SPECIAL FEATURE
City solutions to climate change are taking center- stage as metropoles around the world keep growing By Başak Pamir, OPEC Fund
“ BaşakPamir,OPECFund URBAN
AIR
SETS YOU FREE (BUT IT NEEDS FILTERS) ”
F or the third time in five years the Economist Intelligence Unit, a
sister company of The Economist , has ranked Vienna, the host city of the OPEC Fund for International Development, as no 1 in the world for quality of life. What makes a city livable? The Economist says it is “stability and good infrastructure, supported by good health care and plenty of opportunities for culture and entertainment”. Today, the discussion about cities and urban planning is greatly focusing on sustainability, rebuilding and preparing ourselves for the increasingly unpredictable future, and turning them from major contributors to climate change to forces for good. While just over half of the world’s population is urban today, more than two-thirds will live in cities by 2050. Simultaneously, cities are responsible for 75 percent of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors, the United Nations Environment Programme says. But despite all challenges and problems cities are facing, and especially mega cities in the Global South, the trend towards urbanization continues unabated: Today, there are more than 80 cities in the world with a population over five million, compared to only one at the beginning of the 20 th century. Cities generate more than 80 percent of global GDP, but they also consume two-thirds of the world’s energy. The onset of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 temporarily eroded the appeal of large metropoles as the pandemic
ruthlessly exposed shortcomings and unpreparedness. Residents, who were able to do so, fled metropolitan areas in search of more space, affordable housing and greener, cleaner environments. However, according to economists at UBS,
the heart of what cities stand for. With novels like “A Tale of Two Cities” Charles Dickens became their ultimate chronicler in the 19 th century. But today pollution and climate change are threatening the very foundations on which cities are built: Air pollution causes 1.8 million deaths in cities worldwide every year, two studies published last year by the medical journal The Lancet Planetary Health estimated. In addition, nearly two million asthma cases among children globally are linked with exposure to nitrogen dioxide pollution from motor vehicle emissions annually, with two in three occurring in urban areas, the data showed. Meanwhile, heatwaves are making cities barely inhabitable even in the northern hemisphere. The COP21 climate conference in Paris in December 2015 took the conversation about cities to the center- stage and lead to the adaptation on the New Urban Agenda and the UN Habitat III Summit the following year. These developments sharpened the
a Swiss bank, this trend is reversing and cities are bouncing back. The UN Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022: Envisaging the Future of Cities (above) verifies that as well. A key finding of the report suggests that “cities are here to stay, and the future of humanity is undoubtedly urban”. In the middle ages, a principle of law was widely established in Europe that granted liberated serfs and other members of the Third Estate freedom after one year and one day living in cities. The dictum “Stadtluft macht frei” (“urban air sets you free”) provided that after this period a former serf could no longer be reclaimed by his employer and thus became bound to the city. Serfs could flee the feudal lands and gain freedom in this way, making cities a territory outside the feudal system to a certain extent. This spirit of freedom, opportunity and development has always been at
focus on partnerships and collaboration across global and local institutions to offer support for cities to become problem-solvers for a better quality of life for citizens.
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