Urban Green Citichat 1 June 2007

CITICHAT 21/2007 - 1 June 2007


JoGreen?

Was interested to read some articles recently by Neal Peirce (Washington Post Writers Group), regarding Greening and Global Warming. In one of his articles Johannesburg is mentioned as being present at a “Large Cities Climate Summit of Mayors” held about two weeks ago in New York City. The dominant message from the Summit was evidently that cities may cover less than 1% of the earth’s surface but they generate 80% of the globe’s heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Whilst everyone looks to National Governments to take the lead (and probably the flack!) for legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the Climate Summit called on cities to lead the way. London Mayor Ken Livingstone was quoted as saying that “It’s in the cities that the battle to tackle climate change will be won or lost” whilst the Toronto Mayor, David Miller, said “Where national governments can’t or won’t lead, cities will”.



After dragging his heels for years, President George Bush has at last announced long term targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Up to now any national thrust to provide legislation on climate change appeared to have been blunted by American vested interests particularly in coal, oil and manufacturing. The Washington Post recently reported that a system of federal low-interest loans will be used to build new coal fired power plants to the tune of R245 billion over the next decade. Over that period they will completely negate all existing State and Federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! Interesting that these low-interest loans were introduced during the depression years to bring electricity to the “dark” areas of the States and are kept alive to this day by vested interests. One wonders if this is still going to be accommodated given the US President’s latest announcement.



So what can cities do?



Some of the initiatives mentioned at the Mayors Climate Summit ranged from developing more advanced biofuels to recycling more waste; setting high energy efficiency standards for new buildings, creating more parks and planting millions of trees. London’s congestion pricing system that has reduced the number of vehicles entering the core of the city was highlighted as a “traffic and pollution-cutting plan”. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg is planning to introduce a similar intervention in parts of Manhattan as part of his newly announced city ‘greenprint’ described as “the most aggressive change benchmarks on energy of any big city to date.”



Whilst planting thousands of trees is already underway in Soweto, two of the other initiatives mentioned at the Mayors Climate Summit, recycling more waste and creating more parks, were the subject of much discussion at our own Inner City Summit and are reflected in the Charter commitments as follows:



• By July 2008 the City will launch an Inner City recycling programme that will support small and medium sized enterprises operating in the Inner City to grow sustainable waste recycling businesses.



• By March 2008, the City of Johannesburg will, together with stakeholders, identify possible new spaces to contribute towards the desired outcome. In this plan it will:

– Explore the development of “Partnership Places”, to be co-designed and co-managed with communities. For example, the residents and management of the eKhaya precinct has identified three spaces that should be upgraded into landscaped public places, such places to be managed by the precinct;

– Following the Main Street model, explore the development of other “Partnership Places”, to be co-designed and co-managed with the private sector under an arrangement that guarantees public accessibility;

– Develop simplified procedures for lease agreements over public places re management & maintenance;

– Identify potential buildings to be released from the Better Buildings Programme or City of Johannesburg owned property that can be demolished to make way for public open space.

– Develop new public open space concepts that can feasibly be developed in the dense urban landscape of the Inner City. Special attention will be given to so-called pocket parks or tot-lots.



• As a major intervention the City will investigate the feasibility of constructing a linear, continuous public open space ‘spine’ from Yeoville Ridge, through Pullinger Kop, down along the End Street Park, across decking the railway line to the south of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and finally linking the new Park Station precinct with the original Park Station building in Newtown.



• Other key public open space interventions to be investigated by March 2008 include: Braamfontein Cemetery; a park at the base of the Hillbrow Tower; a major park east of the Supreme Court and West of Joe Slovo Drive to cater for the large number of conversions from office to residential currently underway; and public open space east of the Standard Bank Superblock.



Great stuff, but in retrospect I don’t think we tackled the issue of environmental sustainability enough in the Charter, although there is still time to include additional issues. I see the city of Pasadena, California, has also adopted an accountability approach on that city’s commitments which include a goal to become 20% more efficient over the next five years in regard to recycling, alternative energy, green building standards, open-space preservation, water and low-emission and no-emission vehicles. Now that’s a commitment! Las Vegas has recently adopted a BRT approach but using aerodynamic buses powered by diesel-electric engines. In Bangkok air pollution levels have been reduced dramatically despite an increase of 40% in numbers of vehicles over the past 10 years. This has been achieved by imposing stringent pollution controls on cars, raising taxes on two-stroke motorbikes and making all taxis run on (subsidised) liquefied natural gas. In 2002 the Supreme Court in Delhi ordered its buses to be converted to gas and Delhi’s air is now half as polluted as it was in 1994.



What about a commitment on our BRT project that the buses to be used will all be energy efficient; that all existing vehicles, particularly buses and taxis, will have to adhere to more stringent anti-pollution laws and that pollution control will be enforced? After all, the City’s vision with respect to the human and built environments as set out in Joburg 2030 provides plenty of scope.



“A human environment in which people’s work and residential environment is safe and healthy, the air and water is clean, noise is not invasive, sufficient opportunities for leisure exist and the organisation of the society promotes individual and community well-being in line with the Bill of Rights contained in the Constitution.”



A built environment which values and conserves its cultural and historical heritage, with buildings and open spaces which are aesthetically pleasing and designed using ecological principles (ie energy efficiency) and infrastructure which is equitably distributed and well maintained, rather than degraded.”



Buildings designed using ecological principles (ie energy efficiency) ? I don’t think we have seriously looked at how to promote this approach. US estimates put office buildings as using anything from 27 to 40 percent of that country’s energy supply. Since 2000, the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has provided a rating system for building projects that seek to lessen their environmental impact and conserve natural resources. Now, Los Angeles, amongst a growing number of US cities, requires all new projects to be LEED certified.



The big problem in cities, of course, is how to deal with decades of energy deficient buildings. Peirce provides the example of New York which has 950 000 buildings, the vast majority privately owned. “If those buildings could be more energy efficient, with new high-yield furnaces and air conditioners, insulation, better insulated doors and windows and more – the city would reduce its energy consumption, and thus its power demand and greenhouse gas emissions, by a stunning 16.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year”.



But how many property owners are going to willingly spend money to make their buildings more energy efficient? Back at the Mayors Climate Summit former President Bill Clinton announced “that his personal foundation had lined up $5 billion (that’s R35billion) in energy efficiency loan commitments from five major global banking institutions to lend city governments and landlords in 16 major world cities (I don’t think we made the cut) among them Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, New York, San Paulo, Tokyo and Mumbai. The loans will pay to replace energy-hungry heating, cooling and lighting systems, to seal and upgrade windows to let more light in and to install sensors to make lighting and air-conditioning more efficient……the financing will be essentially cost-free, with the savings (20 to 50 percent increased energy efficiency) used to pay back the initial investment.”



That looks like an exciting approach to a huge problem and one in which our national banks could well provide leadership!



Let’s Go Green! ciao, neil