[Graeme]

The Ideal City in 2030: How Carbon 'Negative' Cities can Generate the Greatest Positive Impacts

TEC contributor Noah Deich has entered his most recent post on carbon “negative” cities (link) to the Masdar 2015 Engage Blogging Contest. If Noah’s post gets the most likes/shares by January 6th, he will get to represent TEC as the VIP blogger for the event, but he needs your help! Please go to http://masdar.ae/en/adsw/detail/noah-de ... generate-p and vote for his post and/or share it via twitter/facebook. Thanks in advance for the support from the TEC community!

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The Ideal City in 2030: how Carbon “Negative” Cities can Generate the Greatest Positive Impacts

Today, the world’s cities are a major source of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. With urban populations expected to continue growing, cities’ exposure to climate change will only get worse unless they break away from this GHG-emitting status quo. Fortunately, the emerging field of carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) offers hope. CDR (or “negative” emission) technologies afford cities the opportunity to turn the current GHG emission paradigm on its head by enabling cities to go “negative” and remove more GHGs from the atmosphere than they emit. Just imagine: the more that a carbon “negative” city grows, the greater the positive environmental impact the city would have! And best of all, in the process of becoming carbon “negative,” cities will gain opportunities to build sustainable foundations that enable continuous advances in the health, prosperity, and well-being for their citizens.

Here’s how cities across the globe might become carbon “negative” by 2030:

1. Start with the built environment

The physical structures of our buildings hold great potential to lock away carbon. Materials such as sustainably-harvested timber and carbon “negative” cements could one day trap large volumes of carbon in our cities’ skyscrapers, roads, and sidewalks, preventing that carbon from escaping back into the atmosphere for decades.

2. Harness the potential of public spaces to sequester GHGs
3. Unleash the power of innovation hubs to make carbon removal a reality

So does this mean that any city be carbon “negative” by 2030?

Yes! No two cities will pursue the same path to being carbon “negative,” but each can work to create an environment that encourages the development of CDR solutions best suited to their people, geography, and unique history. And in working towards being carbon “negative,” cities will see immense positive impacts as they become healthier, more prosperous, innovative, and beautiful.

theenergycollective

[dohboi]

I hate to bite, but let's just start with this one: "carbon “negative” cements could one day trap large volumes of carbon"

Sooo, when exactly is 'one day.' Does carbon negative cement exist? Can it be produced in massive quantities? Would this not require us to rebuild all our cities over again with this new product? Do you see any problems with this?...

OK, forget it. Have a good new year, if you can manage it.

[Graeme]

Don't you think we need to draw down carbon from the atmosphere by all means possible?

Sustainable Growth Opportunities For New Delhi By 2030

Editor’s Note: This article is one submission in a live Masdar blogging contest (find out the entry requirements here). Very simply, the focus of the contest submissions is to: “Describe your city in 2030: what will occur due to changes in energy, transportation and water technologies, and how will they transform how you live?” We are sharing this submission here on CleanTechnica because we think it’s awesome and because Masdar is sponsoring CleanTechnica in order to raise awareness about this great competition. I have personally engaged in the contest in previous years, and I hope one of our readers wins this year since it would be great to meet you in Abu Dhabi!

Lawmakers in India often claim to make the country’s capital, New Delhi, a modern city much like Shanghai or any other developed city across the world. I, a resident of New Delhi, would rather like the lawmakers and city planners to learn from the experiences of these modern cities and implement measures that take the city closer to an ideal city of the future. These measures would range from renewable energy and water management to public transport and governance.

Renewable Energy

New Delhi is less than 44 kilometres square in area and is understandably dependent heavily on neighbouring states for power supply. Due to its small area, Delhi is also deficient in renewable energy potential. However, being an urban area, significant potential for rooftop solar power remains quite high. Lawmakers have tried to promote rooftop solar power systems through feed-in tariff regulations. However, the regulations have not yielded fruitful results. One would hope that lawmakers take up educating consumers about the financial benefits of rooftop solar power systems and the city tap the full potential of solar power by 2030.

Another renewable energy resource that holds great potential is municipal solid waste. The city operates a couple of waste-based power plants. With the consistent increase in population, the production of solid waste will only increase. Capacities of the landfills in the city have already been exceeded. Thus, recycling of the waste and methane capture would prove highly beneficial with regard to the city’s waste management and energy self-sufficiency.

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

What Makes Up A “Sustainable” City? — Thoughts On The Key Components of Future Sustainable Cities

Editor’s Note: This article is one submission in a live Masdar blogging contest (find out the entry requirements here). Very simply, the focus of the contest submissions is to: “Describe your city in 2030: what will occur due to changes in energy, transportation and water technologies, and how will they transform how you live?” We are sharing this submission here on CleanTechnica because we think it’s awesome and because Masdar is sponsoring CleanTechnica in order to raise awareness about this great competition. I have personally engaged in the contest in previous years, and I hope one of our readers wins this year since it would be great to meet you in Abu Dhabi!

What makes up a “sustainable” city exactly? How can a city provide for itself and its citizens in a sustainable matter? That is to say, in a way that doesn’t rapidly invalidate itself, through the exhaustion of the resources that it’s dependant upon.

That’s the question that was posed recently by the Masdar 2015 Engage Blogging Contest — and it’s one worth considering. Despite the outward language used by many in the renewable energy and “green” industries, the question of true “sustainability” is not one that’s often truly broached in any meaningful way (to my mind) by representatives and proponents of said industries.

As an example, while photovoltaics are certainly of great utility and no doubt have a place in the energy infrastructure of many regions/cities throughout the world, there’s no doubt that their manufacture and use depends heavily upon complex supply/trade chains, cheap international shipping, and relatively rare/expensive resources, amongst other things. Wouldn’t true sustainability be based around simpler, easier-to-implement approaches/technologies — good passive solar building design for example — with more complex technologies perhaps as more of a complement than a foundation?

Is a city dependant upon complex trade arrangements, the extraction of finite resources, and skilled precision manufacturing, truly sustainable? Regardless of the great advantages (with regard to some parameters) of some complex technologies, would not means of energy generation centered around the local environment and resources be closer to true sustainability?

It seems to my mind that the question of true sustainability is largely one of how complex the arrangements that a city/country/individual are dependant upon are, and how much control one has over said arrangements — or, to put it another way, how stable those arrangements are.

Thinking thusly, a truly sustainable city would seem to be one that can largely provide for itself with regard to what it is dependant upon — food production, electricity production, clean water, transportation, etc.

With these thoughts in mind, I will below go over some of the key qualities of what I think would make up a truly sustainable city, and would/will ideally be realized in at least some of the world’s cities by 2030.

Key Components Of A Sustainable City Of The Future

1. Localized Food Production
2. Passive Building Design
3. Localized Energy Production
4. Good Public Transportation, Livable City Centers
5. Localized Resource Extraction & Relianc

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Global campaign aims to inspire British cities to choose 100% clean energy

Environmental campaigners are hoping that 2015 will be the year when the UK’s cities go green. Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Munich, Seattle, Sydney and Lima have all committed to switching to using 100% clean energy by 2050, and now grassroots campaigns calling on civic leaders to endorse the initiative have been launched in 123 towns and cities across the UK. It is hoped that as many as 20 will pledge their commitment before the end of this year.

One city expected to be at the vanguard of the scheme is Oxford, which has launched a “low-carbon hub” that aims to install solar panels on schools, put water turbines in its stretch of the Thames and develop solar farms.

Persuading cities to switch to clean energy is crucial in tackling climate change, according to research by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, the increasingly influential body that comprises former heads of government, former ministers, economists and business leaders.

The commission recently produced analysis suggesting that, by 2030, the world’s 724 largest cities could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1.4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide – greater than the annual emissions of Japan – purely by developing more efficient transport systems.

theguardian

[Graeme]

Futuristic Paris Smart City is filled with flourishing green skyscrapers

Inhabitat favorite Vincent Callebaut just unveiled plans to transform Paris into a futuristic “smart” city that looks more like a macrostudy of a rainforest than an urban jungle. Vincent Callebaut's Smart City was commissioned as part of the Climate Energy Plan of Paris, and it shows how the Paris of 2050 could embrace sustainability to create a healthier future while retaining its historical aesthetic and meeting its long-term energy goals.

inhabitat

[onlooker]

Hopefully we can have a reset that will allow us to deploy and implement all these wonderful ideas that your linking Graeme. Because they all have merit in themselves yet can we keep civilization viable enough to implement all this, I wonder.

[Graeme]

Cities Powered 100% By Renewable Energy? Avaaz Campaign Aims To Get 100 Cities To Commit

A world full of numerous cities powered 100% by renewable energy may sound like something of a pipe dream (for now, anyways) but that isn’t stopping the noted campaigning organization Avaaz from aiming for just such a goal.

Avaaz recently sent a petition to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, featuring the signatures of ~2.2 million people. It requested that local, national, and international leaders make the transition to 100% renewable energy. Avaaz is currently aiming to get at least 100 cities around the world to join its campaign over the next year.

“Last year people took to the streets to demand a shift to clean energy, and this year these same people will be making that goal a reality, one town at a time,” noted Bert Wander, a senior campaigner at Avaaz. “Cities all over the world have already started announcing 100% clean-energy targets, and where cities lead, entire countries can follow.”

Worth noting is that, reportedly, this initiative is being run by members at the local level — which is apparently in contrast to many other high-profile Avaaz campaigns.

According to Wander: “A renewables revolution is happening right now, and in just a few months it’s gone from pipe dream to mainstream, with countries including Norway and Uruguay flicking the ‘clean’ switch, and cities such as Frankfurt, Seattle and Copenhagen doing the same. We hope that cities and towns across Britain will follow their lead this year.”

cleantechnica

[Graeme]

Growing Cities Hold Key to Curbing Climate Change

Cities—the best of which are bastions of transit networks, bike paths, compact apartments and chirpy baristas—are growing faster than litters of sewer rats, exacerbating their already-high hungers for energy. The trend is so steep that a new analysis projects that urban centers will be burning through three times more energy in the year 2050 than was the case in 2005.

But what sounds like a threat could also be viewed as an opportunity. The new study, by five European and American researchers and published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pinpoints staggering potential climate benefits of smart growth, gasoline taxes and other measures that can reduce energy demand in urban centers, which is where a growing majority of the world’s population is becoming concentrated and where most of its energy is used.

By taking these key steps, particularly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the analysis concluded that the world’s cities could limit themselves to using 540 exajoules of energy in 2050 (it takes the U.S. about three weeks to produce enough crude oil to generate 1 EJ of energy). That’s a lot of energy—more than double cities’ 2005 energy demand of 240 EJ. But it’s a quarter less than the projected demand of 730 EJ under the business-as-usual scenario analyzed.

scientificamerican

[ennui2]

There's no shortage of concept-art and dewey-eyed optimistic prescriptions. What there's a shortage of is action. In my neck of the woods they're just continuing to raise McMansions.

[dohboi]

Well, here's more dewey-eyed optimism for ya (though all based on things that are already happening). Don't worry; I'll get back to my heard-hearted, cynical doomerism shortly!

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/cities-are-now

Cities Are Now

What is it about cities that enables them to move forward while the nation as a whole is stalled?

An urban revolution has cities across the country becoming hotbeds of democracy and progressive innovation. Here are the most exciting ways cities are leading us into the future.

Urban Comeback: How Cities Are Leading Us Into the Future

At a time when nations are gridlocked and corrupted by special interests, cities are taking on poverty, social isolation, and the climate crisis.

...
Courageous and Creative: 10 Best Climate-Ready Cities

The world’s most forward-thinking cities are curbing carbon and building for a sustainable future—right now.

When Trickle-Down Really Works

The new regional strategy to collect drinking water every time it rains.

Urban Farming, One Vacant Lot At A Time

Community land trusts work to ensure affordable housing, and they also are helping new city farmers get land.

At a Half-Mile-Long Table, Chefs, Farmers, and Volunteers Feed a Neighborhood for Free

In St. Paul, Minnesota, artist Seitu Jones wanted to start a community-wide conversation about food access and food justice—and where better to talk than over a good meal?

[onlooker]

Yes certainly cities make sense for the large populations in many countries however no matter how well you plan them they still must address the basis underlying issue of overpopulation and resource scarcity which has been getting worse over time. Sorry to be the Scrooge here but their is no way around that. No matter how well you organize and innovate the cities they still must cope with these two fundamental realities. It really is what here on Peakoil we have constantly discussed and I have excluded speaking of the other fundamental reality and that is the continuing degradation of the biosphere within which complex life is sustained.

[Graeme]

10 cities aiming for 100 percent clean energy

Scientists have been fairly unequivocal in their warnings that we must ditch fossil fuels entirely if we are to have any hope of reversing climate change. Yet despite significant progress in the last year, historic announcements like the China-U.S. climate pact are still pushing a less ambitious, more incremental approach to cutting our emissions.

That may be why many activists are focusing on the local, community level to push a more radical approach. As I recently reported over at TreeHugger, a new grassroots movement has launched petitions in hundreds of cities across the world calling for a transition to 100 percent renewable energy/zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. While this may have sounded like wishful thinking a few short years ago, these activists are actually building on a growing number of communities that have already taken such pledges — and some who appear to have achieved them.

So who are these leaders in the clean energy world?

Aspen, Colorado: 100 percent renewable electricity by 2015
Copenhagen, Denmark: Carbon neutral by 2025
Bonaire, The Caribbean: 100 percent renewable energy by 2015
Munich, Germany: 100 percent renewable electricity by 2025
Sydney, Australia: 70 percent emissions cuts by 2030
San Diego, California: 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035
Isle of Wight, England: 100 percent self-sufficient and renewable by 2020
Frankfurt, Germany: Zero carbon emissions by 2050
San Jose, California
San Francisco, California: 100 percent renewable electricity by 2020
And many, many more...

mnn

[dohboi]

Onlooker, I agree that cities are impossible, but we seem to be stuck with them. So if they can point some ways toward reduced resource use and carbon emissions, I support that. But it bears endless repeating that a global population that is mostly urban is almost certainly not sustainable--too much energy is need to transport food and other necessities from country to city, and then to transport humanure and other nutrients back to the land. Particularly in an energy constrained-world.

Empire is the whole purpose of cities, in any case. Before fossil fuels, nearly every city of more than a million people was the center of an empire of some sort or another. Empires, and therefore cities, are by their nature exploitative in function and purpose. Previous empires exploited only geographical domains. Today's cities and empires are exploiting both temporal and geographical domains--devastating not only present landscapes, but also annihilating the future habitability of the earth for all, human and non. (Thermo-philic bacteria will have a blast, though, for a while at least.)

[Graeme]

Study suggests reducing energy demand in the future may be centered on developing cities

A small team of researchers with members from institutions in the U.S. and Germany has found that the greatest opportunity for reducing predicted energy demands over the next half-century lies with cities that are still in the development stage. In their paper published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study, what they found, and offer suggestions as to how new kinds of city planning could lead to reductions in the predicted amount of carbon released into the atmosphere in the future.

Scientists around the world are very seriously concerned about the amount of carbon we humans are pumping into the atmosphere, leading to global warming and likely other as yet to be discovered problems. Some are also conducting research to look into ways to at least reduce our overall carbon footprint, if not eliminate it altogether. In this new effort, the researchers began by trying to figure out where the biggest contributors will be. They found that it will, quite naturally, be centered around urban areas—cities need more energy than small towns or other rural areas. But what impact will which cities have over the next fifty years or so?

To answer that question, the researchers analyzed data for 274 cities around the world, then sorted them into eight groups based on size, climate, and other factors. In so doing, they found that the best chance of reducing energy use in the future appears to lie with cities that are still small and growing. Larger cities, the group found, are too entrenched to offer much hope of reducing energy use, thus if cities that are still relatively small can be caused to grow in ways that are different from older cities with their huge energy demands, it might be possible to alter forecasts of a tripling of energy use by cities by 2050. They note that most such cities are in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

phys.org

[Graeme]

Counting Up Cities' Energy Savings and Climate Commitments

If you're driving your car in suburban Copenhagen, the newly installed LED streetlights will brighten as you approach, then dim once you pass. If you're riding your bike, sensors embedded in those lights will soon tell you the fastest route home.

This is just one example of the energy-saving measures the city is installing into a growing network of smart sensors embedded in streetlights, all part of Copenhagen's effort to become the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.

Over the next three years, cities worldwide are expected to replace 50 million aging streetlights with LEDs, which use 85 percent less energy than traditional bulbs and last far longer. Hundreds of cities are also following Copenhagen's lead in smart technology, installing sensory networks in streetlights that will be able to deliver information on traffic congestion, trash cans that need to be emptied and other city services.

theenergycollective

[onlooker]

how nice an oasis city of sustainability within a planet of unsustainability.