Catherine Sasman
3 December 2008
Windhoek — Cities and towns that are home to the world's poorest and most vulnerable face multilayered pressures due to climate change.
Climate change poses complex and multilayered development challenges to cities and towns, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs).
Drought, floods, storms, rising sea levels are said to hit the hardest on these cities and towns, with potentially grave infrastructural impacts.
The reason for the increased vulnerability of these locales is, said environmentalists concerned with development, because strong and capable local and national governments with adequate and strong support from international networks are often lacking.
With climate change, hotter temperatures in high-density areas push up energy demands, like, for example, an increased use of air conditioners. 'Heat stress' is also a more common phenomenon, especially in urban heat islands.
Prolonged and heavy rainfalls cause flooding and in many cities, a higher risk of landslides, particularly in informal settlements built along steep inclines or floodplains.
Moreover, said the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), drought leads to water shortages, disrupted hydroelectricity generation and higher food prices as agricultural production takes a knock.
Also, it stated, sea level rises can flood populated coastal areas and contaminate freshwater aquifers.
LDCs are under resourced, which magnifies the problem. People in these cities and towns are least able to avoid or cope with damage caused through climatic havoc.
"These are the very young and very old, who are more vulnerable to heat stress and hazards; and the urban poor, who lack the financial resources to access safe housing and deal with the illness, injury, loss of income and damage to property resulting from extreme climate-driven events," the IIED said.
It estimated that worldwide, 900 million people live in informal or slum settlements, most of which are in urban areas in LDCs.
And dramatic events are seen in Africa.
A case study of Zimbabwe showed that its largest two cities, Harare and Bulawayo, are experiencing "water stress" with residents experiencing frequent water cuts and low water pressure.
This country is experiencing a decline in rainfall of nearly five percent since 1990. Between 1990 and 2000, a below-normal rainfall was recorded.
Uganda has experienced 4.2 percent less rainfall between 2001 and 2004, and Bamako in Mali has had widespread difficulty in accessing water throughout the city. As much as 90 percent of residents there use their own boreholes, but access to water is shrinking, with groundwater levels falling.
As far as power generation goes, IIED said the Kariba hydroplant near Harare has been affected, which resulted in load shedding.
Further, Lake Victoria, which is nearly 69 000 square kilometers in size around Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, has dropped to nearly a metre since 2005.
This has negatively affected power generation in Uganda, while many hydraulic and other structures need costly modifications to remain in operation.
Catastrophic floods have also brought about almost unmanageable disasters. In eastern Africa in 2006, over 1.5 million people were affected.
Such floods have also made a momentous dent on food production capacity in poor regions.
And, added the IIED, 14 percent of the entire population of LDCs and 21 percent of their urban populations, live in low elevation coastal zones, which is the continuous area along the coast lying less than 10 meters above sea level.
Do cities reap what they sow?
Do cities reap what they sow? An October issue of the journal Environment and Urbanisation warned that cities of the world are unfairly blamed for greenhouse gas emissions that threaten efforts to tackle climate change.
The paper said up to 75 to 80 percent of emissions generated are blamed on cities, but stated that a truer version would be around 40 percent.
Globally, cities are said to take up two percent of the Earth's landmass, but are responsible for 75 percent of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere; it is also estimated that cities consume 75 percent of the world's energy.
"It adds that the potential of cities to help address climate change is being overlooked because of this error," IIED's press officer, Mike Shanahan said.
"Blaming cities for greenhouse gas emissions misses the point that cities are a large part of the solution," said the paper's author, David Satterthwaite. "Well planned, well governed cities can provide high living standards that do not require high consumption levels and high greenhouse emissions."
Satterthwaite used data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, showing that two-fifths of all greenhouse gases from human activities were generated within cities.
It asserted that agriculture and deforestation account for around 30 percent, and that the rest are mostly from heavy industry, wealthy households and coal, oil and gas fuelled power stations in rural areas as well as urban centers too small to be considered as cities.
Satterthwaite said it could be misleading to allocate greenhouse gas emissions to places. So, for example, he said emissions to power stations could be allocated to those that consume electricity, and not from where the stations are located. In the same vein, emissions generated by industries could be allocated to the person consuming goods that industries produce.
"Consumer demand drives the production of goods and services, and therefore the emissions of greenhouse gases," Satterthwaite maintained. "Allocating emissions to consumers rather than producers show that the problem is not cities but a minority of the world's population with high-consumption lifestyles. A large proportion of these consumers live not in cities but in small towns and rural areas."
Equally, said Satterthwaite, allocating greenhouse gas emissions to consumers increases the share of global emissions from Europe and North America and highlights the very low emissions per person of most city residents in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Generally, it is maintained, wealthy people outside cities are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than those in cities because they have larger homes using more - generated - heat and cool air, and they have more cars per household.
"The way cities are designed and run can make a big difference," Satterthwaite said. "Most cities in the United States have three to five times the gasoline use per person of most European cities but not three to five times the living standards."
He proposed a cut in greenhouse gases through walking, bicycling and making greater use of public transport, as well as building designs that require less energy for heating and cooling.
Simple, yet complex
But what can cities and towns in least developing countries do to mitigate climate change?
The solution, suggested IIED, is as simple as it is complex.
For a start, low-income urban areas should meet basic developmental needs such as safe and efficient water supplies; sufficient sanitation and drainage; good housing and working emergency response mechanisms.
And, it suggested, adaptation is key, and should be considered as good developmental practice.
"Development and adaptation need to be considered in tandem. Otherwise, development will result in maladaptation - an unintended increase in vulnerability - while adaptation and mitigation strategies will be inconsistent with development objectives."
However, neither the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Official Development Assistance (ODA) see urban adaptation as a key priority.
According to IIED, the UNFCCC fails to make a clear distinction between the needs of rural and urban inhabitants.
"So it is no surprise that, amid discussions on agricultural practices and water sources, many of the vulnerabilities of urban populations are not addressed. Yet the urban poor are likely to be one of the groups that suffers most from climate impacts."
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