The Paris agreement that entered into force in 2016 after COP21, set a limit to global temperature increase at 2°C above pre-industrial levels; the report by IPCC, published in October 2018, updated this value to 1.5°C, to avoid extreme climate scenarios for future generations. The 0.5-degree difference sets the line between a risk of rivers flooding from 100% to 170%, a shift in the share of the world’s population exposed to extreme heat waves from 9% to 28%, and much more. The increase of 1.5°C is expected to take place by 2030, thus we have just about 12 years to get our act together.
Although the sense of urgency is quite evident, national governments seem unable to implement the set of actions necessary to face climate change in due time. This is made explicit by the many obstacles encountered for the ratification process of the Paris agreement, due also to some awkward political U-turns of some major national governments.
Despite the political and technical barriers, people are becoming aware of the dangerous situation we are facing, because they have started experiencing the effects of global warming: increased frequency of extreme heat waves, drought in urban areas, increased frequency and magnitude of flooding, the extreme violence of hurricanes and storms, coral reef bleaching and disappearance, a rising number of species at risk of extinction and biodiversity loss. This is in addition to other environmental factors that affect people’s lives such as poor air quality, poor waste management, energy blackouts, fuel poverty, that could be dealt with by implementing the same actions useful to tackling climate change.
Meanwhile, communication technology has enabled people to express their worries and desires directly to the decision makers, via the use of social media, and to exert greater pressure at the political level. However, this pressure seems to be especially directed at mayors and deputy mayors, who have a closer contact with electors.
In this scenario of “apparent impasse” at the national level, and high pressure from the population, many cities stepped up and started setting their own sustainability agendas, made up of practical actions aimed at solving the major problems of urban environments, including climate change effects, and sometimes coordinating and working together to better deal with urgent issues.
Following the COP21 agreement, many cities in the world pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, and are currently developing projects to reach this challenging goal, such as the ones summarised in the document “Paris, an air of change”. More recently, 19 cities, including Copenhagen, San Jose and Washington DC, committed to putting in place regulations requiring all new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030 and existing ones to reach the same goal by 2050.
To accomplish this big change in such a short time is not an easy task for a city alone, and thus cities’ associations, such as C40 (founded in 2005 and connecting more than 90 cities) and 100 Resilient Cities, started developing coordinated work focused on tackling climate change and driving urban agenda priorities. “Reinventing Cities”, a global competition for innovative carbon-free and resilient urban projects involving 15 of the world’s cities and 39 urban areas, is one of them; but already in 2016, 50 European cities led by London and supported by C40, sent out a common call for electric bus contract tenders that resulted in a reduction of costs for municipalities of about 10%.
Other coordinated actions may take place in specific regions of the world sharing the same problems, which may be solved just by working together, such as the case of the Po River Valley, one of the most air-polluted areas of Europe, where, recently, four regions and their cities implemented a harmonised project, called “Accordo di Bacino” to limit emissions coming from transportation. Pursuing shared targets, the different cities and regions enacted the project via a series of local acts to ban or stop the most polluting vehicles. Oslo went further than this, planning to become a car-free city by 2019, whereas Savona became the first European city ready to measure its sustainability by joining the LEED for Cities project and obtaining a LEED Gold certification.
In the forefront of policy innovation, it is possible to list not only European cities, which benefit from the EU’s strong environmental commitment and directives, but also cites located in quite complex national contexts or facing national governments denying environmental and climate change issues. For example, recently both Rio de Janeiro and Seattle banned plastic straws in bars and restaurants located in the urban area. Many other American cities, from Los Angeles to Huston, pushed back against President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, pledging to adopt local policies to honour it.
Although this is a positive scenario, it is necessary to consider that forecasts show that by 2100 all the largest cities in the world will be in Africa and Asia, and just a few of them are currently pursuing policy innovation. It is therefore necessary to work further on cities’ cooperation and experience sharing. Some examples already exist, such as the Covenant of Mayors, a voluntary bottom-up movement gathering together local authorities committed to meeting climate and environmental objectives. It started as a European initiative but is already involving 57 countries throughout the world. Another brilliant initiative is the EIP SCC, initiated to develop a pan-EU market for smart cities; London, in particular, is envisaging a digital social market able to unleash the potential of urban data to better drive environmental, social and climate policies. With time, the creation of such a market might lead to an emerging geopolitical role for cities, which. possessing important data assets and a direct connection with citizens, might be more influential on national and international policies about energy, environment and climate.
Many former mayors, on the basis of a strong local support, have lately run for and succeeded in getting higher offices, such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Matteo Renzi in Italy, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Iran, François Holland and Jacques Chirac in France, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Boris Johnson in the UK, Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, and Michael Bloomberg, who may run for president in 2020, in the US. Following this trend, a new sensitivity towards environmental issues, and the development of a digital social market, future mayors might become key players in the global fight against climate change.
Although cities have proven to be able to influence the global agenda of climate policies, local actions alone are not enough to reach the demanding international targets. Cities face limitations on actions that they can implement without national governments’ approval. Moreover, cities may not have all the financial resources and tools necessary to start extensive and cross-sectorial projects, and local budgets are supposed to address many problems that may not be relevant to climate change but are important for citizens, such as social inclusion, services maintenance, security and safety.
Cities have demonstrated, nevertheless, that the international climate agenda may be led with a bottom-up approach, challenging national governments’ deviations from a rational path and from citizens’ desires. With the development of cities’ associations and of an urban digital social market, their geopolitical role is definitely bound to rise, and this may lead to new and unprecedented world governance scenarios.
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