How do you solve traffic congestion in New York City? It is only through tackling this as a wicked problem and applying system thinking across city infrastructures, understanding societal needs, and achieving cultural alignment that you realize that the answer lies, at least partly, in solving homelessness. There are a significant number of people who avoid the New York Subway because of perceived dangers and high numbers of homeless people using the train for shelter (Figure I.3). These people take a taxi or ride-share and continue to take this surface transport. High-occupancy metros/subways/underground networks around the world do not house the homeless. In fact, some have used increased revenues to support homeless shelters and food kitchens and even programmes to support the homeless with finding a job. In the case of New York, I have simplified the situation, but reducing congestion through congestion pricing or by providing more roadways would only solve part of the problem and only for a limited time.
Figure I.3 Homeless people in the Subway, New York City. (Source: Eric Kitayama/Getty Images.)
In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo, in the Philippines, erupted, spewing vast amounts of white ash and sulphates as high as the stratosphere. Around 15–17 million tonnes of this volcanic material spread into a lazy haze covering much of the globe. During the following months, scientists discovered a second surprise: this particle cloud had formed a protective sun-shield, reflecting a significant proportion of the sun’s rays back into space. As a result, the average global temperature that year dropped by 0.6°C. And for some researchers that raised an interesting possibility. Could we do this on purpose? Deliberately producing artificially engineered reflective clouds to reduce global warming? There have been many suggestions for artificial reflective surfaces: launching mirrors into space to orbit around the Earth; building wind-powered ice machines over the Arctic, or scattering it with trillions of silica beads; other geo-engineering solutions such as using phyto-plankton to sequester CO2 and store it deep in the oceans.
I do feel that even if these solutions worked, and they are not strewn with unintended consequences that saddle us with a new set of disastrous outcomes to get our heads around, we would miss the opportunity that this book sets out to achieve. If we can create city habitats that fully net-off the outputs from their growth, that produce no waste that cannot be returned to the system, that consume energy from renewable resources, that minimize our energy use and make our lives more affordable, then we will have solved the climate crisis but also delivered co-benefits that enhance our health and wellbeing, that bring more people out of poverty and improve society as a whole.
The Logic of the Book
Everybody is an environmentalist, be it bringing a plant back from the brink, recycling responsibly, or volunteering to clean up a beach. The authors of this book have discovered the environmentalist inside them that they have put to good use, and each one has made their own tremendous impact in their field.
The chapter authors of this book have been appointed advisors to Lord Stern, Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone, Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leonardo Di Caprio, Ban Ki Moon, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, and Bill Clinton. The authors are or have been mayors, deputy mayors, mayoral advisors, leaders of institutions critical to cities, academics or professionals who have led significant bodies of work related to city progress, or communication experts observing and reporting on leading practice. The chapters present some leading practices that can be emulated and financed in another city. The book will inform national governments who can promote, regulate, scale, and signal to the markets where the capital should flow. Furthermore, it will inform businesses looking to invest in our urban and climate future.
The book identifies components of the city in 30 chapters, each with an expert author and in some case co-author. The sum of those parts make up the complete ecosystem of The Climate City. It does not address music, art, theatre, or wider cultural elements, but it does not ignore their role or importance. It builds the story of how cities are using innovative techniques to advance progress, which makes them the ideal leader in tackling climate change.
Each chapter addresses key ideas and how they can be applied in both the developed and developing world and formal and informal settlements, how practices can be replicated and scaled, and what impact this would have on climate targets. The authors provide the reasons behind why cities are leading and describe “systems thinking” as a means of creating true impact and real progress as our cities continue to grow.
The book highlights the steps that cities are taking today and follows the trends we see today, and shows how this translates into the reality of tomorrow. It identifies the contribution cities will make to combating climate change and their role in shaping policy at every level of government. It offers a fact-based economic, technological, and policy-driven journey that every individual can relate to in modern society.
Society has a role to play in both our professional and personal activities, and this book aims to point out the near urban future that is nearly upon us and highlight the opportunities to engage and develop the ideas for keeping us in work, keeping us moving, keeping us warm, and keeping us safe, and ensuring we progress as a society. It will break down the challenge into “numbers” and “stories”, giving us the input we need to drive the right technologies into our urban centres and promoting a progressive society for a better future.
The need to decouple growth from the environmental dis-benefits it brings in cities is wrapped up in our need to solve other challenges such as poor air quality and the inefficient use of resources. Cities will endeavour to show the world how to reach the future needed to avoid the impacts of climate change we are currently hurtling towards. The book outlines the fundamental journey we need to embark on to maximize the contribution of cities to the climate crisis and provide insight into how these practices can be adopted by national governments to promote the economic, social, green, and just outcomes.
The scale of this problem is increasing. In Figure I.4, we can see the number of people and the number of cities on Earth that will be at risk by 2050 due to extreme heat, extreme heat and poverty, water availability, food security, sea level rise, and sea level rise plus power plant. Our growth needs to be governed by new rules that can mitigate against these risks.
Figure I.4 Summary of critical risks that cities and their residents will encounter as a result of climate change. (Source: https://www.arup.com/-/media/arup/files/publications/c/arup-c40-the-future-of-urban-consumption-in-a-1-5c-world.pdf.)
The risks and complexities as we transition into this future city will be outlined. The radical shifts in mindset and urban policy to make this a reality will be discussed. How we solve the climate crisis will inevitably lie in solving these problems at a scale and at a pace that is more aggressive than the national governments the cities reside within. This book offers data to show our future path and our role in achieving the truly progressive and liveable city. In the end, we can all play a more valuable role today if we can get a glimpse of the urban world we want to inhabit tomorrow and what it will take to achieve it.
This is a book about meaningful action at a local level. A city or municipality can do more