David Satterthwaite

Cities' contribution to global warming: notes on the allocation of greenhouse gas emissions:

This paper suggests that the contribution of cities to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is often overstated. Many sources suggest that cities are responsible for 75—80 per cent of all such emissions. But as statistics drawn from the IPCCs Fourth Assessment show, this considerably understates the contributions from agriculture and deforestation and from heavy industries, fossil-fuelled power stations and high-consumption households that are not located in cities. It is likely that, worldwide, less than half of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are generated within city boundaries. However, if greenhouse gas emissions from power stations and industries are assigned to the location of the person or institution who consumes them (rather than where they are produced), cities would account for a higher proportion of total emissions. But it would be misleading to attribute this to “cities” in general, since these emissions would be heavily concentrated in cities in high-income nations and they should be ascribed to the individuals and institutions whose consumption generates them, not to the places where they are located.

Sustainable Cities or Cities that Contribute to Sustainable Development

This paper outlines a framework for assessing the environmental performance of cities in regard to the meeting of sustainable development goals. It also considers how the environmental goals fit with the social, economic and political goals of sustainable development and the kinds of national framework and international context needed to encourage city-based consumers, enterprises and governments to progress towards their achievement. In a final section, it considers the extent to which the recommendations of the Habitat II Conference helped to encourage national governments and city and municipal authorities in this direction.

Urbanization and its implications for food and farming

This paper discusses the influences on food and farming of an increasingly urbanized world and a declining ratio of food producers to food consumers. Urbanization has been underpinned by the rapid growth in the world economy and in the proportion of gross world product and of workers in industrial and service enterprises. Globally, agriculture has met the demands from this rapidly growing urban population, including food that is more energy-, land-, water- and greenhouse gas emission-intensive. But hundreds of millions of urban dwellers suffer under-nutrition. So the key issues with regard to agriculture and urbanization are whether the growing and changing demands for agricultural products from growing urban populations can be sustained while at the same time underpinning agricultural prosperity and reducing rural and urban poverty. To this are added the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to build resilience in agriculture and urban development to climate change impacts. The paper gives particular attention to low- and middle-income nations since these have more than three-quarters of the worlds urban population and most of its largest cities and these include nations where issues of food security are most pressing.

Environmental problems in an urbanizing world : finding solutions for cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Cities can provide health safe and stimulating environments for their inhabitants without imposing unsustainable demands on natural resources ecosystems and global cycles. A successful city in this sense is one that meets multiple goals. Such goals include: healthy living and working environments for the inhabitants; water supply provision for sanitation rubbish collection and disposal drains paved roads and footpaths and other forms of infrastructure and services that are essential for health (and important for a prosperous economic base) available to all; an ecologically sustainable relationship between the demands of consumers and businesses and the resources waste sinks and ecosystems on which they draw. (excerpt)

The implications of population growth and urbanization for climate change

This paper considers the implications of population growth and urbanization for climate change. It emphasizes that it is not the growth in (urban or rural) populations that drives the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but rather, the growth in consumers and in their levels of consumption. A significant proportion of the world’s urban (and rural) populations have consumption levels that are so low that they contribute little or nothing to such emissions. If the lifetime contribution to GHG emissions of a person added to the world’s population varies by a factor of more than 1,000 depending on the circumstances into which they are born and their life choices, it is misleading to see population growth as the driver of climate change. A review of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions levels for nations, and how they changed between 1980 and 2005 (and also between 1950 and 1980), shows little association between nations with rapid population growth and nations with high GHG emissions and rapid GHG emissions growth; indeed, it is mostly nations with very low emissions per person (and often only slowly growing emissions) that have had the highest population growth rates. The paper also discusses how in the much-needed planning for global emissions reduction, provision must be made to allow low-income, low-consumption households with GHG emissions per person below the global “fair share” level to increase their consumption.

The Millennium Development Goals and urban poverty reduction: great expectations and nonsense statistics

This paper outlines the importance of the Millennium Development Goals for urban populations, and some reasons for concern regarding their implementation. It argues that the institutional structures and processes of international donors and national governments can be incompatible with the effective achievement of poverty reduction. It also explains that the relevance of the Millennium Development Goals for urban populations has been neglected by many authors and is obscured by inaccurate statistics. These goals set much store on specific targets for reducing income-based poverty and the proportion of people lacking provision for water and sanitation; but the statistics currently used to assess the number of poor urban dwellers and the level of their provision are inaccurate and based on inappropriate criteria. These statistics need to be revised to reflect the incomes that people actually need to avoid income poverty in urban areas, and the kinds of improvements in water and sanitation that really deliver better health.

Editorial Reducing risks to cities from disasters and climate change

The lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by what is done (or not done) in cities with regard to climate change over the next 5–10 years. As the paper by Patricia Romero Lankao points out, cities are key players both in the generation of greenhouse gases and in strategies to reduce this generation, especially in reducing our dependence on carbon-based fuels. Cities also concentrate a large proportion of those most at risk from the effects of climate change. While the need for city governments and civil society groups to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is well established – and with many city governments in Europe and North America already acting on this – the need to act to reduce vulnerability to climate change is not. In addition, most of the cities (and nations) that face the highest risks from the negative effects of climate change are those with almost negligible contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases. Take, for instance, Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin, with around one million inhabitants, whose vulnerability to climate change is described in the paper by Krystel Dossou and Bernadette Glehouenou-Dossou. In 2004, average emissions of carbon dioxide per person in Benin were around one-fi ftieth that in highincome nations – or one-eightieth that in the USA.(1) Like many cities on the coast of West Africa, large parts of Cotonou’s economy and residential neighbourhoods are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surges. Some roads, beaches and buildings have already been destroyed by the regression of the coastline in the last 10 years. Many other cities in Africa are also at risk from sea-level rise and storm surges. Half of the continent’s 37 “million cities” are either within or have parts that are within the low elevation coastal zone. Banjul, Lagos and Alexandria are among the cities most at risk, although many others are also likely to face much increased risks from storms and fl ooding – but because of the lack of local analysis, the scale of these risks has yet to be documented.(2) Many Asian cities are also particularly at risk. Asia has many of the world’s largest cities/ metropolitan areas that are in the fl oodplains of major rivers (e.g. the Ganges–Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yangtze) and cycloneprone coastal areas (the Bay of Bengal, the South China Sea, Japan and the Philippines).The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has emphasized how river deltas are among the world’s most valuable, heavily populated Saleemul Huq, Hannah Reid and David Satterthwaite are at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); Saleemul Huq and Hannah Reid with the Climate Change Group, David Satterthwaite with the Human Settlements Group. Sari Kovats is with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Saleemul Huq, Sari Kovats and David Satterthwaite also contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group II.

From everyday hazards to disasters: the accumulation of risk in urban areas

Many disasters take place in urban areas, affecting millions of people each year through loss of life, serious injury and loss of assets and livelihoods. Poorer groups are generally most affected. The impact of these disasters and their contribution to poverty are underestimated, as is the extent to which rapidly growing and poorly managed urban development increases the risks. But urban specialists do not see disasters and disaster prevention as being within their remit. At the same time, few national and international disaster agencies have worked with urban governments and community organizations to identify and act on the urban processes that cause the accumulation of disaster risk in and around urban areas. This paper summarizes the discussions from a workshop funded by UNDP on the links between disasters and urban development in Africa, highlighting the underestimation of the number and scale of urban disasters, and the lack of attention to the role of urban governance. It notes the difficulties in getting action in Africa, since the region’s problems are still perceived as “rural” by disaster and development specialists, even though two-fifths of its population live in urban areas. It emphasizes the need for an understanding of risk that encompasses events ranging from disasters to everyday hazards and which understands the linkages between them – in particular, how identifying and acting on risks from “small” disasters can reduce risks from larger ones. It also stresses the importance of integrating such an understanding into poverty reduction strategies.

The Poor die young : housing and health in Third World cities

The urban context community action to address housing and health problems - the case of San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina housing and health in Olaleye-Iponri, a low income settlement in Lagos, Nigeria housing and health in three squatter settlements in Allahabad, India water supply and the urban poor low cost sanitation surface water drainage in urban areas the collection and management of household garbage the role of house design in limiting vector-borne disease life saving services the future city new partnerships for healthy cities.

The Links between Poverty and the Environment in Urban Areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America

This article suggests that there is little evidence of urban poverty being a significant contributor to environmental degradation but strong evidence that urban environmental hazards are major contributors to urban poverty. The article considers the link between poverty and different categories of environmental hazards (biological pathogens, chemical pollutants, and physical hazards). It then considers the links between poverty and high use of nonrenewable resources, degradation of renewable resources such as soil and fresh water, and high levels of biodegradable and nonbiodegradable waste generation. This shows how environmental degradation is more associated with the consumption patterns of middle-and upper-income groups and the failure of governments to implement effective environmental policies than with urban poverty. The article also highlights how good governance is at the core of poverty reduction and how meeting the environmental health needs of poorer groups need not imply greater environmental degradation.