Climate Change and Urban Settlements

A Spatial Perspective of Carbon Footprint and Beyond

Mahendra Sethi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315398488
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Climate change and urbanization are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, and their effects are converging in dangerous ways. Cities contribute significantly to global warming, and as the world further takes a rural-urban population tilt, the next few decades pose a great challenge in addressing global disparities in the access and allocation of carbon.

This book explores the ways in which cities, through their spatial development, contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and looks at the ways in which rapidly urbanizing cities in low- and middle-income countries can be planned to reduce overall GHG emissions. The book considers key questions such a: What should be the appropriate economies of scale for cities in a country? What is the most favourable rate of urbanization? What should be the most suitable spatial pattern for a city? And what are appropriate regulatory, economic or governance mechanisms to achieve a low-carbon society? These issues are explored through data analysis of over 156 developing countries and through a specific case study of India. India acts as an interesting example of how societies undergoing rural-to-urban transformations could become green within the planetary boundaries while systematically addressing national and local urban governance. The research concludes with a future pathway that is committed to low-carbon and high-equity spatial development, and will find pertinence to researchers and practitioners alike.

This book provides a new tool for policymakers, planners and scholars to rationally and equitably account for global carbon space, prioritize low-carbon strategies for national urbanization and planning individual cities, in addition to recommending an urban governance framework inclusive of green agenda.

p.1

1 Climate change and urban areas

I saw an extraordinary panoply of objects flying past – bicycles, scooters, lamp posts, sheets of corrugated iron, even entire tea stalls. I buried my head in my arms and lay still . . . This was, in effect, the first tornado to hit Delhi – and indeed the entire region – in recorded meteorological history.

(Ghosh, 2016)

Excerpts from Amitav Ghosh’s new book, The Great Derangement, explain a sudden change of weather on the afternoon of 17 March 1978 in New Delhi, where the protagonist used to study at Delhi University while also working as a part-time journalist. The above extract is from an article published in the Hindustan Times, where the eminent author notes that nobody seems to be able to create a narrative around climate change. Indeed, the need to disseminate and involve publics is even more important now that current science has busted the myth around climate change.

1.1 Science of climate change

Climate change is an established scientific fact and a reality that has been witnessed constantly by mankind for the last few decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the topmost scientific body that studies climate change at the global level. It asserts that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen (IPCC, 2014). This is coupled with increased or irregular frequency, intensity and duration of weather events, causing floods, droughts and other storm surges, cyclones, etc. According to the IPCC:

Climate change is a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.

(IPCC, 2007b, p. 30)

p.2

Box 1.1 Some extreme weather events and/or climate variability that have occurred across the world in recent memory

• UK 2000: Widespread flooding by wettest autumn since records began in 1766.

• Europe 2003: Record heatwave causes deaths of about 35,000 people.

• Middle East 2004: After unusually cold weather, snow falls in Dubai.

• India 2005: Deadliest floods in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu claim over 5,000 lives.

• US 2005: Most active hurricane season on record. Katrina kills 1,300 in New Orleans.

• Brazil 2005: Worst drought in 60 years caused by lowest Amazon flow in 30 years.

• Canada 2005: Warmest summer on record.

• Horn of Africa 2006: Long-term drought and unprecedented floods in 50 years.

• India 2008: Heavy rainfalls trigger Kosi floods in Bihar.

• Argentina 2009: Exceptional heat sees record temperatures above 40° C.

• Russia 2010: Deadly heatwave sees wildfires and temperatures soaring in Moscow.

• Pakistan 2010: Worst floods in country’s history affect 20 million people.

• China 2010: Torrential rains, some 1,500 people killed in one mudslide in north-west China.

• Australia 2010–2011: Worst floods in more than 50 years wreak havoc in north-east Australia.

• US 2011: Record number of wildfires, droughts and tornadoes kill hundreds of people.

• South America 2011: Landslides and floods kill hundreds in Brazil and Guatemala.

• China 2012: Temperatures in north-east China hit 43-year low at −15.3° C.

• Russia 2012: Floods kill 171 in south while west has hottest summer since 1500.

• Korea 2012: Both North and South Korea suffer their worst droughts on record.

• US 2012: Most extensive drought to affect the country since the 1930s.

• Europe 2012: Temperatures plummet to as low as −20° C in some cities.

• India 2013: Increasing trend of extremely heavy showers in rainfall data of last 104 years.

• Africa 2013: Heatwaves in Ghana and South Africa, and droughts in Namibia, Angola and Botswana.

p.3

• Australia 2013: Temperature rises up to 48° C, causing severe heatwave and bushfires.

• Asia 2013: Strongest typhoons such as Haiyan, Usagi and Phailin make landfall.

• Australia 2014: Warmest and driest ever weather in parts of Australia and New Zealand.

• Asia 2014: Cyclones Hudhud, Halong, Nakri and other torrential rains wreak havoc.

• America 2014: Extreme cold waves and heatwaves in Alaska, Canada, the US and Argentina.

• Europe 2014: Warmest year on record experienced across Europe.

• Arctic 2015: Heatwave in December spikes temperatures by 60° F above the norm.

• South America 2015: El Niño triggers floods in several countries, displacing 150,000 people.

• Ethiopia 2015: Prolonged droughts risk 10 million people in need of food aid.

• Yemen 2015: Over 1.1 million impacted and 40,000 displaced by rare cyclonic event.

• Asia 2015: Severe heatwave from Middle East to India kills thousands of people.

Munich Re (2011), the world’s largest reinsurance company, has compiled global disaster records for 1980–2010. In its analysis, more than 90% of all disasters and 65% of associated economic damages were weather- and climate-related (i.e. high winds, flooding, heavy snowfall, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires). In all, 874 weather- and climate-related disasters resulted in 68,000 deaths and $99 billion in damages worldwide in 2010. The fact is that 2010 was one of the warmest years on record, as well as one of the most disastrous.

Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or due to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. The IPCC claims that it is extremely unlikely (<5%) that the global pattern of warming during the past half-century can be explained without external forcing (i.e. it is inconsistent with being the result of internal variability), and very unlikely that it is due to known natural external causes alone. The apex international authority in climate governance, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, thus defines climate change as:

A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

(IPCC, 2007c, p. 996)

p.4

The distinct feature of the UNFCCC definition is that its area of concern or “attribution to climate change” is particularly focused on additionalities to natural climate variability, caused by man-made factors. It affirms that climate change is caused by the sustained presence of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. The IPCC defines GHGs as:

those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect.

(IPCC, 2007b, p. 82)

A GHG assessment, also called an inventory, focuses on anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) emissions. Water vapour, for instance, is the gas that has the greatest impact on the greenhouse effect. However, the atmospheric water vapour concentration is not substantially affected by human activities, thus water vapour is commonly not referred to as a major anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are entirely man-made, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and bromine-containing substances. The Montreal Protocol deals with these gases. The Kyoto Protocol refers to the following gases: CO₂, N₂O, CH₄, SF₆, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). These six ‘Kyoto gases’ are supposed to be the most important anthropogenic gases with regard to the greenhouse effect (IPCC, 2007b).

It is a known fact that industrialization in the last 200 years has led to mass consumption and burning of fossil fuels for industrial production, metallurgical operations, cement production, rail and road transportation, thermal power generation and allied activities, which has been a key trigger for rising local pollution in the ambient air and GHGs in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Data analysis from 1751 to 2012 by Earth Policy Institute (2013) shows that over the last century, emissions from fossil fuel burning, which forms the biggest bunch of the GHG basket, have mounted sevenfold from about 1,000 MtCO₂e in the 1920s to over 6,500 MtCO₂e in 2000. In order to evaluate the actual or estimated impacts of GHG emissions from a particular human being, anthropogenic or socio-economic activity, industrial process, etc., the concept of carbon footprint is increasingly being utilized:

Carbon footprint of a functional unit is the climate impact under a specified metric that considers all relevant emission sources, sinks, and storage in both consumption and production within the specified spatial and temporal system boundary.

(Peters, 2010, p. 245)

The IPCC defines carbon footprint as “The total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person” (IPCC, 2007b). It is expressed in carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs emitted. Sources of carbon footprint are invariably the same, responsible for GHG emissions (i.e. transport, land clearance, production and consumption of food, fuels, manufactured goods, materials, wood, roads, buildings and services). The concept of carbon footprint actually originates from the discourse on ecological footprint and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of natural resources. Ecological footprint is measured as a total of six factors: cropland footprint, grazing footprint, forest footprint, fishing ground footprint, carbon footprint and built-up land, and expressed as the amount of productive land and sea area required to sequester carbon emissions on a per capita basis (Rees, 1992). It is represented by the following basic equation:

p.5

So, is carbon emissions (footprint) different from GHG emissions (footprint)? This could be better understood from the concept of CO₂e and GWP (Box 1.2).

Box 1.2 Concept of CO₂e and GWP

In view of making the climate impact of different GHGs comparable, they are normally converted to CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e). CO₂ is thereby the reference gas against which other gases are measured, and has a global warming potential (GWP) of 1. The global warming potential represents how much a certain mass of a gas contributes to global warming compared to the same mass of CO₂. It is based on the different times “gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness in absorbing outgoing thermal infrared radiation” (IPCC, 2007b, p. 81). For instance, nitrous oxide is 310 times more potent than CO₂. A ton of nitrous oxide can thus be converted to CO₂ equivalents by multiplying it by 310. Inventories that cover different GHGs commonly display results in CO₂ equivalents. In this respect, it is of crucial importance that the sources and values on which the calculation of these equivalents is based are made transparent. This can be illustrated by the example of the time horizon used for the calculation of the global warming potential. Some gases remain only for short periods of time in the atmosphere, whereas other gases can remain for thousands of years. Thus, different time horizons lead to different global warming potentials. Methane, for instance, has, on average, a shorter lifetime in the atmosphere than CO₂. If the calculation of the global warming potential of methane is based on a time horizon of 20 years, methane has a global warming potential of 72 (i.e. 72 times greater than...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Climate Change and Urban Settlements
• Routledge Studies in Hazards, Disaster Risk and Climate Change
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Boxes
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Climate Change and Urban Areas
• 2 Interrelation Between Development, Urbanization and Carbon Footprint
• 3 Role of Cities in Contributing to National Urban GHGs: Methods, Tools and Evidence from India
• 4 Urban Spatial Parameters
• 5 Spatial Metrics and Modelling
• 6 Research and Policy Implications
• Appendix I: Summary Tabulations
• Appendix II: Supplementary Material
• Appendix III: Global Metadata of Urbanization, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Economy and Energy Use of 209 Countries/Territories
• Index