Cities and Climate Change: Climate Policy, Economic Resilience and Urban Sustainability (Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies)

This book explores climate change responsiveness policies for cities and discusses why they have been slow to gain traction despite having been on the international agenda for the last 30 years. The contributing role of cities in accentuating the effects of climate change is increasingly demonstrated in the literature, underscoring the unsustainable models on which urban life has been made to thrive. As these issues become increasingly apparent, there are global calls to adopt more sustainable and equitable models, however doing so will mean the disruption of economies that have historically relied upon pollution-generating industries. In order to address these issues the authors examine them from a cross-disciplinary perspective, bringing in regional, local and urban standpoints to subsequently propose an alternative short-term economic model that could accelerate the adoption of climate change mitigation infrastructures and urban sustainability in urban areas. This book will be of particular value to scholars and students alike in the field of urbanism, sustainability and resilience, as well as practitioners looking at avenues for economically incentivizing sustainable development in various geographical context. Zaheer Allam works as an Urban Strategist for the Port Louis Development Initiative (PLDI), Mauritius and the Global Creative Leadership Initiative. He is the African Representative of the International Society of Biourbanism (ISB) and a member of the Advisory Circle of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). He was elevated, by the President of Mauritius, to the rank of Officer of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (OSK); the highest distinct order of Merit in Mauritius. David Jones is a Foundation Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at Deakin University, Australia. He has worked in partnerships with several Indigenous communities in Australia as well as on designs for the Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga Regeneration Project (2017). Amongst others he is a co-author of Aboriginal Reconnections (2013), Geelong's Changing Landscape (2019), Re-casting Terra Nullius Blindness (2017), Creating Healthy Places (2017) and Indigenous Knowledge in the Built Environment (2018). Meelan Thondoo is a Ph. D. candidate in Medicine and Anthropology at theEMJD European Commission Transglobal Health Program and holds an M. Sc. in Medical Anthropology and an MPH in Health Economics. She has worked on numerous projects led by the World Health Organization, DFID UK, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has received academic and pro-bono awards from the University of Salamanca, the World Bank Institute, and the UN Global Humanitarian Forum, and is a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute Foreword 6 Contents 9 About the Authors 10 List of Figures 12 1 Urban Resilience and Climate Change 13 Introduction 14 Cities and Climate Policy 19 Urban Economic Loss from Climate Change 22 The Need for Urban Resilience 27 Green Funding, a Dry-Cleaning Story 29 Climate Technology and Fortune Telling 32 References 35 2 Decarbonization and Urban Sustainability 45 Introduction 45 Regional Decarbonization 49 Climate Policy and Decarbonization 52 The Global Ecosystem 54 Paving Way for the City 57 Climate Change Mitigation and Regional Decarbonization 59 References 61 3 Climate Change Mitigation and Urban Liveability 67 Introduction 67 Climate Change and Urban Liveability 71 Climate Change Funding Avenues 78 The Unsustainability of Debt Financing and Urban Liveability 83 References 87 4 Economically Incentivizing Urban Sustainability and Resilience 94 Introduction 94 Background 98 The SDGS, the New Urban Agenda and the Urban Economy 100 Foreign Aid and the Debt Trap Diplomacy 104 Introducing Fiscal Incentivization and Development 106 Conclusion 110 References 111 5 Achieving Urban Resilience Within the Capitalist Movement 118 Introduction 118 Re-engineering Marx in the Twenty-First-Century Urban Context 120 The State vs Disruption: A Case for Socio-Economic Stability 123 Structures of Scale: Transitory Economic Policies 125 Conclusion 126 References 127 Index 131 Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Urban Resilience and Climate Change (Zaheer Allam, David Jones, Meelan Thondoo)....Pages 1-32 Decarbonization and Urban Sustainability (Zaheer Allam, David Jones, Meelan Thondoo)....Pages 33-54 Climate Change Mitigation and Urban Liveability (Zaheer Allam, David Jones, Meelan Thondoo)....Pages 55-81 Economically Incentivizing Urban Sustainability and Resilience (Zaheer Allam, David Jones, Meelan Thondoo)....Pages 83-106 Achieving Urban Resilience Within the Capitalist Movement (Zaheer Allam, David Jones, Meelan Thondoo)....Pages 107-119 Back Matter ....Pages 121-123