What you will find on this page: city planning needs to change (video); LATEST NEWS; making cities work; new resource guide for advanced learning on climate change and cities; Paris climate package: Basic Guide for Local and Sub-national Governments; local govt & climate policy; ICLEI tools for change; cities cutting emissions; Australian cities committing to action; 100 Resilient Cities (video); global cities get together; US cities policy & program efforts; also refer to pages: population & consumption, food & water issues, people stress and downsizing plan B as the issues are closely related
Cities need to lead the way
UN-Habitat: The effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in dangerous ways. Cities are major contributors to climate change: although they cover less than 2 per cent of the earth’s surface, cities consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of all carbon dioxide and significant amounts of other greenhouse gas emissions, mainly through energy generation, vehicles, industry, and biomass use.
At the same time, cities and towns are heavily vulnerable to climate change. Hundreds of millions of people in urban areas across the world will be affected by rising sea levels, increased precipitation, inland floods, more frequent and stronger cyclones and storms, and periods of more extreme heat and cold. In fact, many major coastal cities with populations of more than 10 million people are already under threat. Climate change may also negatively impact infrastructure and worsen access to basic urban services and quality of life in cities.Read More here
Latest News 5 March 2018, Renew Economy, Victoria town’s breakthrough deal on network tariffs as it pursues 100% renewables. A small Victorian town that is hoping to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy as early as 2020 has achieved what appears to be a groundbreaking deal on network charges that could pave the way for similar projects around the country. Newstead, a town of less than 1,500 people in central Victoria, has negotiated new network charges with its electricity distributor, Powercor, that will remove some of the hurdles of building a small solar farm and sharing the output with the community. The two-year trial on new network fees will mean that the community can install solar and share the output without being hit by further network charges for each kilowatt they consume. Equally importantly, they appear to break the nexus between lower energy use and soaring grid charges, and will help ensure that everyone benefits from a local renewable energy transition, and not just those who can afford it. The Powercor tariffs – specially constructed for the people of Newstead, but with a broader energy market transition in mind – introduce a fixed daily network charge of $1 day, and a monthly “demand” charge of $2/kW. It completely removes fees based on kilowatt-hour consumption. Tosh Szatow, from energy consultants Energy for the People, which has been advising the Newstead community group, Renewables Newstead, says the new tariffs will have two significant benefits. One is the way it will make community-owned solar farms, and sharing that solar output, more attractive, because it will eliminate the perverse incentive for individuals to preference rooftop solar, over a shared solar farm, despite the latter option having a lower $/kW installed cost. Read More here 11 January 2018, The Conversation, A month in, Tesla’s SA battery is surpassing expectations. It’s just over one month since the Hornsdale power reserve was officially opened in South Australia. The excitement surrounding the project has generated acres of media interest, both locally and abroad. The aspect that has generated the most interest is the battery’s rapid response time in smoothing out several major energy outages that have occurred since it was installed. Following the early success of the SA model, Victoria has also secured an agreement to get its own Tesla battery built near the town of Stawell. Victoria’s government will be tracking the Hornsdale battery’s early performance with interest. Generation and Consumption Over the full month of December, the Hornsdale power reserve generated 2.42 gigawatt-hours of energy, and consumed 3.06GWh. Since there are losses associated with energy storage, it is a net consumer of energy. This is often described in terms of “round trip efficiency”, a measure of the energy out to the energy in. In this case, the round trip efficiency appears to be roughly 80%. The figure below shows the input and output from the battery over the month. As can be seen, on several occasions the battery has generated as much as 100MW of power, and consumed 70MW of power. The regular operation of battery moves between generating 30MW and consuming 30MW of power. Read More here 4 December 2017, Inside Climate News, Microgrids Keep These Cities Running When the Power Goes Out. Borrego Springs, California, is a quaint town of about 3,400 people set against the Anza-Borrego Desert about 90 miles east of San Diego. Summers are hot—often north of 100 degrees—and because it lies at the far end of a San Diego Gas & Electric transmission line, the town has suffered frequent power outages. High winds, lightning strikes, forest fires and flash floods can bust up that line and kill the electricity. “If you’re on the very end of a utility line, everything that happens, happens 10 times worse for you,” says Mike Gravely, team leader for energy systems integration at the California Energy Commission. The town has a lot of senior citizens, who can be frail in the heat. “Without air conditioning,” says Linda Haddock, head of the local Chamber of Commerce, “people will die.” But today, Borrego Springs has a failsafe against power outages: a microgrid. Resiliency is one of the main reasons the market in microgrids is booming, with installed capacity in the United States projected to more than double between 2017 and 2022, according to a new report on microgrids from GTM Research. Another is that microgrids can ease the entry of intermittent renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, into the modern grid. Utilities are also interested in microgrids because of the money they can save by deferring the need to build new transmission lines. Read More here 29 November 2017, Geoff Summerhayes, Executive Board Member, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. The Weight of money: A business case for climate risk resilience. Tonight will be the first time I’ve substantially addressed APRA’s thinking around climate risk since a speech I delivered to the Insurance Council of Australia in February this year. My main message then was that APRA believed many climate-related financial risks were no longer future concerns. They were “foreseeable, material and actionable now”. As the prudential regulator, APRA has a clear duty to warn the institutions we regulate if we identify risks that could threaten the interests of Australia’s financial beneficiaries or the As the prudential regulator, APRA has a clear duty to warn the institutions we regulate if we identify risks that could threaten the interests of Australia’s financial beneficiaries or the overall stability of the system. Economic sustainability – the subject of tonight’s address – refers to creating a level of resilience so the economy, and the financial institutions within in it, are well-placed to overall stability of the system. Economic sustainability – the subject of tonight’s address – refers to creating a level of resilience so the economy, and the financial institutions within in it, are well-placed to withstand the challenges they will inevitably confront. That includes new or unexpected risks; whether that be cyber-crime, technological disruption or climate risk…… The Sustainable Insurance Forum’s view, which APRA shares, is that climate change and – here’s the crucial bit – society’s responses to it – are starting to affect the global economy. APRA is not a scientific body, and I can’t say with 100 per cent conviction to what extent scientists’ predictions of increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, more frequent droughts and more intense storms will impact the Australian economy. But what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that the transition to a low carbon economy is underway and moving quickly. The weight of money, pushed by commercial imperatives such as investment, innovation and reputational factors, is increasingly driving that shift, rather than scientists or policymakers. Read More here 27 March 2018, SMH, ‘A risky experiment that has no parallel among developed nations’. No one living, working or travelling in Sydney today needs to be reminded of the costs of the unprecedented growth the city has been undergoing. With close to 100,000 people being added each year, we all experience the clogged roads, crowded trains and endless delays. And as we stare out of the window, we can see the face of the city literally changing before our eyes. Apparently congestion costs the Sydney $6 billion every year, and this is only getting worse. Infrastructure Australia warns we will need to spend billions more just to make up for our current planning failures – let alone what’s coming. “If you can imagine adding two more cities the size of Melbourne or Sydney to Australia by 2047, you’ll appreciate the enormity of the challenge,” says Infrastructure Australia chairwoman Julieanne Alroe. Except she’s got it wrong. We aren’t building new cities, we are squeezing more and more people into the cities we have. Mostly that means Sydney and Melbourne which together absorb 60 per cent of Australia’s rapidly growing population. And what does our infrastructure guru recommend? Her report suggests that more people should be encouraged to move to Wollongong and Newcastle. Read More here 13 March 2018, Munich RE, Natural disasters in 2017 were a sign of things to come – New coverage concepts are needed. 2017 was a wake-up call. After a number of relatively benign years, natural disasters in 2017 caused overall losses of US$ 340bn. This was the second-highest annual loss ever and almost double the previous year’s level – a figure roughly equivalent to the annual GDP of Denmark, Egypt or Israel. Insurers had to pay out a record US$ 138bn in losses. It is crucial that insurers and reinsurers take account of statistically rare loss events in their risk management calculations. One such rare event was the torrential rainfall and severe flooding that Hurricane Harvey brought to the Houston area in August. The series of three extreme hurricanes that struck within the space of just a few weeks – Harvey, Irma and Maria – is also indeed rare but by no means impossible, especially as experts predict that certain types of extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent in the future as a result of climate change. 2017 therefore gave us a foretaste of what we can expect in the future. Once again, significantly less than half the losses were covered by risk transfer solutions: the share of insured losses was higher than the previous year, but at 41% still well below the 50% mark. And this even though more than four-fifths of all losses were in North America, with its high level of insurance density. Read More here 28 November 2017, Moody’s Investor Service, The growing effects of climate change, including climbing global temperatures, and rising sea levels, are forecast to have an increasing economic impact on US state and local issuers. This will be a growing negative credit factor for issuers without sufficient adaptation and mitigation strategies, Moody’s Investors Service says in a new report. The report differentiates between climate trends, which are a longer-term shift in the climate over several decades, versus climate shock, defined as extreme weather events like natural disasters, floods, and droughts which are exacerbated by climate trends. Our credit analysis considers the effects of climate change when we believe a meaningful credit impact is highly likely to occur and not be mitigated by issuer actions, even if this is a number of years in the future. Climate shocks or extreme weather events have sharp, immediate and observable impacts on an issuer’s infrastructure, economy and revenue base, and environment. As such, we factor these impacts into our analysis of an issuer’s economy, fiscal position and capital infrastructure, as well as management’s ability to marshal resources and implement strategies to drive recovery. Extreme weather patterns exacerbated by changing climate trends include higher rates of coastal storm damage, more frequent droughts, and severe heat waves. These events can also cause economic challenges like smaller crop yields, infrastructure damage, higher energy demands, and escalated recovery costs. Read More here 2 November 2017, The Conversation, Extreme weather leads to public health crises – so health and climate experts must work together. This year has seen a number of extreme weather events around the globe, from hurricanes in the Americas to devastating flooding in South Asia. The loss of lives, homes and livelihoods are made worse by subsequent disease outbreaks: after the South Asian floods, more than 12,000 cases of watery diarrhoea were reported in Bangladesh. Presumably, many more cases are unreported. As our climate changes, severe weather events (especially intense rainfall) will become the “new normal”. The connection between climate and disease is well established, even in less extreme situations.This makes it vital that our meteorologists, climate scientists and health systems work closely together. Particularly, health professionals should make better use of weather forecasts to proactively manage disease risk. Climate outlooks – with a longer-term perspective than weather forecasts – can also help with long-range tactical and strategic planning. The link between climate change and disease. Climate change projections consistently indicate increased climate variability. A more variable climate creates conditions for the spread and control of infectious disease. In particular, changes in the intensity and duration of rain can help spread pathogens through water. Both floods and droughts can increase waterborne infections, either when clean and dirty water mix during floods, or through inadequate storage and concentration of toxic organisms when water is scarce. Read More here 13 April 2018, Climate Home News Shipping to halve carbon footprint by 2050 under first sector-wide climate strategy. Global shipping must at least halve its emissions by 2050, under a hard-fought international deal that for the first time sets the sector on course to shrink its carbon footprint. The agreement reached by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on Friday is an initial step for one of the world’s biggest polluting industries. Over the next five years, negotiators are to develop a package of measures to fulfil the target, delivering a final strategy in 2023. After a tense week of talks, with blocs of countries tussling over the level of ambition, negotiators stuck to a compromise forged the previous week. Climate advocates expressed disappointment the target did not go further, saying full decarbonisation by 2050 was needed to align with the global warming limits in the Paris Agreement. “Nevertheless, this deal provides the very clear policy signal that is needed for international shipping to begin to play its full part to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Marshall Islands environment minister David Paul and Christiana Figueres, head of the Mission 2020 initiative on climate action, said in a joint statement Thursday evening. It “keeps alive” the possibility to meet the accord’s stretch 1.5C warming limit and to review the strategy in light of new science, they added. Now the task is to decide how to meet those climate goals for shipping. Read More here 12 April 2018, Carbon Brief, Explainer: These six metals are key to a low-carbon future. The deployment of renewables and electric vehicles is expected to skyrocket as the world strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These low-carbon technologies currently rely on a handful of key metals, some of which have been little-used to date. This raises questions over whether enough of these materials can be mined to ensure a large-scale rollout. Others are concerned that bottlenecks could appear, as metal output rises to meet demand, or that the environmental impacts of mining could undermine carbon savings elsewhere. Carbon Brief takes a look at some of the metals attracting most attention and examines where they come from, the quantities available and whether they could pose risks to meeting the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. Which metals are needed for low-carbon technology? Clean energy technologies often rely on certain key metals which will be needed if they are to continue to expand. Two metals in particular, lithium and cobalt, have seen supply chain fears in recent years, although many other metals are used. Lithium, a soft, silvery-white metal which is also the lightest in the periodic table, is a crucial ingredient of lithium-ion batteries. These are used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs), now their biggest consumer. The lithium-ion battery is the battery of choice for most car makers, including Tesla, BMW, Ford and Nissan. Read More here 11 April 2018, Climate News Network, Mountain plants head for the peaks. Mountain plants are heading uphill – with climate change, there seems to be room at the top for more alpine species. Mountain plants are on the rise. The number of species on the highest European mountains has multiplied five fold. Data gathered over 145 years from 302 peaks shows that the count of wild plants that have colonised the highest zones has increased five times faster than during a comparable decade 50 years ago. This may not, in the long run, be good news. The enriching of the high life is unequivocally linked to global warming: changes in precipitation, or in nutrient supplies, are not enough to account for the growth in alpine colonists. More than 50 scientists from Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Austria, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and Slovakia report in the journal Naturethat such change has “potentially far-reaching consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.” The finding was possible because European botanists and biologists began assembling data on the plant growth at the highest sites in the 1870s and have maintained their databases ever since.”The strong acceleration in the effects of global warming on plant communities on the peaks does give cause for concern, as we expect far stronger climate change toward 2100” The scientists found that between 1957 and 1966, the average number of species on the 300 peaks increased by 1.1 on average. Between 2007-2016, on average 5.5 species made it to the top. The study does not, so far, suggest that new species have displaced the original residents. But plants adapted to the conditions on the highest peaks may run out of options as the mountains themselves get warmer. Read More here 11 April 2018, RealClimate, Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning circulation. Through two new studies in Nature, the weakening of the Gulf Stream System is back in the scientific headlines. But even before that, interesting new papers have been published – high time for an update on this topic. Let’s start with tomorrow’s issue of Nature, which besides the two new studies (one of which I was involved in) also includes a News&Views commentary. Everything revolves around the question of whether the Gulf Stream System has already weakened. Climate models predict this will be one consequence of global warming – alongside other problems such as rising sea levels and increasing heat waves, droughts and extreme precipitation. But is such a slowdown already underway today? This question is easier asked than answered. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC, also known as Gulf Stream System) is a huge, three-dimensional flow system throughout the Atlantic, which fluctuates on different time scales. It is therefore by no means enough to put a current meter in the water at one or two points. Since 2004 there has been a major British-American observation project, called RAPID, which tries to measure the total flow at a particularly suitable latitude (26.5° North) with 226 moored measuring instruments. This provides good results and shows a notable slowdown – but only since 2004, and probably the change over such a short period of time is mainly due to natural fluctuations and in itself hardly reveals anything about the possible effects of climate change. If you want to look further back in time, you have to look for other sources of evidence. In my view, it is the ocean temperatures that are most likely to solve the mystery – because firstly, there is a lot of good data and, secondly, the AMOC has a dominant influence on sea temperatures in large parts of the North Atlantic. In our study – together with colleagues from Princeton and the University of Madrid – we therefore compare all available measurement data sets since the late 19th century with a simulation of a climate model in which the ocean currents are computed in very high resolution. Here is a cool animation: Read More here 13 April 2018, Climate Home News Shipping to halve carbon footprint by 2050 under first sector-wide climate strategy. Global shipping must at least halve its emissions by 2050, under a hard-fought international deal that for the first time sets the sector on course to shrink its carbon footprint. The agreement reached by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on Friday is an initial step for one of the world’s biggest polluting industries. Over the next five years, negotiators are to develop a package of measures to fulfil the target, delivering a final strategy in 2023. After a tense week of talks, with blocs of countries tussling over the level of ambition, negotiators stuck to a compromise forged the previous week. Climate advocates expressed disappointment the target did not go further, saying full decarbonisation by 2050 was needed to align with the global warming limits in the Paris Agreement. “Nevertheless, this deal provides the very clear policy signal that is needed for international shipping to begin to play its full part to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Marshall Islands environment minister David Paul and Christiana Figueres, head of the Mission 2020 initiative on climate action, said in a joint statement Thursday evening. It “keeps alive” the possibility to meet the accord’s stretch 1.5C warming limit and to review the strategy in light of new science, they added. Now the task is to decide how to meet those climate goals for shipping. Read More here 12 April 2018, Carbon Brief, Explainer: These six metals are key to a low-carbon future. The deployment of renewables and electric vehicles is expected to skyrocket as the world strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These low-carbon technologies currently rely on a handful of key metals, some of which have been little-used to date. This raises questions over whether enough of these materials can be mined to ensure a large-scale rollout. Others are concerned that bottlenecks could appear, as metal output rises to meet demand, or that the environmental impacts of mining could undermine carbon savings elsewhere. Carbon Brief takes a look at some of the metals attracting most attention and examines where they come from, the quantities available and whether they could pose risks to meeting the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. Which metals are needed for low-carbon technology? Clean energy technologies often rely on certain key metals which will be needed if they are to continue to expand. Two metals in particular, lithium and cobalt, have seen supply chain fears in recent years, although many other metals are used. Lithium, a soft, silvery-white metal which is also the lightest in the periodic table, is a crucial ingredient of lithium-ion batteries. These are used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs), now their biggest consumer. The lithium-ion battery is the battery of choice for most car makers, including Tesla, BMW, Ford and Nissan. Read More here 11 April 2018, Climate News Network, Mountain plants head for the peaks. Mountain plants are heading uphill – with climate change, there seems to be room at the top for more alpine species. Mountain plants are on the rise. The number of species on the highest European mountains has multiplied five fold. Data gathered over 145 years from 302 peaks shows that the count of wild plants that have colonised the highest zones has increased five times faster than during a comparable decade 50 years ago. This may not, in the long run, be good news. The enriching of the high life is unequivocally linked to global warming: changes in precipitation, or in nutrient supplies, are not enough to account for the growth in alpine colonists. More than 50 scientists from Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Austria, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and Slovakia report in the journal Naturethat such change has “potentially far-reaching consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.” The finding was possible because European botanists and biologists began assembling data on the plant growth at the highest sites in the 1870s and have maintained their databases ever since.”The strong acceleration in the effects of global warming on plant communities on the peaks does give cause for concern, as we expect far stronger climate change toward 2100” The scientists found that between 1957 and 1966, the average number of species on the 300 peaks increased by 1.1 on average. Between 2007-2016, on average 5.5 species made it to the top. The study does not, so far, suggest that new species have displaced the original residents. But plants adapted to the conditions on the highest peaks may run out of options as the mountains themselves get warmer. Read More here 11 April 2018, RealClimate, Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning circulation. Through two new studies in Nature, the weakening of the Gulf Stream System is back in the scientific headlines. But even before that, interesting new papers have been published – high time for an update on this topic. Let’s start with tomorrow’s issue of Nature, which besides the two new studies (one of which I was involved in) also includes a News&Views commentary. Everything revolves around the question of whether the Gulf Stream System has already weakened. Climate models predict this will be one consequence of global warming – alongside other problems such as rising sea levels and increasing heat waves, droughts and extreme precipitation. But is such a slowdown already underway today? This question is easier asked than answered. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC, also known as Gulf Stream System) is a huge, three-dimensional flow system throughout the Atlantic, which fluctuates on different time scales. It is therefore by no means enough to put a current meter in the water at one or two points. Since 2004 there has been a major British-American observation project, called RAPID, which tries to measure the total flow at a particularly suitable latitude (26.5° North) with 226 moored measuring instruments. This provides good results and shows a notable slowdown – but only since 2004, and probably the change over such a short period of time is mainly due to natural fluctuations and in itself hardly reveals anything about the possible effects of climate change. If you want to look further back in time, you have to look for other sources of evidence. In my view, it is the ocean temperatures that are most likely to solve the mystery – because firstly, there is a lot of good data and, secondly, the AMOC has a dominant influence on sea temperatures in large parts of the North Atlantic. In our study – together with colleagues from Princeton and the University of Madrid – we therefore compare all available measurement data sets since the late 19th century with a simulation of a climate model in which the ocean currents are computed in very high resolution. Here is a cool animation: Read More here 13 April 2018, Climate Home News Shipping to halve carbon footprint by 2050 under first sector-wide climate strategy. Global shipping must at least halve its emissions by 2050, under a hard-fought international deal that for the first time sets the sector on course to shrink its carbon footprint. The agreement reached by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on Friday is an initial step for one of the world’s biggest polluting industries. Over the next five years, negotiators are to develop a package of measures to fulfil the target, delivering a final strategy in 2023. After a tense week of talks, with blocs of countries tussling over the level of ambition, negotiators stuck to a compromise forged the previous week. Climate advocates expressed disappointment the target did not go further, saying full decarbonisation by 2050 was needed to align with the global warming limits in the Paris Agreement. “Nevertheless, this deal provides the very clear policy signal that is needed for international shipping to begin to play its full part to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Marshall Islands environment minister David Paul and Christiana Figueres, head of the Mission 2020 initiative on climate action, said in a joint statement Thursday evening. It “keeps alive” the possibility to meet the accord’s stretch 1.5C warming limit and to review the strategy in light of new science, they added. Now the task is to decide how to meet those climate goals for shipping. Read More here 12 April 2018, Carbon Brief, Explainer: These six metals are key to a low-carbon future. The deployment of renewables and electric vehicles is expected to skyrocket as the world strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These low-carbon technologies currently rely on a handful of key metals, some of which have been little-used to date. This raises questions over whether enough of these materials can be mined to ensure a large-scale rollout. Others are concerned that bottlenecks could appear, as metal output rises to meet demand, or that the environmental impacts of mining could undermine carbon savings elsewhere. Carbon Brief takes a look at some of the metals attracting most attention and examines where they come from, the quantities available and whether they could pose risks to meeting the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. Which metals are needed for low-carbon technology? Clean energy technologies often rely on certain key metals which will be needed if they are to continue to expand. Two metals in particular, lithium and cobalt, have seen supply chain fears in recent years, although many other metals are used. Lithium, a soft, silvery-white metal which is also the lightest in the periodic table, is a crucial ingredient of lithium-ion batteries. These are used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs), now their biggest consumer. The lithium-ion battery is the battery of choice for most car makers, including Tesla, BMW, Ford and Nissan. Read More here 11 April 2018, Climate News Network, Mountain plants head for the peaks. Mountain plants are heading uphill – with climate change, there seems to be room at the top for more alpine species. Mountain plants are on the rise. The number of species on the highest European mountains has multiplied five fold. Data gathered over 145 years from 302 peaks shows that the count of wild plants that have colonised the highest zones has increased five times faster than during a comparable decade 50 years ago. This may not, in the long run, be good news. The enriching of the high life is unequivocally linked to global warming: changes in precipitation, or in nutrient supplies, are not enough to account for the growth in alpine colonists. More than 50 scientists from Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Austria, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and Slovakia report in the journal Naturethat such change has “potentially far-reaching consequences not only for biodiversity, but also for ecosystem functioning and services.” The finding was possible because European botanists and biologists began assembling data on the plant growth at the highest sites in the 1870s and have maintained their databases ever since.”The strong acceleration in the effects of global warming on plant communities on the peaks does give cause for concern, as we expect far stronger climate change toward 2100” The scientists found that between 1957 and 1966, the average number of species on the 300 peaks increased by 1.1 on average. Between 2007-2016, on average 5.5 species made it to the top. The study does not, so far, suggest that new species have displaced the original residents. But plants adapted to the conditions on the highest peaks may run out of options as the mountains themselves get warmer. Read More here 11 April 2018, RealClimate, Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning circulation. Through two new studies in Nature, the weakening of the Gulf Stream System is back in the scientific headlines. But even before that, interesting new papers have been published – high time for an update on this topic. Let’s start with tomorrow’s issue of Nature, which besides the two new studies (one of which I was involved in) also includes a News&Views commentary. Everything revolves around the question of whether the Gulf Stream System has already weakened. Climate models predict this will be one consequence of global warming – alongside other problems such as rising sea levels and increasing heat waves, droughts and extreme precipitation. But is such a slowdown already underway today? This question is easier asked than answered. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC, also known as Gulf Stream System) is a huge, three-dimensional flow system throughout the Atlantic, which fluctuates on different time scales. It is therefore by no means enough to put a current meter in the water at one or two points. Since 2004 there has been a major British-American observation project, called RAPID, which tries to measure the total flow at a particularly suitable latitude (26.5° North) with 226 moored measuring instruments. This provides good results and shows a notable slowdown – but only since 2004, and probably the change over such a short period of time is mainly due to natural fluctuations and in itself hardly reveals anything about the possible effects of climate change. If you want to look further back in time, you have to look for other sources of evidence. In my view, it is the ocean temperatures that are most likely to solve the mystery – because firstly, there is a lot of good data and, secondly, the AMOC has a dominant influence on sea temperatures in large parts of the North Atlantic. In our study – together with colleagues from Princeton and the University of Madrid – we therefore compare all available measurement data sets since the late 19th century with a simulation of a climate model in which the ocean currents are computed in very high resolution. Here is a cool animation: Read More here End latest news Changing Climate, Changing Cities NEW YORK TIMES SERIES: How climate change is challenging the world’s urban centers. 15 June 2017, New York Times, The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Seas. The World Is Watching. In the waterlogged Netherlands, climate change is considered neither a hypothetical nor a drag on the economy. Instead, it’s an opportunity……No place in Europe is under greater threat than this waterlogged country on the edge of the Continent. Much of the nation sits below sea level and is gradually sinking. Now climate change brings the prospect of rising tides and fiercer storms. From a Dutch mind-set, climate change is not a hypothetical or a drag on the economy, but an opportunity. While the Trump administration withdraws from the Paris accord, the Dutch are pioneering a singular way forward. It is, in essence, to let water in, where possible, not hope to subdue Mother Nature: to live with the water, rather than struggle to defeat it. The Dutch devise lakes, garages, parks and plazas that are a boon to daily life but also double as enormous reservoirs for when the seas and rivers spill over. You may wish to pretend that rising seas are a hoax perpetrated by scientists and a gullible news media. Or you can build barriers galore. But in the end, neither will provide adequate defense, the Dutch say. And what holds true for managing climate change applies to the social fabric, too. Environmental and social resilience should go hand in hand, officials here believe, improving neighborhoods, spreading equity and taming water during catastrophes. Climate adaptation, if addressed head-on and properly, ought to yield a stronger, richer state. This is the message the Dutch have been taking out into the world. Dutch consultants advising the Bangladeshi authorities about emergency shelters and evacuation routes recently helped reduce the numbers of deaths suffered in recent floods to “hundreds instead of thousands,” according to Mr. Ovink. Read More here 3 April 2017, The Conversation, This is the first article in our series Making Cities Work. It considers the problems of providing critical infrastructure and how we might produce the innovations and reforms needed to meet 21st-century needs and challenges. New Resource Guide for Advanced Learning on Climate Change and Cities 19 December 2016: As part of its advanced learning series UN CC:Learn launches a new Resource Guide for Advanced Learning on Climate Change and Cities, produced with technical advice from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). The learning resources presented in this Guide are drawn primarily from within the UN and partners to UN CC:Learn, designed to inform interested groups in learning more about climate change in urban areas. This material complements the UN CC:Learn Introductory e-Course on Climate Change, as well as the Specialised Module on Climate Change and Cities, The PDF and Interactive versions are both available online at UN CC:Learn Resource Guides for Advanced Learning on Climate Change. November 2016, The fight against climate change will be won or lost in urban areas. A vast majority of the European population lives and works in cities, consuming an estimated 80% of the energy used in the EU. Local administrations, as the closest government level to citizens are ideally placed to address climate issues in a comprehensive manner. More and more cities are thus deciding to take up the challenge, as shown by the growing number of Covenant of Mayors signatories.The commitments for Covenant Signatories are linked to the European Union’s Climate and energy policy framework. These include the European Union’s climate and energy package for 2020 for signatories who have joined between 2008 and 2015 and the European Union’s 2030 climate and energy framework as well as the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change for signatories joining after 2015. As of October 2015, Covenant signatories commit to adopting an integrated approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation. They are required to develop Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans with the aims of cutting CO2 emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and increasing resilience to climate change within the first two years of adhesion. More details and the list of cities that have signed up to the Covenant of Mayors can be found here The Paris Climate Package reflects this position by recognizing and committing to engage local and subnational governments in fast tracking transformative climate action. This paves the way for local leaders to raise global ambitions, accelerate action and leverage resources unlocked through the new climate regime. Using the Paris Climate Package as a guide, local leaders can shape and sustain the global transition toward low carbon and resilient development, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing local resilience, adaptive capacity and climate impact emergency preparedness. It is essential that all actors now use the Paris Climate Package as a compass for future action, yet its implications require further unpacking to understand what it means at the local and subnational levels. ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) has developed this guide for local and subnational governments to address four key questions: Good reasons why local government should be shaping climate policy 6 January 2015, The Guardian, Five reasons why local government should influence climate change plans. Local authorities are closer to communities and often more innovative than national governments. Cutting them out of climate negotiations is a big mistake. Unless we, as an international community, significantly reduce our carbon emissions by the year 2100, temperatures could soar by 4.8°C. The impact is unimaginable. This is why all eyes are on the next UN climate talks in Paris in 2015 and expectations are high. During the UN preparatory talks in Lima in December 2014, I represented the Committee of the Regions – the EU’s assembly of local and regional authorities – and demanded that local government be formally recognised as a key player in all future climate negotiations. The initial talks were promising but the final text was disappointing, with the reference to local government being removed. But why should local government shape international climate change agreements? Here are five reasons: 1. The buck stops here: Local government is on the front line and is responsible for taking a wide range of decisions that can make or break the success of any international strategy on climate change. 2. Local leaders are more innovative and ambitious: The economic and social impact of climate change on communities cannot be understated. Local governments are leading the fight against climate change, taking decisive action on transport emissions, urban biodiversity, urban regeneration and waste management. 3. No one is better placed to get the public on board: One of the key roles local government can play in contributing to a global climate agreement is public engagement and stimulating local action. What is striking at many international climate conferences is how cut off citizens are from the negotiations and decision-making process. 4. Strong local leadership can mobilise communities: Strong local leadership and forging partnerships between local governments will cut costs and improve policy delivery. But local government needs support and investment to mobilise communities, businesses and civil society to reduce the impact of climate change. It is these representatives that can bring together economic operators and civil society to turn good ideas into tangible results – cooperatives for local energy production are a good example of this. 5. Think local, act global: Local governments can make a difference in international negotiations. While the international process of intergovernmental negotiations has almost ground to a halt, local governments around the world are agreeing on priorities for action. Decentralised cooperation arrangements have been established between regions and towns and cities. This is vital in establishing trust that national governments need to reach an ambitious global agreement. Read More here ICLEI: Tools dedicated to sustainable local change The ICLEI Virtual Library provides access to over 100 publications, including reports, flyers, case studies, posters. Access library docs here City Talk – A blog by ICLEI: Access ICLEI’s latest enewsletters with stories of sustainability-related news and commentary from around the globe. ICLEI Oceania is the Regional Secretariat for ICLEI. The ICLEI Oceania Head Office is hosted by the City of Melbourne and was established in 1999. The ICLEI Oceania Water Campaign – Australia Office is hosted by the City of Melville, WA. ICLEI Oceania provides support to Member councils and the Local Government sector that we believe adds value to our work to build sustainable communities. Our role is complemented by our World Secretariat based in Bonn Germany. The range of offerings is targeted at councils who not only wish to be leaders locally but to play their part globally. We in the Oceania Secretariat continue to build our capacity to advocate, partner, network and disseminate information. A list of Australian Councils which are members of ICLEI Oceania can be found here. Cities commit to cutting emissions First Round – MELBOURNE’S RESILIENCE CHALLENGE: Vulnerable to extreme weather events, this Australian city has already made huge steps toward increasing its resilience. Second Round – SYDNEY’S RESILIENCE CHALLENGE: Growth and aging infrastructure, combined with frequent heat waves, are spurring innovation in this bustling metropolis. Yet another report on the importance of building resilient cities – we know what and how to do it but it still seems a lot more talk than action 2013: BOUNCE FORWARD Urban Resilience in the Era of Climate Change (A Strategy Paper from Island Press and The Kresge Foundation): In an era rocked by climate change and other large-scale disruptions, our cities must be resilient in order to survive and thrive. But what does that mean, exactly? What is known about urban resilience, and what remains to be explored? And how can we put thinking into practice to create the resilient cities of the future? To help answer those questions, Island Press launched the Urban Resilience Project in 2013, with support from The Kresge Foundation. We began with a survey of the existing literature on resilience and reached out to a diverse group of organizers, researchers, planners, and other urban change agents. In a series of interviews and an all-day assembly, we listened deeply to what they had to say. This report endeavors to capture what we learned. Access PDF here Other sites for global cities’ get togethers The Covenant of Mayors is the mainstream European movement involving local and regional authorities, voluntarily committing to increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources on their territories. By their commitment, Covenant signatories aim to meet and exceed the European Union 20% CO2 reduction objective by 2020. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, now in its 10th year, connects more than 75 of the world’s greatest cities, representing 550+ million people and one quarter of the global economy United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage, regardless of the size of the communities they serve. The World Mayors Council on Climate Change is an alliance of committed local government leaders concerned about climate change. They advocate for enhanced engagement of local governments as governmental stakeholders in multilateral efforts addressing climate change and related issues of global sustainability. There are presently over 80 members of the Council, representing a vast network of local governments working to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Membership is open to Mayors and equivalent leaders of municipal levels of government. Through CDP, cities around the world are measuring, monitoring and managing their impact on the environment. Over the past five years, CDP has worked with 207 cities to manage over 1 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. CDP’s cities program demonstrates that cities are better managing their risk and increasing resiliency through more than 2,000 activities to mitigate and adapt to climate change. They hold the largest collection globally of self reported climate change, water and forest-risk data. U.S. cities and their energy efficiency policy and program efforts The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) is a nonprofit, organization,which acts as a catalyst to advance energy efficiency policies, programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors. USA cities energy efficiency scorecard ranking Every other year, ACEEE ranks the largest U.S. cities on their energy efficiency policy and program efforts and provides recommendations for ways that the cities can improve their performance in a variety of policy areas. The City Energy Efficiency Scorecard serves as a benchmark for city efforts, encouraging cities to continue strengthening their efficiency commitments as a pragmatic and effective strategy for promoting economic growth, securing environmental benefits, and increasing their communities’ resilience in the face of the uncertain costs and supplies of the energy resources on which they depend.Also listed are cities and counties that are not included in the City Scorecard. While these cities are unranked they have used the Local Energy Efficiency Self-Scoring Tool to organize information on their efficiency policies and to generate scores equivalent to those presented in the City Scorecard. You can access the most recent City Energy Efficiency Scorecard rankings here. Under each of the cities listed you will find: local govt summary; energy efficiency goals; performance management strategies; procurement & construction; and asset management. Throughout the information there are direct links to documents Local Policy Case Studies: ACEEE also has case study information that describe efforts by local communities across the United States to improve their energy efficiency. Included are examples of notable initiatives across a variety of policy approaches, economic sectors, regions of the country, and community types. This collection is a work in progress and will continue to expand over time as we highlight additional efforts from around the country. Access these case studies here 
Infrastructure: Our cities and regions depend on the critical nodes and arteries that together comprise urban infrastructure systems. This includes energy, food, water, sewerage and communications. The positioning of critical infrastructure is crucial to our understanding of the world we live in and how we see ourselves. It’s our means of survival as Homo urbanis. This means key questions around critical infrastructure need to be better considered. How is it critical, when and for whom? Beyond espionage, sabotage and coercion. Critical infrastructure has received much attention in recent years. The reasons include concerns about exposure to terrorist attack, disruption by disasters, rising awareness of the interdependent nature of urban infrastructure, and changes in ownership and responsibility for infrastructure assets….Infrastructure is defined as critical on the basis of what is at threat should it be destroyed or disabled, and how much that matters. Yet what is critical about critical infrastructure is not just a matter of national security threats. It is also the key linkages between this infrastructure and human and environmental system vulnerability, integrity and equity. Experiences of critical infrastructure are not equal, but highly contingent on political and economic priorities, influence and opportunity. Read More here
3 April 2017, The Conversation, From Smart Cities 1.0 to 2.0: it’s not (only) about the tech. This is the second article in our series Making Cities Work. It considers the problems of providing critical infrastructure and how we might produce the innovations and reforms needed to meet 21st-century needs and challenges. Australia, one of the world’s most urbanised nations, is looking to up its investment in digital technologies to make our cities work better. In coming months, tech companies, local governments and other eligible organisations will be teaming up to apply for round one of the federal government’s A$50 million Smart Cities and Suburbs Program. The program is seeking ideas for prototypes and platforms that can help solve a local urban challenge of some kind. As the draft guidelines suggest, project funding could be used for anything from managing waste better, making local precincts more liveable, or helping citizens become more engaged with their councils, to developing systems that help planners better predict local development impacts. Compared to other areas of federal infrastructure spending – like roads – $50 million for smart city investments may not sound like much. But it’s a bit of a windfall for an area that has struggled to get off the ground in Australia for the past few years. Australia has been in no hurry to become smart. Overseas, many cities have put significant effort into building their profile as smart cities. They have invested in technology acceleration, data analytics, visualisation and instrumentation programs, and so on. Before launching the federal program, Australia had made relatively few investments in smart city programs. Those investments remained relatively modest. Read More here
Covenant of Mayors for climate and energy
May 2016, A Basic Guide for Local and Subnational Governments
