Are Cities to Blamce for Climate Change ?

In an article published by the UN – Habitat in March 2009, authors Dodman and Satterthwaite attempted to answer an interesting question – Are the cities of the world the main culprits behind global warming and climate change? They began their article by citing the finding arrived at by the Clinton Initiative, that cities are responsible for as much as 80 per cent of the total green house gas (GHG) emissions in the world. The figure was puzzling, to say the least, as it is common knowledge that many of the activities which are responsible GHG emissions are located outside urban areas and the authors’ own calculations based on the data of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) yielded a figure of no more than 41 per cent as the maximum contribution of activities located in cities to GHG emission (Dodman and Satterthwaite: 2009, p – 12).

The authors went on to write that the puzzle of high GHG emissions due to cities can only be resolved if we shift our focus from the activities which produce these gases to the people and places which act as the root causes for the proliferation of such activities in the first place. Such re-orientation of the way in which we account for GHG emission is not difficult to understand at all. For example, most of the coal powered power stations or automobile production units are located outside urban centres but their products are largely consumed by the urban population. The authors stated that in this kind of accounting system cities could be responsible for as high as 60 per cent of the GHG emission if not 80 per cent.

However, the major contribution of the authors was not to create strong arguments to support or disprove the question. Their intention was to urge the reader to go beyond the question itself and probe deeper into the nature and location of the priorities, life-styles, choices and socio-economic realities which ultimately trigger GHG emission. If one argues that cities are the main culprits behind global warming, then one can also argue that not all cities in the world cause high GHG emission, but a few of them and these are mainly located in the developed countries of the world. After all, most cities in the developing countries have one-twentieth to one-hundredth of the per capita emission of the cities of the developed countries (ibid, p - 13). But even this information, relevant though it may be, does not tell us all that we need to know. What about the differences among cities in the developing world and, even more importantly, the differences within the cities? How can one, for example, calculate an average per capita emission figure for Mumbai using household level data from both the Dharavi slum and Mukesh Ambani’s twenty-seven storey, two billion dollar “home”? How much would such an average conceal compared to what it would show?

The authors emphasized that there exist massive differences between cities and within cities and the causes of these differences have to be seriously considered if the overall contribution of cities to GHG emission is to be curbed. Moreover, it is not just a small number of cities with a high consumption life-style which are the main cause, but also the prosperous classes of people within the cities of the poorer nations which together cause the maximum GHG emission. The authors summarise their overall findings in the following lines :

‘Most of the cities most at risk from the impacts of global warming are in low- and middle-income nations, and it is generally among the low-income populations that risks are concentrated. So these are cities that contribute very little to GHGs but which are far more at risk from the global warming created by GHGs.’ (ibid)

The issue of social and economic inequality in cities thus comes to the fore-front as a prime environmental issue also in the fight to reverse the climate change. Certain important points emerge out of the article of Dodman and Satterthwaite which cannot be avoided in any discussion regarding the kind of planning approach that should be adopted to make the urban areas of the world less environmentally damaging.

· The high consumption life–style and life-choices of a minority – It is all too clear that it is a minority group which we are dealing with albeit a socially, economically and politically influential one. It must also be borne in mind that a high consumption life-style is not necessarily a purely subjective matter, which can be overcome by changes in behaviour and a pro-active switch to various kinds of eco-products at a household level. Consumption patterns are just as much an objective factor, if seen in the context of some of the core assumptions of a developed capitalist economic system. The very culture of excessive borrowing and buying which was propagated by the banks and finance organizations in the United States is what triggered a recession in the very same economy. Caught in such an economic system the people are left with limited choices indeed to seek out genuine alternatives to the high consumption paradigm.

· The relationship between high quality of life and high emission – In order to break out of the high consumption paradigm it is important to sever the existing relationship between activities which lead to high GHG emission and notions of a high quality of life. Dodman and Satterthwaite pointed out that although cities in the United States have eight times more gasoline usage per capita compared to European cities there is no data anywhere which would suggest that a city like Chicago has a higher quality of life than Amsterdam, Oslo or Stockholm (ibid).

· A focus on the local – It is also becoming increasingly apparent that the local people and places would have to bear the brunt of global warming and they cannot afford to let the “community of nation states” to resolve the matter. Indeed, the rather disappointing achievements of nation states at Coppenhagen make it difficult to believe that another such conference in Mexico in 2010 will make a radical difference. The pressure has to be mounted from below and by the people who live below. This is not to say that the efforts of nation states are meaningless, but the struggle of poorer nations against the resolute non-compliance of developed nations can succeed only with the support of movements for alternative development paradigms being launched at the local level.