5th Urban Research Symposium: Cities and Climate Change, Responding to an Urgent Agenda June 28-30, 2009

Palais du Pharo, Marseille, France

2009/09/13

Lucinda Fairhurst – Adaptation to Climate Change Program Manager for the ICLEI Africa Secretariat – was invited by the IDRC/ CCAA to attend the 5th Urban Research Symposium: Cities and Climate Change, Responding to an Urgent Agenda. Lucinda Fairhurst attended all of the plenary and a number of selected side sessions that took place during the Symposium. The side sessions were selected according to their relevance to the project proposal that was submitted in response to the CCAA call in 2008. The project title is: ‘Sub-Saharan African Cities: A Five-City Network to Pioneer Climate Adaptation through Participatory Research and Local Action’.

The plenary session on ‘Cities and Climate Change in Public Policy’ gave a useful overview of the politics of climate change. This is an important issue for organisations which provide technical consulting to policy-makers. Andreas Kabb of the World Bank spoke about current knowledge of climate change and the current state of thinking, with reference to The World Development Report 2010, which is still up for review. Adaptation needs are highest in developing countries.

Even though Africa’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) is relatively minimal, the African continent is most vulnerable to the detrimental impacts of climate change given its dependence on rain-fed agriculture, widespread poverty and weak institutional capacity. Indeed, it has often been said that Africa is the ‘canary in the mine’ of climate change. At present, most of the emissions come from developed and middle/high income countries. Nonetheless, it is projected that the developing countries will be the ones that emit the most GHGs in future. This will certainly be the case if developing countries follow the same developmental path as did the developed countries, according to modernisation theories (preparation for take-off, take-off and industrialisation). Spurring concrete actions for mitigation and adaptation is difficult due to the inherent inertia in climate systems; in capital stock and built environment; and in institutional behaviour. There is considerable pressure on high income countries to act as leaders in the fight against climate change, and to provide more funds for adaptation in particular.

Michelle Pappalardo – from the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning – subsequently brought the debate back down to the local actors. It is within cities that most energy use and GHG emissions occur. Therefore, cities have the legal and practical responsibility to ‘green’ the provision of urban services. Public transport could be improved, personal vehicle use must be discouraged, and the development of renewable energy vehicles is to be fostered. There is also considerable scope for ‘greening’ the construction sector. Furthermore, cities often have to contend with a phenomenon of urban sprawl. Densification strategies should therefore be implemented and key economic services and infrastructures should be decentralised within the city, so as to reduce the vulnerability of service infrastructure (ie: electricity lines). The speaker also highlighted the issue of ageing populations and inequity between rich and poor sectors of the urban population as other variables influencing behaviours in reaction to climate change.

The parallel session entitled ‘Urban Planning, Design and Architecture: Helping Cities Become Resilient to Climate Effects’ contained some interesting highlights. The focus areas of the first two presentations were temperature related: Mitigating the urban heat island effect by urban design: forms and materials (Julien Bouyer, Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Nantes, France; Marjorie Musy, Yuan Huang, Khaled Athamena) and The worsening temperature increases in the urban environment of Sfax, Tunisia (Salem Dahech, University of Sfax, Tunisia). These are of particular interest considering that many cities in Africa are already witnessing the heat island, or heat trapping, effect as a result of the air circulation patterns. The insights gained from the first presentation were on the different methods to analyse and classify urban forms in terms of their climate efficiencies. The paper also provided a simulation tool that permits evaluating the impact outdoor urban environment have on buildings’ energy consumption.

The parallel session on ‘Urban Planning: Case Studies on Integrating Climate Change Concerns’ provided a case study of Cuenca, Spain (Vaggione, 2009), which identified viable, sustainable urban development strategies promoted by a small city in order to contribute both to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Special emphasis was given to strategies that drew linkages with local economic development and improved urban live-ability. Successful urban planning in cities will incorporate current and projected impacts associated with climate change in the decision-making processes of all city line functions and policies.

The parallel session on ‘Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Examples on the Vulnerability of Urban Poor’ emphasises stakeholder engagement and public participation. Notably, the case study of Embu, Kenya (Lenhart, 2009), addressed how social networks can activate local adaptations in impoverished communities – the existing social structure providing a platform to transmit climate knowledge. In such a case, the role of community financing is imperative, as it captures attention, secures a network structure and creates a sense of empowerment.

Within this session, the paper on ‘Climate change and migration in Nairobi’ by Cecilia Kinuthia-Njenga of UN-HABITAT, was of a particularly interesting. The study focused on environmental migration in Kenya. The main environmental reasons listed by interviewees were lack of rainfall or drought and floods. Climate change can lead to intra-state migration, often from rural to urban or peri-urban zones. Whether an influx of migrants results in conflicts or social cohesion depends on the local authorities’ response. Projects in Africa should bear this important issue in mind when devising adaptation strategies, notably by advocating capacity building within local authorities so they are better able to cope with increased demand and stress placed on their services and infrastructure.

The parallel session ‘Adaptation of Cities to Climate Change: Coastal Cities’ is directly relevant to coastal cities, which are under immediate threat from the climatic variable of sea-level rise. The World Bank study, on preparing for natural disasters in the coastal cities of North Africa (Bigio, 2009), identified the expected impacts of climate change; such as sea-level rise, coastal erosion and storm surges; urban flooding; and decreasing availability of water resources. Possible adaptation measures include climate-resilient urban planning, physical investments to protect or upgrade critical urban infrastructure and systems, as well as institutional preparedness and emergency plans.

The emphasis of this Symposium placed cities and urban environments as the key actors in the mitigation of climate risk. Given that the work of ICLEI AS focuses on providing guidance and counsel to local governmental authorities, Lucinda Fairhurst was able to input her expertise in the various discussion panels.

In conclusion, this Symposium, in partnership with esteemed organisations such as the IDRC, the World Bank, the OECD, and more specialised organizations, focused on urban planning; contributed to creating a forum for discussion and information-exchange on the cutting-edge of climate change research on adaptation and mitigation in urban environments.

Many thanks again to the IDRC/CCAA for providing the opportunity to attend this symposium. It was a great platform from which to establish the various African challenges in the Global context. Lucinda would also like to thank Henri Mathieu Lo and Francois Gasengayire for their interaction and taking the time to personally assist with her understanding of the IDRC/CCAA processes.