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 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 23 May 2017, The Conversation, Australian farmers are adapting to climate change. 2016-17 has been a great year for Australian farmers, with record production, exports and profits. These records have been driven largely by good weather, in particular a wet winter in 2016, which led to exceptional yields for major crops. Unfortunately, these good conditions go very much against the long-term trend. Recent CSIRO modelling suggests that changes in climate have reduced potential Australian wheat yields by around 27% since 1990. While rising temperatures have caused global wheat yields to drop by around 5.5% between 1980 and 2008, the effects in Australia have been larger, as a result of major changes in rain patterns. Declines in winter rainfall in southern Australia have particularly hit major broadacre crops (like wheat, barley and canola) in the key southeastern and southwestern cropping zones. There is strong evidence that these changes are at least partly due to climate change. Climate change is affecting farm productivity A recent study by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) confirms that changes in climate have had a negative effect on the productivity of cropping farms, particularly in southwestern Australia and southeastern Australia. In general, the drier inland parts of the cropping zone have been more heavily affected, partly because these areas are more sensitive to rainfall decline. Smaller effects have occurred in the wetter zones closer to the coast. Here less rain can have little effect on – and can even improve – crop productivity. Farmers are reacting However, it’s not all bad news. The study finds that Australian farmers are making great strides in adapting to climate change. Much has been written about the fact that farm productivity in Australia has essentially flatlined since the 1990s, after several decades of consistent growth. The ABARES research suggests that changes in climate go some way towards explaining this slowdown. After controlling for climate, there has been relatively strong productivity growth on cropping farms over the past decade. However, while farms have been improving, these gains have been offset by deteriorating conditions. The net result has been stagnant productivity. Read More here 5 April 2017, ECOS, Before the storm. It’s a catastrophe in anyone’s book, not least those of insurance companies anticipating the tens of thousands of claims likely to be lodged.As the floods surged south in the days after Cyclone Debbie hit landfall near Bowen in north Queensland on March 28, a natural disaster was declared in five major centres in northern New South Wales.Citing the chairman of the Insurance Council of Australia, the Australian Financial Review said “in insurance terms, a catastrophe means a disaster that causes a significant number of claims in a region” and for Cyclone Debbie that could be claims over $1 billion. CSIRO’s Dr Chi-Hsiang Wang and colleagues have been researching the cost implications of extreme weather events but with a focus at the other end – predicting the likely cost before the storms. Counting the cost of extreme events Deloitte Access Economics last year delivered a report on building resilient infrastructure which estimated that, between 2002-03 and 2010-11, an annual average of more than $450 million was spent by Australian governments on restoring essential public infrastructure following extreme weather. If it’s business-as-usual, the report said, $17 billion is expected to be spent on direct replacement costs of essential infrastructure due to natural disasters between 2015 and 2050. These estimates don’t factor in the impacts of climate change. In the case of Cyclone Debbie, the wind intensity exceeded the limitations of the building specifications. “It’s not a surprise that we see considerable damage because the intensity is so high,” says Dr Wang. Until now, a cyclone with the force of Debbie was considered a once in a 2,000 year event by Australian design standard for wind actions (AS/NZS 1170.2:2011). That may change. “There’s a consensus among scientists, although not as strong as the consensus around rising global temperatures, that for some tropical cyclone basins around the world they are likely to see events of increased intensity,” he adds. What’s missing? Dr Wang says the current practice for wind impact assessment of physical infrastructure uses only wind intensity (in terms of wind gust) to gauge the damage potential of windstorms. “This ignores other threats brought upon by the accompanying rainfall and storm surge,” he says. Read More here 29 March 2017, Renew Economy, How AEMO’s new boss will reform Australia’s energy vision. Audrey Zibelman, the new chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator, has been in the job for little over a week, but is already making her mark, signalling the biggest shift in energy management philosophy in a generation. If Australia’s fossil fuel industry had hoped that last September’s state-wide blackout would lead to a u-turn on the shift to cleaner and decentralised energy system, then the release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s final report in the event would leave them bitterly disappointed. And if they had any thoughts that the new CEO of AEMO, Audrey Zibelman, was going to afford them the indulgences that they had gotten used to over the last few decades, then they are going to be disappointed on that too. Several hundred energy market participants converged on Adelaide’s Hilton Hotel on Wednesday to hear the findings from the final report into the now notorious system black and, more crucially, to hear the first public insights from the new AEMO boss. “Thank god you’re here,” said the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood, referring to a former TV program, but echoing the mood of most. And while many in mainstream media chose to focus on the role of wind farms in South Australia’s “system black,” and wonder why the shuttered Northern coal fired station is not being fired up again, both AEMO and its new boss were looking to the future, and with a sense of urgency. Zibelman is the former head of New York’s Public Service Commission, charged with implementing that state’s ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision program, and its target of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030, which is going to focus a lot on decentralised generation. “When I arrived on the scene in New York, it was just after Hurricane Sandy,” she said in her opening comments on Wednesday. “After seeing New York city witout electricity for a number of days and people living in 40-storey buildings walking down to get water and cell phones charged – these were not young people, these were grandmas and granddads – it was clear that this industry was going to have to fundamentally change.” And Australia, she says, is actually going to lead the world on this, both on the breadth and the scale of what she, chief scientist Alan Finkel and many others describes as the inevitable and unstoppable energy transition. “We built systems in the 20th century around large centralised power plants,” Zibelman said. “That made a lot of sense. Now the industry is changing, cutomer preferences are changing, choices are changing, so we are creating what lot of people are calling the internet of things. “The idea is that you need to create a very flexible network that can respond in real time, and truly real time, to a lot of different events and a lot different sequences. “That is going to need a whole different approach … and my excitement about Australia is that, quite frankly, Australian is going to be leading the world on this.” Read More here 11 July 2017, The Conversation, Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia. Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate. Neither of Australia’s two main political parties believes population is an issue worth discussion, and neither currently has a policy about it. The Greens think population is an issue, but can’t come at actually suggesting a target. Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact. But common sense, not to mention the laws of physics, says that size and scale matter, especially on a finite planet. In the meantime the nation has a bipartisan default population policy, which is one of rapid growth. This is in response to the demands of what is effectively a coalition of major corporate players and lobby groups. Solid neoliberals all, they see all growth as good, especially for their bottom line. They include the banks and financial sector, real estate developers, the housing industry, major retailers, the media and other major players for whom an endless increase in customers is possible and profitable. However, Australians stubbornly continue to have small families. The endless growth coalition responds by demanding the government import hundreds of thousands of new consumers annually, otherwise known as the migration intake. The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants. They fully expect to capture the profit of this growth program, while the disadvantages, such as traffic congestion, rising house prices and government revenue diverted for infrastructure catch-up, are all socialised – that is, the taxpayer pays. The leaders of this well-heeled group are well insulated personally from the downsides of growth that the rest of us deal with daily. A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged. For example, according to Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report: Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the ‘3Ps’. If one defines “economic growth” in the first place by saying that’s what happens when you have more and more people consuming, then obviously more and more people produce growth. The fact that GDP, our main measure of growth, might be an utterly inadequate and inappropriate yardstick for our times remains a kooky idea to most economists, both in business and government. Genuine progress peaked 40 years ago Read More here 10 May 2017, Climate Central (report), Coastal communities are enduring growing flood risks from rising seas, with places like Atlantic City, sandwiched between a bay and the ocean, facing some of the greatest threats. Guided by new research by Climate Central’s Scott Kulp and Benjamin Strauss, reporter John Upton and photographer Ted Blanco chronicled the plight of this city’s residents as they struggle to deal with the impacts. Upton spent months investigating how the city is adapting, revealing vast inequity between the rich and the poor…. DeDomenicis has lived in this house since 1982, a few hundred feet from a bay. She used to work as a restaurant server; now she’s a school crossing guard. Her husband walked a mile to his job at Bally’s Casino until he retired in January. They’ve seen floods worsen as the seas have risen, as the land beneath them has sunk, and as local infrastructure has rotted away. “It comes in the front door, the back door, and then from the bottom of the house, in through the sides,” DeDomenicis said. “You watch it come in and it meets in the middle of the house — and there’s nothing you can do.” Two miles east of Arizona Avenue, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is spending tens of millions of dollars building a seawall to reduce storm surge and flooding risks for Atlantic City’s downtown and its towering casinos, five of which have closed in the past four years. A few miles in the other direction, it’s preparing to spend tens of millions more on sand dunes to protect million-dollar oceanfront homes. Read More here 7 April 2017, New York Times, Rising Waters Threaten China’s Rising Cities. GUANGZHOU, China — The rains brought torrents, pouring into basements and malls, the water swiftly rising a foot and a half. The city of Dongguan, a manufacturing center here in the world’s most dynamic industrial region, was hit especially hard by the downpour in May 2014. More than 100 factories and shops were inundated. Water climbed knee-high in 20 minutes, wiping out inventory for dozens of businesses. Next door in Guangzhou, an ancient, mammoth port city of 13 million, helicopters and a fleet of 80 boats had to be sent to rescue trapped residents. Tens of thousands lost their homes, and 53 square miles of nearby farmland were ruined. The cost of repairs topped $100 million. Chen Rongbo, who lived in the city, saw the flood coming. He tried to scramble to safety on the second floor of his house, carrying his 6-year-old granddaughter. He slipped. The flood swept both of them away. Flooding has been a plague for centuries in southern China’s Pearl River Delta. So even the rains that May, the worst in the area in years, soon drifted from the headlines. People complained and made jokes on social media about wading through streets that had become canals and riding on half-submerged buses through lakes that used to be streets. But there was no official hand-wringing about what caused the floods or how climate change might bring more extreme storms and make the problems worse. A generation ago, this was mostly farmland. Three vital rivers leading to the South China Sea, along with a spider’s web of crisscrossing tributaries, made the low-lying delta a fertile plain, famous for rice. Guangzhou, formerly Canton, had more than a million people, but by the 1980s, China set out to transform the whole region, capitalizing on its proximity to water, the energy of its people, and the money and port infrastructure of neighboring Hong Kong. Read More here 4 April 2017, Climate News Network, Brazil monkey deaths signal spread of viruses. Climate change and deforestation in Brazil help mosquitoes spread viruses to humans and endangered species of monkeys. Scientists in Brazil believe that global warming and climate change have created conditions that favour the reproduction of the mosquitoes that transmit viruses such as yellow fever, now spreading through previously immune regions of Brazil. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that an increase of 4°C in mean annual temperatures is possible in these south and central regions because of warming caused by carbon dioxide concentrations. The yellow fever virus can be transmitted to humans and to monkeys, and thousands of monkeys − some from endangered species − have died in the last four months. Most of the deaths have been caused by the virus, but some monkeys have been shot or clubbed to death by Brazilians who erroneously believe that they, and not the mosquitoes, are responsible for transmitting the virus to humans. The woolly spider monkey (muriqui), and the brown howler monkey (bugio) are the species most affected. Sérgio Lucena, a primatologist and zoology professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, says that, in fact, monkeys are sentinels because they die before humans. “If the virus begins to propagate in a determined area, the death of monkeys sends us a warning.” Encourage viruses Since January, the yellow fever virus has claimed nearly 2,000 human victims, 300 of them fatal, in a region of Brazil where it had been eliminated in the 1940s. The epidemic began in the state of Minas Gerais last December, and since then it has spread to the neighbouring states of Espirito Santo, Rio, São Paulo and Bahia. Vaccination campaigns are now under way. The virus, which is transmitted by the haemagogus mosquito, is normally confined to the tropical regions in the north of Brazil. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Guardian, No wonder the government tries to hide its emissions reports. They stink. Last Friday, the Australian government finally released the latest greenhouse gas emissions report, showing emissions have risen in the past year. When excluding emissions from land use, 2016 saw Australia release a record level of CO2 into the atmosphere. It confirms the failure of the government’s environmental policy at a time when electricity prices – despite the absence of a carbon price – continue to rise at levels above inflation. The government has a history of being scared to release the greenhouse gas reports. Last year it released the March 2016 and June 2016 reports on the Thursday before Christmas – not exactly peak viewing time. It also meant the March report was released nine months after the March quarter had actually finished. And once again the government held off releasing the latest report. But in a level of coincidence equal to that of Bill Heslop running into Deirdre Chambers in the Porpoise Split Chinese restaurant, on the day that the Australian Conservation Foundation released FOI documents showing that the government had been sitting on the report for more than a month, the government released the latest report. And in an effort that rather stretches the meaning of “quarterly”, the government “incorporated” the September quarter figures into the December report. It says something about how poorly this government values the issue of climate change that over a month ago we had the figures on the entire production that occurred in Australia during the first three months of this year, and yet here we are in July and we still only know the level of greenhouse gas emissions up to December last year. The figures in the report quickly made it obvious why the government has held off releasing them. They stink. And as every report since June 2014 has shown, the end of the carbon price has led to an increase in emissions. The poor departmental officials try to paint a happy picture. The release leads with the line that “total emissions for Australia for the year to December 2016 (including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) are estimated to be 543.3 Mt CO2-e.” They note that this is 2.0% below emissions in 2000, and 10.2% below emissions in 2005. Oddly, they don’t note that is it 1.0% above the emissions in 2015. The inclusion of land use, land use change and forestry is a fairly dodgy measure. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Conversation, Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia. Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate. Neither of Australia’s two main political parties believes population is an issue worth discussion, and neither currently has a policy about it. The Greens think population is an issue, but can’t come at actually suggesting a target. Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact. But common sense, not to mention the laws of physics, says that size and scale matter, especially on a finite planet. In the meantime the nation has a bipartisan default population policy, which is one of rapid growth. This is in response to the demands of what is effectively a coalition of major corporate players and lobby groups. Solid neoliberals all, they see all growth as good, especially for their bottom line. They include the banks and financial sector, real estate developers, the housing industry, major retailers, the media and other major players for whom an endless increase in customers is possible and profitable. However, Australians stubbornly continue to have small families. The endless growth coalition responds by demanding the government import hundreds of thousands of new consumers annually, otherwise known as the migration intake. The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants. They fully expect to capture the profit of this growth program, while the disadvantages, such as traffic congestion, rising house prices and government revenue diverted for infrastructure catch-up, are all socialised – that is, the taxpayer pays. The leaders of this well-heeled group are well insulated personally from the downsides of growth that the rest of us deal with daily. A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged. For example, according to Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report: Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the ‘3Ps’. If one defines “economic growth” in the first place by saying that’s what happens when you have more and more people consuming, then obviously more and more people produce growth. The fact that GDP, our main measure of growth, might be an utterly inadequate and inappropriate yardstick for our times remains a kooky idea to most economists, both in business and government. Genuine progress peaked 40 years ago Read More here 10 July 2017, The Conversation, As an historic nuclear weapons treaty is reached, G20 leaders miss the mark on North Korea. Over the weekend, more than 120 countries adopted a treaty at a UN conference that prohibits the production, stockpiling, use or threatened use of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Australia was a notable absentee. So were the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. While the UN conference was taking a major step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, the US and its allies – notably Japan, South Korea and Australia – were hoping to use the G20 summit in Hamburg to focus attention on the danger North Korea’s nuclear ambitions pose. However, the declaration issued at the end of the G20 does not even mention the issue. We can now expect a UN Security Council resolution that condemns North Korea’s latest missile test and applies slightly tougher sanctions. The glaring contradiction between the boycott of the nuclear ban negotiations and the preoccupation with the North Korean nuclear threat does not seem to have dawned on the US and its allies….Why the treaty? Nothing said at the G20 summit will resolve the North Korean crisis, for it is but a symptom of a deeper ailment. The US and Russia, which between them account for 92% of the world’s nuclear weapons, are clearly intent on preserving and modernising their nuclear arsenals. They and other nuclear-armed countries have steadfastly resisted repeated calls for nuclear disarmament – even though Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires them to do just that. The nuclear weapons treaty that has just emerged is a direct response to the morally and legally culpable inaction of the nuclear-armed countries – something the G20 summit did not and could not do. Put simply, the treaty is a comprehensive effort to bring the rule of law to bear on all aspects of the nuclear assault on the planet. It designates a nuclear-weapon-free world as “a global public good of the highest order”, on which depend: … human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations. The treaty’s provisions are robust and thorough. In addition to prohibiting production, possession and deployment, each party to it undertakes never to test, transfer or receive from any recipient any nuclear weapons or explosive devices, and never to assist anyone or receive assistance from anyone to engage in any such activity. Read More here 8 July 2017, Reuters, Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. “In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. “And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.” The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Guardian, No wonder the government tries to hide its emissions reports. They stink. Last Friday, the Australian government finally released the latest greenhouse gas emissions report, showing emissions have risen in the past year. When excluding emissions from land use, 2016 saw Australia release a record level of CO2 into the atmosphere. It confirms the failure of the government’s environmental policy at a time when electricity prices – despite the absence of a carbon price – continue to rise at levels above inflation. The government has a history of being scared to release the greenhouse gas reports. Last year it released the March 2016 and June 2016 reports on the Thursday before Christmas – not exactly peak viewing time. It also meant the March report was released nine months after the March quarter had actually finished. And once again the government held off releasing the latest report. But in a level of coincidence equal to that of Bill Heslop running into Deirdre Chambers in the Porpoise Split Chinese restaurant, on the day that the Australian Conservation Foundation released FOI documents showing that the government had been sitting on the report for more than a month, the government released the latest report. And in an effort that rather stretches the meaning of “quarterly”, the government “incorporated” the September quarter figures into the December report. It says something about how poorly this government values the issue of climate change that over a month ago we had the figures on the entire production that occurred in Australia during the first three months of this year, and yet here we are in July and we still only know the level of greenhouse gas emissions up to December last year. The figures in the report quickly made it obvious why the government has held off releasing them. They stink. And as every report since June 2014 has shown, the end of the carbon price has led to an increase in emissions. The poor departmental officials try to paint a happy picture. The release leads with the line that “total emissions for Australia for the year to December 2016 (including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) are estimated to be 543.3 Mt CO2-e.” They note that this is 2.0% below emissions in 2000, and 10.2% below emissions in 2005. Oddly, they don’t note that is it 1.0% above the emissions in 2015. The inclusion of land use, land use change and forestry is a fairly dodgy measure. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Conversation, Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia. Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate. Neither of Australia’s two main political parties believes population is an issue worth discussion, and neither currently has a policy about it. The Greens think population is an issue, but can’t come at actually suggesting a target. Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact. But common sense, not to mention the laws of physics, says that size and scale matter, especially on a finite planet. In the meantime the nation has a bipartisan default population policy, which is one of rapid growth. This is in response to the demands of what is effectively a coalition of major corporate players and lobby groups. Solid neoliberals all, they see all growth as good, especially for their bottom line. They include the banks and financial sector, real estate developers, the housing industry, major retailers, the media and other major players for whom an endless increase in customers is possible and profitable. However, Australians stubbornly continue to have small families. The endless growth coalition responds by demanding the government import hundreds of thousands of new consumers annually, otherwise known as the migration intake. The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants. They fully expect to capture the profit of this growth program, while the disadvantages, such as traffic congestion, rising house prices and government revenue diverted for infrastructure catch-up, are all socialised – that is, the taxpayer pays. The leaders of this well-heeled group are well insulated personally from the downsides of growth that the rest of us deal with daily. A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged. For example, according to Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report: Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the ‘3Ps’. If one defines “economic growth” in the first place by saying that’s what happens when you have more and more people consuming, then obviously more and more people produce growth. The fact that GDP, our main measure of growth, might be an utterly inadequate and inappropriate yardstick for our times remains a kooky idea to most economists, both in business and government. Genuine progress peaked 40 years ago Read More here 10 July 2017, The Conversation, As an historic nuclear weapons treaty is reached, G20 leaders miss the mark on North Korea. Over the weekend, more than 120 countries adopted a treaty at a UN conference that prohibits the production, stockpiling, use or threatened use of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Australia was a notable absentee. So were the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. While the UN conference was taking a major step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, the US and its allies – notably Japan, South Korea and Australia – were hoping to use the G20 summit in Hamburg to focus attention on the danger North Korea’s nuclear ambitions pose. However, the declaration issued at the end of the G20 does not even mention the issue. We can now expect a UN Security Council resolution that condemns North Korea’s latest missile test and applies slightly tougher sanctions. The glaring contradiction between the boycott of the nuclear ban negotiations and the preoccupation with the North Korean nuclear threat does not seem to have dawned on the US and its allies….Why the treaty? Nothing said at the G20 summit will resolve the North Korean crisis, for it is but a symptom of a deeper ailment. The US and Russia, which between them account for 92% of the world’s nuclear weapons, are clearly intent on preserving and modernising their nuclear arsenals. They and other nuclear-armed countries have steadfastly resisted repeated calls for nuclear disarmament – even though Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires them to do just that. The nuclear weapons treaty that has just emerged is a direct response to the morally and legally culpable inaction of the nuclear-armed countries – something the G20 summit did not and could not do. Put simply, the treaty is a comprehensive effort to bring the rule of law to bear on all aspects of the nuclear assault on the planet. It designates a nuclear-weapon-free world as “a global public good of the highest order”, on which depend: … human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations. The treaty’s provisions are robust and thorough. In addition to prohibiting production, possession and deployment, each party to it undertakes never to test, transfer or receive from any recipient any nuclear weapons or explosive devices, and never to assist anyone or receive assistance from anyone to engage in any such activity. Read More here 8 July 2017, Reuters, Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. “In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. “And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.” The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Guardian, No wonder the government tries to hide its emissions reports. They stink. Last Friday, the Australian government finally released the latest greenhouse gas emissions report, showing emissions have risen in the past year. When excluding emissions from land use, 2016 saw Australia release a record level of CO2 into the atmosphere. It confirms the failure of the government’s environmental policy at a time when electricity prices – despite the absence of a carbon price – continue to rise at levels above inflation. The government has a history of being scared to release the greenhouse gas reports. Last year it released the March 2016 and June 2016 reports on the Thursday before Christmas – not exactly peak viewing time. It also meant the March report was released nine months after the March quarter had actually finished. And once again the government held off releasing the latest report. But in a level of coincidence equal to that of Bill Heslop running into Deirdre Chambers in the Porpoise Split Chinese restaurant, on the day that the Australian Conservation Foundation released FOI documents showing that the government had been sitting on the report for more than a month, the government released the latest report. And in an effort that rather stretches the meaning of “quarterly”, the government “incorporated” the September quarter figures into the December report. It says something about how poorly this government values the issue of climate change that over a month ago we had the figures on the entire production that occurred in Australia during the first three months of this year, and yet here we are in July and we still only know the level of greenhouse gas emissions up to December last year. The figures in the report quickly made it obvious why the government has held off releasing them. They stink. And as every report since June 2014 has shown, the end of the carbon price has led to an increase in emissions. The poor departmental officials try to paint a happy picture. The release leads with the line that “total emissions for Australia for the year to December 2016 (including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) are estimated to be 543.3 Mt CO2-e.” They note that this is 2.0% below emissions in 2000, and 10.2% below emissions in 2005. Oddly, they don’t note that is it 1.0% above the emissions in 2015. The inclusion of land use, land use change and forestry is a fairly dodgy measure. Read More here 11 July 2017, The Conversation, Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia. Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate. Neither of Australia’s two main political parties believes population is an issue worth discussion, and neither currently has a policy about it. The Greens think population is an issue, but can’t come at actually suggesting a target. Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact. But common sense, not to mention the laws of physics, says that size and scale matter, especially on a finite planet. In the meantime the nation has a bipartisan default population policy, which is one of rapid growth. This is in response to the demands of what is effectively a coalition of major corporate players and lobby groups. Solid neoliberals all, they see all growth as good, especially for their bottom line. They include the banks and financial sector, real estate developers, the housing industry, major retailers, the media and other major players for whom an endless increase in customers is possible and profitable. However, Australians stubbornly continue to have small families. The endless growth coalition responds by demanding the government import hundreds of thousands of new consumers annually, otherwise known as the migration intake. The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants. They fully expect to capture the profit of this growth program, while the disadvantages, such as traffic congestion, rising house prices and government revenue diverted for infrastructure catch-up, are all socialised – that is, the taxpayer pays. The leaders of this well-heeled group are well insulated personally from the downsides of growth that the rest of us deal with daily. A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged. For example, according to Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report: Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the ‘3Ps’. If one defines “economic growth” in the first place by saying that’s what happens when you have more and more people consuming, then obviously more and more people produce growth. The fact that GDP, our main measure of growth, might be an utterly inadequate and inappropriate yardstick for our times remains a kooky idea to most economists, both in business and government. Genuine progress peaked 40 years ago Read More here 10 July 2017, The Conversation, As an historic nuclear weapons treaty is reached, G20 leaders miss the mark on North Korea. Over the weekend, more than 120 countries adopted a treaty at a UN conference that prohibits the production, stockpiling, use or threatened use of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Australia was a notable absentee. So were the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. While the UN conference was taking a major step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, the US and its allies – notably Japan, South Korea and Australia – were hoping to use the G20 summit in Hamburg to focus attention on the danger North Korea’s nuclear ambitions pose. However, the declaration issued at the end of the G20 does not even mention the issue. We can now expect a UN Security Council resolution that condemns North Korea’s latest missile test and applies slightly tougher sanctions. The glaring contradiction between the boycott of the nuclear ban negotiations and the preoccupation with the North Korean nuclear threat does not seem to have dawned on the US and its allies….Why the treaty? Nothing said at the G20 summit will resolve the North Korean crisis, for it is but a symptom of a deeper ailment. The US and Russia, which between them account for 92% of the world’s nuclear weapons, are clearly intent on preserving and modernising their nuclear arsenals. They and other nuclear-armed countries have steadfastly resisted repeated calls for nuclear disarmament – even though Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires them to do just that. The nuclear weapons treaty that has just emerged is a direct response to the morally and legally culpable inaction of the nuclear-armed countries – something the G20 summit did not and could not do. Put simply, the treaty is a comprehensive effort to bring the rule of law to bear on all aspects of the nuclear assault on the planet. It designates a nuclear-weapon-free world as “a global public good of the highest order”, on which depend: … human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations. The treaty’s provisions are robust and thorough. In addition to prohibiting production, possession and deployment, each party to it undertakes never to test, transfer or receive from any recipient any nuclear weapons or explosive devices, and never to assist anyone or receive assistance from anyone to engage in any such activity. Read More here 8 July 2017, Reuters, Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. “In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. “And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.” The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Read More here End latest news 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 
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 hereInfrastructure: 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
