Subject - Energy, Climate Change and Urban Development

Lecture conducted by

Compact City and Climate - Change Prof. Devashree Roychowdhury

Architecture & Planning
P P Savani University
 Compact City Planning & Development

• The compact city is emerging as the central paradigm of urbanism given its tremendous potential to
respond to the challenges of sustainable development.

• Compactness, density, diversity, mixed land use, sustainable transportation, and green space are the
core strategies of the compact city for achieving the goals of sustainability.

• There is a clear synergy between the core strategies of the compact city with respect to producing the
benefits of sustainability as to its tripartite composition.

• While the compact city model is justified by its ability to contribute to the economic, environmental, and
social goals of sustainability, the economic goals remain intrinsically central to this model.

• The environmental and social goals still play second fiddle, but new measures are being implemented
to strengthen their influence in urban planning and development practices.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266616592030017X
 Compact City Planning & Development

Compact cities to address climate change

Compactness is an important attribute of the most efficient and sustainable cities.

Not only can there be environmental advantages such as cutting transport distances
and encouraging citizens away from motorised transport, but social and economic
benefits are also available if careful planning is undertaken to manage expansion.
 Compact City Planning & Development

Why Compact?

We should embrace policies that promote the compact city for various reasons, including to reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions. Cities emit a substantial proportion of the world’s greenhouse gases (GHGs)
that come about through anthropogenic causes. Depending on definitions as to what size of human
settlement constitutes a city and whether one uses figures based on consumption or production,
estimates of this proportion can vary from 30 to 70 per cent (UN-Habitat, Global Report on Human
Settlements 2011 – Cities and Climate Change). While there are a range of policies available to reduce
cities’ emissions, one fundamental approach involves promoting compact urban development. There is a
general correlation between higher urban density and lower emission levels.

Source: https://www.climateaction.org/climate-leader-papers/compact_cities_to_address_climate_change
Compact City Planning & Development
 Compact City Planning & Development

• A number of reasons can be given for this. Firstly, dense urban settlements usually provide
opportunities for lower emission forms of transport. Urban density is one of the most
important factors influencing the amount of energy used in private passenger transport,
and therefore has a significant effect on GHG emissions.

• If all other variables are controlled, one study found that an increase in density of 1,000
housing units per square mile leads to a 1,200-mile reduction in vehicle miles per household
per year (Brown et al, cited in UN-Habitat, Global Report on Human Settlements 2011).

• A similar study found that a doubling of the average neighbourhood density was
associated with a 20-40 per cent decrease in vehicle use per household, leading to a
corresponding decline in GHG emissions (Gottdiener and Budd 2005, cited in Global
Report on Human Settlements 2011).
 Compact City Planning & Development

• One reason that use of the private vehicle can decline with increased density is that
higher densities make investment in urban transport infrastructure more viable. More
sustainable modes of public transport such as bus rapid transit systems, light rail and
non-motorised transport play an important role in reducing private vehicle dependency.

• These high-investment modes of transport generally become more feasible when they
can service larger volumes of commuters over shorter distances. With such investment,
then, the use of public transport can increase.

• Research by the Neptis Foundation analysing 16 cities showed that compact cities such
as Vienna and Madrid (pictured left) had significantly higher public transport use than
lower-density cities such as Atlanta and Houston (cited in World Bank, Cities and
Climate Change, an Urgent Agenda, 2010).
 Compact City

Another reason why compact development reduces emissions relates to land use change. As cities grow
horizontally they consume surrounding green fields; previously vegetated areas (one form of ‘carbon sink’) are
cleared for built environments. Compact development, therefore, may reduce the GHG emissions associated
with land-use change as compared with urban sprawl.
 Strategies for mitigation of Climate Change

• Climate change is defined as the shift in climate patterns mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions from
natural systems and human activities. So far, anthropogenic activities have caused about 1.0°C of global
warming above the pre-industrial level and this is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if the current
emission rates persist. In 2018, the world encountered 315 cases of natural disasters which are mainly
related to the climate. Approximately 68.5 million people were affected, and economic losses amounted to
$131.7 billion, of which storms, floods, wildfires and droughts accounted for approximately 93%.

• Economic losses attributed to wildfires in 2018 alone are almost equal to the collective losses from wildfires
incurred over the past decade, which is quite alarming. Furthermore, food, water, health, ecosystem, human
habitat and infrastructure have been identified as the most vulnerable sectors under climate attack. In 2015,
the Paris agreement was introduced with the main objective of limiting global temperature increase to 2°C
by 2100 and pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

• This article reviews the main strategies for climate change abatement, namely conventional mitigation,
negative emissions and radiative forcing geoengineering. Conventional mitigation technologies focus on
reducing fossil-based CO emissions.
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 Strategies for mitigation of Climate Change

• Negative emissions technologies are aiming to capture and sequester atmospheric

carbon to reduce carbon dioxide levels.

• Finally, geoengineering techniques of radiative forcing alter the earth’s radiative energy
budget to stabilize or reduce global temperatures. It is evident that conventional
mitigation efforts alone are not sufficient to meet the targets stipulated by the Paris
agreement; therefore, the utilization of alternative routes appears inevitable. While
various technologies presented may still be at an early stage of development, biogenic-
based sequestration techniques are to a certain extent mature and can be deployed
immediately.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
343311551_Strategies_for_mitigation_of_climate_change_a_review
Thank you