Cities and COP21: For climate optimism look to urban innovation
As two weeks of climate talks kick off in Paris, world leaders are looking to avoid the failures of the 2009 Copenhagen summit. The futility of that round of negotiations has been attributed to its top-down approach—with CO emissions reductions pushed down to unwilling countries, ultimately scuttling a binding agreement.
Still, the past seven years have seen progress. Specifically, as a recent status report from the C40 network makes clear, cities have been key actors in advancing policies targeted at climate change mitigation. This should be no surprise, considering major global cities are forecast to be most impacted by rising global temperatures. It’s promising then that this year’s summit begins amid an increased recognition of the role of cities, and of the public, private, and civic networks that exist within them.
Copenhagen succeeded in revealing this groundswell of climate action despite the lack of binding emissions targets. With last year’s formation of the Compact of Mayors—now comprised of 165 cities with 234 million residents—the U.N. signaled the importance of cities in delivering sustainable policy. In advance of this month’s summit, 10 member cities, representing 58 million people and $3 trillion in GDP, released climate action plans that serve as models for this delivery, including commitments to deep emissions reductions, requirements for data collection and transparency, and mandatory annual reporting. In the United States, cities are delivering an all-of-the-above approach—everything from the Washington, D.C. water authority’s large-scale investment in a waste-to-energy project, to New York City’s retrofit accelerator project aimed at reducing the environmental impact of large buildings, to Portland’s recent recommitment to an urban growth boundary that promotes density over sprawl even as the region is forecast to grow by 400,000 residents over the next 20 years.
Yet cities must do more than rethink their built environment or enact more efficient transportation policies. To meet needed emissions reductions will require better technology than is available today. This is why this week’s announcement of Mission Innovation, a climate research plan led by Bill Gates, is so promising. Twenty countries around the world, including the United States and China, have all committed to doubling R&D investments in clean technology over the next five years. In parallel, a group of private investors including Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, committed to backstopping investments in these countries with additional capital, and funding high-risk, early-stage energy innovation projects that can pave the way to deep CO emissions reduction.
But invention does not happen evenly across the world and these innovations will overwhelmingly be designed and deployed in a few leading edge cities. Brookings researchhas found that, like many R&D-intensive industries, clean energy research is highly concentrated: 39 of the 58 highest-impact U.S. clean-tech firms are headquartered in just four metro areas characterized by vibrant clean economy clusters: Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles. The success of these firms can be attributed to the mix of major research assets, such as MIT, Caltech, or the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, with an entrepreneurial culture and state regulatory environments in California and Massachusetts that incentivize clean technology research.
But even beyond these clusters, U.S. cities are pursuing climate innovation and experimentation. Examples include Chattanooga’s city-wide fiber network that could make it a leader in smart grid technology; Milwaukee’s Water Council project which brings together public, private, and academic sectors to advance water efficiency; or Pittsburgh’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon, which has already spun off a promising new battery technology company, Aquion Energy.
The challenges presented by climate change demand this type of approach, combining macro policy making, institutional investment, and metro problem solving. National governments and supranational institutions must aggressively mobilize political will and international regulations toward mitigating the risks—through actions such as eliminating fossil fuel subsidies or adopting carbon pricing. But the impact of those actions will require an equal measure of concrete innovations in technology and policy that will be designed, financed, and delivered by networks of public, private and civic leaders at the local level.
[This post originally appeared on the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program's blog The Avenue on December 3, 2015]
0wner,
8 年this is the idea to control climate change, Cliff, Gustavo. warming is a scam, should this prevent us from helping are environment and the environment of sea/plant life in anyway we can for future generations of are children etc. etc. If they say their is global warming well let them say it as we have a solution to clean what it is they say is dirty and not on their terms=higher tax this device is much more efficient and cost only what it cost to build. The fact is large proportions' of land is being taken over to build wind turbine, sola panels which will come with tax's. I have shared my idea with all of you, just to get it in to the public eye i am not trying to benefit in anyway. hopefully you will see that it is a way forward, As wind turbines need wind to operate. Sola panels need the sun to function and both are accumulating mass amounts of space. My idea needs neither wind or sun and is able to work 24h 7days a week constantly. regenerating/producing electricity day and night feeding its self constant. please read it and give me your sceptic view on the matter. global warming, control climate temperature; Imagine a cylinder pipe connected at one end with a fan, the type to simulate/produce Gail force wind. This could be used to pull the hot air from a mile above sea level throw separate compartments where filters would collect all the appropriate gas's, further pushing it down the pipe 2/3 mile below sea. The air then escapes to the top where it is released back in to the atmosphere cleaned and cooled.as the bubble are resurfacing they would first be guided to underwater spoon like turbines that would regenerate/produce electricity. This would bring life back to dead zones in major city's across the world by oxidizing the water on a mass. Also cooling the atmosphere, cleaning are air benefiting sea/ocean plant life its environment, are environment as well as being able to produce/regenerate electricity constantly. "No wind needed and no sun as both". Both of Theas are not 24h ,7d days a week where this would be constant, no oil needed either. Basic element's run it. "wind blows air down the pipe" water then cools the air in the pipe, air then escapes races to the top turning turbines that produce/regenerate, the sun/heat then lifts it back into are atmosphere where it would start again. And NOT TO FORGET forget the gas's have already been taken away before the air even reaching sea level velocity/speed cools the air down also be-for reaching the sea. The velocity would decrease the presser so that the pipe didn't claps with presser. it would be far cheaper for us all in the end, this is cheap to build, no need to buy as I have put my idea out in the publics eye it free and its in front of you, just build and make it work for all the benefits that it supplies. practical fusion energy= constant form of energy that survives by means of feeding it's self a bit like the sun one big round cycle of burning and feeding to survive constant form of energy. adjustments can be made.ie death, width, length, and velocity via fan to simulate Gail force. But obviously the deeper you are able to take the pipe the more we would benefit by means of more regenerating turbines. please excuse my grammar as it is due to my dyslexia.
Experienced Program/Project Manager and ScrumMaster
8 年This is all politically driven nonsense. We have about 100 years of questionable data on a climate that has been around for a purported 4.5 billion years. The level of arrogance it takes to draw any conclusion from such an infinitesimally small data set is staggering! Any REAL scientist should be appalled. The climate is changing, no doubt about it, but we don't have a clue how to control it. Even if we did, who gets do decide what it should be? The only known in all of this, that has been proven time and time again, is that every time we think we understand nature and try and mess with it, it ends badly.
Sales Manager at Electro Assemblies a manufacturer of custom wound magnetic component parts, for companies of all sizes.
8 年WW III is about to break-out & these idiots are wasting time, on global warming. Government needs to stay out because supply & demand will take care of it.
0wner,
8 年I THOUGHT THIS TO BE THA GOOD I REPEATED IT Maybe climate warming is a scam, should this prevent us from helping are environment and the environment of sea/plant life in anyway we can for future generations of are children etc. etc. If they say their is global warming well let them say it as we have a solution to clean what it is they say is dirty and not on their terms. this device is much more efficient and cost only what it cost to build The fact is large proportions' of land is being taken over to build wind turbine, sola panels which will come with tax's. I have shared my idea with all of you, just to get it in to the public eye i am not trying to benefit in anyway. hopefully you will see that it is a way forward, As wind turbines need wind to operate. Sola panels need the sun to function and both are accumulating mass amounts of space. My idea needs neither wind or sun and is able to work 24h 7days a week constantly. regenerating/producing electricity day and night. please read it and give me your sceptic view on the matter. global warming, control climate temperature; Imagine a cylinder pipe connected at one end with a fan, the type to simulate/produce Gail force wind. This could be used to pull the hot air from a mile above sea level throw separate compartments where filters would collect all the appropriate gas's, further pushing it down the pipe 2/3 mile below sea. The air then escapes to the top where it is released back in to the atmosphere cleaned and cooled.as the bubble are resurfacing they would first be guided to underwater spoon like turbines that would regenerate/produce electricity. This would bring life back to dead zones in major city's across the world by oxidizing the water on a mass. Also cooling the atmosphere, cleaning are air benefiting sea/ocean plant life its environment, are environment as well as being able to produce/regenerate electricity constantly. "no wind needed and no sun as both". Both of Theas are not 24h ,7d days a week where this would be constant, no oil needed either. Basic element's run it. "wind blows air down the pipe" water then cools the air in the pipe, air then escapes races to the top turning turbines that produce/regenerate, the sun/heat then lifts it back into are atmosphere where it would start again. And NOT TO FORGET forget the gas's have already been taken away before the air even reaching sea level velocity/speed cools the air down also be-for reaching the sea. the velocity would decrease the presser so that the pipe didn't claps with presser. it would be far cheaper for us all in the end, this is cheap to build, no need to buy as I have put my idea out in the publics eye it free and its in front of you, just build and make it work for all the benefits that it supplies. practical fusion energy. adjustments can be made.ie death, width, length, and velocity via fan to simulate Gail force wind