Climate Change

Insights from the Urban “Oscars”

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London It had all the trappings of a major awards ceremony; a “green carpet” (of actual grass), a scrum of paparazzi chasing the celebrities (in this case, the mayors) entering the building, a laser light show, and a striking (and heavy) trophy for the award winners.

The City Climate Leadership Awards held at the Siemens Crystal building in London on Thursday, September 4^th, brought together a “who’s who” of urban experts to recognize cities leading the way in urban climate change governance and performance. Sponsored by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Siemens, the ten award winners were:

Bogota’s Transmilenio bus rapid transit system
Copenhagen’s plan to make the entire city carbon neutral by 2025
Melbourne’s energy efficient buildings finance initiative
Mexico City’s ProAire program, which has dramatically improved local air quality
Munich’s 100% Green Power program
New York City’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience strategy
Rio de Janeiro’s Morar Carioca Urban Revitalization strategy
San Francisco’s Zero Waste program
Singapore’s Intelligent Transport system
Tokyo’s cap & trade scheme

Make a Wish If you could have just one wish, would you choose to solve climate change or energy poverty?

Resolving these two calamities is fundamental to the wellbeing of the planet and people. Climate change is caused mainly by the consumption of energy and the associated greenhouse gas emissions. Energy poverty is the lack of access to modern energy services. Helping 1.3 billion people access electricity and 2.6 billion people to have clean cooking facilities will greatly increase the world’s energy consumption and resulting GHG emissions. Spending money to mitigate climate change uses valuable resources that could more directly benefit the poor who have so little energy and such unhealthy cooking facilities. How do we address both energy poverty and climate change? This is as much an ethical dilemma as a technological challenge.