (Bartlett 2008a, 2008b). Child-rearing and
domestic responsibilities can become even more onerous and time consuming in
this context, with greater difficulties, for instance, in getting food, fuel and water,..
At the same time women struggle in the fast-closing post-disaster window of
opportunity for personal security, land rights, secure housing, employment, job
training, decision-making power, mobility, autonomy, and a voice in the reconstruction process (Enarson and Meyreles 2004: 69).
Equally problematic is the failure to recognize womens individual and
collective capacities for recovery and reconstruction as community leaders,
neighbourhood networkers, producers, gardeners, rainwater harvesters, and
monitors of flood prone rivers. This means that their resources, capacities, assets
and hard-won knowledge about how to make life safer and live with risk are all
ignored. Examples show that supporting womens involvement in reconstruction
and in rebuilding their livelihoods not only benefits women but also their
communities (Enarson 2004).
3. The Social Implications of Responses to Climate Change

Climate change has differential impacts within society. The following sections
examine the social and political implications of mitigation and the potential
social consequences of adaptation, both formal and informal. Mitigation and
adaptation both incur costs but both also have the potential to provide a
broader suite of benefits in both the short- and the long-term. Mitigation is
about reducing the hazards while adaptation is reducing vulnerability to the
hazards. Yet mitigation and adaptation projects also need to be assessed critically to examine the consequences that these may have for different social
groups. There are few specific examples of these assessments largely because
there have been only a limited number of projects of this type in cities in
low- and middle-income countries. But investments in flood protection often
serve only a portion of the citys population and businesses as is the case in
such investments to date in Dhaka (Alam and Rabbani 2007). There are many
examples of environmental projects in cities that have served only the narrow
interests of wealthier groups, or that have included an active anti-poor political
agenda. Indeed, while many traditional approaches to improve urban environmental health (e.g. subsidising public water, sewers and conventional solid
waste collection) can undermine sustainability, some of the new approaches
promoted by those concerned primarily with ecological sustainability (e.g.
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demand management applied to water when much of the population lack piped
supplies) can undermine the health of the urban poor (McGranahan and Satterthwaite 2000). David Harvey (1996: 182) states the case somewhat bluntly: A
cynical observer might be tempted to conclude that discussion of the environmental issue is nothing more than a covert way of introducing particular social
and political projects by raising the specter of an ecological crisis or of legitimizing solutions by appeal to the authority of nature-imposed necessity. An
extreme example of this is Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe, characterized by government officials as a clean up to reduce the spread of infectious
diseases; yet this was actually one of the largest and most violent examples of
forcible slum clearance driven by political motives (Tibaijuka 2005). Largescale evictions in Delhi in recent years have in part been justified on environmental grounds, as low-income groups and their informal settlements are
accused of pollution they did not create, but these primarily serve middle-class
interests and increase poverty (Bhan 2009). In Surabaya, the city government
has been seeking to clear long-established low-income settlements along the
riverside by claiming that they are responsible for polluting the river and filling
it with waste (which in turn increases flooding) even though the inhabitants of
these settlements make little contribution to these problems (Some, Hafidz and
Sauter 2009).
Urban policies have a key role in both adaptation and mitigation, particularly as urban areas concentrate more than half the worlds population and more
than 90 percent of the value of economic activities.6 Although many estimates
of the contribution of cities to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions
overstate their contribution and under-state the contribution of smaller urban
centres and rural areas (Satterthwaite 2008b, Dodman 2009), the extent of the
population living in cities and the concentration of production and of populations with high-consumption lifestyles in cities means that they have a key
role to play in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. (Although so too
do urban centres too small to be cities and rural areas, especially those that
concentrate high-income groups). Good land-use and transportation planning
can contribute to reducing urban carbon footprints, and can de-link economic
success from high greenhouse gas emissions. Urban authorities also have a
key role in developing appropriate building standards and regulations that
can encourage energy efficient buildings and reduce emissions from industry,
commerce, and services.
6Industry and services account for 97 percent of industry and services (Satterthwaite 2007) and most industries
and service enterprises are in urban areas.
696
3.1 The Social and Political Implications of Mitigation
As part of a broader, long-term policy of responding to climate change, there is

obviously a role for mitigation in all city development strategies. But for most
urban centres in low- and middle-income nations, a focus on building the capacity
of individuals, households, community organizations and local governments to
respond to climate change through adaptation is a much higher priority. For
most urban centres in low- and middle-income nations, an emphasis on mitigation is not only unfair given that these urban centres and their residents have
made minimal contributions to greenhouse gas emissions but also ineffective
(because there is not much to mitigate).
Effective responses to climate change require both adaptation and mitigation.
Mitigation can be considered the most important contribution to adaptation,
because if it is successful on a global scale, it can greatly reduce the need for
adaptation in almost all localities. This would be particularly valuable to the many
cities, smaller urban centres and rural areas in low-income nations that have so
little adaptation capacity, however much funding the international system might
make available to them. The difficulties in building adaptive capacity in many of
the urban centres most at risk from climate change (especially for low-income
groups) adds greatly to the urgency of achieving global agreements that rapidly
reduce total greenhouse gas emissions and avoid dangerous climate change. But
greenhouse gas emission reduction of the scale and speed needed to avoid this
is very unlikely, in large part because this necessitates substantial constraints on
high-consumption lifestyles in high-income nations and with the main benefits
being less increase in risk levels for low-income groups in low- and middleincome nations.
The anticipated increase in the urban population in low- and middle-income
nations over the coming decades (which will accommodate most of the global
growth in population) means that greenhouse gas reduction measures will need
to be adopted here too, if dangerous levels of climate change are to be avoided.
Successful mitigation globally depends on ensuring that the development of
urban centres in low- and middle-income nations do not mirror the resourcehungry and carbon-intensive development pathways of urban centres elsewhere.
However, there are two areas in which mitigation might have serious social
consequences for urban populations in low- and middle-income nations: first,
if mitigation detracts attention from adaptation; and secondly, if mitigation
measures have damaging impacts on sections of the urban population (for
instance through the eviction of urban poor groups from unsafe sites). Authorities in some of the larger cities in middle-income cities appear to place a particularly high priority on mitigation as their response to climate change at least
partially in response to highly publicised global initiatives that appear to generate
positive publicity and provide an entry point into an elite group of cities.
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There is some recognition that climate change mitigation efforts may have
disproportionately negative impacts on some of the groups that are most
vulnerable to climate change impacts; for the worlds poor, policies to mitigate
climate change may, in the short term, have as much impact as climate change
itself particularly in the areas of green growth strategies, environmental
labelling policies, biofuel production policies and forest carbon policies (Prowse
and Peskett 2008: 1). An increasing emphasis in high-income nations on imported
goods meeting externally-audited environmental standards may hugely disadvantage many small producers from low-income nations.
Mayors and city officials around the world dream of transforming their city
into a world class city. In this, they are often much influenced by successful
cities that they have visited or read about, such as Dubai, Singapore or Shanghai.
This often leads to city government support for projects, programmes, and
partnerships with powerful private-sector interests that have very large carbon
footprints (in their construction and functioning) and also do little or nothing
to address the key needs of low-income urban residents (including addressing
the infrastructure deficit). In many cases, city governments view the poor, their
settlements, and their income-generating activities as the problem (even as these
same people are central to the citys economy and their settlements and livelihoods have very small carbon footprints). This situation is often exacerbated by
strong middle class interests that push city and municipal governments towards
positions that are anti-poor, anti-vendors, anti-street, anti-pedestrian, and antimixed use (Hasan 2005).
Singapore has long served as an example that captures the imagination of
politicians and developers. But this is without any recognition of what has actually
underpinned Singapores development - one of the fastest growing economies in
the world over a long period, a very small population, almost entirely urban, and
so no rapid rural-urban migration boosting the citys population growth, and
much of the land in public ownership. More recently, Shanghai and Dubai have
increasingly been used as examples to which cities should aspire, but these are
hardly models of participatory democracy and again, these are within nations
that have enjoyed very rapid growth over decades. If city development so often
involves massive evictions of low-income groups (see Hasan 2005, du Plessis
2005, Bhan 2009), it is likely that official responses to mitigation (and adaptation)
may also be similarly anti-poor.
Many urban authorities in high-income nations have, quite rightly, made
significant statements and efforts in relation to the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions. Although international relations approaches to addressing climate
change, such as those overseen by the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC), have tended to treat the nation state as a single
unit, many cities have been successful at pursuing mitigation goals separate and
698
apart from those committed to at a national scale (Bulkeley and Betsill 2004). In
New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a commitment to reduce
the citys emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (PlaNYC 2007),
despite the expected increase in population of almost a million people in the
same period. London has set a target of achieving a 60 percent reduction from
2000 levels by 2050 (Mayor of London 2007). Some similar efforts can also be
seen in low- and middle-income nations: for example, the Mayor of Makati City
(in Metro-Manila, Philippines), Jejomar Binay, announced the intention of his
city to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2010.7
However, for most low-income nations, greenhouse gas emissions are so low
that there is not much to mitigate. Many low-income nations have emissions
per capita that are less than 1/200th that of the United States and Canada.8 In
2005, greenhouse gas emissions per person were around 23 tonnes of carbon
dioxide equivalent in the United States and Canada, between 6 and 12 tonnes
in most European nations and less than 0.25 tonnes for many nations in
sub-Saharan Africa. Several sub-Saharan African nations have per capita
emissions of less than 0.1 tonnes. These nations per capita figures are also far
below the targets for the world average sought for 2030 or 2050 to slow and
then stop climate change. The 100 Most Vulnerable Countries (composed of
the Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States, and Africa)
that are home to well over one billion people account for less than five percent
of total global emissions (Huq and Ayers 2007).
There is much less data available on GHG emissions per person for cities. The
limited data available show that cities tend to have per capita emissions well below
their national averages although there is little data on cities in low- and middleincome nations (Dodman 2009). But for cities in high-income nations, this is in
part because the greenhouse gases that go into the making and distribution of
goods purchased and used by their population are assigned to the city (or nation)
where they are produced, not to the person that buys, uses and disposes of the
goods (or their city or nation). If greenhouse gas emission inventories were able
to assigned emissions to those whose consumption caused the emissions, this
would show a larger contribution from cities (small towns and rural areas) with
high concentrations of middle and upper income groups with high-consumption
lifestyles (Satterthwaite 2009).
In many urban centres and countries, a focus on mitigation so often promoted
by northern-based initiatives may serve to divert attention from the more
immediate issues of adaptation, and particularly how climate change is likely
to affect the urban and rural poor. It is also easier for international agencies
7Manila Bulletin 8/10/08
8The figures on per capita carbon dioxide emissions are drawn from World Development Indicators On-line;
https://publications.worldbank.org/ecommerce/
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to promote mitigation than to promote the much needed but messy, complex
process of pro-poor adaptation.
The enthusiasm for promoting mitigation in cities in low- and middle-income
nations suggests a need to develop GHG emission inventories for cities. But there
are social implications to consider as cities become classified and ranked by their
GHG emissions and per capita emissions. Allocating to cities the GHG emissions
arising from production within their borders puts cities producing energy
intensive goods at a disadvantage. So a city that was a centre for the production
of (say) windmills, photovoltaic panels and hydrogen-powered buses would have
the greenhouse gas emissions that go into their fabrication counted as the responsibility of that city but the city would not get credited with the GHG emissions
reduced by the use of its products in other locations. Meanwhile, a city with a high
concentration of people with high-consumption lifestyles would have its GHG
emissions kept down if most of the goods used in the city that have large carbon
footprints are imported. In addition, if a citys performance in GHG emissions or
in emissions reduction becomes important in, for instance, attracting investment
or obtaining concessional finance, there are so many ways in which figures can be
tweaked for instance by the choice of city boundaries (e.g. excluding wealthy
low-density suburbs with very high private automobile ownership and use) or by
how particular emissions sources are treated (do cities get allocated the emissions
generated by the transport used by commuters who live outside the city or the
emissions from airplanes that refuel in that citys airport or the emissions from
distant power stations when much of the electricity they generate is used within
the city?) More generally, a focus in city-based GHG emissions may encourage
a focus on mitigation when for most urban centres in low- and middle-income
nations, a much higher priority should be given to adaptation.
Some mitigation may be made to work in favour of the urban poor or to
include benefits for them. Shifts in power generation to reduce carbon emissions
may also reduce air pollution especially if these involve a shift from coal
and oil-fired power stations with little or no pollution control. Improving and
extending public transport and measures to encourage walking and bicycling
may also contribute to better air quality and also better meet the mobility needs
of low-income urban residents. The TransMilenio public transport system in
Bogot, Colombia has been successful at meeting the needs of the 80 percent of
the citys population that is dependent on public transportation, including the
53 percent who are defined as living in poverty (Hron 2006). But obviously, all
improvements in public transport serve particular groups and locations better
than others and often many of the urban poor get little or no benefit because
their neighbourhoods are not served or the fares are too high. A low-income
neighbourhood in Montevideo even got named barrio nicol because it had no
bus service (ni colectivo).
700
It may be that slum and squatter upgrading or new house initiatives that
serve low-income groups can also incorporate equipment and design features
that limit carbon emissions as in a housing project in Kuvasa, South Africa
where low-cost housing was provided with energy efficient lighting, solar water
heaters, and ceiling insulation while being funded through carbon financing.9
But care is needed to make sure that what is provided actually meets inhabitants
needs. The past record on this is not so good for instance the enthusiasm for
pushing energy efficient stoves onto low-income households to reduce deforestation that did not work or that failed to meet their needs (see Sarin 1991 for
example). And in terms of mitigation effectiveness, it is the middle and upperincome groups that need to use energy efficient lighting, solar water heaters and
house designs that minimize the need for heating and cooling, more than the
low-income groups, since they are greater energy consumers.
3.2 Adaptation: Responses and Social Implications
Initiatives to adapt to environmental change (including those to which climate

change contributes) are undertaken by many actors and at many levels from
large formal government and international agency funded efforts to the small
risk management decisions made at the household level. These measures affect
not only environmental and economic realities; they also have social consequences, and sometimes these may be unexpected or unintended. When the
social aspects are taken into consideration, it can provide a different perspective
on their practicality or success. For instance, many climate change adaptation
strategies advocated by government or donors may actually have unintended
negative consequences for the poor. Conversely, a strategy that is most often
frowned on by policy makers, i.e. migration, can actually be a constructive way
for households to adapt to changing realities
3.2.1 Formal Responses; the Unintended Consequences
To date, considerations for adaptation have been driven by a discourse of urgency

because of the scale of the potential challenges, and the rapidity with which
change may take place. However, a failure to fully consider the impacts of some
of the actions that are being taken or considered to promote adaptation can end
up penalizing those who will be (or are already) hardest hit by climate change.
One example of this is the consequences of developing and enforcing
more rigorous building and infrastructure standards. Such standards serve an
important purpose in ensuring that houses, commercial buildings and infra9see www.ssnafrica.org
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structure are safe and provide an adequate standard of protection from weather
and other factors. However, a large proportion of the houses in urban areas in low
and middle-income countries and most new housing that is constructed do not
meet existing standards and in many cases the problem is less with the houses
themselves but more with the regulations that fail to reflect what is possible
locally. One aspect of this is the absence of appropriate regulations for the
process of incremental construction that is at the core of the strategies adopted
by a high proportion of low-income urban residents to obtain housing. There
are examples of building-standard changes that have been made in response to
dialogues between city authorities and representative organizations of the urban
poor (Muller and Mitlin 2007, Manda 2007) but these are exceptions (and were
not done in response to climate change but in order to lower prices).
It is very easy to recommend more rigorous building standards as a way
to protect urban residents from the more frequent and more intense extreme
weather events anticipated under climate change. But the consequence of this
could be to make an even greater proportion of homes and commercial buildings
fall outside of the regulations, and to reduce the potential for low-income urban
residents to obtain or build legal housing by increasing their costs. Innovative
work by architects associated with the Philippines Action for Community
Shelter Initiatives has shown how a more flexible approach to structural building
standards can lower the costs of housing by up to thirty percent while maintaining
an acceptable level of safety, and increasing the ability of urban poor groups to
access appropriate housing. One way of achieving this shift is for governments
and low-income groups to agree on experimental areas in which new standards
can be tested for their appropriateness and cost. Some new technologies such
as the use of Interlocking Compressed Earth Blocks (ICEBs) show the potential
for structurally sound buildings that use locally available materials at lower cost,
but building regulations may not reflect these local realities or new technologies
(Dodman and Mitlin 2009).
A second area is related to the consequences of identifying land as vulnerable
or at risk. The process of mapping hazards and labelling particular land sites as at
risk can be contentious and may bring disadvantages to particular low-income
settlements. In Khulna, Bangladesh, the presentation of risk maps led to heated
discussions as to the particular outcomes of this labelling process. Land-owners
were worried that the value of their land would be affected if it was seen to be at risk.
Land classified as being at risk from climate change may also lead to calls for the
removal of settlements of low-income groups from such land on which they have
settled for many years. Wealthy landowners, local authorities, and more affluent
urban residents may use vulnerability as an excuse for displacing low-income
groups and getting access to the land they currently occupy. The urban authorities in Nairobi, Kenya have identified land adjacent to river banks as being at risk
702
from climate change and are using this as a justification for removing low-income
residents from this location. The paper noted earlier how the city government in
Surabaya had tried to evict those living in long-established low-income settlements along the riverside by claiming that they were responsible for polluting the
river and causing floods by filling it with waste (Some, Hafidz and Sauter 2009).
In any expanding urban area, the occupation of unsafe land sites by the urban
poor will continue, unless there are safer, affordable alternatives that are also well
located in regard to income-earning opportunities. Households in two floodprone squatter settlements in Dhaka were asked to consider the incentives that
would encourage them to relocate to safer locations. Despite the extent and difficulty of their experience coping with floods, many residents felt that relocation
was not feasible without considerable incentives including free land, grants
and long-term employment opportunities (Rashid et al 2004) So measures to
increase the supply and reduce the cost of safe and well-located legal land and
housing are an important part of facilitating climate change adaptation for the
urban poor. The absence of such measures is a reflection of a broader set of social,
political and economic forces that have been in operation for decades if not
longer. Identifying existing land or housing as at risk should be the first step in
providing appropriate alternatives, but this should be developed in consultation
with those who are at risk, rather than displacing and disadvantaging this already
vulnerable group. There are some good experiences in the Philippines with urban
poor organizations (supported by the Philippines Homeless Peoples Federation)
working with local governments to identify and acquire land sites to rehouse
those who lost their homes from disasters that also allow them to rebuild on safe
sites (see Reyos 2009). But it would have been better to identify the sites at risk
before the disaster and if possible make these sites safe or if this is not possible,
support those who live there to move to safer locations.
3.2.2
Informal Responses
Of course, individuals and households who live in settlements at risk from storms
or floods take measures to reduce the adverse impacts. These include measures
to protect their homes and possessions and measures to reduce their exposure to
the hazards for instance moving temporarily to safer sites. Understanding and
supporting these individual and household responses to increase their effectiveness are an important part of climate change adaptation. A study of low-income
households adaptation to flooding in Indore (India) found well-developed
temporary and permanent adaptations to flooding including raising plinth levels,
using materials and furniture that resist flooding (for instance heavy beds that
did not float) and ensuring that shelving and electric wiring are high up on the
walls, above expected flood levels. The inhabitants had contingency plans for
evacuation if needed for instance, first the movement of valuables, the elderly,
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children and animals to higher ground (Stephens, Patnaik and Lewin 1996).
But the success of these adaptation measures depends on the residents capacity
to anticipate flooding and climate change will often change the timing and the
volume and speed of floodwaters.
Discussions with those living in informal settlements in a range of cities in
Africa found similar responses (as illustrated in the quotes below) and also many
residents commenting on the increased unpredictability of flooding (Douglas et
al. 2008).
When we see very dark clouds up the hills, we expect heavy rains to come.
So we get ourselves prepared by transferring our valuable things on our very
high beds which are reached by climbing ladders. Also children who sleep on
the floor are transferred to the high beds. Mrs Fatu Turay, Kroo Bay community,
Freetown, Sierra Leone (quoted in Douglas et al. 2008).
As soon as the clouds gather I move with my family to Nima to spend the
night there. When the rain starts falling abruptly we turn off the electricity meter
in the house. We climb on top of our wardrobes and stay awake till morning
. Our furniture has been custom made to help keep our things dry from the
water. These measures are adaptive strategies as old as I can recollect One
woman in Alajo, Accra (quoted in Douglas et al. 2008).
Of course, the adaptations noted above are pragmatic responses to environmental hazards taken by individuals or households. Survival needs and economic
priorities often conflict with environmental risk reduction. It is often access to
income-earning opportunities that is the main influence on why urban poor
groups settle on the most environmentally hazardous sites. This also means a
large potential for measures to address such environmental hazards. The inhabitants of the settlements that often get flooded in Indore mentioned above want to
stay there because the central location means they are close to jobs and markets
for the goods they produce and close to health services and schools; most of the
inhabitants also have strong family, kinship and community ties with other local
inhabitants. The housing is also very cheap (Stephens, Patnaik and Lewin 1996).
Similarly, the pavement-dwellers in Mumbai and the waste-pickers living around
the Payatas garbage dump in Manila, along with thousands of other communities at risk, are there because of the access to income-earning opportunities
these provide.
Anticipating and managing risk seldom presents simple choices, especially
for those with inadequate incomes. Actions taken by households to limit their
exposure to risk can result in substantial losses in income and security, with
long term implications. Dercon points out that in research on risk management
and household coping mechanisms, more emphasis has been placed on short
term implications, ignoring the longer term consequences for the deepening
of poverty. Often, ... the best that poor people can do is to make choices that
704
perpetuate poverty via choosing low return, low risk portfolios of activities and
assets(Dercon 2007 page 18). The social implications of these decisions must
also be considered. For instance, removing children from school in response to
changing economic realities (for instance avoiding the cost of keeping children at
school and getting the contribution that children can make to household income
or to child-care for younger siblings) has obvious long term implications for the
potential and productivity of those children, and for the larger society.
When flooding occurs, there are ad hoc individual short-term efforts to survive
and to protect property for instance making barriers to water entry at the doorsteps
or ditches to drain water away, making outlets at the rear of the house so water
coming in flows out quickly. Sometimes people share protective storage or accommodation on higher ground. Spontaneous community action to unblock drainage
channels is relatively rare. So there is limited collective effort
effort and no significant
significant intervention from local government (Douglas et al. 2008, CLACC and IIED 2009). Action
is needed at the local level to improve their options for emergency action and evacuation. They need help at the municipal level to improve drainage, to regulate developments upstream and elsewhere that increase flooding in their communities, and to
give them greater security of tenure so that they can invest in making their homes
more flood resistant. They need help at the national level; particularly to ensure
that their needs are included in national disaster reduction plans and that these and
other impacts of climate change are included in poverty reduction strategies. They
also need international help to see that funding for adaptation to climate change is
directed towards their problems (Douglas et al. 2008)
Thus many measures that could be considered as autonomous adaptation to
climate change taken by households are creative and resourceful responses to difficult
conditions undertaken with minimal resources. But these have the limitation that
they cannot address most deficiencies in community infrastructure and services
(which may be the main reason they are at risk). These need a collective response,
either in terms of local populations developing a collective voice for negotiations
with government for infrastructure and services or in terms of working together
to address these deficiencies (although as discussed later, generally in successful
adaptation initiatives, there is a combination of these).
There is also the issue of what autonomous adaptation cannot do. A high
proportion of the urban poor in most cities rent accommodation and have little
scope (or motivation) for improving the structure in which they live. A large
proportion of those that do own their home are discouraged from investing in
improvements because of insecure or uncertain land tenure. And all low-income
groups face obvious limitations in their capacity to invest in better housing.
Much risk-reduction depends on better community-wide infrastructure but
a case study of 15 disaster-prone slum communities in El Salvador shows the
difficulties of getting appropriate risk-reduction action this level. Households
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recognized the serious risk of flooding and landslides and took measures to lower
risks. But various factors limited the effectiveness of community-wide measures,
including the individualistic nature of households investments, the lack of representative community organizations and the lack of support from government
agencies, with most residents viewing local and national governments as
unhelpful or even as a hindrance to their efforts (Wamsler 2007). Of course, the
motivation to form and sustain representative resident organizations in informal
settlements is much reduced if there is little possibility of getting local governments or utilities to respond to their demands. In addition, many informal settlements have diverse populations with diverse interests that make it difficult to get
broad-based community organizations. And, of course, many local governments
see such community organizations as a political threat that they seek to contain in
ways that limits the powers and effectiveness of these organizations.
3.3 Mobility and Migration
There is a need to understand migration as one in a range of strategies that

individuals and households can use to adapt to climate change (Tacoli 2009).
Rural to urban migration is often seen as a problem by national and local governments and by development specialists. For instance, a review of the Poverty
Reduction Strategy Papers in Africa showed how migration is seen as the cause
of urban problems putting pressure on urban areas, promoting the spread of
crime and HIV/AIDS, stimulating land degradation and reinforcing both urban
and rural poverty (Black et al. 2006). Many governments implement policies
to try to slow rural to urban migration, yet most such measures have had little
effect and often result in increasing hardships for the urban and rural poor. These
negative perceptions of rural to urban migration go against the evidence that
most such migration is the logical response by households to changing patterns
of economic opportunity; for almost all nations, the scale of net rural to urban
migration tracks the scale of the increase in the proportion of GDP generated
by industry and services (most industries and service enterprises are in urban
areas) and the scale of the increase in the proportion of the labour force working
in industry and services (Satterthwaite 2007). Indeed, rural to urban migration
is an essential part of any prosperous economy and there is no high-income
nation that is not predominantly urban and no successful economy that has not
urbanized. In addition, remittance flows to rural families from those who migrate
are an important part of their incomes and capacities to invest. Migrants are so
often blamed for urban population growth (when natural increase and reclassification often contribute more to this than net in-migration) and for expanding
illegal settlements (even though in many instances this expansion is mostly from
long-time city residents).
706
This negative perception of migrants is firmly embedded in the discussions

of climate change. Instead of seeing most migration as individual and household
adaptations to changing circumstances, it is seen in terms of a failure or inability
to adapt that leads to floods of environmental refugees. There are predictions that
by 2050 there will be as many as 200 million environmental refugees people
forced to move by environmental degradation caused by climate change (Myers
2005, Stern 2006). These figures are also used to scare those in high-income
nations, the implication being that most of these environmental refugees will try
to move there.
This is not to suggest that climate change will not have very serious impacts
on the lives and livelihoods of large sections of the rural (and urban) population,
especially if global emissions are not reduced. But migration, mobility and
income-diversification must be recognized as ways in which households adapt
to changing circumstances to reduce their vulnerability to climate shocks and
stresses (and other shocks and stresses). Migration is important for development.
In many cases, mobility not only increases resilience but also enables individuals
and households to expand and diversify their asset bases. So policies that support
and accommodate mobility and migration are an important part of adaptation
(and of development).
In many nations, the data available on migration flows are limited, especially
in relation to internal migration, including the scale and nature of temporary
and circular migration (which census data so often fails to capture). There are
some studies that look at migration in response to environmental change and
these can help inform a discussion of migration and climate change. Research
in northern Mali in the late 1990s found that up to 80 percent of households
interviewed had at least one migrant member, but this high level of mobility was
related to economic opportunities and the need to diversify income sources,
rather than the direct consequence of desertification and land degradation
(GRAD Groupe Recherche Actions pour le Dveloppement), 2001) Research in
Burkina Faso suggests that a decrease in rainfall increases rural-rural temporary
migration; migration to urban centres and abroad (which entails higher costs for
those who move) is more likely to take place after normal rainfall periods and is
influenced by migrants education, the existence of social networks and access
to transport and road networks (Henry et al, 2004). In Nepal, land degradation
and environmental deterioration lead mainly to local movements, although the
better educated tend to move to urban centres further away (Massey et al. 2007).
Thus, the limited research on the consequences of environmental degradation and extreme weather disasters suggests that these do not inevitably result
in migration. Where they do, it is likely that movement is predominantly shortterm, as in the case of disasters, and short-distance, as in the case of drought
and land degradation. In the case of rising sea levels, much less can be inferred
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from past experience and the number of people forced to move will depend on
their adaptation initiatives and on those undertaken by governments. The significance of non-environmental factors in migration, the uncertainty on the extent
of changes in rainfall patterns and cyclone/hurricane frequency and strength as a
consequence of climate change, and the fact that predictions only go as far as the
next 50 years, are serious limitations for any realistic long-term assessment of the
link between climate change and migration.
For slow-onset climate change that has negative impacts on agriculture
in most low- and middle-income nations (including rising average temperatures and reduced water availability), income diversification and short distance
circular migration are likely to be common responses. This will often have an
urban component - for instance the movement of one or more family member to
an urban area or temporary or seasonal work in urban areas. This kind of income
diversification is likely to be an important element of climate change adaptation.
It has proved very important for reducing rural poverty in many places. In China,
a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture suggested in 2004 that non-farm incomes
and internal transfers from migrants to urban centres were about to overtake
earnings from agriculture in rural household budgets (Deshingkar 2006). In
India, remittances account for about one-third of the annual incomes of poor
and landless rural households (ibid). Earnings from non-farm activities are also
substantial, and estimated to account for between 30 and 50 percent of rural
household income in Africa, reaching as much as 80-90 percent in Southern
Africa (Ellis, 1998), about 60 percent in Asia (ibid) and around 40 percent in
Latin America (Reardon et al. 2001)
Remittances from urban household members and earnings from non-farm
activities also have a major role in financing innovation and intensification of
farming in Africa (Tiffen 2003) and in Asia (Hoang et al. 2005; Hoang et al.
2008). This includes providing the capital to invest in agricultural production
inputs, infrastructure, and sometimes waged labour. It also provides the safety
net that enables farmers to take the risks inherent in changing long-held practices
and is thus an essential element of agricultural adaptation to climate change. The
extent of temporary, circular and seasonal migration and its contribution to rural
households income diversification is not generally recognized, although it is
well documented in various studies (Guest 1998 for Thailand, Deshingkar 2006
for India, Hoang et al for Vietnams Red River Delta, Zhu 2003 for China). In
addition, many urban residents invest in rural property or keep rural assets (often
managed by family members) as a safety net and rural safety nets were critical for
many urban residents in Africa during the 1990s and facilitated urban to rural
migration (Potts and Mutambirwa 1998).
Where climate change is causing environmental stress for rural livelihoods, it will
be one among a number of factors in determining migration duration, direction and
708
composition and these other factors (socio-economic, political and cultural) need
to be integrated into adaptation policies. Agricultural adaptation initiatives should
not assume that they ought to reduce out-migration, and especially rural-urban
migration; indeed successful rural development often supports rapid urban development locally (as it generates demand for goods and services from farmers and
rural households) and may even encourage rural-urban migration (Beauchemin
and Bocquier 2004; Deshingkar 2004; Henry, Schoumaker, and Beauchemin 2004;
Hoang, Dinh, and Nguyen 2008; Massey, Axinn, and Ghimire 2007). Thus, agricultural and rural development and the specific climate change adaptation actions that
these need should not be linked to the reduction of migration.
There is also the potential role in adaptation of smaller urban centres. In most
nations, a significant proportion of the urban population lives in urban centres with
less than 20,000 inhabitants (Satterthwaite 2006). Small urban centres in agricultural areas can have especially important roles in the livelihoods of the poorest
rural groups, often landless and without the means to migrate to larger cities, by
providing access to non-farm activities that require limited skills and capital (Hoang
et al. 2008). They also have an important role in the provision of basic services such
as health care and education to their own population and that of the surrounding
rural area, and this is likely to become increasingly important with both slow-onset
climate change and the increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events.
But little attention has been given to strengthening the competence, capacity and
accountability of local governments in small urban centres, even though this would
bring strong developmental advantages and increase adaptive capacity.
However, a failure to support rural populations to adapt will help produce crisisdriven population movements which make those forced to move very vulnerable.
This is not the planned movement of an individual or a household to an urban
centre helped by knowledge and contacts in that urban centre. A considerable
proportion of the urban poor in some African, Latin American and Asian nations
are refugees, fleeing wars and conflicts (including guerrillas and drug warfare)
and disasters. Most of these crisis-driven movements may be unrelated to climate
events but they show how much these destroy livelihoods and create vulnerable
populations. A high proportion of these people move to urban areas, leaving
behind homes, social networks, family ties and assets. It can take a long time to
insert themselves into local communities (who may resent them as they compete
for income-sources) and to build ties and participate in community organizations
that can push for changes and negotiate with government and utilities for neighbourhood improvements. Ironically, it will be a failure of governments and international agencies to support the poorer and more vulnerable households to adapt
(including that achieved by migration and mobility) and the failure of high-income
nations to agree to the needed reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will
produce the crisis-driven migration that they currently fear.
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4. ADDRESSING VULNERABILITY AND RISK:

THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS, GOVERNANCE,
AND URBAN PLANNING
It is impossible to conceive of an effective climate-change adaptation programme
for any urban centre without a competent, capable local government that is able and
willing to work with the inhabitants of the settlements most at risk which in most
nations means working with the residents of informal/illegal settlements. Adaptation
has to be locally driven because hazards, risks and vulnerabilities are so shaped by local
contexts. And the possibilities for their reduction are so shaped by the competence
and capacity of local organizations and good use of local knowledge and resources.
In most instances, this will also require representative organizations formed by the
residents of the informal/illegal settlements and other groups particularly at risk to
ensure that local government responses address their priorities and work to support
the resources and capacities they can contribute. Local government has to provide the
framework and policies that encourage and support the contributions of individuals
and households and of a range of other local organizations including communitybased organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private enterprises. It also has to provide the needed local coordination for the actions and policies
of different agencies from higher levels of government. The sections below focus on
the roles of local governments and of community based organizations in adaptation. But these are both the groups that official development assistance agencies have
most difficulties working with. No national government will want donor agencies
to develop funding and support programmes for local governments outside of their
control. Indeed, this would often include support to local governments from different
political parties or orientations to those in national government. Or, even worse from
their perspective would be funding channels to support the organizations formed by
the residents of informal or illegal settlements. Even if national governments can
tolerate new funding channels for these two key local actors, the official development assistance agencies lack the staff and structure to allow them to support the
needed long-term, locally driven development+adaptation processes in thousands
of different urban centres (Satterthwaite et al. 2009). In many ways, the challenge of
getting an international institutional framework capable of supporting locally-driven
pro-poor adaptation is greater than the challenge of getting needed funding for it.
4.1 Local Government Responses
Within most local governments in low- and middle-income nations, there is generally
little institutional capacity to address climate-related risks; and also a lack of accountability to citizens in their jurisdictions and little or no scope for citizen participation.
This is even the case in cities in relatively prosperous middle-income nations as
710
illustrated by the earlier case study of Santa Fe. The long-evident lack of attention to
the impacts of extreme weather on large sections of the urban population compounds
the risks they face from the likely impacts of climate change. Climate change contributes another level of stress to already vulnerable populations, adding to the inadequacies in water and sanitation coverage, solid and liquid waste collection and treatment
and pollution control and of course adding to poverty and unemployment.
Thus, adaptation in urban centres that addresses the needs of low-income
groups, and more generally the needs of vulnerable groups, is not possible without
more knowledgeable, accountable, better resourced and technically competent
local authorities that are willing and able to work well with the groups most at
risk. Table 4 is a reminder of all the areas in which city or municipal government
has important roles in reducing climate-related hazards or their impacts in
the built environment, in infrastructure and in services. They should also have
key roles in adaptation that reduces impacts (including measures for pre-disaster
damage limitation) and that helps with recovery after any disaster.
This is a point that has resonance far beyond the specific context of climate
change: well-governed towns and cities have populations and economies that
are resilient to a broader range of shocks and stresses. This includes the extreme
weather and other events that can bring disasters that should have been avoided
or whose impact could be much reduced. Well-governed urban centres also have
above average performance on most indicators of health and quality of life. The
most recent IPCC assessment emphasizes the adaptation capacity within wellgoverned urban centres (Wilbanks et al. 2007) and well-governed urban centres
should be able to protect their inhabitants from floods and storms and ensure a
high quality of life by ensuring provision for infrastructure, services, public space,
and by establishing a planning/land use management framework. They should
be able to understand the very location-specific, place-specific local needs for
this through strong local information, careful consultation and accountable
political and administrative systems. Planning, land use management and
building and land use standards should ensure that sufficient land is available for
housing (including low-cost housing) without urban expansion taking place over
land that is dangerous or needed for city or region flood protection. This kind of
adaptation strategy is something easily stated but almost always difficult politically. Well-governed urban centres can also incorporate measures to support
mitigation into most of the policies mentioned above. Various cities in Latin
America have also demonstrated a capacity to combine poverty reduction with
policies that support city prosperity and with environmental improvements that
benefit middle and upper income groups as well as low income groups (see for
instance Menegat 2002; Velasquez 1998; Almansi 2009).
Local governments will often need to depend on cooperation with other local
governments and/or support from higher levels of government to reduce climate-
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711
related hazards. For instance, urban centres facing floods from nearby rivers may
depend on actions up-river to reduce the volume and speed of peak flows. Local
governments units within large metropolitan areas often face difficulties coordinating their responses to hazard reduction, especially where they are from different
political parties or where their jurisdictions contain a concentration of middle and
upper income groups reluctant to contribute to addressing wider city problems. Yet
such coordination is often far more effective while also reducing costs.
There are very substantial synergies between successful adaptation to climate
change and successful local development, including poverty reduction (Bicknell
et al 2009). Reductions in poverty, including improvements in housing and
living conditions and in provision for infrastructure and services, are central to
adaptation. Successful, well-governed cities greatly reduce climate-related risks
for low-income populations; unsuccessful, badly governed cities do not and may
greatly increase such risks. One of the key predictors for resilience at the level of
the individual, household and community is access to safe, secure housing with
the necessary infrastructure and services. Oddly enough, the importance of safe,
secure, adequate quality housing for adaptation is hardly discussed in the four
IPCC assessments, despite its obvious importance in regard to protection from
climate-related hazards as well as being central to the health and often the
income-earning possibilities and asset bases of low-income households. Perhaps
the IPCC saw housing not as a government responsibility but as something
provided by the market forgetting the key role for government in providing
the policies, regulations and infrastructure that are required in meeting housing
needs and demands.
It is not surprising that most city governments and most ministries and
agencies at higher levels of government in low- and middle-income countries
have given little attention to climate change adaptation within their urban policies
and investments. Even where city governments are competent, representative
and accountable to poorer groups, they generally have more immediate pressing
issues, including large backlogs in provision for infrastructure and services and
much of their population living in poor quality housing. They are also under
pressure to improve education, health care and security, and are looking for ways
to expand employment and attract new investment. By contrast, climate-change
related risks are uncertain and perceived as being in the future (see for instance
Roberts 2008).
Unless adaptation to climate change is seen to support and enhance the
achievement of development goals, it will remain marginal within most government
plans and investments. Perhaps as importantly, the need for adaptation highlights
the importance of strong, locally driven development that delivers for poorer
groups and is accountable to them. The extreme vulnerability of large sections of
the urban population to many aspects of climate change reveals the deficiencies
712
TABLE 4
The Role of Urban Authorities in the Four Aspects of Adaptation
Role for City / Municipal
Government
Adaptation
To Avoid
Impacts
Pre-Disaster
Damage
Limitation
Immediate
Post-Disaster
Response
Rebuilding
Built environment
Building codes
High
Land use regulations and

property registration
High*
High
High
Some
High
Public building construction

and maintenance
High
Some
High
Urban planning (including

zoning and development
controls)
High
High*
High
Infrastructure
Piped water including
treatment
High
Some
High
High
Sanitation
High
Some
High
High
Drainage
High
High**
High
High
Roads, bridges, pavements
High
High
High
Electricity
High
Some?
High
High
Solid waste disposal

facilities
High
Some
Waste water treatment
High
High
High
Services
Fire-protection
High
Some
High
Some
Public order / police / early

warning
Medium
High
High
Some
Solid waste collection
High
High**
High
High
Schools
Medium
Medium
Health care / public health

/ environmental health /
ambulances
Medium
Medium
High
High
Public transport
Medium
High
High
High
Social welfare (includes

provision for child care and
old-age care)
Medium
High
High
High
High
High
Disaster response (over and

above those listed above)
* Obviously it is important that these do not inhibit rapid responses.

** Clearing / de-silting drains and ensuring collection of solid wastes has particular importance just prior to extreme rainfall; many cities face serious ooding from extreme rainfall that is expected (for instance the monsoon
rains) and this is often caused or exacerbated by the failure to keep storm and surface drains in good order.
Source: Satterthwaite 2008a.
CHAPTER 27
713
in development, and unless these deficiencies are addressed, there is no real basis
for adaptation. It is very difficult to conceive of how to get pro-poor and effective
adaptation in nations with weak, ineffective and unaccountable local governments,
especially where there are also civil conflicts and no economic or political stability.
Many of the nations or cities most at risk from climate change lack the political
and institutional base to address adaptation. It is also difficult to see how existing
international institutions as they are currently configured can respond to the need
for pro-poor adaptation. International funding for adaptation is still be far from
adequate (Ayers 2009) but understanding how to make effective use of international funding to support the needed locally determined, locally driven needed
adaptation that serves and works with those most at risk is even further off.
Of course, there are also many developmental interventions that have the
potential to increase the resilience of low-income groups to climate change
related stresses and shocks; indeed, almost any intervention that reduces poverty
is likely to increase resilience and also to reduce the need for livelihoods and
homes that bring high risk levels.
4.2 Community-Based Responses
For community-based adaptation, there is a danger that its relevance will be

both overstated and underplayed at the same time. It will be overstated because
community-based organization and actions cannot provide the citywide infrastructure and service provision and citywide and city-region management that
is central to adaptation. Many of the risks and vulnerabilities that low-income
groups face are from deficiencies or inadequacies in infrastructure provision
that they alone cannot address. For instance, they may be able to help construct
or improve drainage (see the scale of what is possible in this in urban areas of
Pakistan in Hasan 2006) and collect solid waste within their settlement (Anand
1999) but this needs a larger drainage and solid waste collection system into
which to feed. Or investments and actions are needed upstream from them
for instance, to reduce the volume and speed of floodwaters.
Low-income individuals and their families also face considerable structural
adversity that constrains their capacity to act. They have to manage with very
limited incomes and monetary assets in a social and economic context that is,
in urban centres, dominated by money with commodified markets for labour
and goods and services. As discussed earlier, there are often many constraints on
the possibilities of organizing collective responses. In addition, those in power
generally look down on low-income groups; even within democratic local governments, they are often seen as no more than vote banks. One of the consequences
of this is that low-income citizens are not expected to be proactive citizens in part
because they are judged to be less able than others in a multitude of ways.
714
But the relevance of community-based adaptation is also underplayed in

that the policies and practices of governments and international agencies do
not recognize the capacity of community-based organizations to contribute
to adaptation or, if they do, they lack the institutional means to support them.
Low-income urban residents can effect many risk-reducing measures, individually or collectively, while well-organized, representative community organizations are important for representing their interests to local governments and
external funders. Also important is the possibility for these local organizations to
form broader coalitions (or federations) to undertake work on a larger scale, and
also to influence local and international views on effective adaptation and international strategies for adaptation financing. The national federations formed by
slum and shack dwellers or homeless groups that are now active in at least fifteen
nations and emerging in many others10 have demonstrated a capacity not only to
work at scale to improve housing conditions and basic infrastructure and services
for their members but also to form effective partnerships with local governments (Patel and Mitlin 2004; dCruz and Satterthwaite 2005; Mitlin 2008).
These are the kinds of partnerships that can address deficits in infrastructure
and services in ways that do address the needs of the most vulnerable groups
and that are thus also central to climate change adaptation. These urban poor
federations have also demonstrated their capacity to contribute to risk-reduction
frameworks, especially in undertaking city-wide surveys of informal settlements
and in detailed enumerations and mapping of informal settlements that provides
the information base needed for upgrading (ibid; Weru 2004; Reyos 2009). Some
federations have demonstrated a capacity to work with local authorities in resettling those living on high-risk sites (Patel et al. 2002).
There is also the key role of community-based organizations in post-disaster
work, especially for those who are most affected, and this is often forgotten.
Although the Indian Ocean Tsunami was not caused by climate change, the
deficiencies in the post-disaster response despite (or perhaps in part because
of) massive international funding show deficiencies that need to be understood
and addressed, to ensure better responses in the future (ACHR 2005 2006). For
instance, the survivors from this Tsunami in Banda Aceh were swamped by so
much unregulated, uncoordinated aid (over 500 international organizations each
with their own priorities, agendas and funds that needed to be spent quickly)
that it undermined their social structures. Support for housing and infrastructure
should have been entry points for helping the survivors get some control back of
their lives including rebuilding homes and villages and strengthening their own
social cohesion and self-determination. But the funding went to contractors with
the construction seen as ends in themselves and with no coordination (some
10see the website of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), http://www.sdinet.co.za/
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TABLE 5
Examples of Asset-Based Actions at Different Levels to Build Resilience
to Extreme Weather
Asset-Based Actions
Areas of
Intervention
Protection
Household and
Neighbourhood
Household and
community-based actions
to improve housing and
infrastructure
Community-based
negotiation for safer sites
in locations that serve
low-income households
Municipal/City
Work with low-income
communities to support
slum and squatter
upgrading informed by
hazard mapping and
vulnerability analysis
Support increased supply
and reduced costs of safe
sites for housing
Regional or National
Government frameworks
to support household,
neighbourhood and
municipal action; risk
reduction investments
and actions that are
needed beyond urban
boundaries
Community-based
measures to build
disaster-proof assets (e.g.
savings groups) or protect
assets (e.g. insurance)
Pre-disaster
damage
limitation
Community-based
disaster preparedness and
response plans including
ensuring early warning
systems reach everyone,
measures to protect
houses, safe evacuation
sites identied if needed
and provision to help
those less able to move
quickly
Early warning systems

that reach and serve
groups most at risk,
preparation of safe sites
with services, organization for transport to
safe sites, protecting
evacuated areas from
looting
National weather systems

capable of providing
early warning; support for
community and municipal
actions
Immediate
post-disaster
response
Support for immediate

household and community
responses to reduce risks
in affected areas, support
the recovery of assets and
develop and implement
responses
Encourage and support

active engagement of
survivors in decisions
and responses; draw
on resources, skills
and social capital of
local communities;
rapid restoration of
infrastructure and
services
Funding and institutional

support for community
and municipal responses
Rebuilding
Support for households

and community organizations to get back to their
homes and communities
and plan for rebuilding
with greater resilience;
support for recovering
the household and local
economy.
Ensure reconstruction
process supports
household and
community actions
including addressing
priorities of women,
children and youth; build
or rebuild infrastructure to
more resilient standards
Funding and institutional

support for household,
community and
municipal action; address
deciencies in regional
infrastructure
Source: Moser and Satterthwaite 2009.
716
households got two or more new houses or boats, others got none). The survivors
also had to fight against a national government that wanted to create a 2 km
construction free zone in which most of their homes and villages were located.
So much funding was available at first (even paying people to attend meetings
and clean their homes) that it undermined attempts to develop livelihoods and
any role for community organizations. But then the funders withdrew, leaving
communities with no source of income and no social cohesion. Despite the
billions of dollars spent, poverty had not been addressed. To address these issues,
23 villages have been working together with the support of a small Indonesian
NGO (Uplink Banda Aceh) to develop their own plans and priorities and to
oppose the initiatives that threaten their homes and livelihoods (Uplink Banda
Aceh and Sauter 2009). This is not an isolated case; indeed it is rare for those
who are most impacted by disasters to be allowed central roles in designing and
implementing responses (ACHR 2005 2006). Addressing this needs collective
organization formed by those who survive. The Philippines Homeless Peoples
Federation has been active in working with the victims of disasters and their local
governments in developing responses that include upgrading and where needed
resettlement on safer sites (Reyos 2009).
Table 5 below gives examples of the kinds of asset-based actions that households and community based organizations can take to build resilience to extreme
weather and the ways in which this can be supported by local, regional and
national governments.
5. CONCLUSIONS
How can governments and international agencies reduce the large and growing
levels of risks being imposed by climate change on large sections of the urban (and
rural) population in low- and middle-income nations? Most of those at risk have
livelihoods and lifestyles that contribute very little to greenhouse gas emissions.
Although there is a long history of richer groups reducing the environmental
problems they face by transferring these to other people and other locations,
climate change represents the largest and potentially the most catastrophic of
these transfers.
For low- and most middle-income nations, clearly the priority is adaptation
that addresses current and near-future risks and vulnerabilities, and the two
key actors are local governments and the populations most at risk (and their
organizations). Yet these are both groups that official development assistance
agencies have difficulties working with. Development assistance agencies were
set up to work with national governments and they lack the structure and staff
to support the needed long-term local engagement with many localities. Most
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717
of the climate change risks evident in urban centres are related to development
deficits poor quality housing, inadequacies in provision for infrastructure and
services and a failure of land-management to ensure that low-income households
can find or build homes on safe sites. These are often underpinned by governments that refuse to address the needs of those living in informal settlements.
This will not be addressed by new adaptation funds that only support adaptation
to climate change. In effect, climate change adaptation in urban areas is not
possible without building adaptation into development and without reducing the
development deficit in (for instance) provision for infrastructure and services
(which may also be called the adaptation deficit). Climate change adaptation
also requires more knowledgeable, accountable, better resourced and technically
competent local authorities that are willing and able to work well with the groups
most at risk. But the political and institutional means to achieve this are not
easily conceived in most nations, especially on the time-scale needed for effective
adaptation. In addition, even where local governments are more competent and
accountable, unless adaptation to climate change is seen to support and enhance
the achievement of development goals, it will remain marginal within most
government plans and investments.
At a global scale, mitigation can be considered the most important contribution to adaptation, especially for all the cities, smaller urban centres and rural
areas in low-income nations that have high risks and so little adaptation capacity.
The difficulties in building local adaptive capacity, and the limits in external
funders knowledge of how to do so, adds greatly to the urgency of achieving
global agreements that rapidly reduce total greenhouse gas emissions and avoid
dangerous climate change. But greenhouse gas emission reduction at the scale
and speed needed to avoid this is unlikely, in large part because this necessitates substantial constraints on high-consumption lifestyles in high-income and
increasingly in middle-income nations.
At national level, adaptation needs to be seen as a development issue, not an
environmental issue; it also needs to be understood as an issue needing locallydriven development. Considering the issues raised above about local development, adaptation will require national frameworks and funding provisions to
strengthen the capacity of local governments to act and to work with low-income
group and other groups at risk. This is easily said but not easily achieved.
In many urban centres in low-income nations, a focus on mitigation, often
promoted by northern-based initiatives, may serve to divert attention from the
more pressing issues of building adaptive capacity, in full recognition of how
climate change is likely to affect the urban and rural poor. It is also easier for
international agencies to promote mitigation than to promote the much needed
but messy, complex locally rooted process of pro-poor adaptation. It is strange to
see mitigation being included in projects that are meant to benefit low-income
718
groups, when mitigation should be focusing on reducing emissions from middleand upper-income groups.
Many of the inaccurate stereotypes imposed on the urban poor in discussions
of development are being transferred to the climate change discourse. Instead
of seeing migration and mobility as ways in which the poor adapt to changing
circumstances (including climate change), the discourse is of floods of environmental refugees. Instead of seeing the informal homes and neighbourhoods that
house so much of the urban population as evidence of the capacity and ingenuity
of low-income groups, and as a contribution to city development, these are usually
seen as the problem. Similar anti-poor attitudes are evident in government
policies on the informal economy. Disasters usually have the greatest impact
on low-income groups and after disasters, at best, the survivors are seen as
victims in need of emergency relief, under-playing the knowledge, resources and
capacities they can bring to recovery and rebuilding. More generally, rural-urban
migration is seen as the problem yet this is overwhelmingly a rational response
by individuals and households to the concentration of economic opportunity in
particular urban locations. Urbanization is a necessary part of a stronger, more
resilient economy; it is also not in opposition to rural development as urban to
rural remittances, urban demand for higher value foodstuffs and urban support
for off-farm and non-farm work support rural prosperity. Yet many national and
local governments see urbanization as a problem when the problem is their
failure to change their governance structures to support it. The same is true for
many official development assistance agencies who have long failed to understand the role of urbanization in development and failed to recognize the scale
and depth of urban poverty.
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CHAPTER
28
The Urban Poors Vulnerability

to Climate Change in Latin America
and the Caribbean
Lucy Winchester,* Raquel Szalachman
1. INTRODUCTION
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) contribute a relatively small proportion
to overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a global scale. The regions vulnerability, to global warming, however, is significant. LAC is a highly urbanized region,
with urbanization levels rivaling that of many industrialized nations. UN projections
suggest that 80 percent of Latin America will be urban by 2015. Although one out of
three LAC inhabitants will live in small and medium-sized urban settlements, about
one-sixth of the total population will be concentrated in nine metropolitan areas
(ECLAC 2006). Cities in LAC currently face many environmental and sustainable
development challenges, with significant impacts on human health, resource productivity/incomes, ecological public goods, poverty, and inequity. In this context,
climate change impacts in the region will exacerbate those development challenges.
Much of the urban population has limited adaptive capacity to environmental
hazards, including climate variability and climate change, making large shares of the
urban population vulnerable to increases in the frequency or intensity of storms,
constraints on water supplies or food price rises. Particularly vulnerable to these
impacts are the urban poor. The objective of this paper is to understand these impacts
Q
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728
and their policy implications in LAC cities. Recent research shows limited explicit
urban and local scale adaptation experiences for climate change impacts in the region
(Winchester, 2008). Potential climate change impacts have not been found to be
incorporated into regional and urban projects and initiatives as a conditioning agent.
This paper is based on an analysis of secondary data (quantitative and qualitative) from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC). It builds on research results on urban poverty
and precariousness in the region; on environmental and sustainable development issues in LAC cities; and ECLAC advances on overall climate change
issues in the region. The approach is to first, characterize the urban poor, their
habitat and relationship with the urban environment in LAC cities; second,
hypothesize climate change impacts on the urban poor and their habitat; third,
analyze LAC experiences in sustainable pro-poor habitat programs/policies for
lessons learned; and lastly, develop a possible agenda for policy development in
adaptation to climate change for the urban poor.
2. POVERTY IN URBAN AREAS IN LAC

Two out of three poor people in the LAC region are city dwellers. Urban poverty takes
the form of low earnings due to precarious employment, lack of education and patrimonial assets. In urban areas, precarious living conditions, including lack of, or inadequate access to, sanitation and drinking water; insecure tenure arrangements; poorly
constructed housing and overcrowded living conditions, are common to both poor
and non-poor households. Social and spatial segregation of the poor is also a specific
characteristic of LAC cities. Slums and informal settlements including deteriorated
inner city dwellings are in many cities, the only option available for the urban poor.
Urban poverty is a multidimensional condition, subject to cultural, social and
local influences, understood and experienced differently by the poor according to
gender, age, ethnicity and capacities. Poor urban households share many characteristics with their rural counterparts (World Bank 2004 cited Wodon et al. 2001)
notably household size, female or young household head, low levels of education, and
unemployment of the household head and/or their partner. As for differences, returns
to education are higher in urban areas than in rural ones, and while rural areas are
characterized by self-employment, underemployment is prevalent in cities. Key attributes of city-specific poverty include: socio-economic vulnerability due to the urban
poors integration into the market economy (cash economy); socio-economic heterogeneity within urban areas; environmental and health risks specific to urban areas;
socio-spatial segregation; social fragmentation, instability of networks, and violence;
and insecure and deficient (in terms of quality) access to goods and services.
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2.1 Income
While welfare (and consumption) measures focus on flows of income rather than the
distribution of assets and opportunities, they provide an important basis for comparison of poverty incidence over time, and between places. In 2007, 34.1 percent of LACs
population was living in poverty (28.9 percent in urban areas), and 12.6 percent of these
people were extremely poor, or indigent (8.1 percent in urban areas) (ECLAC 2008).
Although poverty is proportionally lower in cities than in rural areas, the regions high
level of urbanization has concentrated most of the population in urban centers.
The percentage of Latin Americans living in poverty conditions has fallen by 14
percentage points since the beginning of the 1990s, but it continues to be significant; 184 million poor and almost 68 million who are extremely poor. Much of the
progress made in alleviating poverty and indigence in Latin America between 2002
and 2007 is attributable to growth effects. This is especially true in the countries that
have achieved the highest percentage-point reductions in poverty. Nevertheless,
the parts played by growth and distribution effects in the various countries of the
region have differed, and improvements in income distribution have been the main
cause of the reductions in poverty and indigence achieved in a number of countries
(Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama) (ECLAC 2008).
During this same period, labor income accounted for most of the variation
observed in the increase of average household income of lower-income groups
(ECLAC 2008). Employment creation and increased labor productivity, especially
among the poor, are the principal transmission mechanisms between economic
growth and poverty reduction (Cecchine and Uthoff 2008).
In terms of relative poverty incidence, four country groups exist in the region: (i)
where less than 25% of the urban population is poor (Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile,
Panama and Uruguay); (ii) where between 25% and 40% of total urban population is
poor (Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru); (iii) where urban poverty fluctuates between
40% and 50% of the total (Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and
El Salvador); and (iv) where more than 50% of the total urban residents are poor
(Honduras, Nicaragua, and Paraguay) (ECLAC 2008). In all countries where statistics
are available, urban poverty levels are greater in secondary and smaller cities as
compared to larger metropolitan areas (ECLAC 2008).
Income distribution is more unequal in Latin America than anywhere else
in the world. The LAC region exhibits significant income inequalities in urban
areas as well as at city level when compared to other regions in the world (UN
Habitat 2008). Although conceptually related, poverty and inequality are two
distinct phenomena and do not necessarily evolve together. In LAC although
GDP per capita has grown in most of the countries, Gini coefficients showed
an improvement only in some of them (see Table 1). In the long run, persistent
inequalities may undermine efforts to reduce poverty. The average Gini coeffi-
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cients for the region show levels up to 0.56 at the city level and up to 0.50 for urban
areas (UN Habitat 2008), although there are some differences among countries.
Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala exhibit extremely high levels of inequality at
the urban level. At the city level, all 19 cities examined exhibit Gini coefficients
above the International Alert Line1, with Bogota and all the Brazilian cities
analyzed showing the highest levels. Lesser unequal per capita income distributions between households, however, do permit increased reductions in poverty
levels, given increases in average incomes per worker or increased state transfers.
TABLE 1
Change in Urban Inequalities (Gini Coefcient) and GDP Per Capita (Ppp)
in Selected Countries
Country
GDP per Capita (PPP, Current

$US, Country Data)
%
Year
Change
GDP per
per
Capita
Annum
Urban Gini Coefcient

%
Year
Gini
Change
per
Annum
Brazil
2005
0.60
-0.07
2005
8402
3.15
Chile
2006
0.52
-0.24
2005
12027
6.00
Colombia
2005
0.59
0.87
2005
7304
3.99
Ecuador
2005
0.51
0.69
1999
3419
1.73
Guatemala
2004
0.53
-0.37
2004
4401
3.39
Mexico
2005
0.50
-0.15
2005
10751
3.39
Uruguay
2005
0.45
-0.83
2005
9962
3.70
Venezuela
1994
0.48
0.30
2002
5449
1.23
El Salvador
2000
0.503
0.18
2000
5497
4.41
Honduras
1999
0.50
-1.06
1999
2725
2.18
Nicaragua
1998
0.53
0.19
1998
2802
4.09
Peru
1997
0.45
0.76
1997
4589
5.86
Data from various sources, mostly national household surveys between 1983 and 2005.
Note: Urban Gini Coefcient is for income.
Source: UN-HABITAT Global Urban Observatory 2008.
2.2 Public Services
In most of the LAC region, access to improved water and sanitation is quasi-universal.
The increased growth of the urban population in the region, however, has created
a huge pressure on the capacity of water and sanitation infrastructure and systems
to continue to deliver adequate services. In 2004, 96 percent of the regions urban
1Gini coefficient values above 0.4, where inequalities have negative social, economic and political consequences
(UN-HABITAT 2008).
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households had access to safe drinking water and 86 percent to basic sanitation. In
rural areas, access levels are 73 percent and 49 percent respectively. Less than 15
percent of the regions municipal wastewater is treated. While regional figures paint
a positive image of the region, they mask the diversity of situations across countries,
cities and parts of cities, as well as serious deficiencies in the quality and level of
supply. According to World Health Organization statistics, in 2004, nine countries
show coverage levels greater than regional averages (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,
Dominica, Mexico, Surinam, Uruguay, and Venezuela). Twenty-four countries show
average coverage levels less than the regional average; in Haiti in 2004, just over nine
percent of the total population living in urban areas had domiciliary connections to
drinking water. Central American countries show a subregional average of 47 percent
coverage (with household connections), while the Caribbean shows a subregional
average of 49 percent. South America shows better performance levels (73 percent).
Even in the countries where there is drinking water, supply services may be intermittent, and it is estimated that this corresponds to 60 percent of the population served
thorough household drinking water supply connections (Winchester 2008).
The majority of the persons without access to drinking water supply and
sanitation services belong to low-income groups. Many of them are concentrated in
periurban areas, principally in poverty belts on the periphery of many of the cities
in the region. It has proven to be very difficult to provide these marginal areas with
services of acceptable quality. The main problems encountered in efforts to expand
services to marginal populations have been due, on the one hand, to the high
poverty levels and the low level of payment capacity and culture, and on the other
hand, to high construction and operating costs. These urban areas have very often
experienced explosive growth and have developed in an unplanned manner, in areas
far from existing infrastructure networks and with more difficult topographical
conditions. This situation has meant that low-income groups, in many cases, must
purchase water from private vendors at prices that far exceed (up to 100 times in
some cases) those of official companies. These groups also incur a high health risk,
as there is no guarantee of the quality of the water provided (Jouravlev 2004) or of
the alternative solution adopted (collective sources, individual wells, illegal connections to networks, rainwater collection or extraction from nearby water sources).
2.3 Land Tenure, Poor Quality of Houses and Slum Formation
Studies by ECLAC showed that low-income households are willing to save mainly
to acquire assets which are very valuable for them; among those, land is the most
valuable asset held by the poor (Szalachman 2003). However, high land prices and
lack of financial resources have given rise to irregular settlements, often on the
periphery of cities. As a consequence, irregular tenancy and property insecurity are
common to many cities in LAC. Nearly 50% of urban dwellers live in informal or
732
illegal housing situations. Overcrowding is also prevalent; more than 30 percent of

the urban poor population in nine out of 14 countries lives in overcrowded conditions: that is, three or more people to a room (Winchester 2006).
According to UN-Habitat, one out of every three people living in cities of the developing world lives in a slum. There are approximately 117 million slum-dwellers in the LAC
region. Average slum prevalence in the cities of the region is 27 percent (UN Habitat 2008),
although in Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua the concentration of slum households
is very high (50.4, 42.9, 45.5, and 36.1 percent of total urban population respectively). In
Brazil, almost 30 percent of urban population lives in slum conditions (accounting for
over 45,000,000 persons). These slums cover a wide range of low-income settlements,
from precarious dwellings in central districts to the informal settlements with inadequate
infrastructure and facilities and overcrowding, located in risk areas and with different
forms of tenure. Within these areas income levels are heterogeneous: for example, in
Brazil, the non-poor comprise a significant proportion of residents of favelas to over 50%
in some cities. The formation of slums in major cities has strengthened the processes of
urban and social exclusion (often not just limited to access to the benefits the city offers but
also to participation in the decisions affecting the city), exacerbated land use conflicts in
urban development plans and impeded the process of improvement poverty conditions.
Common to the majority of slums are also poor or inexistent basic sanitation, limited access
to drinking water, and accumulation of waste and local dumps. Figure 1 shows the degree
of shelter deprivation in slums for some countries. Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru show the
highest proportion of extreme deprivation (meaning three or more deprivations).
FIGURE 1
Distribution of Slum Dwellers by Degree of Shelter Deprivation
in Latin America (%)

Source: UN Habitat 2008, State of the Worlds Cities 2008/2009. Harmonious Cities. Earthscan: London.
Figure 2.4.8A, p. 103, based on data from the Global Urban Observatory.
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733
2.4 Health Care, Education and Social Security Benets
These are three important sectors where social inequalities are particularly acute
in Latin America. These inequities are characterized not only by specific population groups access to health, education and other social services, but also by the
deficient quality of these services. Studies reveal that 70 percent of poor adults in
urban areas have low levels of skills, as compared to 50 percent for the urban work
force in its entirety. This is due to lower levels of education, but also to the poor
quality of education and training to which the urban poor generally have access.
Similarly, evidence suggests that differences in wages between different groups
of people may be ascribed to levels and quality of education (Arias, Yamada and
Tejerina 2003).
The region shows important deficits in health (an infant mortality level of
25.6 per 1,000 live births), education (around 25 percent of Latin Americans
aged 15 and over have not completed their primary education), and in most
countries where social security systems have been implemented, the systems
are very regressive with the higher strata benefiting from better systems than
lower income groups. This later group generally lacks access to social security
due to limited public programs, unemployment, or labor informality (poor job
quality, a lack of job security, low wages and a lack of access to social security).
Women, again, overall show even more precarious access to social security.
The proportion of workers with social security coverage as a percentage of the
working age population is 25.5 percent for men, and 15.4 percent for women,
according to ECLAC (2008).
ECLAC (2006 cited in Cecchine and Uthoff 2008) studies have detailed the
links between the scarcity of human capital of active members of poor households, to their limited access to educational opportunities and the decisions of
these families regarding their childrens insertion in the educational system.
Members of poor household have deficient educational levels, accessing
precarious employment opportunities. Children and youth from these homes
have few quality opportunities to educate or train themselves, this situation,
combined with their lack social capital, limits them to accessing low productivity
jobs in labor markets (ibid: 46).
2.5 Vulnerability
LAC is subject to extreme climatic events and natural phenomena that take place
in frequently recurring cycles; these events and phenomena (earthquakes, tropical
storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts, volcanic eruptions) and there is no evidence
of their inclusion in urban planning and management (Winchester 2008). The
region is highly vulnerable to these increasingly intense and frequent natural
734
phenomena, which affect its ever more fragile ecological and social systems. The
regions cities are extremely vulnerable to disasters of both natural and technological origin (the risks inherent in hazardous activities), with negative microeconomic and macroeconomic consequences at the local, regional and national
levels. Moreover, urbanization patterns, especially among poor sectors (occupation of high-risk land, use of unsound materials), further heighten urban vulnerability. Vulnerability, in fact, is a critical dimension of poverty.
In LAC, the poor tend to settle in high risk areas in cities (geographically
unstable environments) building their communities and homes with precarious
materials. These low income groups are generally not covered by social security
systems, and experience much more losses when natural disasters occur. Disasters
of a more local nature, floods and landslides, as well as those affecting nations
(hurricanes) disproportionately affect the urban poor in the region, for physical,
social and economic reasons.
2.6 Employment
Low growth rates have had negative effects on employment and the creation of
new jobs, particularly in urban areas. Nearly 40 percent of the urban population in Latin America is employed in low productivity sectors. Monthly labor
income of urban workers in these sectors fell from US$345 to US$283 at 2000
prices between 1990 and 2006, widening the gap with formal-sector workers,
whose income averaged US$ 493 in 2006 (ECLAC 2008). There is a high presence
of large informal sectors and the persistence of underemployment among the
poorest households. In 2006, informal workers in urban areas of Latin America
accounted for 44.9 percent of all workers. Women are disproportionately represented within this sector. Women also receive lower wage incomes than men,
given equal educational levels and experience (Cecchine and Uthoff 2008).
Joblessness in Latin America remains high, and as of 2006, the rate was still 2.4
percentage points higher than in 1990. Although some improvements were seen since
2002, sharp inequities still exist, with higher rates among the poor, women and youth.
Not all countries report the same level of wage employment, and such differences
attest to the diversity of urban labor market conditions in the region. Three in every
four urban employed people are wage earners in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and
Mexico, closely followed by Brazil, Panama and Uruguay. In the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru, however, only three
or fewer out of every five employed people work for someone else. These countries
also have a higher proportion of people employed in low-productivity sectors.
The current functioning of labor markets in the region prevents a large
proportion of employed persons to live above, or beyond, the poverty line.
ECLAC studies (for 2005) show that in urban areas in the region, between 10
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735
percent (Chile) and 54 percent (Nicaragua and Honduras) of employed persons

live in poverty conditions (Cecchine and Uthoff 2008).
According to the World Bank (2004), wage income represents 80 percent of total
monetary income of the urban poor in Latin America. Integration into the market
economy means that the urban poor are much more vulnerable to economic shocks
than their rural counterparts, a situation that underscores the importance of the
mechanisms of survival and adaptation of households, and understanding of the
development of intervention strategies. Macroeconomic shocks are transmitted to
poor urban households through the labor market. Consumption price effects can
also be significant for the poor. For example, escalating food and oil prices triggered
an upswing in indigence in mid-2008. Own account workers and those lacking in
job security are the hardest hit when there are negative movements in the business
cycle. This situation, combined with the heterogeneity of the urban area and its
processes and business activities, make it complex and difficult to anticipate the
effects of external shocks in the different social sectors. Although in 2005 about
one third of total regional population lived in poverty (income measurement), the
proportion of income vulnerable households is even much higher. In 2005, in not
one of 16 major Latin American countries was the per capita average income of
the fifth income decile equal to or larger than 2 times the poverty line (Cecchine
and Uthoff 2008). Fifty percent of the population of Latin America is income
vulnerable. In Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, 70 percent of
the population is income vulnerable.
In many cities of the region, the urban poor inhabit formally (tenure) and work
informally. Thus poverty is prevalent in formal neighborhoods created by public
programs or through old invasions that were consolidated through combined
public and community efforts. Those urban poor who work in the formal sector
and inhabit formally are particularly vulnerable to economic cycles, both for the
increased cost of living in conventional housing (with services bought in the
market) and a relative increased rigidity in their asset mix.
This situation, combined with the heterogeneity of the urban territory and its
processes and economic activities, makes it difficult and complex to anticipate
the effects of external shocks to different social groups.
2.7 Social Exclusion, Social Risk, Violence
Maybe the worst consequences of the economic process of urbanization are the
problems of social exclusion, social risk and violence. The social exclusion process
closes the access of vulnerable people to the basic social structure that is needed
for their human development. High levels of inequality usually menace social
cohesion as they may lead to increases in crime and other forms of social and
political conflict. These, in turn, create insecurity and lack of confidence among the
736
economic agents which poses a further risk to economic growth and social development. Some studies have found a strong linkage between high levels of violence
and lack of work and vice versa. These studies also found that in general, high rates
of violence make mobility within the community dangerous, resulting in reduced
access to education and lack of investment in communities (World Bank 2004).
Particularly acute in urban areas in the region is violence committed upon
and by young people. Young people are over-represented in terms of incidence
and gravity of violence, as both victims and perpetrators. Studies show that
the incidence of violence among the causes of young peoples deaths in Latin
America is rising and has a strong gender bias: the rates for young men are more
than double those for young women in deaths by homicide, traffic accidents
and suicides (ECLAC 2008). Underlying this phenomenon is a marked material
and symbolic social exclusion, reflected in inequality of opportunities, a lack of
access to employment, alienation among young people who are not studying nor
working, and the gaps between symbolic consumption and reduced material
consumption. Other considerations include territorial segregation, and the lack
of public spaces for social and political participation.
The persistence of inequalities due to social exclusion and difficulties in
accessing social services and socio-political institutions has undermined efforts
to decrease income inequality, and at the same time has increased group and
individual vulnerability and has created poverty traps caused by the impossibility
of social and physical mobility (World Bank 2004).
In Latin America, how the very poor perceive social inclusion reflects their
aspirations for economic autonomy and material well-being, and their desire to
possess the essential skills needed to get ahead in a knowledge- and informationbased society. Perceptions and sensations of exclusion are stronger among the
poor than among the non-poor. Feelings of loneliness, impotence and disorientation are most common among Latin Americans who live in lower-income
households and have lower levels of education (ECLAC 2008).
2.8 Urban Environmental Degradation
Urban environmental degradation is a serious problem facing the region. Generally speaking, the causes of the increase in air, soil and water pollution in the
region are associated with unplanned urbanization processes, agriculture (use of
unsustainable techniques and agrochemicals) and poor environmental management. The uncontrolled growth of cities has exposed a large proportion of the
population to deteriorating air and water quality, solid and hazardous waste
contamination and coastal degradation. Overcrowding, lack of infrastructure
and urban sprawl heighten exposure to pollutants, with the result that the poorest
sectors are usually the primary victims of pollution. Usually poor neighbour-
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737
hoods and slums are located near polluting industries or near rivers with polluted
water due to industries residuals.
Inhabitants in Latin American cities are exposed to air pollutants that surpass
recommended limits (Cifuentes and others 2005). In Mexico, approximately 25
million people are affected by air pollution. The evidence on airborne particulate matter and public health confirms the adverse health effects of exposure to
urban pollution in cities throughout the world. The effects include respiratory
and cardiovascular problems affecting children and adults, as well as susceptible
groups. Malnutrition and lack of access to health services amplify the negative
impact of air pollution.
Inadequate disposal of waste (including handling) is another direct and
indirect environmental and social cost typical of urban poor communities. At
a regional scale, 45 percent of all waste is disposed of in open-air dumps or
waterways. In small cities this proportion reaches over 60 percent. In slums and
marginal neighbourhoods, the consequences of using waste as a survival strategy
are dramatic. Many slum families use waste as a survival strategy, via street
collecting or scavenging in dumps, with the associated health risks.
3. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

AND THE URBAN POOR IN LAC
The earths surface temperature has increased between 0.74 and 1.8 degrees
Celsius since 1906 (UN-Habitat 2008) but only in 2007 did the Stern Report
and the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) emphasize two important new elements: the human responsibility on climate change and the potential damage of climate change under
different scenarios (ECLAC 2009). While cities are not the only generators of
GHG emissions, there is no doubt that built-up areas consume more energy,
producing more carbon emissions and therefore a larger contribution to climate
changes than undeveloped areas.
Estimates by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), indicate
that in 2000, LAC was responsible for approximately 12 percent of global carbon
dioxide emissions, with 4.3 percent of emissions coming from industry and 48.3
percent from land use changes (principally deforestation). Eighty-three percent
of GHG emissions in LAC are from six countries - Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela,
Argentina, Colombia, and Peru (UNEP/ROLAC and SEMARNAT 2006).
On a global scale, there is a strong correlation between emissions, population
and GDP rankings, reflecting the importance of population and economic growth
as emissions drivers. While this correlation holds true for LAC as well, overall
drivers in the region include a rapid growth of energy consumption, substitution
738
of other fuels for clean natural gas in the non-electricity sector and for electricity
generation, low comparative advantages for alternative energy sources, serious
air pollution levels in many urban centers, and continued deforestation. The LAC
region suffers its consequences in a disproportionate way (ECLAC 2009), due to
its geography, with numerous insular states located within the hurricane strip,
and low coastal zones, or others depending on Andean defrosting for urban water
provision, or subject to forest floods and fires. In most Caribbean island states, 50
percent of the population resides within 2 km of the coast (Vergara 2005).
Principally based on IPCC findings, this section presents an overview of the
impacts of climate change for the region, especially for urbanization and the urban
poor. While the IPCC global models are currently our principal source of understanding the global implications of climate change, these global models are not particularly useful for subregional and local analyses, due to regional diversities in topography and geography, as well as in relative sizes and characteristics of LAC countries.
Global perspectives on regional impacts, however, do provide key elements for understanding the broad and profound implications of climate change for the urban poor.
Expected climate change impact at the regional level include increases in
sea level, in surface temperatures, greater intensity of weather disturbances,
tropical glaciers and snowcap melting, warming of moorlands and high altitude
ecosystems in the Andes, greater frequency and extent of forest fires, the
appearance of tropical disease vectors in the Andes piedmont, changes in agricultural productivity, and impacts on coastal and watershed ecosystems. Under
certain scenarios, food insecurity could be significant.
Most of the regions largest cities are coastal cities and are vulnerable to sea
level rise; many are very vulnerable to extreme weather events; and many Pacific
Coast cities rely on glacial melt for their water supplies during dry summers a
source that will be severely depleted within 20 years at current rates of glacial melt.
For example, the coastal plain of north-east South America is very low-lying,
generating risks for major settlements from north-east Brazil to Venezuela. The
coastal zone of Guyana holds 90 percent of national population and 75 per cent
of the national economy; its highest point is 1.5 meters above sea level with much
residential land, including the capital Georgetown, below high water sea level. In
many Caribbean states, between 20 and 50 per cent of population resides within
the low-elevation coastal zone (Satterthwaite and others 2007).
Vulnerability profiles in the region generally incorporate the multiple dimensions of development in the context of climate change and extreme events /
disasters. These profiles do not recognize the urban poors heightened economic
vulnerability due to their dependency on cash incomes through an insertion in
precarious labor markets. This reality is further complicated by price effects, in
that access to urban services (water and sanitation, energy, transportation, health,
and even education and childcare) depends on both the availability of quality
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739
services, and cash outlays by the poor. Access to housing (location, tenure and
quality) also depends on cash income.
In the face of environmental change and extreme events, it is not clear how
the poor manage these risks. Research shows that the poor diversify their asset
portfolios to limit the impact of external shocks. They may combine these strategies with seeking new livelihood opportunities. Climate change complicates
this situation. The poor, besides being affected disproportionately, are highly
vulnerable to price increases that will exacerbate poverty conditions. It would
be important for vulnerability profiles to incorporate the factors that transmit
poverty to the vulnerable, such as precarious labor markets, the poors insertion
in the cash economy, education and health issues, urban economics and land
use, property rights and tenure and how climate change may shift these factors
in relation to the urban poor.
3.1 Water Resources
The LAC region, although basically humid, with large fresh water resources,
presents difficulties in water availability and quality due to the irregular temporal
and spatial distribution of resources. Stress on water availability and quality has
been documented where lower precipitation and/or higher temperatures occur
(IPCC 2007:586). During the last decades, important changes in precipitation
and increases in temperature have been observed in the region. As a consequence
of increased temperatures, the trend in glacier retreat is accelerating, and is a
critical issue for Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, where water availability
has already been compromised either for consumption or hydropower generation. The IPCC states that these problems with supply are expected to increase in
the future, becoming chronic if no appropriate adaptation measures are planned
and implemented. La Paz, Quito, and Lima will be particularly impacted.
The IPCC reports that by the 2020s, the net increase in the number of people
experiencing water stress due to climate change is likely to be between 7 and
77 million. For the second half of the century, the potential water availability
reduction and increased demographic pressures would increase these figures
to 60 and 150 million (2007:583). Access to safe drinking water will become a
concern for a greater proportion of LAC inhabitants.
Additionally, with respect to mountainous areas, among other expected
changes, are a loss of many of the environmental goods and services provided
by these mountains, especially water supply to urban areas, basin regulation, and
associated hydropower potential.
The demand for water for irrigation is also projected to rise in a warmer
climate, bringing increased competition between agricultural and domestic use
in addition to industrial uses.
740
3.2 Extreme Events and Disasters
Many countries in the LAC region are at increased risk from natural disasters as
a consequence of climate change. The region is subject to extreme climatic events
and natural phenomena that take place in frequently recurring cycles earthquakes, tropical storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts, volcanic eruptions and
the region is highly vulnerable to these increasingly frequent natural phenomena,
which affect its ever more fragile ecological and social systems. According to
UNEP studies (2003), in 70 percent of the area represented by Latin American
countries, current vulnerability to flooding events is high.
Within the region the Caribbean is the sub region most affected by natural
disasters. The entire regions cities are extremely vulnerable to disasters of both
natural and technological origin (the risks inherent in hazardous activities),
with negative microeconomic and macroeconomic consequences at the local,
regional and national levels. ECLAC estimates that in the 2004 hurricane season,
total economic impact of natural disasters in the region amounted to 7,559
million USD: and in 2005 season, to 5,409 million USD. Disasters also interrupt
employment and may destroy employment opportunities, creating instability in
income flows for the urban poor.
Estimations of future impacts and vulnerability to climate change show an
important increase in the number of people at risk of hunger2 and in the number
of victims as a result of coastal floods, landslides and mudflows. For example, in
100 years the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires is expected to have average water
levels of 60-100cm higher than today and stronger winds and storms surges.
Within the metropolitan area, the zones most at risk are the low lying lands of
the lower basins of the rivers, which have high concentrations of informal settlements (Satterthwaite and others 2007).
Experts on climate change sustain that the risk of extreme events such as
floods, droughts and severe storms increases as global climate change escalates.
For developing countries the risks come not only from direct exposure to natural
hazards, but also from the vulnerability of social and economic systems to the
effects of these hazards. This situation is much worse for low income inhabitants, usually living in high risk areas or in areas with lack of clean water, and a
higher exposure to many diseases. According to ECLAC the cost of clean water
has increased 10 times in the last century, and available reserves are diminishing
dramatically (Jouravlev 2004).
Urbanization in itself may heighten urban vulnerability, especially among the
poor. Urbanization worsens flooding because it restricts where floodwaters can
go, as large parts of the ground are covered by roofs, roads and pavements, and
2According to studies summarized in the IPCC 2007, if the mean temperature rises a few degrees, output growth
will lag behind growth in global food demand, sending food prices upward (IPCC 2007).
CHAPTER 28
741
it obstructs natural channels (IDS, 2008). And as more people live in cities, even
moderate storms produce dramatic flows. These have particularly disastrous
consequences for urban settlements that lie less than 10 meters above sea level.
Poverty and vulnerability go hand on hand. The urban poor live in informal
settlements without drainage systems and in poorly built homes. This makes
them particularly vulnerable to the direct or indirect impacts of climate change.
They can only afford to live in very risky zones and are usually unable to move or
change jobs when a natural disaster is imminent. They are also least able to cope
with illness, injury, and premature death, which may explain the rapid growth in
the number of deaths and injuries from natural disasters, especially in Central
America. For instance, Hurricane Stan in 2005 caused more than 1,500 deaths,
while Hurricane Mitch in 1998 caused around 18,000. In Caracas, Venezuela,
flash floods and landslides killed nearly 30,000 in 1999 (Zapata-Marti 2007).
In Latin America for instance, the coastal plain of north-east South America
is very low-lying, generating risks for major settlements from north-east Brazil to
Venezuela. The coastal zone of Guyana holds 90 percent of national population
and 75 per cent of the national economy; its highest point is 1.5 meters above
sea level with much residential land, including the capital Georgetown, below
high water sea level. In many Caribbean states, between 20 and 50 per cent of
population resides within the low-elevation coastal zone (Satterthwaite 2008).
3.3 Human Health
A warmer climate generally increases exposure to tropical diseases, health

impacts from weather disturbances, and respiratory irritants. In Latin America,
a large portion of the population lives in mountain ranges, including large urban
areas situated above 2,000 m, normally not exposed to tropical diseases (dengue
and malaria). Increased temperatures will most probably affect the prevalence
of these vector borne diseases in higher altitudes. Diarrhoeal diseases also may
increase as a result of more frequent and severe floods and drought. An increase
in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events will result in more
frequent humanitarian emergencies, particularly affecting populations in highrisk areas such as coastal zones, river valleys and cities. Climate change is also
expected to lead to an increase of rodent-borne diseases: due to a warmer climate
and changing habitats, allowing rodents to move into new areas.
Urbanization pressures have led to increased exposures of urban inhabitants to both traditional (infectious and transmissible diseases) and modern
risks (chronic and degenerative diseases) in addition to those related to urban
landslides and floods (IPCC 2007:587). The urban poor are disproportionately exposed to both traditional and modern risks. Within the group of urban
poor, children are over represented, as poor families have higher dependency
742
ratios than higher income families. Without adequate infrastructure and urban
planning, poor dwellers that suffer from malnutrition, poor water quality and
lack of sewage/sanitary services are exposed to all kind of diseases. Most of LAC
has suffered in the last three decades numerous epidemics related to floods, for
instance, most recently in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, dengue. According to the Bolivian
Health Ministry, between December 2008 and February 2009 there were 50.000
cases reported only in Santa Cruz, and during that period of time there were
some single days when 1.500 new people were infected (PAHO, 2009). Infants
and elderly people are among the most vulnerable population, who are also less
able to cope with heat waves or unable to move fast when a disaster is imminent.
Due to lack of hospitals and medical facilities for low income population, this
implies high mortality levels among the low income population.
Human migration due to drought, environmental degradation and economic
reasons may also spread disease in unexpected ways, and new breeding areas for
vectors may arise due to increasing poverty in urban areas (Simms and Reid 2006
cited in IPCC 2007: 601).
4. REGIONAL EXPERIENCES IN MITIGATION

AND ADAPTATION
4.1 Adaptation
Adaptation for low income people must take into account pre-disaster adaptation to vulnerabilities, adopting measures like infrastructure improvements and
reducing peoples exposure by moving them to safer locations or improving
their housing. Adaptation must also focus on reducing the impact of the hazard,
for example, responding rapidly to flooding disasters. Finally measures should
be implemented that reduce risks to likely future hazards, bearing in mind the
uncertainty of their timing and magnitude.
As mentioned before, people in LAC cities are more vulnerable to extreme events
due to climate change than those in wealthier and better governed cities, due to lack of
resources or limited capacity of local or national governments to provide low income
households with adequate infrastructure, and health services. Decentralization of
responsibilities to urban authorities should have helped address these issues, but
often it has not been accompanied by increased revenues or revenue-raising capacity.
In most countries, the reform of the state during the 1990s weakened many of the
mechanisms that support adaptive capacity as the state withdrew from public
transport, health care and public works (Cetrngolo 2007).
The high proportion of informal settlements constitutes an additional source
of vulnerability in the face of natural disaster. These settlements generally do not
have adequate infrastructure or services, situation that often causes the failure
CHAPTER 28
743
of dams and the collapse of public facilities (hospital, schools, bridges and
highways) during weather caused disasters. Better and more stable incomes, as
well as improvements in education, health, land use regulation, urban planning,
housing quality standards, water management and infrastructure investment
could increase adaptive capacity.
On the other hand, the LAC region presents huge geographic differences among
countries, from many small islands to large deserts, as well as tropical and still
unexplored forests. The climate change impacts and the associated risks people will
face, are very different depending on the geographic characteristics of the country.
In coastal areas global warming has caused the sea level to rise and hurricanes and
storms have increased in the last decades. In Andean valleys there has been a water
shortage during periods of low rainfall, causing severe reduction in hydro-electric
generation to the cities located in this region, together with huge increases in water
availability and overflows, usually in spring, due to the melting of mountain snow.
Whereas in tropical zones health diseases due to epidemics have increased in
frequency, probably due to the increase in malnutrition and water pollution.
Geographic differences, the different sizes of the cities, and differences in
income level and in income distribution also mean there is a great variation in
the capacity and form in which LAC urban centers will adapt to the impacts of
extreme weather events. There is evidence that some social indicators like adult
literacy, life expectancy, and access to safe water have improved over the 1990s,
but others contribute to limiting adaptive capacity such as high infant mortality,
low secondary school enrolment, and high income inequality.
Some examples of autonomous adaptation especially in housing, such as
improvement in design or quality, can be found in the related literature. Unfortunately most of the policy driven adaptation is through disaster response rather
than reducing risks taking into account the factors that increase poor peoples
vulnerability. Probably one of the reasons is that governments and civil society
have still not understood the magnitude and urgency of the problem, even
though they have experienced the devastating impacts of current phenomena,
with an increased number of victims from hurricanes and other extreme events.
Disaster risk reduction is an essential part of adaptation; it is the first line of defense
against climate change impacts (Mitchell and Van Aaist 2008). A shift from disaster
response to disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction has not yet occurred in
most city and national level policies, and without doubt this type of change would
have significant relevance for improving urban resilience to climate change.
However, there are examples of urban governments that have key roles as risk
reducers, providing necessary infrastructure and services, guiding settlements
development and regulating industries, transport and other hazardous activities
that can produce disasters. The work of La Red (the network of social studies
for the prevention of disasters in Latin America) has shown how good urban
744
governance is central to adaptation and how much it can reduce risks and vulnerabilities to extreme weather events.
Manizales in Colombia and Ilo in Peru are good examples of city governments
taking steps to reduce vulnerability. Although neither of these local authorities was
driven by climate change consideration, local governments took steps in order to
avoid rapidly growing low-income populations settling on dangerous sites. Manizales
was facing high rates or population growth and environmental degradation and
from 1990 on local authorities together with private organization worked to develop
programs to reduce risks, improve the living standards of the poor and regenerate
ecological areas. In Ilo, although the population increased fivefold during 1960-2000,
no land invasion or occupation of risk areas by poor groups has taken place, because
local authorities implemented programs to accommodate the growing population in
decent housing conditions (Satterthwaite and others 2007).
In Chile since 1998, The National Commission for the Environment has been
working on a National Action Plan on Climate Change, which is structured around
adaptation, mitigation and the creation and reinforcement of national capacities.
In the National Strategy for Climate Change approved in 2006, the specific objectives for adaptation include: evaluation of the environmental, economic and social
impacts of climate change, the definition of adaptation measures, and the implementation and follow up of these measures (Satterthwaite and others 2007).
In Mexico, in 1996, the government established a Fund for Natural Disasters
(FONDEN) for post-disaster financing for reconstruction of public infrastructure
and compensation to low-income producers for crop and livestock losses arising
from natural disasters. FONDEN targets the beneficiaries and has limits to
amounts it disburses per beneficiary. The intention is not to compete with private
insurance. The government of Mexico is currently looking into the feasibility
of obtaining financial reinsurance for FONDEN to cover its exposure from
weather risks affecting the agricultural sector. In addition, providing catastrophic
insurance coverage has encouraged the formation of mutual insurance funds
amongst farmer organizations (Barnett et al. 2007).
Training poor dwellers to better understand climate risks and vulnerability
will help reduce the impacts of natural disasters. In El Salvador, a new NGO
called CESTA is trying to teach people to be aware of the dangers of climate
change. In particular, it seeks to reduce low income peoples vulnerability before
flooding occurs. They teach people techniques for food conservation without
refrigeration, for example, drying and salting meats, dehydrating fruits and
vegetables, conserving, smoking and food burying. Indigenous farmers in some
communities of the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia have been forecasting El
Nio for at least 400 years, and are able to adjust their planting schedule if poor
or late rains are expected. Their technique is to observe and study the changes in
the Pleiades star constellation (Orlove et al. 2002).
CHAPTER 28
745
4.2 Mitigation
The temperature increases associated with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will have mostly negative effects in both the LAC region, and at a
global scale. The international community has reacted by agreeing to reduce the
emission of greenhouse gases and stabilize concentrations at levels considered
safe. Since the IPCC 2007, the seriousness of the global situation has become
evident and additional commitments for reducing emissions will be negotiated
in the short run. Contrary to previous rounds, developing country commitments for emissions reductions are required to cap total global emissions. Brazil
and Mexico are two regional countries that have recently been included in the
community of countries with official commitments to reduce emissions. International trade and investment conditions for carbon efficiency and neutrality
are expected to dramatically increase in the near future, creating additional
complexity for LAC countries. Pressures for the definition of mitigation goals and
plans in the region are growing. This is particularly complex for the LAC region,
given its strong dependency on primary natural resources extraction and use.
The extensive biodiversity of the region and abundance of natural resource stock
facilitated the development of sustainable development paradigms, although
industry, transportation, massive tourism and urbanization have placed tremendous pressures on the regional environment.
Cities contribute to GHG emissions due to the vast quantity of energy they use
as urban expansion goes on and also due to waste management practices. Climate
change is closely linked to the increasing demand for energy and transport flows
associated with urbanizations. Although cities continue to be in the background
of the international debate on climate change, city governments can have a significant influence, especially through the facilities that they operate, and decisions
on land use. Both have substantial impact on energy consumption levels, fuel
used, and waste generated in the communities they serve (Winchester 2008).
There are few experiences in mitigation in LAC countries. In Chile the Reduction
of Greenhouse Gases project began in March 1996 and its primary objective was
to identify and apply energy efficient measures or renewable energy alternatives
to reduce CO2 emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels. In Mexico, the
Mexican Committee on Projects for Reducing Emissions and Capturing Greenhouse Gases was created in 2004 in order to participate in the Clean Development
Mechanism, but it still lacks influence over the key actors that need to act for
mitigation. In the Dominican Republic a reforestation project for the Sabana Clara
has existed for 20 years, and the Dominican Government has declared some zones
as protected areas. In Guyana de Climate Change Action Plan includes measures
to mitigate climate change developing, applying and diffusing technologies that
control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions in all relevant sectors.
746
PROAIRE 20022010 is one of the overall strategies that integrate air

quality and climate protection in Mexico City. It aims to cut emissions of air
pollutants and greenhouse gases over an eight-year period. Activities include
energy-efficiency improvements, protection of forests and green spaces, and
public transportation enhancements. Many of the PROAIRE measures focus
on transportation, which constitutes 37 percent of emissions within the
federal district of Mexico City. In the region, the International Council for
Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Cities for Climate Protection (CCP)
campaign supports cities in the reduction of CO2 emissions, other GHGs and
air pollutants. At a global level, the CCP Global Cities Network reduced 60
million tones of CO2 equivalent in 2005. In Latin America, for the 2005-2006
period, ICLEI reports energy savings of 8.5 million KWh, and 5,700 tons of
CO2 equivalent/year mitigated, for a total of 18 cities participating at a regional
level. The campaign offers a framework for local governments to develop a
broad agenda on climate change, and provides analytical methods to help set
reduction targets and develop a climate change action plan. Two examples of
city specific implementation of improved technology are Sao Paolo (methane
to energy) and Quertaro, Mexico (Street Light Retrofit) (Wyman 2006)
5. KEY LESSONS LEARNED FROM SUSTAINABLE

PRO POOR HABITAT PROGRAMS IN LAC
Adaptation to climate change requires local knowledge, local competence and
local capacity within local governments. It needs households and community
organizations with the knowledge and capacity to act. It also requires a willingness among local governments to work with lower income groups. The key issue
is how to build resilience to the many impacts of climate change that is strongly
pro-poor, given the limited autonomous adaptive capacity of low income groups
(Satterthwaite and others 2007).
Urban planning and management ensures planned adaptation. This means
adjustments to building codes, land subdivision regulations and infrastructure
standards combined with land use planning that restricts buildings in high
risk areas and makes special provision for extreme events, including the use of
insurance to spread risk. The problem is that this is more easily incorporated in
new urban development areas, but there are restraints on implementation when
huge parts of the cities correspond to informal settlements, and when financial
resources are very limited.
In 2006, taking into account some of the thematic areas established in 1995
for the Regional Plan of Action for Human Settlements, the Regional Program
for Social Housing and Human Settlements evaluated five programmatic areas as
CHAPTER 28
747
regards to successful policies for low income households: land, access to housing,
and to public services, public space, and income generation.
These evaluations revealed that the programs with the best outcomes for low
income dwellers were those that sought several goals simultaneously. For instance,
to facilitate land access for low income groups through financial mechanisms,
give them a house and at the same time help them access and achieve a better
education: this scheme strengthened their capacity to access other kinds of credit
funds in the future. Another finding was that creating employment not only
helps with greater economic stability, but also increases disbursement capacity
for future expenses and strengthens the sense of commitment and responsibility.
Additionally, when people reach a new living standard they care for and pay more
attention to the quality of private and public spaces.
These multipurpose programs demand important institutional agreements
that may be very complex, and require an active participation not only from the
national and local government but also from community, financial and business
sectors, and even nongovernmental organizations. Although some countries
of the region have implemented these types of programs, public policy is very
deficient (insufficient regulation and active participation and social control, for
example) in this area. Government policy has a key role regarding housing and
urban policies and requires improvements in these areas.
Another important evaluation finding is the fundamental role that programs
offering houses for different economic sectors within the same geographic area
can have for social cohesion. These policies are very important in order to prevent
and mitigate the exclusion or isolation in which many low income groups live,
and allows them to get reach and participate in different urban realities (Simioni
and Szalachman 2006).
With reference to specific policies, the evaluations demonstrated two
successful policies in order to prevent illegal land occupation and to improve
access to land for low income groups: improvement in tenure security and
increases in urban land supply for low income groups. Argentina has developed
two successful projects in this area: Programa de Mejoramiento de Barrios
(PROMEBA) and Programa Rosario Habitat (ibid., 2006). There are also
interesting programs in Colombia, METROVIVIENDA and USME, and
tenure regularization programs in Bolivia and Peru. PROMEBA and Programa
Rosario Habitat in Argentina have also been successful in securing access to
basic services for low income groups. In El Salvador, due to the particular
geographic characteristics of the county, the FUNDASAL program has adapted
a special technology for sanitation.
As regards to improvement in housing quality and new housing construction,
Chile has broad experience in building new neighborhoods though financial
schemes that include savings, demand subsidies and mortgage credit. Unfor-
748
tunately, due to the rise in the price of the land, many of the new neighborhoods are been built far away from city centers, with a high risk of exclusion
for their population. Bolivia, Mexico and Paraguay have interesting programs
for improving housing quality. Successful policies related to public spaces have
strengthened infrastructure, like public transport in Bogota, or the Chilean
community participation in roads paving. There are also some significant public
patrimonial public space recovery programs in Chile and Ecuador. Argentina,
Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay have some programs related to the development
of productive activities to generate income and employment.
6. POLICY LESSONS AND CHALLENGES FOR ADAPTATION

Poverty reduction and sustainable development remain core global priorities, yet
climate change must urgently be addressed. Economic growth alone is unlikely to
be fast or equitable enough to counter the threats from climate change, particularly if this growth remains carbon-intensive and accelerates global warming. The
success of any policy measure for reducing the poors vulnerability to climate
change impacts will also depend on the basic conditions into which it is inserted.
Stable economies, with low levels of unemployment, and a positive rate of real
growth are necessary preconditions to policy effectiveness and success.
LAC shows huge geographic differences among its countries: it is therefore
very difficult to have a regional vision as regards to climate change and global
warming. The Third Assessment Report (TAR) from IPCC stated that in most of
Latin America there were no clear long-term tendencies in mean surface temperature, although some clear trends in warming in some areas and a few cases of
cooling trends were observed (2001). These findings may explain the current low
adaptive capacity of human systems in Latin America and why the region has still
done very little in order to adapt or mitigate their economies to climate change.
Although it is difficult to have a regional vision due to huge differences among
countries, some features are common. Urban centers concentrate enterprises and
jobs. In most nations they account for 60-95 percent of economic activities. Therefore
adopting measures in order to diminish natural disasters or climate change consequences is important for protecting economies as well as people. The potential losses
from being unprepared and not having policies in place are too high to be ignored.
Development and growth converge in urbanization: city dwellers generate an urban
footprint, and drive changes in land use and resource movements between rural
and urban areas. Urban areas are concentrations of vulnerability to climate change
impacts, as well as being major greenhouse gas emitters.
For hundreds of millions of urban dwellers, most of the risks from the impacts
of climate change are a result of development failures, like the lack of capacity to
CHAPTER 28
749
provide infrastructure or adequate health services to the poor, especially in slums.

Due to these development failures, people in poorer cities are much more vulnerable
to events than the ones in wealthier and better governed cities, and adaptation
requires addressing peoples extreme vulnerability to climate change risks.
Sustainable development in LAC is as much threatened by the uncontrolled
growth of the urban areas, and the growth of urban poverty and precariousness,
as by urban environmental degradation. Any serious initiative to alleviate the
negative impacts of climatic change must incorporate these closely knit, key links
between the economic, social, territorial and environmental dimensions of development. It is also important to remember that this involves complex interactions
of citizens, governmental and non governmental organizations, and business. As
long as a large part of the population lives under the poverty line, without access
to water and sanitation, without the minimum nourish requirements, and facing
health problems, it is difficult to make them conscious of the consequences of
climate change and the need for adaptation.
Adaptation to climate change should be seen as a part of development goals
and be included within government plans and investments, in order to effectively
design and implement pro poor and effective adaptation in LAC.
Adaptive capacity in LAC can be increased by better and more stable incomes
for poor people. Due to its multiple dimensions, when we talk about climate
change, the efforts need to go beyond the environment areas and include infrastructure, public services, and health and education areas.
National, local and urban governments have a key role as risk reducers for climate
change not only by providing infrastructure and services, but also by guiding where
development takes place and influencing where urban settlements should develop
and what provisions should be taken in order to avoid disasters like floods, fires,
etc. They should also establish adequate regulatory frameworks for land use and
building standards in order to guarantee safer living conditions for poorer groups.
Governments should adopt disaster risk reduction measures concurrently.
Limitations to this innovation exist, however: usually no data exists which clearly
demonstrates the extent of the problem. The infrastructure needed to reduce
risks is expensive, especially in informal settlements, and funds from international organizations or NGOs is usually available for post disaster relief and
reconstruction, but not for risk reduction and development.
Mitigation measures can produce undesired impacts due to restrictions on
commerce, and tax, dumping or tariff agreements. This can lead to changes in
production patterns or transport policies that could be unaffordable for many
LAC countries due to their low income levels. The present credit crisis adds
more spillover effects for the underdeveloped world, due to the slower economic
growth and the consequent implications for international trade, financial flows
and commodity prices.
750
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29
Vulnerability and Resilience

of Urban Communities under Coastal
Hazard Conditions in Southeast Asia
Vilas Nitivattananon,* Tran Thanh Tu,
Amornrat Rattanapan, Jack Asavanant
Summary
Most coastal cities are facing complex inter-related problems associated with
greater intensity and frequency of climate extremes. Often times these challenges
require adaptation strategies that bring together comprehensive vulnerability
assessments and implementation actions. The main objective of this paper is to
apply the concept of vulnerability and resilience to coastal communities in Southeast Asia facing climate hazards. Southern Vietnam and Thailand are chosen as
representative regions for the purpose of this study. The results show that flood
risk has several consequences at different urbanization levels under increased
climate variability. The main factors influencing the vulnerability of coastal
communities are related to economics, institutional capacity, and the accessibility
of knowledge for local community-based organizations.

752
CHAPTER 29
753
1. INTRODUCTION
Some of the key research priorities in Asia related to climate change are:
impacts of extreme weather events (i.e. floods, storm surges, sea-level rise);
identification of social vulnerabilities to multiple stressors during climate and
environmental change; and adaption strategies concerning agro-technology,
water resources management, and integrated coastal zone management (Cruz
et al. 2007). All cities face risks from a range of natural and human-induced
disasters, including disasters arising from extreme weather events, fires and
industrial accidents. There can also be very large differences in the capacity
of city authorities, households, and organizations to take measures to mitigate
risk and ensure rapid, effective responses to disasters. Coastal hazards are most
disruptive to settlements located in coastal and estuarine areas. Moreover, this
is where a considerable proportion of the worlds population lives. One estimate
suggests that 60 percent of the worlds population lives within 60 kilometers of
the seacoast (Scott et al. 1996; Hardoy et al. 2001). Ports and other settlements
located in coastal zones are also most at risk from any increase in the severity
and frequency of flooding and climate change-related storms. The 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami, though not directly related to climate change, demonstrated
that developing nations have limited capacities to independently marshal aid to
recover from disasters. As a result, significant external assistance was required
to augment national resilience to put affected nations on the sometimes lengthy
path to recovery.
Coastal cities in Southeast Asia (SEA) will increasingly face complex
inter-related problems associated with greater intensity and frequency of
climate extremes. Impacts affect both urban and rural settlements along
the coast including housing, infrastructure, and economic facilities. In
some countries the impact of sea level rise has the potential to substantially
affect human populations. One example is Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in
Vietnam. This city in particular could potentially face serious inundation.
In addition, coastal cities whose economies benefit from tourism, such as
Phuket in Southern Thailand, may have considerable difficulties protecting
tourist attractions and their economic base under hazard conditions. Table
1 illustrates major Southeast Asia disaster and their impacts during the
twenty first century. According to the Asian Development Bank (2009),
SEA countries have made significant efforts to build their adaptive capacity.
However, there is still a need to practice more holistic approaches to building
adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks. Without further mitigation or
adaptation, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are projected to
suffer a mean loss of 2.2% of GDP by 2100 on an annual basis, well above
the worlds projected average of 0.6%.
754
The main objective of this paper is to apply the concept of vulnerability and
resilience to coastal urban communities under climate change hazards in SEA.
We have chosen Southern Vietnam and Southern Thailand as representatives of
the SEA region and will be focused on urban vulnerability to floods and tsunamis.
TABLE 1
Major Disasters in SEA during 2000s
Disaster
Type
Population
Affected
Number
of
Deaths
750,618
(families)
347 (80%
children)
Year
Country
2000
Cambodia
Flood
2000
Vietnam
Flood
2000
Philippines
(Manila)
Trash slide
224
2001
Vietnam
All natural
disasters
629
2001
Philippines
317
disasters
2002
Vietnam
Flash ood
2003
Vietnam
All natural
disasters
2003
Philippines
Typhoon
2004
Indonesia,
Thailand,
Myanmar,
Malaysia
Earthquake,
Tsunami
2005
Indonesia
2006
1,044
200
Houses
Destroyed
1.6 million
(affected)
Estimated
Losses
(million USD)
150
ADPC
(2003)
300
ISDR (2005)
ADPC
(2003)
10,503
53
60,463
186
4,487
169
ISDR (2005)
190
ADPC
(2003)
ISDR (2005)
80
174,592
157,393
7,904
Earthquake
1,500
14,640
400
Philippines
Mud slides
1,800
2006
Indonesia
Earthquake
2007
Thailand
Flood
2008
Myanmar
Cyclone
(Nargis)
2008
Lao, PDR,
Thailand,
Cambodia,
Vietnam
Flood
(Mekong
river)
3,090k
7,432
183,000
53
2,400k
133,655
184
ISDR (2005)
www.
scaruf.
com/politics/
disaster.html
1,000
11,299k
References
UNESCAP
(2008)
www.
scaruf.
com/politics/
disaster.html
www.
scaruf.
com/politics/
disaster.html
205,057
3,314
UNESCAP
(2008)
UNESCAP
(2008)
UNESCAP
(2008)
193
UNESCAP
(2008)
CHAPTER 29
755
2. METHODOLOGY
In this paper, we provide an overview of hazard conditions in SEA coastal areas.
Our analysis of urban development is based on reviews of studies and reports
provided by national governments and international agencies.
In of the case of Southern Vietnam, HCMC in particular, the flood vulnerability assessments were conducted in two selected districts with different levels of
urbanization. Both districts are located close to the Saigon River and are affected
directly by river tides, climate change impacts, and rapid urbanization. An
Environmental Assessment and Management tool was then used to determine
appropriate adaptation strategies to flood risks in the context of integrated water
resources management (Tu, 2009).
The second case presented in this paper involves coastal communities in
Southern Thailand. Following the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, housing and
infrastructure were severely damaged. Additional impacts included serious
effects on tourism, fisheries, and socio-economic development. This vulnerability assessment aims to identify appropriate adaptation tools and parameters for
coastal disaster risk reduction. A multi-criteria method is also used in the vulnerability analysis for components of the built environment (Rattanapan, 2009).
3. CONCEPTS OF VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE

According to researchers Kay and Hay (1993), impact assessment methodology and
risk reduction response can be divided into two fundamental measures: vulnerability
reduction and resilience enhancement. The term vulnerability is used to describe
the attributes of a system which will react adversely to the occurrence of external or
internal stresses. The term resilience is used in the opposite sense to vulnerability
resilient attributes of a system will typically reduce the impact of internal and external
stresses. According to Dolan and Walker (2003), adaptive capacity is reflective of resilience, such that a resilient system has the capacity to prepare for, avoid, moderate and
recover from climate-related risks and/or change. Communities that are structurally
organized to minimize the effects of hazards, whilst being able to recover quickly by
restoring socio-economic vitality are thus, resistant and resilient. For the purpose of
this study, resilience is measured by two aspects of peoples livelihoods: 1) the assets
they possess; and 2) the services provided to them by external infrastructure and
institutions. Strategies to strengthen the resilience of communities should be based
on the most effective combination of the two measures determined by local needs
and capabilities (Prasad et al. 2009).
According to CSIRO (2006), adaptation is a risk-reduction strategy for
ameliorating the adverse effects of climate change on human and ecological
756
communities and for capitalizing on potential opportunities to do so. Specifically, climate change adaptation refers to actions, policies, and measures that
increase the coping capacity and resilience of systems to climate variability and
its impacts. Two types of approaches to no regrets adaptation include actions
that reduce existing vulnerability and mainstreaming climate change and disaster
into existing activities. Specific strategies for coastal communities include:
identifying vulnerable areas, communities, and infrastructure; channeling
future development around high, moderate, and low growth areas; developing
coastal zone management plans; constructing new, or modify existing, coastal
defenses; designing infrastructure to accommodate sea-level rise; and managing
progressive retreat from the coastline. In addition, The World Bank (2007)
suggests the following major interventions to address coastal urban adaptation:
robust information systems, improved structures, energy efficiency, building
standards, and planned development.
4. OVERVIEW OF COASTAL HAZARD CONDITIONS

IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
4.1 SEA Development Context
According to Dick and Rimmer (2003), SEA has historically been the sea
rather than the land. The Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea
are each recognized as spheres of trade and cultural interchange. SEA has an
immense length of coastline that enabled scattered populations to enjoy excellent accessibility with pre-modern marine technology. However, SEA has also
been identified as one of the areas most vulnerable to global-climate-change
scenarios now being put forward by scientists (World Bank 2007). Many of
the regions estimated 500 million people live in either low-lying river deltas
or far-flung islands that will be inundated if waters rise significantly. The most
salient features of SEAs economic vulnerability have been the enormous rates
of population growth and urbanization. By 2020, almost 56 percent of SEAs
population is predicted to be urbanized (UN 2001). In 1995, the GDP of SEA
was USD$ 633 billion, compared with 698 and 349 in China and Australia,
respectively. SEA will have twelve urban agglomerations with populations over
two million by 2015 (Dick and Rimmer 2003).
Four out of the 6 most populated countries in low elevation coastal zones are
located in the SEA region. Vietnam has the highest percentage of their population
located in Low Elevation Coastal Zones (LECZ), making the country especially
vulnerable to the risks of climate change related sea level rise. Other SEA countries
including Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia also have significant percentages
of their populations located in LECZ.
CHAPTER 29
757
4.2 Coastal Hazard Conditions and Urban Vulnerability
Based on IPCC reports (2007), more specific information about the nature of
future impacts is now available across the regions of the world. Coastal areas,
especially the heavily-populated megadelta regions in South, East and Southeast
Asia, will be at greatest risk of impacts associated with increased flooding from
the sea and, in some megadeltas, flooding from rivers. Compounded with rapid
urbanization, industrialization, and economic development, climate change is
projected to hinder the sustainable development of most developing countries
in Asia. A comparative analysis conducted by Dasgupta et al. (2007) found that,
among more than 10 developing countries in East Asia, the three countries most
at risk from the urban impacts of 1 meter of sea level rise are located in SEA
(Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, approximately 11, 2 and 2 percent of the
countries, respectively).
SEA is one of the worlds most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate
change because of its unique economic and social characteristics, long coastlines,
and tropical climate. Additionally, the regions urbanization is among the fastest
in the world and is occurring largely in coastal areas. With about 80% of the
population living within 100 km of the coast this has led to a concentration of
economic activity and livelihoods in coastal mega cities (ADB 2009). Figure 1
presents the overall climate hazard map in SEA with both climate-change related
hazards (tropical cyclones, floods, landslides, droughts, and sea level rise) and
hazard hotspots. The map includes the northwestern and Mekong regions of
Vietnam, the coastal regions of Vietnam facing the South China Sea, Bangkok
and its surrounding areas in Thailand, nearly all of the regions of the Philippines,
and the western and eastern parts of Java Island, Indonesia (Yusuf and Francisco
2009). Understandably, most of the hazard hotspots are located in coastal zones.
An example of the potential catastrophic damage that climate change could
cause was exhibited during the December 2004 tsunami. Although the tsunami
was not directly related to climate change, the event inundated and destroyed
coastal settlements on Indonesias Sumatra Island and illustrated the high vulnerability of coastal regions to disasters. The tsunami was a sudden shock that came
without warning, it gave a geographic perspective to what could be anticipated
under model scenarios of a more gradual increase in sea and river-delta water
levels caused by climate change. However, the coastal effects of tsunamis will
be altered somewhat by some climate change impacts including sea-level rise,
trough increasing the risk of coastal inundation. Estuaries and harbors may also
become more vulnerable to tsunamis as entrance channels deepen in response to
greater tidal water volumes.
758
FIGURE 1
Multiple Climate Hazard Map in SEA
Source: Yusuf and Francisco 2009.
Based on ADPC (2003), floods from the Mekong River and its tributaries are
the predominant hazard in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam during the monsoon
season. In 2000, flooding cost about US$ 400 million in damages in these countries
and Thailand. Disaster risks are exacerbated by siltation, deterioration of drainage
and irrigation systems, and deforestation. Typhoons severely affect the Philippines
and Vietnam as they move westward. La Nia increases the frequency of typhoons
and their associated flooding. Additionally, the El Nio event of 1997-98 induced
a drought cycle in Indonesia, causing widespread forest fires. Coupled with a
protracted economic crisis, the fires adversely affected the countrys food security.
Indonesia and the Philippines, located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, suffer from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, economic
loss due to disasters can set back a decade of economic development. For Cambodia
and Lao PDR, the effect is even worse, as scarce resources that could have been used
for social and economic development are lost or spent on recovery efforts.
CHAPTER 29
759
5. Case of Ho Chi Minh City

5.1 Background and Hazard Conditions
More than 30% of the population in Vietnam is made up of urban dwellers.

According to Dasgupta et al (2007), Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable
countries to sea level rise - approximately 10.8% of total population will be affected
by a 1meter rise in sea level. Located in southern Vietnam, near the Mekong
Delta River basin, HCMC is the largest and most rapidly developing city in the
country. Projected global temperature increases of up to 3oC suggest that sea level
will increase by 50 cm by the year 2070 (ISDR 2005). HCMC is characterized by
many rivers, arroyos and canals, from which the city is at risk from tidal process
from the East Sea, and the Nha Be River. HCMC is especially vulnerable to flood
risks because of its natural topography of flat, low land and because of increasing
magnitudes of sea/river tides and rains. Moreover, the urbanization process in
HCMC is rapidly increasing, putting pressure on infrastructure and services that
limit resilience and the capacity to cope with flooding.
5.2 Vulnerability to Flood Risk

5.2.1
Data collection and Analysis
Two communities in District 2 and the Binh Thanh District were selected to
assess vulnerability to flooding due to climate change and levels of urbanization. Key characteristics of the study districts are illustrated in Table 2. The two
districts are located close to the Saigon River, and have been affected directly by
river tides and other natural hazards in the past.
A Rapid Vulnerability Assessment (RVA) was conducted to collect data on
social vulnerability (including human health and movement, housing and roads,
transportation, and communication) and environmental vulnerability (including
water resource quality and quantity, and sanitation). Moreover, the RVA provided
information on residents perceptions about the impacts of floods on their livelihoods, on their awareness about vulnerability to flood risks, as well as on their
capacity to cope with and adapt to the impacts of floods and polluted water.
Secondary data collected by document review and individual interviews was
coupled with primary focus group data. The focus groups consisted of structured interviews with residents in study areas via the RVA process. The goal of
the interviews was to better understand resident awareness of regular and recent
unexpected floods, their vulnerability and adaptation capacity to floods, and to
determine what recent changes have taken place with respect to urban environmental management within their communities. Male and female residents were
760
TABLE 2
Key Characteristics of the Two Study Districts in HCMC
Characteristics
Population
Population density
Average household size
Unit
District 2
Binh Thanh District
Persons
145,136
446,397
Persons/sq.km
2,917
21,674
Persons
USD
100
250
Education (highest)
High school
University
Occupation
Commercial
activities, small
business
Commercial and industrial

activities, industrial
business
Annual household income
Total number of wards

Total Area
Total number of roads
Wards
11
20
km2
49.74
20.8
Roads
120
290
Number of ooded roads
Roads
30
116
Total number of houses
Houses
30,000
110,000
Number of ooded houses
Houses
6,000
33,000
Source: Field survey in December 2008
interviewed to ensure gender equity in getting information for the research. The
fieldwork portion of our data collection was carried out over 5 days, in 40 households located in two communities: District 2 (Thao Dien Ward) and Binh Thanh
District (Nguyen Huu Canh Street, Ward 22). The data collecting time was from
3pm to 6pm on Friday and Saturday to ensure that each household had representatives responding to the interview questions.
5.2.2
Comparative Assessment Results
The results from the RVA show that the study areas in Binh Thanh District
and District 2 have the same flood risk characteristics in terms of meteorological factors. However, Binh Thanh District has less natural surface infiltration
capacity and more channel networks than District 2. This makes Binh Thanh
more vulnerable to flood and pollution than District 2.
In terms of anthropogenic aggravation of flood hazards, both communities
have initiated land use changes. These changes include ground surface sealing
by processes of urbanization and deforestation, increasing run-off ability, and
sedimentation. While District 2 has changed from agricultural to domestic use,
Binh Thanh District has increasingly used land for industrial and commercial
activities together with existing domestic use. Most of the floodplain areas in
CHAPTER 29
761
the two districts have been occupied by informal houses and construction sites.
Figure 2 presents the differences in flood vulnerability based on natural surface
infiltration rates, land-use change (from agricultural to urban), and occupation
of the floodplain. The results show that for these three indicators Binh Thanh
District is more vulnerable to flooding than District 2.
FIGURE 2
Factors Affecting the Vulnerability to Flood in the two Communities
%
Vulnerability to flood
90
80
80
70
60
60
50
50
40
35
30
30
20
15
10
0
Natural surface infiltration rate
District 2
Land-use change
Occupation of the floodplain
Binh Thanh District
Results from the RVA show that among the 100 existing flood points in HCMC,
more than 25 points are located in the Binh Thanh District, with 30% of the
population affected in 9 out of 20 wards. This is because most people in the district
are middle class and poor - historically, they were living along canals and river banks.
When the economy grew, the district grew into one of the regions most important
industrial zones. As a result, more people migrated to the district, deforestation
increased, and land became concretized, effectively reducing the natural infiltration
capacity of the region. Day by day, under the impacts of increased urbanization
and climate change, the region became more and more vulnerable to pollution and
flooding. In District 2, 20% population has been affected by flooding in 7 out of
11 wards, and 10% of flood points in HCMC are in this district. Moreover, there
are two different groups in District 2: poor people who have lived there for a long
time and rich people from other regions who have recently bought land to build
resorts and high-rise buildings. The recent urbanization that has occurred in the
district has reduced the capacity of the natural environment to absorb shocks, and
has caused inequity in facilities and services among residents. Poor communities
with low qualities of living are more vulnerable to flood risks.
762
The impacts of flooding on infrastructure were also observed. The number

of roads and land surfaces that are concretized, the number of households with
sewage systems, and the number of areas with drainage systems are a few indicators
for assessing vulnerability. According to results from the RVA, shown in Figure 3,
the infrastructure in Binh Thanh District is more vulnerable to flooding than the
infrastructure in District 2. Binh Thanh District will experience more road flooding
below and over 0.3 m the water level at which human transport and movement
are obstructed while people are more vulnerable to polluted floodwater in terms
of their properties, health, and also risk from electrocution. Although Binh Thanh
District has more households with sewerage and drainage system, records show
that more houses are at risk of flooding in the district rather than in District 2.
FIGURE 3
Impacts of Flood on Infrastructure
Impacts of flood on Infrastructure
100
90
85
90
80
80
70
65
60
60
50
50
40
30
20
20
10
15
20
10
15
10
15
10
0
B elo w 0.3m
C o nc reted ro ad
A bo ve 0,3m
F lo o ded ro ad
R o ad
District 2
B elo w 0.3m
H o us es having
s ewerage
s ys tem
A bo ve 0,3m
F lo o ded ho us e
H o us ing
Binh Thanh District
A rea having
drainage s ys tem
D rainage s ys tem
CHAPTER 29
763
From interviewing people in chosen communities in both districts, we

gleaned different perspectives about the impacts of flooding on water quality and
health. Rich communities have access to clean water from piped water supply
systems, and they discharge their wastewater into sewerage systems, drainage
system, and directly into the river. Poor communities tend to use water from
wells (either protected or unprotected) and from rivers. They discharge their
wastewater directly into canals and rivers and are more vulnerable to floodwater
and pollution when flooding occurs. In some cases, the vulnerability of rich
communities increases due to pollution caused by poor people. Since inundation
in HCMC is due to urban flooding rather than flash floods, there is no need for
residents to move to another place before a flood comes. However, people are not
fully aware that they are more vulnerable to the pollution and health impacts of
flooding. The results from interviewing 40 households in the two communities
about their vulnerability to floods show very different levels of awareness and
capacity between the two districts.
Overall, community perceptions about water quality and health risks are still
lower than in the monitoring reports. This is because communities are not aware
that polluted floodwater may be hazardous to their health. They observe that the
color of the water is black or gray, or if it has a smell or not. However, they do not
know details about potential sources of pollution within their living areas. The
results show that both communities are vulnerable to water pollution because
they have to face regular flooding events, however, there is a lack of access to
health facilities necessary to mitigate vulnerability.
5.2.3
Current Adaptation Capacity and Approach
Residents of the communities we surveyed are aware that flood is regular

phenomena they have to face. They also observe that blocked drainage systems
make flood impacts more severe, and that the intensity and magnitude of floods
has been increasing over time. Their most pressing concerns about flooding have
to o with their property, and access to services and transportation rather than
health impacts. Therefore, basic community adaptation solutions are focused on
prevention and reduction of floodwater flowing into their houses by sand bags or
concrete walls. Little adaptation measures are initiated to protect water resources.
In general, individuals in the surveyed communities have limited adaptive
capacity due to low awareness of the serious risks associated polluted flood water.
Barriers to increasing their adaptation capacity are physical, social, motivational
and attitudinal issues. These factors are interrelated and may increase the vulnerability of people to flood risk and water pollution. Table 3 presents the factors
affecting adaptation capacity, as well as the vulnerabilities associated with the
two survey districts. The major factors are occupation, traditional living culture,
physical ability (gender, age), and their poverty (income).
764
TABLE 3
Community-Based Adaptation Capacity in the Study Areas
Factors
Community in District 2
Community in Binh Thanh District
1. Physical/Material factors
1.1 Location
Both are located at low land area nearby the river bank (the Saigon River)
1.2 Structure of
buildings/houses
Simple structure of houses with

concrete and 1 or 2 oors
Concrete houses with up to 3 oors

with higher design standard
1.3 Extent
and quality of
infrastructure and
basic services
Roads are paved with few drainage

systems and drinking water supply
Roads are paved with sufcient

but old water supply and drainage
systems
1.4 Human capital
Low-income level of less than USD

100 per month (of main labor force)
Higher level of income of about

USD 200 per month (of main labor
force)
1.5 Environmental
factors
Water in the canal is black, stinky,

with oil layers on the surface. Lack
of proper wastewater and solid
waste management
Water in canal is also black and

stinky. Although there are solid
waste collection facilities, garbage
still ows into canals
2. Social factors
2.1 Family or
kinship structures
(weak/strong)
Women and children are most vulnerable because of their roles in the family.
They are at home most of the time, and have to cope with inundation and
pollution for longer periods.
2.2 Gender and age
Women, the elderly and children have lower physical capacities to adapt.
3. Motivational/attitudinal factors
3.1 Attitude towards
change
Most of people are aware that oods are natural phenomena. However, they
do not pay much attention to changes in ood magnitudes, rainfall, or water
levels.
3.2 Awareness
about hazards and
consequences
People are not aware of the consequences and impacts of increasing

magnitudes of rainfall, inundation and pollution in their communities.
Therefore, they prioritize saving their possessions from possible damage
rather than issues of health, sanitation and water supply.
Source: Interview and focus group discussion (in December 2008)
CHAPTER 29
5.2.4
765
Proposed Adaptation Strategies
In terms of adaptation to flood, there is a need to consider integrated water resource

management, not only at city or district level, but also at the community level.
Moreover, adaptation plans must vary from short-term to long-term strategies.
Based on the vulnerability and adaptation capacity assessments of HCMC and
its residents to flood risks and water pollution, a suite of appropriate adaptation
measures were chosen by using the Tool for Environmental Assessment and
Management (TEAM) (Julius and Scheraga, 1999). TEAM employs a multicriteria approach in evaluating adaptation actions and is careful to consider
more than one factor when accessing the merits and drawbacks of each policy
or strategy. The evaluation criteria used by TEAM are effectiveness, expense,
environmental impacts, consistency, feasibility, urgency, and robustness/flexibility. The TEAM assessment identified and prioritized the following adaptation
measures for the study area:
t Enhancing water efficiency and conservation/protection programs - to increase the efficient use of water and to reduce water pollution.
t Creating and improving floodwater and rainwater storage facilities - to reduce
the water overflow and to reuse rainwater for irrigation and other utility purposes.
t Improving water treatment to update and enhance wastewater treatment
facilities, and to improve treatment regulation for industrial zones, buildings,
and households before discharging wastewater into canals/rivers.
t Urban planning and infrastructure development to consider flood risk
in land use planning and design of new projects; to improve infrastructure
(mainly road and drainage systems) to increase urban infiltration capacities
and to decrease water runoff.
5.3 Findings
Residents in District 2 are vulnerable to floodwater in different ways that people

living in Binh Thanh District. This is because the two districts have different levels
of urbanization, infrastructure quality, and economic activity. At the individual
scale, differences in vulnerability between the two districts depend on gender
and age, attitudes and motivations, occupation and income, and living location
and conditions. By using the TEAM tool, we were able to assess local adaptation processes by focusing on three main measures: determining and assessing
vulnerability factors, identifying adaptation options, and assessing potential
adaptation strategies.
766
6. CASE STUDY OF PHUKET AND PHANG NGA

PROVINCES, SOUTHERN THAILAND
6.1 Background and Hazard Conditions
This case study involves community-level disaster vulnerability assessments

using the earthquake and tsunami of 26 December 2004, as a reference point.
The loss and devastation caused by the disaster brought suffering to millions
of people around the Indian Ocean. Critical physical infrastructure and utility
systems were severely damaged or destroyed. In the six affected provinces of
Thailand, electricity, water supply, transport and communication systems were
estimated to have experienced damages of USD 25.9 million, and revenue losses
of USD 20.9 million (UNEP 2005b). The region experienced such high losses in
part because communities and governments lacked proper disaster management
plans. Robust vulnerability assessments are necessary for ensuring that communities are sufficiently adapted for future disasters. In this study, the housing and
built environments of two fishing communities in Southern Thailand fishing
were assessed for their vulnerability. Figure 4 provides the map showing the areas
of the communities that were affected by the 2004 tsunami. Major demographic
and economic characteristics of the two communities are illustrated in Table 4.
FIGURE 4
Affected Areas in Thailand by Tsunami 2004 and Location of the Selected
Communities
B an Namkhem Community
K amala Community
Source: UNEP2005a
CHAPTER 29
767
The first community, Ban Namkhem, has a primarily fishing-based economy.

Some of the critical infrastructural vulnerabilities of Ban Namkhem include
piers, schools and public open spaces, as well as vulnerable housing. Based on
reviews of secondary data, key informant interviews and focus group discussions, the most vulnerable elements of the built environment are: the fishery port,
the school, public open spaces, housing, road networks, and areas not reachable
by the early warning emergency sound tower.
The second study community, Kamala, has been developing rapidly. It took a
relatively short time for Kamala to recover from the tsunami. Due to the tourism
growth in the province several hotels, houses, and service buildings have been
developed along the beach. The communitys most vulnerable housing and infrastructures are: large buildings (including residential, villas and hotel), small and
medium buildings (including guesthouses, apartments, beach bars, tailor shops,
small shops and restaurants), governmental office buildings (including police
station, and medical clinic), school, and areas not reachable by the early warning
emergency sound tower.
TABLE 4
Key characteristics of the two study communities
Characteristics, Unit
Ban Namkhem
Kamala
Population
5,060
5,003
Population affected by the Tsunami
4,200
2,500
Average household size

Total area, sq.km
Annual household income, USD
Major religion
62 (for whole TAO)
18.9
330
515
Buddhism
Muslim
Major education
Primary school
Secondary school
Economic base
Fishery, small business
Tourism, small business
768
6.2 Vulnerability Assessment Results

6.2.1 Data Collection and Analysis
Primary and secondary data collection was conducted from December 2008 to
January 2009. The primary data were obtained via the following methods:
t Unstructured interviews. Initial basic information on the communities was
collected.
t Structured interviews. These involved the villagers, community leaders and
community network group members, NGOs representatives, government officers, and local authorities.
t Survey questionnaires. This was random sampling of households in the specific areas.
t Field observations and photographs. This method collected information
about physical conditions of existing buildings, critical infrastructure, and environment management.
t Focused group discussions. Four groups (two in each community) were
formed for discussion exercises.
The results of the infrastructure and services assessment (including the
development of an integrated preparedness plan) found that the two communities have some similar and some distinct vulnerable conditions with respect to
preparedness and planning. The following section briefly describes the vulnerability of some fundamental infrastructure sectors in the study areas.
School preparedness. The vulnerability results for the schools in both communities are similar. They both have developed tsunami and disaster education
curricula. School building standards are high with strong structural integrity.
These structures can also serve as community shelters, stocked with food reserves
and access to services in case of emergency.
Water supply services. The two study communities depend on different
sources of water. Namkhem gets their water from the PWA (Provincial Waterworks Authority) whereas Kamala gets their water from the TAO (Tambon or
Sub-district Authority Organization). We found that water quality and capacity
measures are incomparable. Fortunately, due to higher average income levels in
Kamala and to the fact that the TAO is located outside of the flood zone, water
quality and services have the potential to be easily improved.
Road networks/evacuation routes. In Namkhem, there are good planning and
preparedness activities in place that involve the local community. Although crowded
in some areas, the spatial plan of the community includes an agreement with the
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769
villagers that divides people into evacuation routes in order to mitigate traffic jams
during evacuation. Namkhem does face problems associated with hazardous evacuation routes and shelter locations. In contrast, Kamalas evacuation routes are in better
shape and can efficiently accommodate high capacities of people. An important
concern in Kamala is that people do not tend to follow preparedness patterns and
planned evacuations, and villagers prefer to find their own evacuation routes.
FIGURE 5
Vulnerability map of Namkhem and Kamala
Data from the building vulnerability (BV) assessments were analyzed using
weighting factors that describe the significant features related to the vulnerability
of buildings. These factors include building materials and design, sea defenses
in front of buildings, surrounding roads, building height, and characteristics of
ground floor design. The individual building vulnerability assessment results
(Papathoma and Dominey-Howes 2003) are as follows:
Namkhem. The majority of residential buildings in Namkhem are situated
along the waterfront. Because the daily lives of residents revolve around fishing
the easily accessible shore and pier make living near the water attractive. Since
this study was focused on assessing vulnerable areas, all of the buildings we
studied are located in high inundation zones (see Figure 5). 45 buildings out of
94 (or 47.87%) registered high BV values.
Kamala. A number of buildings constructed both before and after the 2004
tsunami 2004 are located along shoreline. This is a response to the needs of the
tourist based economy. In Kamala, 29 buildings out of 113 (25.66%) had high BV
values. This was less than recorded medium and low BVs. The low BV category
contains new buildings built for tourism (i.e. hotels and guesthouses) which have
adhered to building codes and regulations.
770
6.2.2
Comparative Assessment Results
The results of the assessment show that buildings, road networks, and evacuation routes represent significant vulnerability points in both communities. Some
comparative differences and influencing factors include the following:
Buildings. A large proportion of buildings in Namkhem were categorized as
having high BV. Most of the buildings are single story units with low standards
of construction. Comparatively, Kamala has a much lower number of high
BV buildings. Most of the building stock is made up of commercial buildings
including hotels and guest houses. Namkhem is made up of mostly low-income
families who lack the financial resources to improve their homes. In contrast,
Kamala is a higher income community, economically buoyed by tourism. Here,
the majority of buildings are made up of high quality materials and are built to
high standards of structural design/construction.
Road networks/evacuation routes. In Namkhem, there is high utilization of road
networks and construction materials, and high numbers of users in the event of an
emergency (specifically in the Lam Son area). The road network vulnerability (RV)
assessment (based on multi-criteria method involving route location, embankment
height, design and construction standards, number of users and functional importance) reflects different vulnerability levels across Namhem and Kamala. 50% of
roads in Namkhem have high RV whereas only 20% have high RV in Kamala (see
Table 5). The key vulnerability factors are a lack of resources for the development of
efficient evacuation routes and poor community land-use planning.
TABLE 5
Road Network Vulnerability (RV) Assessment Results
Namkhem
High RV
High Inundation
Zone
Medium Inundation
Zone
Low Inundation
Zone
Total RV
16.67%
33.33%
50.00%
Medium RV
16.67%
16.67%
33.33%
Low RV
16.67%
16.67%
Total
16.67%
66.67%
16.67%
100.00%
Kamala
High Inundation
Zone
Medium Inundation
Zone
Low Inundation
Zone
Total RV
High RV
20.00%
20.00%
Medium RV
20.00%
20.00%
Low RV
40.00%
20.00%
60.00%
20.00%
60.00%
20.00%
100.00%
Total
Source: Calculated from results of eld survey (in December 2008)
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6.2.3
771
Current Adaptation Strategies
Based on the vulnerability assessment results, major influencing factors can be

identified and used as part of identifying required adaptation strategies in order
to enhance the resilience. Data collected from our interviews and focus group
discussions, principles of vulnerability reduction, and existing strategies and
adaptation measures are identified in Table 6.
TABLE 6
Existing Strategies in the Study Areas
Community
Adaptation
Namkhem
Kamala
Institutional
framework
U Integrate
U Adapt
Access to training
and education
U Develop
disaster management
curriculum in Namkhem school
U Provide training program for
vulnerable groups
U Develop
Public awareness
enhancement
U Develop
U Develop
Access to
technology
U Use
of radio communication system in Disaster Relief

Volunteers Foundation
U Apply community radio broadcast
for daily news and special activities
U Use
Infrastructure
adaptation
U Attempt
U Develop
disaster plan into

sustainable eco-tourism plan
disaster practice
program for community members
to change sea beach

to be public park, although the
actual condition seems to be not
working
some measures such as

land use zoning, and building
control
the curriculum for school

children
U Provide training by Kamala TAO
for Disaster Relief Volunteer
members
preparedness program
involving community members
of radio communication
system in Kamala school
U Use of mobile-speaker on vehicles
by TAO
structural landscape
involving architects and engineers
during the planning, design and
construction phases
Source: Interviews and focus group discussions (in December 2008)
772
6.2.4 Proposed Adaptation Strategies
Based on our case studies, weve developed the following recommendations for
appropriate, resilience enhancing adaptation strategies:
Strengthening/implementing regulations. In the context of land-use control for
hazard mitigation it is fundamental for the authorities to ensure that all structures
are consistent with established disaster and environmental policy regulations.
Formulation of coastal zone management plans. Due to the coastal zone hazard
risks, understanding potential impacts is critical to effective coastal zone management. Strategic coastal zone management plans can significantly reduce the detrimental impacts of climate change. This strategy can be adopted by communities
where coastal environmental resources have been degraded, in order to avoid
unwanted impacts (i.e. landslides, floods, and other hazards).
Public awareness and education. Strong public knowledge and understanding of
local hazard risks and vulnerability is important for increasing coping capacity
and initiating successful mitigation and/or adaptation measures. Public participation in community preparedness programs is essential. Education initiatives
should become a priority for decreasing social vulnerability because knowledge
ultimately leads to reductions in physical vulnerability.
Provision of practical incentives. Incentives such as government grants and subsidies may help villagers improve their buildings and/or reconstruction projects.
Insurance can also provide useful incentives for vulnerability reduction. For
example, insurance companies may be persuaded to offer reduced premiums for
residential buildings in Kamala. Similarly, it might also be a useful strategy in
Namkhem for governments to provide incentives/financial support for building
construction.
6.3 Findings
The two case studies illustrate different levels of hazard vulnerability related to
coastal housing and infrastructure services. Major factors influencing community vulnerability are the communitys economic base, financing ability for
improved construction, support from local governments and community-based
organizations, and levels of accessibility to knowledge about improved disaster
management. Based on the vulnerability results and required capacity, four types
of strategies for adaptation and mitigation are recommended: strengthening/
implementing regulations, formulation of coastal zone management plans,
public awareness and education campaigns, and provision of practical incentives.
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773
7. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In many ways the impacts of climate change are unavoidable up to certain extent.
There is, however, a need to consider adaptation strategies in order to adjust to
climate change related risks. Mitigation strategies can also reduce the adverse
impacts of climate change. This study takes into account the vulnerability assessment process and adaptation process for enhanced resilience in understanding
the physical, societal and environmental vulnerabilities subject to climate
variability, and assessing the adaptation strategies to possibly support policy
makers in integrative decision making process. The resilience capacity and strategies should be based on the local vulnerability assessment. The cases included in
this study show that the flood risk has several consequences in different urbanization levels and under the climate variability. Major factors influencing vulnerabilities of selected coastal communities are related to economic aspects, institutional
capacity, and level of and accessibility to knowledge in local community-based
organizations. Based on the vulnerability results and required capacity, we were
able to identify and propose specific types of strategies for adaptation and mitigation under the coastal hazard conditions of the communities.
This study will help support policy makers in integrative decision making
processes which may be used in different sectors - especially in disaster/risk
management plans, water resource management, health, sustainable livelihoods,
institutional structures, project design and implementation, etc. The assessment
process developed in this study can be augmented by employing additional
assessment methods such as multiple vulnerability assessments and benefit-costeffectiveness tools. Some of recommended areas of future research include: study
in different urbanization levels with potential hazards at different projections
of climate change; integrated assessment for relationships of regional climate
changes impacts and specific local risks; and increasing community resilience to
disaster/climate risk through the use of available good practices.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support, leading to this paper, of
the following: Franco-Thai Cooperation Program under Thai Commission on
Higher Education, Canadian International Development Agency, Netherlands
Ministry for Development Cooperation, Royal Thai Government, and School of
Environment, Resources and Development (Asian Institute of Technology). The
appreciation also goes to a number of national and local agencies and personnel
related to the four study communities for generous support in data collection.
774
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CHAPTER
30
Built-In Resilience:
Learning from Grassroots Coping
Strategies to Climate Variability
Huraera Jabeen, Adriana Allen, Cassidy Johnson*
1. INTRODUCTION
It is now widely acknowledged that the effects of climate change will disproportionately
increase the vulnerability of the urban poor in comparison to other groups of urban
dwellers (Alam and Golam Rabani 2007; McGranahan, Balk and Anderson 2007;
Pelling 2003; Satterthwaite et al. 2007). While significant attention has been given to
exploring and unpacking traditional coping strategies for climate change in the rural
context with a focus on agricultural responses and livelihoods diversification, with few
exceptions, there is less work on understanding the ways the urban poor are adapting
to climate variability. The central argument of this paper is that significant lessons can
be drawn from examining how the urban poor are already coping with conditions of
increased vulnerability, including how they respond to existing environmental hazards
such as floods, heavy rains, landslides, heat and drought. Knowledge of these existing
coping capacities for disaster risk reduction can help to strengthen planning strategies for adaptation to climate change in cities because they draw on existing grassroots
governance mechanisms and support the knowledge systems of the urban poor.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the coping mechanisms developed
and adopted by the urban poor and to discuss how these mechanisms can be
mainstreamed into urban planning responses to climate change adaptation.
The research focuses on local coping strategies that can be observed in the built
776
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777
environment such as how people adapt their houses, living spaces, streets, open
spaces and infrastructure to cope with existing environmental hazards.
Conceptually and methodologically, the research comes from the disaster
management perspective, drawing on a background of vulnerability and resilience literature and published case studies about coping mechanisms in urban
areas and/or coping mechanisms for the built environment. The paper draws
on primary data collected by the authors in Korail area, the largest informal
settlement in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The origin of Korail dates back to the 1980s,
and it is located in the low-lying flood-prone area of the city. It provides fruitful
ground to explore the existing built-in resilience of a poor urban settlement
which would normally be considered extremely vulnerable and at risk.
The paper is organized in three sections. The following section sets the background
by establishing the relations between adaptation, disaster risk reduction and coping
strategies for urban areas. The next section summarizes the existing coping strategies
of the urban poor in Korail, using the findings of the survey data. It highlights how the
urban poor effectively use physical, economic and social means of gaining access to
safety, reduce their loss and facilitate their recovery. The third section discusses how
local planning and governance mechanisms aimed at adaptation can support these
existing coping strategies and provide recommendations to mainstream them into
adaptation plans that can be scaled up at the city wide level.
2. LOCAL COPING MECHANISMS FOR ADAPTATION

AND DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
2.1 Making the Links Between Adaptation and Disaster
Risk Reduction
The integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

is advancing as these two fields come closer together in understanding that
reducing socio-economic vulnerability to hazards or effects from climate change,
amount to similar schools of thought (Schipper and Pelling 2006; Tomalla et al.
2006). The two fields use subtly different language to describe similar activities.
From the field of disasters, the term coping capacity, is concerned with the
means by which people or organizations use available resources and abilities
to face adverse consequences that could lead to a disaster (UNISDR 2009).
In the climate change field, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) 4th Assessment identifies coping ranges as the capacity of systems to
accommodate variations in climatic conditions (Carter et al. 2007:142) and
discusses how under the scenario of a changing climate, risks may increase but
that adaptation actually expands a systems coping ranges. Following on this,
778
the IPCC uses the term adaptive capacity as the ability of a system to adjust
to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate
potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the
consequences (emphasis in the original) (Carter et al. 2007:869). Satterthwaite
et al. (2007) relate this definition to the urban scale, thus describing adaptive
capacity as the inherent
inherent capacity of a system (e.g. a city government), population (e.g. low-income community in a city) or individual/household to undertake actions that can help avoid loss and speed recovery from any impact of
climate change (p.5) Thus, both coping capacity (disasters) and adaptive
capacity (climate change) are determined by a communitys or a systems abilities to take actions that will help them to withstand hazardous events.
2.2 Urban Coping Strategies
Coping strategies are often complex. However, the assumption is that an event will
follow a familiar pattern, and that actions that were taken before to cope are a reasonable guide for similar events (Wisner et al. 2004). Coping strategies can generally be:
t Preventive strategies at the individual and small group level, these mean
people making choices so that they will not be affected by an event, such
as avoiding dangerous places at certain times or choosing safe residential
locations.
t Impact-minimizing strategies These are strategies to minimize loss and to
facilitate recovery in the event of a loss. This is generally referred to as mitigation in disaster literature, but adaptation in climate change literature. Very
simply, this should imply improving access to a minimum level of food, shelter
and physical security so that people will be less vulnerable in case a disaster or
climatic event does happen.
Coping strategies operate within different scales: individual (e.g. household),
community (e.g. neighbourhood) or institutional (e.g. city-wide or beyond).
Individual coping strategies, which operate at the level of the household unit
entails cooperation on activities within the household, but not beyond. Coping
strategies operate at the community level when members of a community work
together to improve their resilience. This requires a certain level of organisation beyond the household and may involve community-based organisations, religious organisations or other organisations that operate as an organising entity within the community. Local governments or NGOs may operate
institutional level coping strategies, however, the urban poor generally have
little power over these rather their sphere of influence is at the individual
or community level. Wisner et al. (2004) and Wamsler (2007) identify several
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779
different types of coping strategies, some of which correspond to strategies that

the urban poor use:
t Building up stores of food and saleable assets: storing of food may be more
common in rural areas, but urbanites living in a cash-based economy may
use similar strategies such as keeping items of value that can be sold if
needed.
t Diversifying income sources: In cities this may mean illegal or quasi-legal work,
such as street-hawking, waste recycling, or even looting and pilfering in areas
that have been affected by a disaster. Having more than one, or sometimes
several, income earners in the family also allows for diversification. If families
have contributed to savings groups, this can offer a form of income during
hard times.
t Development of social support networks: This is the ability to call on the resources of others during difficult times. Networks can be within the household, between extended family members (living near or afar), within neighbourhoods, and with wider groups who have a shared identity (religious,
geographic, commercial, etc.). Assistance can come in many forms financial
help, emotional support, shelter in time of need, or physical helping of any
kind. These types of networks maybe less present in urban settings due to the
erosion of traditional systems that govern social interactions. Also, transience
is quite common in urban settings, so families may not have the opportunity
to establish these important networks.
2.3 Grassroots Coping Strategies for the Urban Built Environment
As detailed above, coping strategies can entail many different kinds of activities, including the use of social networks, diversification of income sources or
collective savings. Many important coping strategies employed in cities consist
of modifications to the physical and built environment. Wamsler (2007) refers
to physical/technological risk reduction as the structural and non-structural
improvements of dwellings and surroundings. She also refers to environmental
risk reduction, which is the use and removal of natural resources, including
clean-up of the natural environment. Studies of coping strategies for the physical
and built environment highlight several common features of urban populations
under risk (Nchito 2007; Satterthwaite et al. 2007):
t The poor usually inhabit informal settlements in the most hazardous locations
in the city, and thus are most at risk when a disaster or climatic event happens.
The poor often build on leftover land on floodplains alongside the river, or
780
on unstable hills surrounding the city susceptible to landslides. They may live
close to garbage dumps or toxic industries or end up inhabiting the areas most
prone to strong ground motion in earthquakes. Informal settlements often
lack basic infrastructure of paved roads or adequate drainage and thus are
more susceptible to flooding. Lack of open spaces and little green areas mean
that informal settlements may suffer from higher temperatures.
t Informal developments often aggravate flooding and heat. Flooding frequency,
magnitude and duration can become stronger, as informal developments on
floodplains restrict water runoff. Lack of open spaces and clearance of natural
vegetation create stronger urban heat island effects.
t Relocation is not an option that the urban poor will agree to take in times of a
disaster or a climatic event, unless they absolutely must. People do not feel safe
leaving behind their belongings and often cannot afford to be far away from
income earning possibilities.
Coping strategies for the physical and built environment operate at different
scales. The following activities are common (Wamsler 2007; UNFCCC 2004;
Douglas et al. 2008):
t Within the house: raising furniture in the house, building furniture that is
higher so that people can rest on it during the flood, blocking entryways so
that water cannot come in, creating outlets so water can flow out easily, turning off electricity;
t Modifications to the house structure: installing rain gutters, replacing walls
or supporting structures with flood-resistant materials, i.e. bricks or cement, using light coloured materials to reflect heat, using lateral reinforcing with wood or bamboo for earthquakes and hurricanes, nailing down
roof materials.
t Modifications around the house: digging water channels, building dykes, laying
sandbags.
t Improvements at the neighborhood level: cleaning drains that service several
houses, building retaining walls, putting plastic sheets on slopes.
Cooperation beyond the householdat the community or institutional
levelis usually necessary for the neighborhood level coping strategies. Investments in roads and pathways, drainage and sanitation systems, and improvements to open spaces can reduce the frequency and magnitude of disaster events
but require collective action. Some of the most effective adaptation strategies may
be beyond the control of the local community and must be implemented at the
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781
institutional level. For example, tenure systems that allow the urban poor security
of tenure mean that people will invest in improvements to their houses.
As part of any adaptation plan, outside agencies must understand existing
local coping strategies and build upon them (Huq and Ried 2007). Davis (2004)
outlines the need to build a detailed understanding of the scale and nature of the
coping strategies of communities at risk and makes the point that these coping
strategies need to be integral to disaster plans. Moser and Satterthwaite (2008)
highlight the need to support initiatives that build resilience at household and
community levels.
3. CASE STUDY: KORAIL, DHAKA

3.1 Vulnerability of Dhaka
Bangladesh in general is vulnerable to climate variability and climate change

because of its geomorphologic location. The capital city Dhaka has experienced
nine major floods in the last 55 years among which those of 1988, 1998 and 2004
were severe due to overflowing of surrounding rivers. Flooding from excessive rainfall also causes severe problems in certain parts of the city, which are
inundated for several days mainly due to drainage congestion and inadequate
pumping facilities. In addition, the city experiences heat island problems where
the temperature is a few degrees higher than the surrounding areas. These affect
infrastructure including water systems, housing and settlements, transport
networks, utilities and industry. The 3.4 million urban poor living in Dhaka
with limited or no access to services and poor living conditions are considered
highly vulnerable among all the city dwellers (CUS 2005). In addition to physical
impacts, vulnerability increases through insecure livelihoods, increased health
risks and constrained economic activities.
3.2 General Description of Korail
The informal settlement in Korail, considered the biggest slum in Dhaka, started
to develop during late 1980s on the vacant higher grounds. Eventually the settlement expanded, encroaching the highly vulnerable water edges. At present,
Korail covers an area of approximate 90 acres with an estimated population of
over 100,000 (CUS 2005). The eastern and southern edges of the area are defined
by the Gulshan Lake, a main water reservoir for the adjoining areas. Because of
its location near the high-end residential and commercial areas (Gulshan, Banani
and Mohakhali) of Dhaka, it attracted low-income people engaged mostly in
service jobs, like cleaners, household helpers, rickshaw pullers as well as workers
in the ready-made garments industries.
782
The people of Korail experience climatic hazards almost every year from excessive
rainfall, increased heat and flooding.High population density without proper services
and locations at the vulnerable waters edge impose threats from climate variability and
climate change. Security of tenure is one of the major concerns for the area. Since two
government organizations own most of the land, ownership of land acts as a threat of
eviction. This insecurity has caused reluctance among service providing authorities to
give legal access to city-wide systems, therefore local dwellers are forced to pay higher
prices for water and electricity to illegal providers. Lack of tenure security also has the
consequence that the inhabitants, including those who have lived there for as long as
20 years, are unwilling to invest in improving their living conditions. High density
self-help housing in the area was developed without any government intervention.
Different NGOs worked in the area to develop segmented drainage, sanitation,
garbage disposal as well as informal education and healthcare facilities.
3.3 Methods
A small qualitative survey was conducted among 35 households to identify their

experiences of climatic variability, hazards and coping strategies. The households
have been chosen randomly based on the criteria of location, condition of houses,
ownership and period of tenancy. Among the 30 households finally documented,
14 lived near the waters edge highly susceptible to flooding, while the other 16
lived on higher ground in high density areas with or without drainage facilities.
The housing condition varied from permanent to temporary in character and
the period of tenancy varied from less than one year to more than five years. The
survey included interviews with at least two household members (male/female)
preferably at two different times. The survey questions were designed in consultation with local inhabitants and academics with options of flexibility and additions
by the respondents. The answers of the respondents were compiled and analyzed
using Microsoft Office Access, Excel and SPSS. Notes, pictures and sketches
provided an important basis for the documentation.
3.4 Findings
3.4.1
Population
The 30 households comprised a total of 163 members; 36% of the survey population are within the age group of 15 to 30 working as principal earning members,
employed either as service providers or self-employed related to services. Any
climatic hazards would reduce their earnings from fewer hours and days worked.
17% of those aged between 35 and 45 earned from either renting out rooms
or running household-based small businesses. Renting out rooms becomes
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783
problematic during rainy seasons because of water logging and flooding. The
population pyramid of the survey population shows almost 30% under the age
of 10 years. This raises two major concerns for the future: high dependency on
the working household members will increase the vulnerability of the children as
well as their susceptibility to long-term impacts of disaster resulting from climate
variability and climate change. Also there is a high rate of illiteracy and low level
of formal education, limiting access to information and increasing vulnerability.
3.4.2
Economic Abilities
There is a wide variation among the earnings of individuals as well as among

combined households. Although 19 of the 30 households show individual earnings
of less than 1 USD (BDT 70) per day, 40% of the households have combined
earnings in the range of BDT 5000-9000, indicating availability of livelihood opportunities. Some 20% of households have incomes of more than BDT 17,000 per
month, which is quite high in comparison to other informal settlements in Dhaka.
36% of individuals earn up to BDT 3,000 per month. Average working hours of the
working individuals are 10.5 hours and 26 days per month. But there is a very high
economic dependency rate of 59.5% on the working members.
3.4.3
Tenancy and Migration
Most of the households migrated to this area from other parts of the city because of
the availability of vacant land, familiarity with the area and proximity to livelihood
opportunities with an aspiration to move into comparatively permanent locations.
90% of households have had some experience of eviction in the past. The principal
reasons for those migrating from villages were aspirations for a better life and to move
with the family. Approximately 7% of households identified river erosion and loss of
livelihoods as one of the reasons for migration from the village. Most of the households moved near to their extended family or people from the same village or region.
3.4.4
Experience of Disaster and Climate Change Impacts
The facts of climate change are not evident for the inhabitants of Korail; Rather
they recognize existing climate variability. They suffer from water logging and
flooding during the regular monsoons as well as from untimely rainfall. Also,
most of the older respondents felt there has been a reduction in the amount of
rainfall since their childhoods. Increased heat is a major indicator of climate
change and climate variability for most of the respondents. Heat increases the
occurrence of diseases from water shortages, such as typhoid and diarrhoea,
putting pressure on household earnings.
784
3.5 Activities of People Before, During

and After the Disaster
3.5.1
Physical Coping Strategies
As mentioned earlier from Wisner et al (2004), coping strategies for the urban
poor can be preventive as well as impact minimizing. In Korail, choosing a
safe location to avoid danger is not an option for most of the squatters, as the
option of building new rooms are now only possible through encroachment
of water edges susceptible to flooding. Some of the renters move to higher
lands by buying possessions from the older inhabitants. In that sense most
of the households take few preventive actions before any disaster. Most of the
impact minimizing actions have become integral parts of their regular practice
generated from past experiences. For instance, they construct barriers at the
door front (53.3%), increase the furniture height (43.3%), build higher plinths
(30%) and arrange higher storage facilities (30%). Only 5 of the 30 households reported changing to weather-resistant building materials before the
rainy season and storage of food and water before predicted flooding. Some
of the households took initiatives to work with NGOs in the area to construct
drainage facilities connected to the lake.
The families living in higher grounds away from the waters edge would
construct minimum five-inch barriers at the door to safeguard the rooms from
water logging from regular rainfall where drainage facilities are unavailable.
Many households increase the height of furniture at least six to nine inches
(two or three bricks) depending on the location. In Korail most of the rooms
are arranged in a courtyard- type pattern, adjoining rooms facing a narrow
passage-like shaded courtyard (Figure 1. Typically one household would occupy
a single room whereas better-off households would use two rooms. To reduce
the heat in the rooms made out of corrugated iron sheets, creepers are grown in
the courtyards to cover the roofs. Most households also use some form of false
ceiling materials or canopy made of cloths. This is a popular practice in rural
areas that has been applied in urban shelters.
Houses living near the waters edge are usually built on stilts. The
platform for the floors is made higher considering the flood level. These
stilt houses have better ventilation and experience reduced heat compared
to the houses inland. The wooden planks in the floor are preferred as they
face fewer problems from water logging after heavy rainfall. The stilts have
the flexibility to increase in height depending on the water leve, every time
they are rebuilt. The techniques used in the joints between partitions with
roof and floor enhance ventilation as shown in Figures 2 and 3. The stilt
houses also have the options of incremental expansion and repair following
any disaster.
CHAPTER 30
FIGURE 1
Typical House Arrangements
785
786
FIGURE 2
House 1 on Waters Edge
CHAPTER 30
FIGURE 3
House 2 on Waters Edge
787
788
In Korail, during any disaster, moving to safer areas is not a preferred option
as moving means losing assets, social and livelihood networks, and also possibly
losing the right to live in the area. During flooding or water logging, the most
practised option is to sleep on furniture above the flood level and use movable
cookers for food preparation. Fourteen out of the 30 households shared services
from unaffected neighbours. Some temporary measures were also taken, such as
building higher barriers at the doors, making outlets at the house for easy flow
of water, developing alternate means of access, building higher stilts inside the
rooms, and community initiatives to clean drainage and move the most affected
families to safer spaces within the neighborhood. 30% of the households suffered
from food shortages during the previous flooding and prolonged water logging.
Only 16% shared food with neighbours while 27% used money from their savings
or borrowed from others.
To cope with the increased heat, most the households (70%) increase their power
usage and buy additional electrical equipment during summer. Generally closely
spaced structures create shaded courtyards that are used as open space for ventilation. Household activities are often held outdoors during frequent power shortages.
The use of different insulating materials reduces the heat from corrugated iron sheet
roofing and partitions. People use various kinds of recycled materials like paper,
styrofoam, packing boxes, cement bags bamboo mats and old clothes for insulation.
After any disaster like flooding and water logging, 18 out of the 30 households rebuilt their structures in some way, from changing building materials,
increasing plinth levels, changing materials for plinths to changing structural,
roofing and walling materials. 30% of households took loans and got help
from household members or neighbors for the purpose. There is a common
practice among the households to save not only money but also building
materials throughout the year for rebuilding after any future disaster. Fewer
than 4% preferred to move to new locations after the last disaster as they are
mostly renters.
3.5.2
Economic Strategies
Savings is seen as a main coping strategy for most of the households. 50%
of households save regularly with savings groups or NGOs, with the intention to withdraw from their savings during and after any disaster. Usually
savings groups are formed within extended families, neighborhoods and
wider groups who have a shared geographical identity. They create a social
and livelihood network through savings. The amount saved varies from BDT
200 to 2,800 per month, or about 3 to17% of total household income. Usually
these households have more than one working member or income source
from diversified occupations.
CHAPTER 30
3.5.3
789
Social Networks and Safety Nets
The inhabitants of Korail have a very strong social network. This strong community
base has prevented eviction in a number of instances. Typically, people migrating
from a given area tend to settle near one another. 23 out of 30 households have
some relatives or friends living in the city and 14 of them felt that they could seek
assistance in the event of an emergency. Service sector employment in the private
sector requires keeping professional and livelihood networks. More than 46% of
households acknowledged having acquaintance with a professional group. Because
of the courtyard living with shared services, there is a strong bond among different
households. Households which rent out rooms also act as guardians for their
tenants. People tend to be self sufficient, while sharing with neighbours.
Findings from areas like Korail raise concerns about the future of urban
planning in the face of rapid urbanization in Bangladesh, on how to reorient
and reduce effects of climate change and variability for the urban poor. As
Dodman and Satterthwaite (2008) state, urban authorities can have a number
of specific roles in reducing climate change vulnerability. They can introduce
zoning and planning controls to help provide appropriate and safe locations for
low-income households, while reducing exposure to the risks of flooding, slope
failure and other disasters. The presence of a strong local government with
capacity to develop a framework for future investments; land use management
and the possibility to incorporate climate change adaptation measures is a
prerequisite for such activities. However in Bangladesh, although few urban
centres have such plans, in most case they are outdated, unenforced, or
unenforceable. The following section examines the possible contributions of
local governments in mainstreaming adaptation plans.
4. SUPPORTING LOCAL COPING STRATEGIES

THROUGH ADAPTATION PLANNING
4.1 How Local Planning and Governance Mechanisms
Can Support Existing Coping Strategies
Local governments are better placed than any other government structure to deal
with the effects of local climate events from a pro-poor perspective. However, adaptation to climate change is a relatively new issue for local government staff and this
means that more often than not they engage with it through spontaneous responses
triggered by urgent climate events usually interpreted as natural disasters. In contrast
with these spontaneous efforts, planned adaptation involves a set of conscious policy
and financial decisions made before signs of climate impacts become apparent or just
after the first changes take place (Deri and Alam 2008). Ideally, spontaneous and
790
planned adaptation should be articulated to enable the local government to develop

an integrated and systematic approach to climate change.
Whilst it is useful to bear in mind the distinction between spontaneous and
planned adaptation, the former approach should not be underestimated or
overlooked, as it constitutes the typical learning-by-doing mechanism by which
local governments can make good use of indigenous knowledge systems built up
from the historical experience of urban dwellers and passed over from one generation
to the next. These play a crucial role in contextualizing the adaptation process, generating community-wide ownership and commitment. Planned adaptation allows local
governments to draw on scientific knowledge to map and predict climate risks.
There are a number of ways in which the two aforementioned approaches can
be effectively articulated. The first step towards the development of robust local
adaptation plans is for local governments to effectively engage in pro-poor adaptation
to climate change in urban areas, promoting democratic and accountable local
governance structures that actively challenge anti-poor attitudes among government
bodies and engage key stakeholders from the private sector and civil society spheres
to raise awareness, ensure the exchange and integration of various knowledge
and skills, identify needs and priorities, evaluate scenarios and build collectively
negotiated strategies. Local adaptation plans can be meaningless unless community
organisations of the poor are systematically engaged and their short and long-term
autonomous responses to climate change are understood, valued and supported.
The recent Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2008
reiterates the Government of Bangladeshs vision to eradicate poverty and achieve
economic and social well-being for all, through a pro-poor approach prioritizing
adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This focuses on six sectors, including
comprehensive disaster management, infrastructure, research and knowledge
management as well as capacity building and institutional strengthening. While
this can be an opportunity for future activities, most of the detailed programs
focus on rural areas. Apart from improving urban drainage under infrastructure
development, the programs fail to address issues facing the urban poor such as
food security, social protection, and disaster risk management.
A second area where local governments can play a crucial role in adaptation is by
ensuring that land-use planning and the development of buildings and infrastructure
take account of climate change risks. This poses several challenges as it requires
planning and regulatory frameworks that not only prevent further developments in
high-risk areas and support mitigation efforts, but also reduce the vulnerability of
the urban poor and of collective infrastructure without imposing additional costs on
the poor or obstructing their right to the city. Furthermore, infrastructure adaptation
in the context of the developing world is compounded by the very large deficits
suffered in urban areas and the poor quality and lack of maintenance of existing infrastructure. This implies that local adaptation to climate change cannot be divorced
CHAPTER 30
791
from a wider development perspective which focuses on tackling risk through lifeline
infrastructure while planning to reduce disaster risk in future urban development.
The case of Korail vividly illustrates the reality of most informal settlements in
the context of low and middle income countries, where a large percentage of the
urban population lives, contributing more than their fair share to the development
of socially, culturally and economically vibrant cities. Yet, their contributions are not
only ignored but in many cases actively resisted, with local governments typically
denying the provision of basic infrastructure and services to informal settlers and
imposing additional threats through widespread forced evictions. Potential improvements by local dwellers to local infrastructure are often deterred by the insecurity of
land tenure and the threat of eviction. The merits of securing land tenure in informal
areas have been largely discussed elsewhere but cannot be emphasized enough. In the
case of Korail, most of the land belongs to the state and there is therefore considerable
room for a comprehensive land regularization programme.
Community-managed savings groups constitute a widespread mechanism
employed by the urban poor and their federations to spread risk, increase their capacity
to embark in affordable housing and the provision of infrastructure and services, and
ultimately enhance their resilience to climate change-related risks (DCruz and Satterthwaite 2005). Local governments can support such savings schemes by backing their
development into larger networks of savers thereby helping to further spread their
risks and engaging in the co-production of housing, services and infrastructure,
whilst ensuring that such developments are climate-risk sensitive. The savings
patterns among the inhabitants of Korail exemplify such an opportunity.
Another area where local governments can play an active role is in the development of collective disaster risk transfer instruments to provide insurance coverage
for low income groups. In the last decade, there has been increasing interest in the
notion of risk transfer instruments (such as insurance), and their linkages with reconstruction and disaster mitigation programmes. However, there is still considerable
room for development and innovation, particularly in relation to local/municipal
approaches that effectively target the urban poor, who are typically unable to access
the insurance market. The Bangladesh National Adaptation Programme of Action
(NAPA) includes the consideration of micro-insurance for the poor using institutions
involved in micro lending such as the Grameen Bank (Satterthwaite et al. 2007).
4.2 How Grassroots Coping Strategies Can Be Mainstreamed into
Adaptation Plans and Scaled Up at the City-Wide Level
We started this paper by arguing that pro-poor adaptation to climate variability

in cities demands a better understanding of the poors adaptive capacity and of
their autonomous coping strategies. This is because the urban poor are affected
by the double vulnerability of climate change and poverty, which means that
792
they are disproportionately affected in terms of both their exposure to climaterelated risks and the limited resources at their disposal to respond to such risks.
Thus, support to local adaptation must pay attention to the differentiated impacts
of and responses to climate change among different groups in society. However,
there is a series of issues to take into account in order to mainstream this consideration into municipal adaptation plans in an effective and equitable way.
First, large uncertainties persist about the knowledge of observed short and
long-term climate effects in urban areas, and in particular of how specific local conditions shape the vulnerability of the poor. Therefore, it is important to generate sustainable
local means to identify and monitor climate change-related impacts and to integrate
risk management principles and mechanisms of knowledge production and sharing
into municipal adaptation policies and plans. In the process, the urban poor should
be considered as both producers and consumers of such information and knowledge,
addressing the striking gap in climate risk information by and for the urban poor.
Second, a fundamental problem rests in the fact that external support
agencies are rarely set up to understand and support local governments and
local community adaptation plans. There is thus a mismatch between the
areas where increased local capacity and competence in climate adaptation is
urgently needed, and the flow of development cooperation resources supporting
adaptation. Bangladesh receives a significant volume of overseas development
assistance (ODA) to support development activities, amounting to USD 1, 739
million during the 1998-2000 period. Out of this, it is estimated that the share
of activities potentially affected by climate change risk comprising climateaffected projects dealing with water supply and sanitation, renewable energy and
hydropower, urban and rural development, food security and infectious diseases
among other categories has been as high as USD 500 million per year; whilst
ODA committed to activities potentially affected by climate risk is considerably
higher than that earmarked to support specific projects for climate change
adaptation (Agrawala and Ahmed 2005).
The above discussion highlights that consideration of climate change-related risks
could play a central role in financing both general development goals and adaptation
responses, and reinforces the need to mainstream climate risk in the overall flows of
development aid as a cross-cutting concern. However, this measure alone would not
be enough for external funding flows to effectively support local adaptation plans.
The problem requires a deep rethinking of the aid architecture to open a two-way
direct dialog between international development agencies and urban authorities and
dwellers, along the lines of decentralized cooperation programs and the creation of
social funds for community adaptation.
Third, adaptation plans cannot be developed in isolation from other development
strategies. Bangladeshs Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) gives limited consideration to the impact of climate change in planning vulnerability reduction strategies.
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793
The lack of consideration of the specific impact that climate change will have on the
urban poor both in the PRSP and international ODA is a product of the macroperspective often adopted in addressing the links between development, poverty and
increased vulnerability due to climate change effects. Thus, the task ahead is not only to
incorporate the consideration of climate change impacts to urban programs and activities, but also a consideration of climate change vulnerability to any development intervention. Eriksen et al. (2007) argue that sustainable adaptation measures should be seen
as those at the intersection of poverty reduction and vulnerability reduction measures.
Fourth, coping with climate change risks is not a new situation for the urban
poor. Much can be learned from their slowly matured autonomous responses in
order to build local adaptation policies and plans on the evidence-base of grassroots experience. Section 3 described the coping strategies developed by the poor
in Korail, Dhaka. These range from physical adaptive practices in individual
dwellings, through collective efforts to construct and maintain drainage facilities
to the use of local social capital, for instance by sharing food and cooking facilities
or moving to less affected building in the neighbourhood during flooding or water
logging. About 50 percent of the households interviewed participate in savings
schemes with the intention of drawing from their savings during times of hardship.
Furthermore some strategies, such as the use of roof canopies or vegetation to
reduce heat exposure, were identified as regular practices imported from the rural
areas where many of Korails current dwellers come from. The physical and social
strategies adopted are mutually reinforcing, as shown in the wide use of courtyards
also for outdoor inter-household activities that strengthen solidarity bonds among
neighbors. As noted by Wisner et al. (2004) and discussed in section 2, grassroots
coping strategies may comprise preventive or impact-minimizing actions, all
aimed at reducing vulnerability through various mechanisms of technology use,
social organization, economic relationships and cultural arrangements.
Fifth, city adaptation strategies require coordination across government
agencies and utility providers and a combination of structural and non-structural
approaches. The former term is often used in reference to engineering
engineering interventions such as river channel modifications, embankments, reservoirs and barrages
designed to control the flow of rivers and abate or control the spread of flooding
whilst non-structural approaches typically refer to measures designed not to prevent
floods but to reduce the short- and long-term impacts of the hazard.[including]
formal flood warning systems and evacuation programs, land use controls on floodprone sites, building regulations to prevent incursion of floodwaters and insurance
schemes (Few 2003:47). Over the time, the latter approaches began to pay more
attention to community and household hazard coping strategies like the ones
examined in this paper under Section 3.
At present a number of structural measures adopted by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests, the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewage Authority and
794
the Bangladesh Water Development Board are underway in Dhaka to improve

environmental quality, manage floods and improve the drainage system. The
severe destruction that took place in the 1989 floods prompted the adoption of the
so-called crash programme, aimed at developing a comprehensive flood protection
system both on the western and eastern parts of Dhaka. The first phase of the Dhaka
Integrated Flood Protection Project in the western part of the city has been completed
and effectively protected half of the city from complete inundation during the floods
in 1998 and 2004. Non-structural measures include the banning of polythene bags
which has allegedly reduced the regular clogging of the citys drainage system (Alam
and Golam Rabbani 2007). Improvements to the city surface drainage system are
still underway but progress has been delayed by the encroachment of many canals
and canal banks by influential actors within local politics.
Last but not least, local adaptation plans cannot be promoted in isolation
from effective mitigation responses. Although
hough the national and local contribution to global greenhouse emissions is negligible, both are increasing. The
energy sector in Bangladesh contributes more than 60 percent of the total
annual greenhouse gases emitted in the country, and 2530 percent of the
emissions from the transport sector come from Dhaka city (Alam and Golam
Rabbani 2007). Beyond a number of measures adopted by the local authorities
to improve ambient air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as
the introduction of compressed natural gas in the transport sector there is
still plenty of room to reduce electricity consumption at household and industrial levels and to introduce changes in the transport sector.
5. CONCLUSION
Adaptive capacity and coping strategies can no longer be considered as different
activities in policy and action in countries like Bangladesh. In the context of
limited capacities of the government where actions should be taken to increase
community and institutional capacities to withstand hazardous events, grassroots experiences, especially in the built environment, can form an effective
knowledge base to plan for future.
Urban poor communities come together from their survival intuitions creating
strong bonds at the individual and community levels. Preventive or impactminimizing strategies may not be the best options to adapt to climate variability, but
others like diversifying income sources or developing social support networks can
eventually create pressures for change at the local government institutional level to
make these an integral part of development plans. Local governments need to effectively articulate between spontaneous and planned adaptation. This can be done
in different ways, from supporting saving schemes by backing their development
CHAPTER 30
795
into larger networks of savers, to ensuring that land use planning and development
of buildings and infrastructure take account of climate change risks and address
security of tenure issues. These require coordination across government agencies,
utility providers and funding agencies, and a combination of structural and
non-structural approaches.
Acknowledgements
A revised version of this paper has been published in the journal Environment
and Urbanization for which the reference is: Jabeen, Huraera, Cassidy Johnson
and Adriana Allen (2010). Built-in Resilience: learning from grassroots
coping strategies to climate variability. Environment and Urbanization, 22 (2):
415-431. This research was supported with funds from the British Council
Bangladesh Higher Education Links Programme.
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31
City Health System Preparedness

to Changes in Dengue Fever
Attributable To Climate Change:
An Exploratory Case Study
Jostacio M. Lapitan,* Pauline Brocard, Rifat Atun,
Chawalit Tantinimitkul
Summary
City health system preparedness to changes in dengue fever attributable to climate
change was explored in this collaborative study by Imperial College London and
WHO Kobe Centre. A new toolkit was developed and an exploratory case study
in Bangkok, Thailand was undertaken in 2008. This study found that there is a
clear lack of research in this area, as most research looked at impacts and not
at responses and preparedness for effective response. There is also a clear need
to develop and/or scale up national-capital city efforts to assess and address the
implications of climate change for health systems. It recommends further case
studies to validate the toolkit and generate guidelines on how to develop effective
response plans.

Q
797
798
1. INTRODUCTION
The year 2007 marked the first time in history that 50% or more of the worlds
population lives in urban settings. 2007 was also the year that the science on
climate change became unequivocal: the Earth is warming, as verified by the
fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). Projections for increasing health impacts from accelerating climate
change coincide with continuing trends of rapid, unplanned urbanization,
signaling significant threats to public health. Climate change and its health
impacts on vulnerable populations in urban settings are burning issues for development workers and disaster risk managers alike.
There is a significant increase in human mortality and morbidity as a result of
climate change (Campbell-Lendrum and Woodruff 2007; Ebi et al. 2006; Patz et
al. 2005; WHO 2003). Extreme weather conditions, such as heat waves, floods,
storms, fires, droughts are occurring as a result of climate change (CampbellLendrum and Woodruff 2007; Campbell-Lendrum 2006; Hajat 2006; IPCC 2007;
Patz 2002; Patz 2005; Vorosmarty 2000; WHO 2003; WHO World Health Day
2008). Increasingly, changes in global and regional climate patterns are affecting
the dynamics and location of infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever,
encephalitis, cholera, amongst others (Campbell-Lendrum and Woodruff 2007;
Campbell-Lendrum 1996; Ebi 2006; IPCC 2007; Lipp 2002; Patz 2002; Patz 2005;
WHO 2003; WHO World Health Day 2008).
The main aim of this paper is to better understand the complexities associated
with health system preparedness and planning in the context of changes in dengue
fever epidemiology. The current body of research on dengue fever is concerned
primarily with the upstream impacts of climate change and there is a clear lack
of research on response. Anticipatory prevention is better than reacting once a
disease outbreak has occurred (Bulto 2006). This systematic review of current
response and preparedness to changes in dengue fever epidemics associated with
climate change illustrates gaps in the literature and highlights the importance
of this study. In this paper, we review previous research on increasing health
plan preparedness for dengue fever, develop a toolkit to assess preparedness, and
provide a case study of Bangkok, Thailand.
2. BACKGROUND & LITERATURE REVIEW

Dengue fever, also known as breakbone fever, causes a flu-like illness, and
infects approximately 50 million people worldwide per year (WHO 2008).
There are four serotypes of dengue fever. Patients who have had dengue have
immunity for life from the serotype they have caught. However, patients who
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799
are infected with a second serotype are more likely to get dengue haemorrhagic
fever (DHF) (WHO 2008). Dengue haemorrhagic fever is a more virulent form
of dengue fever, and has potentially lethal complications (WHO 2008).
Dengue is a vector-borne disease, with its main vector being the Aedes aegypti
mosquito. Dengue persists mostly in the tropical and subtropical regions of the
world where the temperature and rainfall are adequate for the mosquitoes to
thrive and breed (see Figure 1). It is an urban disease, with the vectors breeding
mainly in water located in containers (Gubler, D.J., et al., 2001). Dengue fever
is cyclical, with seasonal variations as well as bigger outbreak cycles every 2-3
years (WHO 2008, 2004a; Rodriguez-Tan and Weir 1998; Lifson 1996).
FIGURE 1
Worldwide Distribution of Dengue (WHO 2008)
It is difficult to estimate the exact prevalence and incidence of dengue

fever because only 30% of cases are symptomatic (Chen and Wilson 2005).
The remaining 70% are either asymptomatic or produce only mild symptoms
such as a low fever (Chen and Wilson 2005). Quick, commercially available
diagnostic kits for dengue are relatively limited in developing countries. As a
800
result doctors must treat patients for dengue fever symptoms without having a
confirmed diagnosis. Incidence and prevalence of dengue hemorrhagic fever
(DHF) is easier to estimate because all cases require hospitalization.
2.1 Dengue Control and Management
The potential control measures for dengue can be categorized by surveillance

of the vector, control of the vector, and monitoring and evaluation of vector
control (Figure 2), based on the WHO guidelines for dengue fever and DHF
control (WHO 2003).
FIGURE 2
Vector Control for Dengue Fever
Climate change will lead to shifts in the prevalence and distribution of

vector-borne diseases including dengue fever, and potentially has already
caused some epidemiologic changes (Lifson 1996; Khasnis 2005; Gubler 2001;
Sutherst 2004; Ye 2007). Dengue prevalence is likely to be affected by climate
change due to the fact that the mosquito vector is cold-blooded and therefore
more sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity and precipitation (Lifson
1996; Khasnis 2005; Lindsay 1996; Tanser 2003; Martens 1995; Hales 2002).
The preponderance of the four flavivirus serotypes are associated with higher
temperatures. The abundance and bite rate of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which
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801
transmit dengue fever by feeding during the day, are also affected by temperature, humidity and precipitation (Lifson 1996; Hales 2002; Hales 1999).
Describing the future of the environment and health process in Europe,
the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health stated health
aspects are still not well integrated into international and national initiatives,
strategies, and action plans on sustainable development (WHO 2004b) and that
A comprehensive strategy to support a public health response is conspicuously
lacking (Campbell-Lendrum and Woodruff 2007). This is a significant issue of
concern and has been propelled forward by the agendas set in the recent WHO
World Health Day 2008, report on climate change and health (WHO 2003a, 2008;
Matthies 2008). Another catalyst for health preparedness was the publication of
the 2008 World Bank guide, How to climate-proof our cities (World Bank 2008).
2.2. Literature Review
For the purpose of this paper, we conducted a systematic review of health system
responses to changes in dengue fever as a result of climate change. The review follows
the Cochrane criteria, with the goal of creating a clear, structured report, with repeatable results (The Cochrane Collaboration). The review emphasizes the importance
of context, and ultimately contributed to the development of the toolkit. The data
sources used were EBSCO Business Source Complete with Business Searching Interface, Factiva, GreenFILE, Health Management Information Consortium International (HMIC) July 2008, JSTOR, Ovid Journals@Ovid Full Text June 09, 2008, and
PubMed. To help ensure the quality of the data, only peer-reviewed publications were
explored. A diversity of studies were included, such as randomized control trials and
studies on response and preparedness to dengue fever.
The majority of the studies we reviewed explored the general health impacts
associated with climate change and concentrated on vector-borne diseases. Only
two of the reviews concentrated specifically on dengue fever, however they both only
briefly mentioned climate change. Out of the four studies that collected data, three
collected weather and climate data, two collected dengue data, two collected mosquito
data, two collected socioeconomic data, and one collected response/adaptation data.
Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the studies included in the review.
Bulto et al. (2006), explored climate variability and Aedes aegypti and predicted
more frequent epidemic outbreaks and a change in the season and spatial pattern
of dengue fever in Cuba. In response to their results, the researchers suggested
the use of climate projections to inform future policy decisions concerning the
development of vector control programs.
Hales et al. (1999), investigated the relationship between the El Nio southern
oscillation (ENSO) and dengue fever, and concluded that ENSO may trigger
dengue fever outbreaks on large populated islands.
802
TABLE 1
Characteristics of Studies Included in Dengue Fever Review
Woodruff et al. (2006) projected the spread of dengue in Australia as a result

of increased temperatures on the basis of no policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their conclusions were that strong policy action to reduce
emissions would prevent further expansion of dengue fever (Woodruff 2006).
Rawlins et al. (2007) collected primarily response data and explored
community knowledge of climate change issues as well as community willingness
to help control dengue fever in the Caribbean. Understanding and awareness of
climate and health issues were found to be high, but involvement was anticipated
only to occur with greater levels of community persuasion.
None of the studies we reviewed had explored health system responsiveness to
changes in dengue fever as a result of climate change. The majority of the studies
focused either on the impacts of climate change on dengue fever outbreaks and
patterns (Hales et al. 1999; Bult et al. 2006), on the impacts of climate change policies
on dengue fever distribution (Woodruff 2006), or on community knowledge and
willingness to participate in vector control methods (Rawlins et al. 2007). Overall,
while the awareness of potential vector control methods exists (Table 2), there is a
clear gap in the literature about responding to changes in dengue fever as a result of
climate change and also with regard to monitoring and evaluation.
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TABLE 1
Vector Control Methods Discussed in Included Studies
of Dengue Fever Review
3. METHODOLOGY
This study was carried out by principal investigators Prof Rifat Atun and Dr
Pauline Brocard of the Imperial College London in collaboration with the World
Health Organization (WHO) Centre for Health Development (WHO Kobe
Centre WKC), Japan. The researchers identified the need for an assessment
tool for health system preparedness in the context of dengue fever and climate
change. Therefore, the study focused on three components:
t A systematic review of the health plan preparedness for changes in dengue
fever as a result of climate change (see Section 2 above);
t The development of a toolkit to assess preparedness; and
t A case study of Bangkok, Thailand.
This study is significant because understanding and exploring the gaps or
bottlenecks in preparedness is critical to protecting communities from the
increasing dengue fever threat. Research findings can inform, advise and guide
countries and cities on how to increase their levels of preparedness.
804
This multidisciplinary, multi-method approach to assessment was primarily

validated in a cross-sectional, cross-cultural setting. This work can inform
interested researchers on the application of the toolkit, which has been successfully applied in Thailand. This study also assists in the evaluation of other cities
preparedness for changes in dengue fever due to climate change.
3.1 Toolkit Development
There are no current approaches for identifying the preparedness of nationalcapital city health systems for changes in dengue fever attributable to climate
change. This toolkit was developed after carrying out systematic reviews and
was based on the Systemic Rapid Assessment (SYSRA) and Systemic Rapid
Assessment and Monitoring (SYSRAM) toolkits for tuberculosis and influenza
developed by Professor Rifat Atun and his colleagues (Atun 2004, 2005; Coker
2004, 2006, 2007), and on other frameworks for evaluating public health system
response to disasters including bioterrorism and heat waves (Landesman 2005;
Bravata 2004; Bravata 2005; WHO 2005; Kovats 2006; Buehler 2004).
Although a number of guidelines and manuals exist for assessment,
monitoring, and evaluation of vector control methods, they lack well-developed
tools for enabling a response to climate-led variations in dengue fever (WHO
2003b, 2005, 2006a, 2006b). Despite the importance of an effective response
to increasing incidences of dengue fever, no formally validated tool exists
to perform a detailed assessment of preparedness. There is a dire need for a
systemic, programmatic approach to analyzing preparedness to changes in
dengue fever.
The specific goals of the toolkit are to analyze the organizational arrangements
related to dengue fever, to investigate the capacity of health systems to respond
to changes in dengue fever as a result of climate change, and to identify barriers
and facilitators of effective response. The toolkit framework was developed by
the researchers in collaboration with the WHO Centre for Health Development
and was conceptualized after reviewing dengue fever control guidelines (WHO
2003b, 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Lloyd 2003), as well as the following:
t approaches for evaluating public health systems or programs (CDC 2001);
t public health responses to disasters (Landesman et al. 2005), such as bioterrorism (Bravata 2004; Bravata 2005), influenza pandemics (WHO 2005;
Mounier-Jack 2006), and heatwaves (Matthies 2008; Kovats 2006);
t methods for early detection of outbreaks (Buehler 2004); and
t the Systemic Rapid Assessment Toolkit (SYSRA) (Atun RA 2004).
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Since the topic is broad, and involves many key players in different settings,
the identification of an optimal response plan for vector-borne diseases was
necessary to help guide interviewers and to aid in the recognition of gaps in
response plans.
The toolkit facilitates the recording of relevant information from national
documents, epidemiological and weather data, and key informant interviews.
These include key documents pertaining to climate change in the country, and
ministry of health plans in relation to responses to health impacts of climate
change. National and regional data and trends for incidence and prevalence, as
well as mortality, are sought and analyzed for changes and variances. Long-term
weather data are also analyzed to ascertain any changes and trends.
3.2 Interviews
The questions for the interview were developed using the existing toolkits and
response plans. The list of questions is used as a guide for the interviewer, and
the questions asked depend largely on the knowledge and expertise of the person
being interviewed. The progression of questions is dependent on the answers
given by the respondent.
The process of using the toolkit involves the purposeful sampling of key actors
involved in various health system functions at different administrative levels
(e.g., national vs. regional). A mix of respondents from different organizations
and backgrounds is required for a robust, qualitative response. All information
provided by interviewees was confidential and non-attributable. The interviews
were recorded in writing or via audiotape with the permission of the interviewee.
Later, the interviews were transcribed verbatim for detailed thematic analysis.
Initially, an optimal response plan was created with key questions to assess the
preparedness of health system to changes in dengue fever as a result of climate
change. Having previously developed the dengue preparedness and climate
change toolkit, the Bangkok case study served as practical test of our work. The
toolkit has since been reviewed and revised.
4. BANGKOK CASE STUDY

The toolkit was tested on the Thai health system. Thailand was chosen for the case
study because it is globally renowned for its well-functioning health system. Thailand
is a middle-income developing country with an integrated health system and it is
also being affected by climate change. In theory, because Thailand has integrated a
number of diverse programs into its health system, we postulate that the country is
relatively well-positioned to respond to climate change related shifts in dengue fever.
806
With the help of the WHO Centre for Health Development, the WHO
Regional Office for South-East Asia, and the WHO Country Office Thailand,
meetings were organized with key staff members at the Ministry of Public
Health, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), Faculty of Tropical
Medicine and Faculty of Science of Mahidol University, and various Health
Offices in the Ayutthaya province. Mahidol University was chosen because it
is one of the leading universities in tropical medicine in Thailand and is home
to the Regional Centre for Tropical Medicine for Southeast Asian Ministers of
Education Organization (SEAMEO). Moreover, the University boasts several
WHO Collaborating Centres.
In addition to understanding how a health system might be able to respond to
changes in dengue fever as a result of climate change, the aim of this exploratory
case study is to identify how a response might be initiated in the Thai health
system as a result of perceived changes in the environment. Other key questions
were: What systems are in place to cope with possible increases in incidence of
dengue fever as a result of climate change? What are the thresholds? Who will
make the decisions? To what extent is climate change associated with changes in
disease incidence?
The interviews were conducted at multiple levels and involved multiple
stakeholders. The researchers followed a triangulation and inductive approach
as they were constantly discussing findings between meetings. Meetings were
held in Bangkok with a total of 48 people, and included the following key informants from the Thai health system: the Director of the Bureau of Vector-borne
Diseases at the Ministry of Public Health, Directors of Disease Control Division
at several District Health Offices, the Director of SEAMEO TROPMED and the
Dean of Faculty of Tropical Medicine, and a National Professional Officer at
the WHO Thailand Office. The meetings were facilitated by Prof Rifat Atun
and the interviews were sound-recorded and transcribed. After the meetings,
Prof Atun and Dr Brocard discussed observations and identified key results,
strengthening the case study. The meetings were focused on interpreting how
Thailand is initiating a response to increased incidences of dengue fever as a
result of climate change. Additionally, meetings were organized with provincial
health offices to explore levels of understanding and awareness of these issues
in the field. All the meetings were audio recorded with permission, and later
transcribed. Direct quotes were referenced by institution name in order to
maintain the anonymity of interviewees.
District-level dengue fever data were provided to the research team after the
meetings. Because of the scale of the datasets, and because they did not include
climate data, we were unable to conduct complex statistical analysis to identify
underlying trends in seasonality and dengue incidence.
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4.1 Perceived Impacts of Climate Change
Data show that rain and dengue fever are highly correlated (Faculty of Tropical
Medicine). Dengue incidence increases and decreases every 1-3 years (Faculty
of Tropical Medicine, WHO Thailand Office). This could be due to population
immunity or different serotypes that cause more cases (Ayutthaya Provincial
Office). In 2008 the Thai Ministry of Health reported that the number of cases
increased by 40% compared to 2007. The Ministry has been issuing warnings
about this since February 2008, as this is the dry season and usually very quiet
(Faculty of Tropical Medicine).
Temperature has increased. It is difficult to say if this has affected the number
of cases. However, scientific evidence shows that an increase in temperature cuts
the disease incubation period, increasing the time in which infection can occur.
Research also shows that the vector develops more quickly (Bureau of Vectorborne Diseases).
In Thailand, dengue outbreak alerts may begin to last all year as the disease
becomes less seasonal. In 2008, the country dengue alert started in January, which
is very unusual (WHO Thailand Office). The research community is uncertain
about whether this trend is due to climate change or not. However, future
research is taking us in the direction towards and analysis of this phenomenon
(Sena District Health Office).
Our difficulty is that we cannot predict. We have not tried to collect the information to see what is the component contributed by the weather change (Faculty of
Tropical Medicine). We do not know about decomposition analysis (controlling for
seasonal cycles and longer term 2-3 year cycles (Bureau of Vector-borne Diseases).
4.2 Health System Preparedness
In Thailand, all diseases, except malaria, are integrated into health system
concerns (Bureau of Vector-borne Diseases and WHO Country Office Thailand).
Not all cases of dengue fever are reported, because only 10% of all patients have
symptoms and/or go to a health centre. The other 90% of infected individuals do
not go to a health centre because they experience mild to no symptoms (Bureau
of Vector-borne Diseases). 100% of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) cases are
recorded because all the patients go to hospital (Faculty of Tropical Medicine).
However, there are no resources for active case detection at the Sena District
Health Office. The Faculty of Tropical Medicine has done a serum survey of
schoolchildren, identifying the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies.
In schools, 80% of children had IgG present, which indicates that a high proportion of students were either immune, ill and asymptomatic, or had only mild
symptoms (Faculty of Tropical Medicine).
808
In Thailand, health systems workers claim that incidences of dengue fever

are currently underestimated because patients with mild or no symptoms do
not go to hospital. This is an issue that needs to be addressed via mobilization
of resources for active case detection. If the ratio of reported versus unreported
cases was estimated then it would be possible to have a better estimate of dengue
fever incidence. Interviewees stressed the difficulty of managing something that
is not accurately measured.
4.3 Thresholds and Response
Our research found that there exists a threshold for response that is related
to the number of reported dengue infections. If the number of cases for cold
season (November to January) is high, as it was in 2008, then there is likely to be
a problem in the following hot season (April to August). With more mosquitoes,
there are more larvae and the number of dengue cases during the hot season will
be high (Bureau of Vector-borne Diseases).
In Thailand, a dengue warning is issued when the rainy season starts.
However, there are no specific thresholds for when a warning is issued (WHO
CO Thailand). The dengue warning system was developed 6-7 years ago.
Currently, the Thais are working to modify it for better detection (Faculty of
Tropical Medicine).
In Thailand, the Surveillance Rapid Response Team (SRRT) deals with
the response phase of all disease outbreaks including dengue fever (Bureau
of Vector-borne Diseases). When there is as little as one case, the team is
deployed to control spreading by spraying to reduce the number of infected
mosquitoes within 100m. SRRT also works to mitigate outbreaks by control by
emptying containers that may house larvae, through community education,
and by distributing bed nets (Bureau of Vector-borne Diseases). Interview
respondents at the Ayutthaya Provincial Office stressed that for every single
dengue case they use all available resources during response (Ayutthaya
Provincial Office). Said one respondent, If one district has a greater number
of cases, we increase the number of teams in that area. If more problems
emerge, we mobilize other health workers. We have a very flexible system in
place (Ayutthaya Provincial Office).
In September of 2008, the Sena District Health Office was faced with an
outbreak of 15 dengue cases. They responded by calling a war room meeting, and
continued with monthly war room meetings as the outbreak trend continued
to increase. In addition, they deployed extra response and mitigation teams
to help affected regions, enlisted the help of volunteers, and engaged communities in health education. However, dengue incidences continued to increase.
In response to this phenomenon one respondent said, We did not understand
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809
why it happened. We put all of our efforts in. We think there was not enough
participation by the community (Sena District Health Office).
When asked about whether or not they have a comprehensive response plan
for an increase in dengue as a result of climate change the majority of respondents answered no. The Ayutthaya Provincial Office mentioned that competing
priorities are holding back the development of a climate change response plan.
Dengue has to be visible to gain public attention and the collaboration of health
workers and the public one respondent remarked. Communication is not a
problem. People are aware. But the difficulty is changing behaviour.
The Faculty of Tropical Medicine asserted that climate change response plans
must be a Ministry policy. The Ministry already prepares disaster management
plans for climate change and national disaster management plans for other
diseases, one respondent said. Now they recognize disasters like storms. They
are aware of climate change. But for dengue they have no system. According to
interviewees at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, policy makers at the Ministry
of Health do not recognize climate change as important because the science of
climate change and health is still in the research stage.
Because there are no response plans in place for increases in dengue fever
as a result of climate change, we chose to ask questions about the policy and
planning infrastructures in place for response to disasters and other diseases.
Our interviews showed that members of the Thai health system are learning
from disaster management strategies. The Faculty of Tropical Medicine held
a table-top exercise after the tsunami. The Chatuchak District Health Office
learned about response strategies from floods, fires, collapsed buildings, and
bird flu epidemics. For example, after the SARS outbreak in Asia, the Bureau of
Vector-borne Disease trained every district team, regional office and provincial
team in response and mitigation. They also conducted risk simulations to
better plan for outbreak response. Simulations are held once a year, said one
respondent. We have evaluated simulations for avian flu and plane crashes.
We have to budget for this, for the funding of every province, and for capacity
building. Respondents stressed that ultimately, the quality of response and
mitigation activity depends on the capacity of the local people.
As a result of climate change, not only is the number of dengue cases increasing,
but the curve of dengue incidence may also be changing (Figure 3). If the Thai
health system continues with business as usual, response mode will remain
unable to decrease incidences of dengue over time. At some point the Thai health
system will need to mount a large-scale response instead of increasing incrementally with each case.
There are several bottlenecks to triggering effective response that have been
identified. These include community resilience, the pace of the decision-making
process, and drug supply issues. Currently, the Thai health system can cope with
810
FIGURE 3
Projected Scenarios of Dengue Fever Incidence
a 10-20% increase in cases. However, it would need to develop flexible resources

to respond to an increase in cases of greater than 20%. It is not clear who will
make the decision to respond. This may lead to significant communication issues
during mitigation and response planning.
The Ministry of Health and local health offices are not always aware of the
potential of climate change to dramatically transform the disease patterns of
dengue fever. As we learned from the interviews, they have other priorities. We
can take care of the problem, claims a respondent at the Faculty of Tropical
Medicine. It is a question of prioritisation if is a threat or not. It is not thought
of as urgent.
The Thai health system has protocols and simulations for heat waves and
SARS, and so there are the systems in place, and the resources and capabilities
to develop response plans. However, as can be seen from French heat wave in
2003 and the Brazil dengue outbreak in 2007, even the best health care systems
can have high mortality rates if proper response planning is not in place. In
the absence of response plans it takes longer for decisions to be made and for
resources to reach the disaster areas. The Thai health system needs to translate
the lessons learned from other disaster response situations to their management
of dengue fever.
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5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There are many peer-reviewed papers reflecting an awareness of the potential
changes in dengue fever from climate change. However, there are no papers
looking specifically at the preparedness of health systems and plans to respond to
changes in dengue fever reasonably attributable to climate change. We developed
a toolkit to assess the preparedness of health systems to changes in dengue fever
from climate change.
Moreover, our Thailand case study illuminated some of the challenges, current
strategies, and capacity of health care systems to respond to climate change
related health threats. Thailand has a truly complex and sophisticated surveillance system for dengue fever. Overall, response to cases is a priority, and often
times skilled response teams are deployed to the site of every case reported.
However, with this reactive vector control strategy there is no system in place to
identify long-term changes in dengue fever, and no response plan for changes as
a result of a warmer climate.
In Thailand there is strong collaboration, innovation and enthusiasm at health
centre level. However, there is an organizational issue in response because the
system is so complex. There are good surveillance systems in place, but there are
organizational issues in the field.
This paper is the first to explore how the Thai health system would cope with
a sudden increase in dengue fever due to climate change. This is a significant
initiative in encouraging awareness of this issue and the need for the Ministry of
Health to create a response plan. Moreover, the case study provided a forum for
the evaluation of the health system assessment toolkit. The toolkit can be applied
to different countries as a Rapid Assessment Test. Gaps in health systems could
be more easily identified, and guidelines could be formulated to aid preparedness
to changes in dengue fever outbreaks.
This study was carried out as a collaborative effort between the Imperial
College Consultants Ltd and the World Health Organization. It explored a new
territory, followed robust methodology, developed a new toolkit and evaluated it
with an exploratory case study in Bangkok. Systematic reviews were carried out
to a high standard, following the Cochrane guidelines.
Ultimately, policy-makers need to become aware of the risk associated with
climate change and dengue fever. Only then will they be able to prioritize the
development of comprehensive response plans.
This study illuminates a number of potential research directions. Thai
disease and weather data needs to be collected and analyzed in order to
identify key trends in incidence and virulence. The results of these empirical
studies can be used to further engage policy-makers. In addition, Thai health
812
care infrastructure will benefit greatly from further analysis of health system
preparedness in the context of malaria and climate change. Robust case studies
should be carried out to further validate the toolkit. Future research will help
identify globally applicable guidelines for how to develop response plans for
increases in dengue fever.
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Sutherst, R.W. 2004. Global Change and Human Vulnerability to Vector-borne Diseases.
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Perspectives from
the 5th Urban Research
Symposium
To do justice to the wealth of research and discussion that took place during the
5th Urban Research Symposium, this final chapter condenses the findings from a
selection of 42 symposium papers. Written by leading researchers and academics,
this synthesis is organized into four sections, reflecting the five thematic clusters
of the symposium: (1) models and indicators for measuring impact and performance, (2) infrastructure, the built environment, and energy efficiency, (3) institutions and governance, and (4) economic and social aspects of climate change in
cities (this last section merged from two of the symposium clusters).
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818
Models and Indicators

to Measure Impact and Performance
Anu Ramaswami and Joshua Sperling
Scientific knowledge and accurate measurement techniques to address climate

action in cities are only now catching up with the magnitude of the urban
climate challenge. This thematic area reviews key gaps in our knowledge to date
and summarizes available models, field measurement, and indicators in two
main areas: (1) energy-use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated
with cities and (2) understanding climate risks, vulnerabilities, and adaptation
strategies in cities.
Significant transboundary exchange of energy and materials occurs between
cities and surrounding hinterland areas. These exchanges are reflected in trade
and transport among cities and in large-scale infrastructure such as the power
plants that serve cities but are often located outside city boundaries. Such transboundary activities confound measurements of GHG emissions at the city scale
and raise many important questions, such as the following:
t What are the best methods to measure GHG emissions from cities when human
activities in cities transcend the small geographic-administrative boundary of cities?
t What are the principles by which GHG emissions are allocated to urban residents? How is trade between cities, national and international, incorporated
into GHG accounting?
t How can city-scale GHG accounting techniques be more policy relevant and
compatible with existing methodologies established to promote carbon trading?
t Can city-scale GHG emissions be benchmarked on a per capita basis and
compared with national-scale GHG emissions and with other cities?
t What do we know about current baseline energy-use benchmarks in buildings
and transport sectors in cities across the world?
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t How can urban designthe layout and choice or urban materialsenhance

GHG mitigation in the buildings sector?
In the commissioned research paper Greenhouse Gas Emission
Baselines for Global Cities and Metropolitan Regions, Kennedy,
Ramaswami, Carney, and Dhakal address the question of GHG accounting
to incorporate transboundary urban activities. The paper reviews key
methodologies for measuring GHG emissions from cities and covers
multiple activity sectorsenergy use in stationary and mobile combustion
addressing building and transport sectors, industrial nonenergy process
emissions, waste emissions, and land-use change. A major breakthrough of
this paper is to harmonize different methods in the literature for estimating
GHG emissions associated with cities and to develop a resulting consistent
methodology that is applied to 43 cities across the globe. The methodology
distinguishes between energy-use and direct GHG emissions within urban
boundaries (Scope 1 emissions) computed consistently with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methods, transboundary contributions associated with electricity generation for use within cities (Scope 2),
and emissions associated with marine and airline travel from cities (Scope
3). The paper demonstrates that data are available, and that overall and per
capita GHG emissions can indeed be computed in a consistent manner for
numerous cities across the world. A key finding of the paper is that required
reporting on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, supplemented with optional
reporting of Scope 3 items, offers a robust methodology for representing
GHG emissions associated with urban activities.
Growing interest exists in assessing spatial variation in GHG emissions both
within urban areas as a function of urban form and across the urban-rural
gradient. For example, in the paper Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions
in Urban Counties in the United States, Parshall, Hammer, and Gurney have
mapped direct fossil energy-use and GHG emissions associated with 157 urban
areas in the United States; their paper enables analysis of geospatial variations
in transportation-related GHG emissions with parameters such as population
density in a case study of the New York City metropolitan area. Because the
Vulcan data product used in the analysis does not track end use of electricity,
overall energy use in the building stock could not be compared geospatially.
However, the paper demonstrates the power of spatial visualization. Future
work in this area of spatial mapping of GHG emissions will require more
detailed utility-derived data on electricity use at higher resolutions, including
the neighborhood level.
The commissioned paper by Gupta and Chandiwala, A Critical and
Comparative Evaluation of CO2 Emissions from National Building Stocks,
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demonstrates the importance of benchmarks for understanding and

mitigating GHG emissions from buildings. Their paper provides a comprehensive analysis of energy-use benchmarks and GHG emissions from the
building stocks in the United States, United Kingdom, and India as well as
insightful comparisons between the three nations. The paper examines end
uses of energy and reviews technology and policy strategies to reduce GHG
emission from the urban building stocks in the three countries. Changes
in energy consumption profiles are assessed from the 1990s into the 21st
century, and quantitative metrics are developed to represent energy-use
intensities in the three nations. Design and policy strategies applied in the
three countries to reduce GHG emissions from the urban building stock are
surveyed and compared.
In the construction of new buildings and neighborhoods, a variety of
factorsincluding density and form of buildings, orientation, building
materials, and landscape characteristicsall play an important role both in
reducing energy use in buildings as well as mitigating the urban heat island
effect. In Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effect by Urban Design, Bouyer,
Musy, Huang, and Athamena provide a synthesis of some of the research
streams addressing how urban form (characterized by the spatial proportion
and arrangement of buildings in a neighborhood or block) along with the
selection of rooftop materials determines surface albedo, which in turn affects
energy use in buildings and the urban heat island effect. The authors propose
preliminary indicators of urban form and effective albedo as design guides for
designing blocks or neighborhoods with reduced energy use and hence lower
GHG emissions. The utility of the method is demonstrated qualitatively using
simulations of two city blocks in France.
The same spatial scale issues that render GHG accounting in cities
challenging also arise in assessments of climate-related vulnerabilities at the
city scale. Currently, climate projections for the present century are provided
by the IPCC, most recently in its Fourth Assessment Report, but these have
several limitations that inhibit their application at the city scale. First, the
projections are typically provided at coarse spatial (such as hundreds of
kilometers) and temporal (such as monthly) scales, and decisions have to be
made at finer regional or local scales and require information at submonthly
time scales. Second, the projections provide average temperature and precipitation, whereas vulnerability assessments require a suite of climate information (such as wet or dry and hot or cold spells, extreme events, and the
like). Last but not least, they do not capture urban features, and near-term
decadal projections are less skilful than long-term projections. Furthermore,
climate model projections have not been linked systematically with distribution of vulnerabilities and societal capacities for adaptive governance.
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Thus, key questions in the area of climate adaptation at the city scale include
issues such as the following:
t What are the best methods to downscale climate models while integrating key urban features such as anthropogenic heat fluxes and urban surface characteristics?
t What is the range of extreme events that can be expected in cities as a consequence
of climate change, and how are they different from larger-scale projections?
t What are the available frameworks for translating climate impacts into hazards, risks, and adaptive strategies in cities, as planners recognize the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations?
Climate change is expected to generate a range of impacts that cities must
address in adaptation planning, including more frequent extreme heat events,
droughts, extreme precipitation and storm events, sea-level rise, and changes
in disease vectors. Such impacts can affect public health, ecosystems, and the
many infrastructure systems, including water, energy, transportation, and
sanitation systems, that serve cities. To better characterize these impacts,
climate models downscaled to the urban scale are gaining more attention.
McCarthy and Sanderson are leading the work in this arena, as presented in
their paper Urban Heat Islands: Sensitivity of Urban Temperatures to Climate
Change and Heat Release in Four European Cities on preliminary results from
downscaling regional climate models (RCMs) using an improved urban surface
scheme (MOSES2). Their results indicate that when finer-scale urban layers are
includedparticularly anthropogenic heat fluxes and surface characteristics
of urban areasmore extreme temperature impacts may be seen in cities than
previously projected. For example, the number of hot nights in London for the
decade of 2050 is projected to be three times greater if urban areas and anthropogenic heat release are included in model simulations, when compared with
rural areas.
A holistic framework that integrates climate impacts with associated climate
hazards in cities, resulting vulnerabilities, and societys adaptive capacity is
offered in the commissioned paper by Mehrotra and others, Framework for
City Climate Risk Assessment. The paper presents a detailed review of the body
of literature on hazards, risks and vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity, woven
together in a comprehensive framework for climate adaptation in cities. The
three-component framework is developed and tested in four case study cities:
Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lagos, and New York City and covers a range of hazards,
including sea-level rise for coastal cities and extreme heat events for landlocked
tropical cities such as Delhi. The authors note that the vulnerabilities identified
in each city suggest differential impacts on poor and non-poor urban residents
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as well as sectorally disaggregated implications for infrastructure and social wellbeing. In response, they highlight successful policies and programs at the city
level that aim to reduce systemic climate risks, especially for the most vulnerable
populations. A four-track approach to risk assessment and crafting of adaptation
mechanisms is proposed (including assessment of hazards, vulnerability, adaptive
capacity, and emerging issues) so that city governments can respond to climate
change effectively and efficiently.
Although the papers in this thematic area represent recent developments in
the field, research is progressing fast. Knowledge sharing among researchers and
between researchers and practitioners is needed as new knowledge, measurement
tools, and appropriate indicators are developed. Currently, there is no single place
where city-scale climate change indicators and metrics are located. A first attempt
at putting such information together in one database is discussed by McCarney
in the last commissioned paper in this thematic area, City Indicators on Climate
Change. McCarney describes the process of developing a standardized set of
city indicators, which includes a full range of city-scale climate-related metrics,
addressing GHG emissions, mitigation, adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience,
while also measuring city services and quality of life. The outputs of the Global
City Indicators Program can be expected to respond continuously to new and
improved methods of measuring city-scale GHG emissions, sectoral energy use,
climate impact projections, and climate adaptation capacity.
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Infrastructure, the Built Environment,

and Energy Efciency
Sebastian Carney and Cynthia Skelhorn
Cities are both large energy consumers and large GHG emitters. The energy
consumption of a city is due, in part, to its infrastructure, building stock, culture,
economic makeup, and population densities. In addition to the energy directly
consumed by cities, we should recognize a wide range of emissions associated
with the production of the goods and services that are consumed within cities but
that may have been produced elsewhere.
This thematic area brings together examples of research from around the world
on how cities may decarbonize over the coming years and decades. When planning
for reducing GHG emissions, cities must recognize their current emissions sources
and how they may seek to reduce these emissions, without increasing emissions
elsewhere. With the global population expected to increase further in coming
decades, and with much of this growth expected to take place in cities, how future
populations live, work, and travel will determine the energy used to perform these
tasks and, therefore, the significant part of their potential emissions.
The application of mitigation policies at the city scale remains in its infancy,
although targets for GHG reductions and (or through) renewable energy implementation are regularly toutedthe policy linked to delivering the targets does
not always enjoy the same clarity. As a consequence, it is important to learn from
those cities that have begun to implement change. This is taken forward in A
Comparative Analysis of Global City Policies in Climate Change Mitigation
by Croci, Melandri, and Molteni and in A Comparative Study of Energy and
Carbon Emissions Development Pathways and Climate Policy in Southeast Asian
Cities by Phdungsilp. The former considers a range of the worlds global cities,
whereas the latter concentrates on Southeast Asian cities.
These analyses are particularly complemented by the detailed work of van
824
den Dobbelsteen and others in their paper on the REAP (Rotterdam Energy
Approach and Planning) methodology, Towards CO2 Neutral City Planning
The Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning (REAP). This team modeled
the current and potential future energy requirements of Rotterdam and
combined it with available renewable energy resources within the city. The
methodology follows established principles of mitigation, namely, measuring
energy consumption, establishing areas for reduction, and minimizing waste
flows. This structured approach, when considered with the wider documentation that exists online, affords a variety of graphical ways to communicate to
wide audiences the types of changes necessary to deliver emissions reductions
over differing time scales.
A city-level mitigation strategy is inevitably a function of its parts, with
buildings contributing a sizeable component of a citys energy consumption.
This requires investigating options for reducing energy consumption in the
buildings sector in different contexts and creating a situation where buildings,
both existing and future, may be considered more sustainable. The transition to
this point will vary across cities. The future energy consumption of a building is
likely to be driven by a series of factors, including behavior, building design, and
future climate. Kershaw and Coley demonstrate the impact of the latter point by
applying a set of existing climatic scenarios to a set of differing building designs
in Characterizing the Response of Buildings to Climate Change. Their research
demonstrates the need for building designs to be able to control their internal
temperatures with a variable outside temperature and highlights the importance
of existing policies on building design on both near-term (2020) and long-term
(2080) energy consumption and wider climatic resilience.
The amount of energy consumed by a building should not necessarily be
considered in isolation. A building has wider impacts associated with its upkeep
that are not always included in energy balances, water being a particular example.
With water becoming scarcer, utilizing rainwater for particular functions in
buildings may lead to an overall reduction in energy consumption. Schmidt
presents four demonstration projects in Berlin and provides wider insights with
respect to rainwater utilization in A New Water Paradigm for Urban Areas to
Mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect. This wider impact of buildings is taken
further in Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of Building Construction
Processes by Floissac and others, who consider the emissions impact of a buildings entire life, from construction to demolition. Taken together, the papers in
this area reaffirm our understanding of the key role of future building design and
retrofitting of the existing building stock when considering both mitigation and
adaptationas well as the synergies between the two.
After buildings, the transport sector is a key user of energy in cities. The energy
consumption of both sectors is influenced by how a city is designed. A variety of
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approaches may be taken to reduce emissions from road transport within cities,
which pertain to both demand- and supply-oriented measures. Bertaud, Lefevre,
and Yuen consider both types of measures as they present a study on the relationships between GHG emissions, urban transport policies and pricing, and the
spatial form of cities in the commissioned paper GHG Emissions, Urban Mobility,
and Efficiency of Urban Morphology. They suggest that price signals are the main
driver of technological change, transport modal shifts, and land-use regulatory
changes. The use of road transport within cities is also affected by other forms of
available transportation, as well as travel to and from a city. Recognizing this, the
paper by Ravella and others, Transport Systems, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and
Mitigation Measures, analyzes GHG emissions mitigation measures for different
modes of land transport within cities and wider interurban networks in Argentina.
Individual aspects of a city will each provide part of the mitigation solution,
but they must be consistent with one another to deliver the best outputs. This
potentially requires a framework for assessing the current emissions sources and
how each may contribute to a citys emission reduction. In Getting to Carbon
Neutral, Kennedy and others establish measures of cost effectiveness for reducing
GHG emissions from 22 city case studies.
The issue of adaptation is perhaps deemed closer to home than mitigation,
because it has a clear local impact, rather than a more global impact. Penney,
Ligeti and Dickison, in their paper Climate Change Adaptation Planning in
Toronto, document Torontos process for creating an adaptation strategy and
framework document and reflect on barriers to integration with existing city plans
and programs. They note the specific departments and programs involved as well
as the process by which adaptation strategies were incorporated into these, but
they also note barriers to implementation. In a very captivating example related
to addressing urban form, Carbonell and Meffert assess large-scale ecosystem
restoration, flood protection, jurisdictional advocacy and oversight, and land
policies that promote climate change adaptation and mitigation for New Orleans
and the wider regional ecosystem in Climate Change and the Resilience of New
Orleans. They make a series of recommendations regarding the restoration of
ecosystem services and the potential benefits for urban systems.
Although we cannot accurately predict the specific long-term consequences
of a changing climate for a particular city, we should embrace this uncertainty: It
is important to move forward with the current state of knowledge and for cities
to determine how best to mitigate GHG emissions in their own contexttaking
due care of national and international policies. Although uncertainty remains
on the impacts of climate change, particularly at fine spatial scales, the research
presented here and elsewhere demonstrates that new insights are being made
available to others and are developing at a rapid pace. It is important for these to
be translated into useful policy-making tools.
826
City Institutions and Governance

for Climate Change
Shobhakar Dhakal and Enessa Janes
Appropriate forms of governance and institutional involvement are critical for

achieving successful urban climate change mitigation and adaptation. The papers
in this thematic area explore a unique aspect of governance and provide insights
on current institutional considerations in the context of climate change. Together,
they address a set of important questions, including the following:
t What are the motivations of cities to address climate change?
t What types of climate-related governance systems are currently being developed, and what are the institutional mechanisms that have emerged?
t What roles do nonstate and other stakeholders play in the governance process?
t What factors have enabled local institutions to become early adaptors of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies?
t What are the major institutional barriers to successful climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities?
t How can we improve upon institutional capacity to enhance preparedness to
the impacts of climatic change?
A number of important themes emerge from the discussion of urban climate
change and governance. First is the analysis of factors that motivate cities to act
and their willingness to make explicit commitments to build climate resilient
cities. We have observed that the discourse on the urban impacts of climate
change has been historically led by municipalities and municipal networks,
associations, and organizations such as the Mayors Climate Summit, ICLEI, C40
Cities, and the Climate Alliance. Recently other regional initiatives and multilateral organizations have joined the discussions.
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The growing role of city governments in climate change can best be attributed
to the following major factors: national mandates for cities to shoulder climate
targets, lack of leadership on the part of some national governments, the
willingness of some cities to participate on global issues without making serious
commitments, expectations of new technology and funding related to climate
initiatives, and new business prospects for local economies. Moreover, it is not
uncommon for cities, often in developing countries, to make climate mitigation
commitments without developing a clear idea of the ramifications for policy and
implementation.
For these reasons, local knowledge, capacity, and governance are important
for achieving successful adaptation and mitigation approaches. Carmin, Roberts,
and Anguelovski show in the commissioned paper Planning Climate Resilient
Cities that the enabling factors for early-adapter cities such as Durban and
Quito are largely internal. These factors include local incentives, ideas, and
knowledge generated through local demonstration projects and local networks,
linking adaptation to ongoing programs, and the ability to enlist the support of
diverse stakeholders from within the city. These dispel the prevalent notion that
external factors are always the main drivers of action and help us to understand
how a citys internal needs and priorities act as powerful agents for institutional
responses to adaptation.
The second theme in the climate change and governance discussion has to
do with the various forms of climate change governance, many of which are
path dependent and reflect priorities and characteristics that are unique to each
city. We observe that strong political leadership, very often by a mayor, is a key
component to the development of appropriate city actions. This is especially true
in cities in developing countries where international donors, local scholars, and
civil society groups can help advance the climate agenda at a rapid pace. It is clear
that the ability of local governments to gather resources and muster the legislative
power needed to devise and enforce plans is a crucial factor for successful climate
change governance. The commissioned paper Cities and Climate Change: The
Role of Institutions, Governance, and Planning for Mitigation and Adaptation
by Cities by Bulkeley and others points out that local governments can govern
climate change mitigation in four ways: self-governing (reducing GHGs from
municipal actions and activities), governing through legislation, governing by
provisioning, and governing by enabling.
The rising interest of local governments in assuming more responsibility on
the issue of climate change governance is a positive trend for cities around the
globe. Nevertheless, policy debates often overemphasize the role of municipal
governments and fail to take into account the limited ability of municipal governments in inducing substantial levels of emissions reductions. This limitation is
due in part to structural factors in cities, such as the citys dominant role as a
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facilitator rather than an actor, the provisioning of municipal utility services by

the private sector, and deteriorating financial performance.
Local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other urban institutions (including state and national governments, scholarly communities, and
local stakeholders) have their own impacts on fostering climate-resilient cities.
Although the role of municipal government is absolutely necessary for implementing urban climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, it is not
the only responsible institution. It is evident that the most successful model for
building urban climate resilience is a multilevel system of governance. Key issues
associated with multilevel climate change governance include how to integrate
a citys climate agenda into existing institutions (and vice versa), how to allocate
responsibilities and actions across scales of governance in ways that allow
capacity and resources to match policy influence, and how to foster collaboration
and communication between various organizations and stakeholders. The paper
by Bulkeley and others, mentioned above, as well as Governance and Climate
Change by Gore, Robinson, and Stren and Viral Governance and Mixed
Motivations by Warden, address these issues with several examples, the last two
papers focusing on Canadian and U.S. cities.
A third theme is that of governmental policy frameworks and the positioning
of policy instruments (economic, fiscal, regulatory, information and voluntary,
and the like) into the prevailing socioeconomic and cultural contexts of cities.
The ability to formulate sound, implementable policies and ensure effective,
efficient results both relate to urban capacity and context. In Adapting Cities to
Climate Change, Heinrichs and others show us that early action requires strong
leadership, risk awareness, interpersonal and interinstitutional interaction,
dedicated climate teams, and enhanced financial capacity. In Understanding and
Improving Urban Responses to Climate Change, Sanchez Rodriguez emphasizes
the role of urban planning in cultivating climate-resilient cities and questions
whether planning institutions currently have the vision, capacity, and flexibility
to guide future urban growth in resilient directions. He notes that collaboration
among scientists, planners, policy makers, and urban stakeholders is paramount.
Overall, the papers in this area have perhaps weakly addressed the issue of policy
instruments and their implementation. However, several papers illustrate that
institutional capacity, forms of governance, and other factors are fundamental to
the success of policy instruments.
Current discussions about climate change mitigation and adaptation take place
in a range of forums and involve different sets of stakeholders and institutions.
Mitigation is often seen as a globally salient topic and is typically an intensely
political issue. In contrast, adaptation is usually undertaken at the local scale and
is less politically sensitive. Both strategies, however, should be integrated through
the concept of urban resilience building. The shortcomings associated with
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planning separately for mitigation and adaptation include missed opportunities

for developing efficient infrastructure and financially optimal climate solutions.
Certainly there are no silver bullets for governance and institutional solutions.
Every city is different, and each requires different sets of solutions suited to its
social, economic, institutional, and cultural context. Ultimately, we should strive
for an integrated approach to resilience, characterized by better coordination and
coherent planning and governance.
830
Economic and Social Aspects

of Climate Change and Cities
Chris Kennedy and Elliot Cohen
The papers in this area, discussing the social and economic dimensions of climate
change, provide several key findings. In particular, the papers demonstrate the
enormous social challenges faced by the urban poor in adapting to climate change
and the inadequacy of current financing mechanisms to address these challenges.
Some approaches to meet these financial demands are proposed, highlighting the
specific roles of the private sector, community organizations, and local governments. Broader economic issues also are associated with climate change, such as
potential changes to industry strategy and consumer preferences.
The uneven social impacts of climate change in urban areas and the distribution of risks among populations is stressed by Bartlett and others in their
commissioned paper Social Aspects of Climate Change in Urban Areas in Lowand Middle-Income Nations. Hundreds of millions of urban dwellers in lowand middle-income nations are at risk from current and likely future impacts of
climate change. The risks, however, are distributed very unevenly because of differences in the magnitude and nature of hazards in different locations, the quality of
housing, infrastructure, and services, measures taken for disaster risk reduction,
the capacity and preparedness of local governments, and the social and political
capital of vulnerable populations. The authors emphasize that vulnerabilities can
be overcome by removing the hazards to which people are exposed, noting that
measures taken to address climate changerelated risks can be pro-poor, but
many are anti-poor and increase poverty. They stress that pro-poor development
has strong synergies with helping the poor adapt to climate change.
An asset-based framework for both understanding and operationally
addressing the impacts of climate change on poor urban communities is
presented by Moser in A Conceptual and Operational Framework for Pro-Poor
Asset Adaptation to Urban Climate Change. This framework has two components. First, the asset vulnerability of groups most affected by climate change
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related disasters is appraised for four interrelated phases: long-term resilience,

pre-disaster damage limitation, immediate post-disaster response, and rebuilding.
Second, bottom-up and top-down strategies for climate change adaptation that
individuals, households, and communities have developed to cope with the four
phases are identified.
In looking at the funding available for local governments to address mitigation
and adaptation to climate change, Paulais and Pigey in their paper Adaptation
and Mitigation find there is a mismatch between needs and financing tools.
Existing funding sources are found to be insufficient, highly fragmented, and
generally not designed for local government use. They note that an integrated
approach to investment in urban areas is required, and they are concerned that
carbon finance through the Clean Development Mechanism in part may be
substituting for, rather than adding to, traditional official development assistance. Moreover, though estimation is difficult, Paulais and Pigey suggest that
the investment needs for mitigation and adaptation are one to two orders of
magnitude greater than the funds available.
Several different approaches to meet the financial demands of climate change
may be taken. To get more funding to local governments where it is needed, Paulais
and Pigey consider cases with and without national intermediation agencies that
can support or pool borrowers. To create more leverage and incentives for local
governments, they suggest that climate change and pure development investment
mechanisms be consolidated. They also suggest that incentives such as hybrid
loans, credit enhancement, buy-down loans, and various tax incentives for the
private sector be used. The authors also encourage a more prominent role for
wealthy industrialized cities to partner with cities that are at low-income levels.
In contrast, Dodman, Mitlin, and Co in Victims to Victors, Disasters to
Opportunities examine the potential for community-based initiatives to help
the urban poor adapt to climate change. They draw upon the experiences of the
Homeless Peoples Federation of the Philippines in responding to disasters. At
the center of the organizing methodology are community savings programs,
which provide a versatile means for acquisition of and relocation to less
vulnerable areas, thereby enhancing disaster preparedness and risk reduction.
The examples from the Philippines show how appropriate responses to some
aspects of climate change can be implemented through partnerships among
local organizations, professionals, and city officials.
The private sector has a substantial role to play in mobilizing resources to
address climate change adaptation and mitigation. In Mobilizing Private Sector
Resources toward Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Action in Asia, Park
explores this role, particularly in Asia. He suggests that increased investment
could be achieved using institutional structure and public policy that can facilitate and create business-led innovation. Park also notes that it is challenging to
832
ensure that climate solutions help, or at least do not harm, poor, energy insecure,
and economically marginalized groups. He proposes a triple bottom-line strategy
for financing climate change action in Asia. This involves the following: (1)
investing in sector-based carbon mitigation strategy for industries, encouraged,
for example, by reduction of fuel subsidies, (2) financing of community-based
ecosystem and clean energy microenterprises, and (3) building resilience to
climate change through market-based adaptation strategies, such as catastrophe
bonds, contingent surplus notes, exchange-traded catastrophe options, catastrophe swaps, and weather derivatives.
Whether as part of market-based approaches to address climate change
or otherwise, the cost of carbon is likely to rise, which will have substantial
impacts on municipal finances. The paper by Annez and Zuelgaray, High Cost
Carbon and Local Government Finance, examines the financial impacts of
rising carbon costs using case studies from the Indian state of Maharashtra
and from Spain. They note that local government revenues are generally not
dependent on the price of energy, and therefore local governments see negligible fiscal gain from increasing energy prices. On the other hand, many public
services that local governments provide, such as garbage collection, are energy
intensive. Consequently, higher energy prices will create an adverse fiscal shock
for local governments. Hardest hit will be smaller, less diversified governments
currently operating at low levels of service because the most basic services
tend to be most energy intensive. Annez and Zuelgaray suggest that the appropriate policy response will be for higher levels of government, which generate
surpluses from taxing energy, to compensate local governments hard hit by
high energy bills. This is to protect the financial integrity of local governments
and to ensure reasonable service delivery.
Climate change also has broader economic implications for, a few of which
are addressed by other papers in this section. With respect to economic strategy,
Zhang asks in her paper Does Climate Change Make Industrialization an
Obsolete Development Strategy for Cities in the South? whether industrialization still represents a viable development strategy in the context of climate
change. Through considering the development experiences of Shanghai, Mumbai,
and Mexico City, Zhang argues that climate change makes industrialization an
even more important strategy than before. Nonetheless, for the sake of local and
national prosperity, as well as the global sustainability, it is critical that developing cities decarbonize their industries. Zhang suggests that the experience of
Shanghai shows that this can be achieved. In The Price of Climate, Cavailhs
and others demonstrate economic benefits to climate change may be found, albeit
in an industrialized country context. The authors use a hedonic price method to
study consumer preferences in the face of climate change in France. Although
very hot days are not desirable, the research shows that French households value
EPILOGUE
833
warmer temperatures. Gross domestic product is calculated to rise by about 1

percent for a 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature.
The research findings presented above and discussed in the symposium
demonstrate the interest of the research community and the rapid pace of
production of new insights. At the same time, the symposium also revealed
numerous areas where further work is required to strengthen diagnosis and
policies. As mentioned in the introduction, the areas where most urgent
research is required include adaptation in general, economic and social analysis
broadly, and the specific needs and circumstances of developing country cities.
Meanwhile, although there is considerable uncertainty on the specific long-term
consequences of a changing climate in any particular city, it is important to
move forward with the current state of knowledge. Cities need to determine
how best to mitigate GHG emissions in their own contextin the context of
national and international policiesand how best to respond and adapt to a
changing climate. It is important for knowledge and research insights to be
translated into useful policy-making tools, which we hope will follow from the
5th Urban Research Symposium.

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Responding to an Urgent Agenda

Chapter 2 Detecting Carbon Signatures of Development

M Alberti and L R Hutyra

Chapter 3 A Critical and Comparative Evaluation of CO2

R Gupta and S Chandiwala

Chapter 4 Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions

L Parshall, S Hammer, K Gurney

Chapter 5. Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effect

J Bouyer, M Musy, Y Huang and K Athamena

Chapter 6. Framework for City Climate Risk Assessment

Part 2. Infrastructure, the Built Environment

C Kennedy, D Bristow, S Derrible, E Mohareb, S Saneinejad,

Chapter 8. Towards CO2 Neutral City Planning

A Dobbelsteen, N Tillie, M Joubert, W Jager and D Doepel

Chapter 9. Urban Sprawl and Climate Change: A Statistical

Chapter 10. The Role of Intelligent Transport Systems

R Clavel, E Castex, D Josselin

Chapter 11. An Investigation of Climate Strategies

Chapter 12. Opportunities and Challenges

J-F Akinbami and A Lawal

Chapter 13. A New Water Paradigm for Urban Areas

Chapter 14. Characterizing the Response of Buildings

T Kershaw and D Coley

Chapter 15. Comparative Study of Energy and Carbon

Part 3. City Institutions and Governance

Chapter 17. Planning Climate Resilient Cities: Early

J Carmin, D Roberts and I Anguelovski

Chapter 18. Climate Change and the Resilience

A Carbonell and D J Meffert

Chapter 19. Governance and Climate Change:

C Gore, P Robinson and R Stren

Chapter 20. Climate Change Adaptation Planning

J Penney, D Thea and E Ligeti

Chapter 21. Climate Change and Urban Planning

B Yuen and L Kong

Part 4. Economic and Social Aspects

Chapter 23. Adaptation and Mitigation: What Financing

T Paulais and J Pigey

Chapter 24. High Cost Carbon

P C Annez and T Zuelgaray

Chapter 25. Mobilizing Private Sector Resources

Chapter 26. The Price of Climate: French Consumer

J Cavailhs, D Joly, H Cardot, M Hilal, T Brossard, P Wavresky

Chapter 27. Social Aspects of Climate Change

Chapter 28. The Urban Poors Vulnerability

L Winchester and R Szalachman

Chapter 29. Vulnerability and Resilience

V Nitivattananon, T T Tu, A Rattanapan and J Asavanant

Chapter 30. Built-In Resilience: Learning from Grassroots

H Jabeen, A Allen and C Johnson

Chapter 31. City Health System Preparedness

J M Lapitan, P Brocard, R Atun, C Tantinimitkul

CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Challenge of Cities and Climate Change