* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Cities around the world have recognized that they can implement fast and effective policies to tackle both threats at once, and they are already taking action
Climate change and poverty are two tightly linked challenges facing the world today. Cities around the world have recognized that they can implement fast and effective policies to tackle both threats at once, and they are already taking action. Cities100, launched today, compiles and highlights the 100 most impressive city solutions to climate change.
It is an established fact that climate change disproportionately affects poor communities. This has now been supported by international bodies such as the United Nations and OECD. UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, released in October, all touch upon either poverty or climate in some respect, showcasing how entrenched these challenges are in one another. In fact, the World Bank recently reported that climate change could drive over 100 million more people into poverty by 2030. Despite this bleak scenario, there is a bright side. Intertwined challenges are often solved by intertwined solutions, and poverty and climate change are no exceptions.
As national legislation to combat these linked challenges stagnates, city governments are stepping in to take action, proving that local solutions are our best resources in tackling these global problems. What makes cities so well-poised to address these challenges? For one, cities are constantly confronted with the realities of both poverty and climate change, as they handle the direct impacts of infrastructure damage, economic losses, and residents’ displacement. Second, city governments are also smaller and more agile in their decision-making and more directly accountable to their constituents than their national counterparts, making them more able and willing to act. Lastly, while nationwide changes can take a number of years – and political terms – to materialize, action at local levels can yield near-immediate results.
It takes a village… or a city
In Bogota, Colombia, the city is solving its waste management problem while helping to alleviate poverty and social exclusion. Bogota has created a system by which informal recyclers are now officially part of the city’s waste management system, equipped with uniforms, work-ID cards, safety equipment, and, perhaps most importantly, regular wages and respect. These measures have already seen an uptake in the collection of recyclables throughout the city as well as the abatement of 700,000 tons of CO2 in 2014 alone. Bogota’s project is just one of the 100 solutions you can read about in Cities100 – a collaboration between the Scandinavian think tank Sustainia, the network for mega cities C40 and the philantropic foundation Realdania, that showcases the most exciting and innovative city solutions to climate change.
Johannesburg and Tshwane, South Africa are tackling their physical legacies of apartheid in combination with their greenhouse gas emissions, by creating affordable and green bus rapid transit (BRT) systems that quickly and reliably connect peripheral communities – often poor and black – to the cities’ central business districts, opening up access to economic opportunities in the process. Johannesburg’s BRT system has already created more than 24,600 jobs and plans to reduce nearly 40,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year. Tshwane’s 69 km BRT system plans to be completed by 2020, at which point it will carry at least 100,000 passengers daily from the city’s economically disadvantaged outskirts to the city center.
Poverty however, is not only a problem in the Global South, and cities in industrialized nations are also taking heed to address how climate change impacts their low-income communities. For example, with 45% of residents at or near the poverty line, New York City recently launched OneNYC – a comprehensive plan to for sustainable development in the Big Apple with a special focus on socioeconomic equity that aims to lift 800,000 New Yorkers out of poverty by 2025 and reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050. The plan also includes adaptation measures to protect vulnerable, low-income communities from flooding and long term displacement after shock events, like Superstorm Sandy.
Of course, neither poverty nor climate change is an exclusively urban problem, but it is vital to address how both challenges play out in cities, as urbanization and globalization continue to drive more low-income rural residents to urban areas. Aware of their need to act, mayors, governors and other sub-national leaders will be in Paris this December at the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21) to take part in the Climate Summit for Local Leaders. This summit ensures that city voices are heard, their efforts are recognized, and further ambitious goals can be set in their efforts to tackle poverty and climate change in tandem. It is also validation of the fact that city level policies can and do take meaningful action against the linked challenges of climate change and poverty.
The goal of Cities100 is to showcase how cities are developing world-leading solutions to fighting climate change and alleviating poverty at the same time. From Bogota to Johannesburg to New York City, the solutions in Cities100 span the entire globe and prove that cities have the ability and will to take the lead and address these complex challenges locally, so that solutions can be shared and scaled globally.
Cities100 is a collaborative publication between Sustainia, C40 and Realdania that presents 100 of the most innovative solutions developed and implemented by cities to tackle climate change. After receiving 216 applications from 94 cities throughout the world, Sustainia and C40 conducted a detailed assessment and selected the most exciting and groundbreaking projects within ten sectors, including Transportation, Solid Waste, and Green Energy. Cities100 is proof that cities have stepped up as global leaders on climate change and have the ability and will to lead the way toward a sustainable future.
