Urban Resilience

Flooding in Quezon City

This week’s horrifying news of the flooding that has inundated the Quezon City area of Manila brings to the fore the increasingly relevant discussion of how best to prepare urban areas for changing climates. By the year 2050, 70% of the Earth’s inhabitants will live in cities, up from 50% today. Much of this growth will occur in Asian cities that already struggle with overpopulation, poor sanitation and access to clean water. If the unique hazards of climate change are to be successfully mitigated, a frank conversation is needed about how to make urban areas adaptable and resilient.

A constellation of studies has shown that urban centers in low and middle income nations are particularly vulnerable to the sort of periodic, high-intensity disasters commonly associated with climate change. The effects of flooding, sea level rise, cyclonic storms, landslide and heat waves are concentrated: “a large and growing proportion of these deaths are in these nations’ urban areas,” a UN Secretariat report notes. Indeed, a 2009 primer from the World Bank’s Climate Resilient Cities program highlighted the specific danger of “widespread flooding” to Makati City, another low-lying area of Manila.

GIS maps, such as this one of the Mekong Delta, can facilitate urban disaster preparedness

That climate change will potentiate the growing health, economic and social crises of urbanization is well established. Less so is how to tackle the problem of resilience; as the UN report notes, local governments are often ill-equipped to prepare for events such as cataclysmic flooding. One promising approach, introduced by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, involves a multi-phased approach. Utilizing partner groups at the city, regional and national level, ACCCRN calls first for city selection based on risk and capacity, followed by urban-level vulnerability assessments and a resilience action plan. The final step – implementation – is monitored and adapted on an ongoing basis and successes tagged for replication.

Building on the knowledge that each city faces unique challenges and has unique capabilities, the goal, in the World Bank’s words, of building, “compact, efficient, and walkable cities” that minimize risk must be a top priority for climate change policymakers and planners alike.

Beyond the Hotspot – What Vietnam Can Teach Us About Biodiversity

Central Annamites Mountains, courtesy of Indochina Legend

Biodiversity hotspots, according to Conservation International, are, “the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on earth.” These islands of natural abundance cover less than 3% of the Earth’s surface yet host a stunning array of plant and animal life. Imperiled by the twin threats of habitat loss and climate change, hotspots may be ground zero for the jump in extinctions that is widely believed to be looming.  Amid the busy schedule of upcoming summits such as COP-15, the best hope for prioritizing the preservation of biodiversity may hinge upon adoption of a more pragmatic approach to negotiation.  Stressing the favorable impact of forested land on reducing temperatures and providing food and economic security to the broader community, may prove a more persuasive argument than preservation for the sake of exotic plant and animal life.

Vietnam provides an excellent example of how biodiversity preservation may be tied to the larger climate change and economic policy debates. A WWF Vietnam study has found that the Central Annamites forests in Vietnam have been steadily losing biodiversity as they are degraded by climate change and human encroachment. As forests recede, loss of biodiversity creates a cascade effect that ultimately harms local rice, soybean, fish and fruit harvests thereby reducing the food security of the surrounding communities. It is these considerations, and not the plight of comparatively obscure hotspot species that will be in negotiators’ minds as they sit down at Copenhagen. Combined with the assertion, made by scientists such as Nguyen Ninh in this study, that biodiversity may be a powerful mitigation tool, policymakers and environmentalists need to confront the reality that hotspots, which capture the imagination, may be less useful for climate progress than the forests and fields that drive the global economy.

COP 15 – Shifting Perceptions of Global Power

 

As the COP-15 meetings draw closer, some observers note that at the end of the day, measureable progress will hinge on the cooperation of two nations – China and the United States. The two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, these powerhouses will ultimately decide the extent of the forward progress made in Copenhagen. Regardless of how desirable it is for two countries to monopolize the debate to such an extent, it is clear that the situation is very much a double-edged sword for climate negotiators.

For long-time observers of the Sino-US relationship, the inability of the US to persuade China to adopt key policy concessions is another sign that the balance of power in Asia may be shifting.

Chinese negotiators are clear that they will enter the COP-15 negotiation with Chinese economic and development priorities at the forefront of their climate platform.

There is little doubt that a failure to compromise could jeopardize the outcomes of the Copenhagen meetings before they begin. UN climate secretary Yvo de Boer summed it up, “If these two countries don’t cooperate further, then we’re not going to get a result.” At the center of the dispute is the commitment level that developing nations must make in reducing GHG emissions, and China has consistently maintained that industrialized countries must shoulder the brunt of the reductions.

With China’s economy rebounding ahead of that of the U.S., growing trade imbalances between the two nations, and a continued need for the US to fund a domestic bailout scheme with borrowed foreign dollars, the negotiating power of the U.S. is arguably diminished.  The COP-15 negotiations may mark a significant change in the perception of the international community about where the seat of global economic power will reside going forward with the outcomes of the COP-15 bearing significance beyond the technical details of any agreement that is reached.  Outcomes will play an important role in reshaping perceptions of power and a “win” by China will signal a decrease in American influence across Asia.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern has expressed hope, however, that an “accommodation” can be reached with China.

Asia Society Fellow Simon Tay At the 2009 PSIGCC

Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Fellow Simon Tay indicated at the 2009 PISA Summer Institute on Global Climate Change that China may also be forced into action by the Obama administration. Tay pointed out that American recalcitrance can no longer be used as an excuse for inaction.  Indeed, the world is watching these two nations: are they boxers entering the ring for the ultimate prize of superpower status and regional dominance or will China and the US meet as equals with different national priorities but a shared vision of building a sustainable future and understanding of the mutual sacrifice needed to halt the consequences of climate change?