Globalization and the City: The Kind of Problem a City is…? #2 ClimateChange, Strategic Infrastructures And WasteManagement

The 21st century is the Century of massive Urbanization, of the rise of Megacities and of the apotheosis of Urban sprawl.
Which are the consequences of this change at the global and local scale?
Are we making all is in our possibilities to plan, design and build more liveable Cities?
Can we address the new challenges acting as in the past?
Which are the lessons learned so far?
Which actions must be taken and promoted immediately?

Trying to answer from an Urban Planning Scholar and Practitioner point of view I'll try to focus on the essence of the problem: Cities are #ComplexAdaptiveSystems shaped by deep interconnected process from the local to the global level and vice versa and at the same time Cities are home for over 50% of the entire world population.

#ComplexAdaptiveSystems (Holland, 1996) is a way for describe urban systems as constituted by an internal and external environment communicating through an interface: the systems exchange continually information (data, energy, food) with their external environment through multiple interfaces and thanks to their internal processes, are able to reproduce themselves (autopoiesis) and to elaborate, through the mediation of the same interface, the stimulus from the external environment, taking benefits and without changing qualitatively its internal structures (resilience). #ComplexAdaptiveSystems are structured like "collective networks" of "reflective actors" in order to face "organized complexity": actors involved into a complex adaptive system show an individual behaviour that can be related to the collective behaviour.

Cities can be defined also as problems of organized complexity (Jacobs, 1961) and they are the physical and human direct interface for multiple input and output processes (many would call it economy…). A direct observation of the real situation of Metro areas and Megacities all over the world tells us we're not making all is in our possibilities to plan, design and build more liveable Cities.

The whole cities supply-chain, primarily Food and Energy production, is governed by a market model that produced in the last five decades the greatest and widest-ranging of human failures ever seen: the connection between #MassiveGlobalPollution at all levels (air, high atmosphere, soil, fresh waters, oceans) and #ClimateChange, as the direct consequence, is heading, both on a local and a global scale, to a new and dangerous level we've never seen.

This is why we can't address these new challenges acting as in the past.

This is why these two main disruptive phenomena must become the major drivers for the next generation of #UrbanPlanningAndDesign and #UrbanManagement based on an #Adaptation principle.

Governments are on the way and, as broadly known, the objective of the main international treaty on climate change called United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the climate system".

The current level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is 430ppm CO2e. Before the industrial revolution this level was 280 parts per million (ppm) CO2 equivalent (CO2e) and it's broadly accepted that it should be limited to 450-550ppm CO2 to prevent the tipping point, that is that one dramatic moment, well known in both Physics and Social Sciences when everything can change all at once and with unpredictable manners.

The network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change and to deliver the ambition of the Paris Agreement, through 2020 and beyond, called C40, held its biennial summit in 2016 in Mexico City. The final document, a 100-page report, entitled "Deadline 2020", clearly outlines that the next 4 years will determine whether or not the world’s megacities can deliver their part of the ambition of the Paris Agreement and that without action by cities the Paris Agreement cannot realistically be delivered.

Source: C40 final report "Deadline 2020"

The ambitious goal of C40 network is to bend the emissions by 2020 to a further 5% higher than current emissions from an estimated increase of 35%.

This needs that the average per capita emissions across C40 cities drops by 2030 to around 2.9 tCO2e per capita from over 5 tCO2e per capita we have today.

Which is very interesting is that the report states the following: first, that if those actions were adopted by cities globally the combined action within urban areas would deliver around 40% of the savings needed to achieve the ambition of the Paris Agreement; second and finally, waste management is recognized as one of the 5 key paths towards substantial reduction of GHGs considering that whether waste management improvements or the shift towards the circular economy are more likely and achievable comparing to other activities (like changing the buildings CO2 footprint) that require decades to be prepared and implemented.

This is the main discussion today.

But it's not all what we've learned so far.

#ComplexAdaptiveSystems does not work in a linear way but with multiple nonlinear paths that are almost unpredictable. Models doesn't explain everything nor can be considered strictly predictive.

Scientific models, even those super sophisticated, have deeply underestimated the complex interconnections among all the natural and artificial components.
Models can suggest just a bunch of possible solutions. And we have to pick those that give us the highest level of security in the sake of survival of the ecosystems.

That's why is reasonable to think that the milestone of 2050 in terms of climate change effects is more likely to anticipate on 2030 or at worst at 2020.

What we know, according to the data available, is that this process is going ahead by almost 50 years at this pace and even if we'll get the goal of UNFCCC the sea-level rise and increasing temperatures is a fact.

The train is on its way and those actions are not sufficient to take it to the station. Temperature will rise the same but is key to stay within a 1.5F degree temperature to avoid an excessive sea-level rise.

Thanks to NOAA and NASA analyses now we know that 2016 was the hottest year on record globally. The calculations between the two agencies differ only slightly, but both agencies’ calculations show the same warming trends.

NOAA’s calculation shows the globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces was 0.94°C (1.69°F) above the 20th century average. NASA indicated a temperature of 1.01°C (1.82°F)above that average.

Source: http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/2016-was-the-hottest-year-on-record

Yet if most of us are not aware, the ice in the Arctic affects the entire planet because it regulates global temperature. Because there it's getting warmer the entire world weather system is changing and in a dramatic spiral the Arctic sea ice is shrinking and again the global climate is changing dramatically. This process puts in direct danger local populations and wildlife together with us all. In terms of the Science of Complexity we are witnessing the worst and dangerous self-positive reinforcing process in our history.

Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center

That's happening due to an increasing of CO2 levels in atmosphere where we have unusually high air temperatures and consequence higher-than-usual sea surface temperatures. That's why

this year the Arctic sea ice has retreated earlier than normal and the sea started to absorb sun heat before than expected. The sea is stocking sun energy more than in the past and when sea ice should be forming, at the start of the season, the water is still too warm. Sea unusually too warm means also air temperatures unusually high over most of the Arctic Ocean. This process is self-reproducing and self-sustaining over the years

Source: ClimateReanalyzer.org

Because of global warming many coastal areas are today at risk of flooding, and more and more people are at risk of having to leave their homes, becoming in effect climate migrants. In the United States there are about 25 million inhabitants living in areas vulnerable to flooding, while in Europe a third of the population lives within 50 kilometers from the coast.

In 2013 IPCC data is expected a global sea level rise that varies from a minimum of 53 cm to a maximum of 97 by 2100, depending on the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even if it were to be achieved the goal of significantly reducing emissions, as required by the Paris Conference of 2015, the level should also rise at a slightly lower rate, between 28 and 60 centimetres.

Different studies explains that even in case of extreme reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, large tracts of our coasts will be submerged by the end of the century.

Cagliari is a the major city of Sardinia Island (Italy) and is placed in the south coast.

Two scientific studies, one from the USA (2007) and one from Italy (2017) accordingly predict

a significative ingression of the sea in all the coastal area affecting entire housing districts and the industrial area on national interest of Macchiareddu.

Source: F. Antonioli et al. / Quaternary Science Reviews 158 (2017)	Source: Benjamin H. Strauss,  13508–13513, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1511186112 vol. 112 no. 44 (climatecentral.org)

Cagliari Metropolitan Area. Sea level at 2100.

Source: Benjamin H. Strauss,  13508–13513, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1511186112 vol. 112 no. 44 (climatecentral.org)

In October 2016, the Mayor of Cagliari, Massimo Zedda, showed to the City Council his Programmatic Statements (http://consiglio.comune.cagliari.it/portale/protected/cms/documents/ufficio_stampa/805c322bc1439f61ede1f5472a14bcba.pdf) for the 2016/2021 mandate. In this document climate change is evocated at pag. 34 as follows:

"Adapting to climate change is a need that can't be no longer delayed and we intend to implement the activities appointing Scenario studies to the offices depending on which design emergency planning and proper risk management also by using additional technological tools for detection of weather conditions and improve communication to citizens."

But at the same time in chapter 2.6 entitled "Urban Planning and territorial setting" not a word was spent to explain how to decline the climate change aspect in #UrbanPlanningAndDesign and #UrbanManagement based on an #Adaptation principle.

Then, in January 21, 2017, the City of Cagliari and its surroundings, experienced a southerly warm wind storm whose severity was pretty unknown for the effects on the natural and built environment. At one point warm winds clashed with easterly cold air in the sea in front of the city forming a tornado that threatened the petrochemical industry of Sarroch and finally heated a big gas tanker at the anchor in the bay.

In the news, Public Institutions and politicians fighted each other speaking of nonsenses, lacking the evidence of what really happened.

21.01.2017 Poetto's beach, Cagliari, Italy, submerged during the Violent Storm

 21.01.2017 Poetto's promenade, Cagliari, Italy, submerged during the Violent Storm

21.01.2017 Poetto's promenade, Cagliari, Italy, submerged during the Violent Storm

21.01.2017 Poetto's District, Cagliari, Italy, submerged during the Violent Storm

21.01.2017 The SS195, Cagliari, Italy, submerged by the sea and marine debris

21.01.2017 The "Rumianca" Pipeline during the violent storm and the tornado in background

Either in Cagliari or all over the world a consistent stock of buildings and infrastructures as roadways, railways, pipelines and dumpsites are built in the coastal buffer and will be subjected to floods in the next future. All of those buildings and infrastructures are not designed to work in salt water conditions and most of them are going to be out of service in just few years or just in few months.

And, what if in the next future the major number of industrial sites, uncontrolled or controlled break-ship yards, and #Dumpsites, even if sanitized, located in coastal areas will be flooded reversing large quantities of pollutant in the seas, summing its effect to the marine litter and plastic pollution just valued today as an average of 2 kg per square kilometer of sea water?

Source: ISWA

The world is on the edge. 

We can't permit that this scenario will become reality.
But we have it under our noses. The signs are everywhere.

Thousand miles away from Cagliari, Philip Stoddard a scientist, professor of biology at Florida International University, and politician, having won two successive elections to be mayor of South Miami, in an interview to the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-change-deniers-sea-levels-rising>), stated as follows:

 "Another foot of sea-level rise will be enough to bring salt water into our fresh water supplies and our sewage system. Those services will be lost when that happens […] You won't be able to flush away your sewage and taps will no longer provide homes with fresh water. Then you will find you will no longer be able to get flood insurance for your home. Land and property values will plummet and people will start to leave. Places like South Miami will no longer be able to raise enough taxes to run our neighbourhoods. Where will we find the money to fund police to protect us or fire services to tackle house fires? Will there even be enough water pressure for their fire hoses? It takes us into all sorts of post-apocalyptic scenarios. And that is only with a one-foot sea-level rise. It makes one thing clear though: mayhem is coming."

If not sufficient in the same article Harold R. Wanless, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami backed the point:

"Every day we continue to pump uncontrolled amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, we strengthen the monster that is going to consume us. We are heating up the atmosphere and then we are heating up the oceans so that they expand and rise. There doesn't look as if anything is going to stop that. People are starting to plan in Miami but really they just don't see where it is all going […] It is over for south Florida. It is as simple as that. Nor is it on its own. […] "The next two or three feet of sea-level rise that we get will do away with just about every barrier island we have across the planet. Then, when rises get to four-to-six feet, all the world's great river deltas will disappear and with them the great stretches of agricultural land that surrounds them. People still have their heads in the sand about this but it is coming. Miami is just the start. It is worth watching just for that reason alone. It is a major US city and it is going to let itself drown."

This is why the time for acting an #UrbanTransVergence* for a #WasteLessFuture** has come and we have #NoTimeToLoose.
Those above aren't neither simple keyword nor slogans but deep concepts and a call to action.
We must act cutting carbon emissions but at the same time we need a global disaster mitigation strategy for preserving life and urban culture heritage. Yet, where it is possible.
So we must to plan and design Urban systems under new perspectives according to the fact that they are #ComplexAdaptiveSystems.

So all Countries, and primarily all South East Asia, with Cina in first place, USA and Europe must take and promote immediately at three parallel main actions starting the job from coastal #MetropolitanAreas and #MegaCities:

• First, a rapid implementation (5 years) of a systemic approach based on a massive recourse on #RenewableEnergies and #CircularEconomy; that's why is mandatory to reverse the dominant paradigm of production and growth based on fossil fuels, that from western Countries have spreaded and is spreading all over the world, and that sees poor Countries located in Africa and Asia as uncontrolled low cost dumpsites;
• Second, in the next 5 years, join the ISWA global campaign for closing the world’s biggest dumpsites (http://wastelessfuture.com/news/join-iswa-for-closing-the-worlds-most-polluted-places/) and at the same time, in order to prevent lisciviation of percolate in water, get secured or remove other dumpsites even if sanitized but affected by future flooding;
• Third, a 30 years program based on the relocation of urban population and strategic public building and industrial sites and preserving urban cultural Heritage.

It's a matter of life and justice, because it's all about people, poor people in first place, and about nature.
As many would say that it's also a matter of money.
And as we can see in the case of Miami and all the State of Florida, also the rich and wealthy western world is starting to crying.

Not acting or making it out of time means that we have to get prepared to an escalation of damages and losses without precedents.

Just 10 years ago Nicholas Stern (permanent secretary at the Treasury in Great Britain) published his landmark review (www.sternreview.org.uk) of the impact of climate change. It was quickly recognised as the definitive account of the economic dangers posed to the planet by global warming. In his report he stated that what we do now can have only a limited effect on the climate over the next 40 or 50 years, but what we do in the next 10-20 years can have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.

According with Stern these are the numbers:

• each tonne of CO2 we emit causes damages worth at least $85 
• emissions can be cut at a cost of less than $25 a tonne. 
• shifting the world onto a low-carbon path could eventually benefit the economy by $2.5 trillion a year; 
• the cost of reducing emissions could be limited to around 1% of global GDP; 
• people could be charged more for carbon-intensive goods (Carbon Tax); 
• unabated climate change could cost the world at least 5% of GDP each year 
• if more dramatic predictions come to pass, the cost could be more than 20% of GDP. 
• By 2050, markets for low-carbon technologies could be worth at least $500bn. 

But what about the impact of drought and flooding on food production and resulting potential global famine? This would mean an increasing of migrations more stronger than those we're facing all over the world caused either from classic economic disparities and wars.

It's not easy but it's time for acting an #UrbanTransVergence for a #WasteLessFuture.
#NoTimeToLoose.

* #WasteLessFuture (wastelessfuture.com) is the Vision of Antonis Mavropoulos (@amavrop) based on the assumption that it's all about people, not waste. Antonis is creating a global network of thinkers with a vision for the future that is resourceful, equitable, and primed for change. This post was previously published on Antonis' blog. Visit wastelessfuture.com for more insights and to discovers Antonis' vision.