View previous stories
	Rapid urbanisation "putting humanity at risk" by Planet Under Pressure   Planet is in critical state, warns scientists   Earth has only one decade to pull itself back from various environmental "tipping points" — points at which the damage becomes irreversible, scientists have said. If it fails to do so, it is likely to witness a series of breakdowns in the systems that sustain people, such as oceans and soil, according to a major meeting on safeguarding the planet"s future, the Planet Under Pressure conference (26–29 March).   "Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the wellbeing of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk," said some of the world"s leading documenters of global environmental change in the first "State of the Planet" declaration. They also admitted that scientists could no longer continue with "business as usual".   "We have been far better at documenting the problem and understanding the processes than engaging with solutions," said Mark Stafford Smith, science director of the Climate Adaptation Flagship at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia"s national science agency.   Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, in Sweden, said it was "absolutely shocking" that scientists had not answered questions such as "how much biodiversity do we need in order to sustain landscapes for our economy?".   He told a press conference: "I and many scientists are still profoundly frustrated that we don"t know whether we are heading for a two degree or six degree temperature rise — that"s not satisfactory for any decision makers".   The declaration says that three changes over the last decade make scientists warnings qualitatively different from before.   First, a decade of research is leading to the consensus that we inhabit a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which humans are dominating planetary-scale processes.   Second, science has revealed that many planetary processes are interconnected, as are, increasingly, society and the economy. This interconnectedness can confer stability and accelerate innovation, says the declaration, but it also leaves us vulnerable to abrupt and rapid crises.   Third, social research has demonstrated that our current ways of governing global environmental change are not dealing effectively with problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Many researchers conclude that local, national and regional partnerships are also needed as an insurance policy against failures of governance at a global level.   The declaration supports some of the ideas that are being promoted for inclusion in the Rio+20 agreement, to be finalised at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (20–22 June) in Brazil.   These include: the need to go beyond GDP (gross domestic product) by taking into account the value of natural capital when measuring progress; a framework for developing global sustainability goals; the creation of a UN Sustainable Development Council to integrate social, economic and environmental policy at the global level; and the production of regular global sustainability analyses.   One key outcome of the meeting was agreement on the need to push forward a scheme to redirect global change science, so-called "Future Earth", which will pull together an wide variety of disciplines to answer questions that societies need to tackle.   Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, who attended the final day, praised the Future Earth initiative for being "unprecedented in its creativity".   Some delegates said that while the conference linked natural and social scientists, it was less successful in luring policymakers and business representatives. Carlos Nobre, of Brazil"s ministry of science, technology and innovation, talked of "the stark reality of anti-science political power … no matter how good we become as communicators we have to recognize it is very effective at blocking action".   Unless development patterns change, by 2030 humanity"s urban footprint will occupy an additional 1.5 million square kilometres - comparable to the combined territories of France, Germany and Spain.   UN estimates show the human population growing from 7 billion today to 9 billion by 2050, translating into some 1 million more people expected on average, each week for the next 38 years, with most of that increase anticipated in urban centres.   And ongoing migration from rural to urban living could see world cities receive yet another 1 billion additional people. Total forecast urban population in 2050: 6.3 billion (up from 3.5 billion today).   The question is not whether to urbanize but how, says Dr. Michail Fragkias of Arizona State University, one of nearly 3000 participants at the "Planet Under Pressure" Conference held in London, bringing together some 2,000 leading environmental and social scientists.   Unfortunately, today"s ongoing pattern of urban sprawl puts humanity at severe risk from ever increasing environmental problems.   Cities are responsible for 70% of CO2 emissions, highlighted Shobhakar Dhakal, Executive Director of the Tokyo-based Global Carbon Project. He says reforms in existing cities and better planning offer large environmental benefits.   "Re-engineering cities is urgently needed for global sustainability," says Dr. Dhakal.   Over 70% of CO2 emissions today relate to city needs. In billions of metric tonnes, urban-area CO2 emissions were estimated at about 15 in 1990 and 25 in 2010, with forecasts of growth to 36.5 by 2030, assuming business as usual.   Prof. Karen Seto of Yale University says, "the way cities have grown since World War II is neither socially or environmentally sustainable and the environmental cost of ongoing urban sprawl is too great to continue unchecked."   "People everywhere, have increasingly embraced Western styles of architecture and urbanization, which are resource-intense and often not adapted to local climates. The North American suburb has gone global, and car-dependent urban developments are more and more the norm."   How humanity urbanizes will define the decades ahead.   Dr. Fragkias from Arizona State University notes that while there were fewer than 20 cities of 1 million people or more a century ago, there are 450 today.   While urban areas cover less than five per cent of Earth"s land surface, "the enlarged urban footprint forecast is far more significant proportionally when vast uninhabitable polar, desert and mountain regions, the world breadbasket plains and other prime agricultural land and protected areas are subtracted from the calculation."   Julia Marton-Lefevre, director general of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, called for people living in democracies to work harder to wrest control of politics and politicians away from special interests.   “Many of us live in democracies where we elect the people who make decisions for us. Don’t elect the wrong ones, and push them to stick to their promises,” urged Marton-Lefevre.   Roberto Sánchez-Rodríguez, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Riverside says "we have the opportunity now to plan for a coming explosion of urbanization in order to decrease pressure on ecosystems, improve the livelihoods of billions of people and avoid the occurrence of major global environmental problems and disasters. That process cannot wait"   "But it is important to stress that differences exist in the urbanization process in high, low and middle-income countries and reflect them in our strategies. We need to move beyond traditional approaches to planning and be responsive to informal urban growth, to the value of ecosystem services, and to the need of multidimensional perspectives (social, economic, cultural, environmental, political, bio-physical).   Ultimately, the researchers say, solutions include such considerations as:- Planning and investments in public infrastructure that encourage transit and accessibility. Better land-use zoning and building standards that increase efficiency and multiple uses. Reversing the trend to ever larger homes. Ending subsidies that promote low density development and discourage compact development, or favour cars at the expense of public transit. Improving the quality of inner city schools and addressing other growing urban challenges.   Important pressing challenges include ever growing income inequality, segregation and social polarization, crime rates and heightened health threats.   Professor Sybil Seitzinger, Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says "a truly sustainable planet will require cities to think beyond city limits. Everything being brought into the city from outside: food, water, products and energy need to be sourced sustainably. We need to rethink the resource flow to cities."   Dr. Mark Stafford Smith, Planet Under Pressure co-chair says "much of the planet"s future is tied up in interconnected issues - climate change and city design, city resource demands and impacts on rural areas, rural food and water productivity and the ability of cities to continue functioning. The deep intensity of interconnectedness of these issues requires an integrated approach, tackling challenges together rather than each individually, one at a time."   Addressing climate change calls for a greater focus on urban efficiencies, such as using weather conditions and time of day-adjusted toll systems to reduce traffic congestion, for example. Congestion worldwide costs economies up to 3% of GDP for example- a problem that not only wastes fuel and causes pollution, but time - an estimated 4.2 billion hours in the USA alone in 2005. Estimated cost of New York City"s congestion alone is US$4 billion a year in lost productivity.   Emerging urban areas "also have a latecomer"s advantage in terms of knowledge, sustainability thinking, and technology to better manage such fundamentals as pollution and transportation", highlighted delegates. In developed urban areas an "Internet of things" is emerging - a fast-growing number of high-tech, artificially intelligent, internet-connected cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines and more - in total about one trillion in use worldwide today.   Future potential high-tech opportunities to improve the efficiency of urban operations and human health and well-being could include:- more rapid patient screening and diagnostics with digitalised health records; utility meters and sensors that monitor the capacity of the power generation network and continually gather data on supply and demand of electricity; integrated traveller information services based on traffic, weather and other data; data gathering and feedback from citizens using mobile phones; and many other potential applications.   "Our focus should be on enhancing the quality of urbanization - from urban space, infrastructure, form and function, to lifestyle, energy choices and efficiency," said Dr. Dhakal.   Care is needed, he adds, to avoid the potential problems of dense urbanization, including congestion, pollution, greater crime, the rapid spread of infectious disease and other societal problems.   * Future Earth is a new 10-year international research initiative that will develop the knowledge for responding effectively to the risks and opportunities of global environmental change and for supporting transformation towards global sustainability in the coming decades. Future Earth will mobilize thousands of scientists while strengthening partnerships with policy-makers and other stakeholders to provide sustainability options and solutions in the wake of Rio+20. See: http://www.icsu.org/future-earth Visit the related web page
	Banding together to meet the challenges of urban poverty by Celine d’Cruz and Sheela Patel Slum Dwellers International India   February 2012   One of the more promising developments in the effort to reduce urban poverty is the emergence of networks of grassroots groups in which women play a prominent role as agents of positive change in their communities and around the world.   We have had the privilege of working with one such network – Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) – since its inception in 1996. There are similar networks of street vendors, home-based workers and waste pickers.   We believe that unless we band together, the challenges of urban poverty will not be addressed. By joining forces and pooling our knowledge, experience and creative solutions, we can achieve action on a meaningful scale.   So it is that slum dwellers in such cities as Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda, are consulting counterparts in Mumbai, India, who persuaded government, railway authorities and international development lenders to relocate some 20,000 households as part of an effort to update the rail system.   Ultimately, the Mumbai slum residents were able to design their own resettlement, moving from locations where many children had been killed by trains passing a mere 9 metres from homes.   SDI has hundreds of thousands of federated members in cities spread across 34 countries.   They work for decent housing and infrastructure, usually seeking to collaborate with local government. This takes years of organizing, mobilizing and building relationships.   It begins when women form collectives to pool savings and make loans to one another so they can put food on the table, buy medicines, get transport to find jobs and pay for children’s education. In time, they examine their environs and identify what they need.   At the top of the list of needs is security of tenure. Children need a decent place to live, places to play and neighbourhoods in which they feel safe. They need clean water and toilet solutions that do not force two-year-olds to stand in line or expose adolescent girls to harassment. Security of tenure makes it easier to fulfil these needs.   It also frees children from the stress and lost opportunities that come with the ever-present threat of being forcibly evicted or having their homes demolished. Insecurity of tenure means that women and children must work near their dwellings so they are close at hand in case of eviction.   Children serve as ‘road runners’, warning parents and neighbours when a demolition squad has been sighted; as their homes are destroyed, they scramble to protect whatever they can from being taken by the police. Living in constant fear of eviction erodes whatever resources a family has.   But when secure tenure is negotiated, children start going to school, and parents feel more confident about investing in proper shelter.   Here, too, the experience of grassroots networks is instructive. An essential element of SDI’s work is making what was invisible hard to ignore. Cities often have no data recording the presence of people living ‘illegally’ on pavements, under bridges and on waste land. These residents are not counted in the census; they are excluded from voting lists; and their children’s births are not recorded.   But when their presence is documented through settlement profiles and family identification papers, it becomes clear that they are gainfully employed, contribute to the city’s economy and are worthy of citizenship.   Because such documentation also identifies the children in each household, it becomes possible to determine how many need immunization and schooling, how many work and what kind of work they do. In addition to being our basic organizing tool, this process of enumeration enables negotiation for tenure and service provision. The process yields another benefit for children – seeing parents, especially their mothers, negotiate collectively to improve lives and surroundings is a vital part of children’s socialization.   Clearly, these networks cannot solve the problems of all children. But they are important allies in the endeavour to safeguard child rights, and they undertake critical foundational work to make children’s homes and neighbourhoods safe and secure.   They can bridge the gap between the formal urban development world and poor urban communities, promoting solutions that work for their members. We know from our work that poor communities are fed up with others setting development priorities for them. True alliances and partnerships mean making choices together.   (Sheela Patel chairs the board of Slum Dwellers International (SDI). Celine d’Cruz is the coordinator of SDI. She has worked for the rights of pavement and slum dwellers in India since the early 1980s, helping impoverished women in Mumbai bargain collectively to bring housing, education and health services to their families). Visit the related web page
	View more stories