Towards a green economy Human development, ecological footprint and urbanisation level

Urbanisation level in 2005

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Human development index 2007

Figur e 2: Ecological Footprint, HDI and urbanisation level by country Source: LSE Cities based on multiple sources

Urbanisation Prospects 2007), while global carbon emissions from fossil-fuel burning increased by almost 500 per cent (Boden et al. 2010).

At the national level, urbanisation goes hand in hand with increasing resource consumption, more energy intensive food supply, and ever-increasing flows of goods and people. This general trend is illustrated in Figure 2: Ecological Footprint, HDI and urbanisation level by country, which compares the National Ecological Footprint with the Human Development Index (HDI) for countries worldwide, including their urbanisation levels. The graph shows that countries with higher urbanisation levels tend to have a significantly greater ecological footprint per capita, suggesting that cities may be bad for the environment. But, the story is more complex.

Brazil, for example, maintained relatively low per capita carbon emissions despite its growing urbanisation (World Bank 2009). Other nations also raised their carbon emissions with no or little increase in urbanisation (Satterthwaite 2009).5

certain consumption and production patterns as well as certain population groups within cities are.

The relationship between carbon emissions and income levels is not straightforward, either, as shown in Figure 3: Carbon emission and income for selected countries and cities. Carbon emissions are directly related to income. Per capita incomes are generally higher in cities than in rural areas, generating higher average per capita demand in major emissions sources. But this is the case only up to a certain income level, after which cities typically become more carbon-efficient compared with the average, as can be seen by the relatively low levels of CO2

emissions produced by high income cities like Tokyo or Paris. Cities per se are neither drivers of climate change nor the source of ecosystem degradation;

5. It is important to note, however, that the term urban in most countries includes any form of settlement with relatively low number of residents (thresholds typically range from anything between 200 and 20,000), and therefore does not capture the way which cities of a significant size perform in relation to these parameters.

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A recent survey of the energy intensity (a measure of the energy efficiency of an economy calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP) of fifty cities by the World Bank confirms differential patterns of environmental performance. From this study, it appears that the combined energy intensity of major cities like Paris, Dhaka, São Paulo, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, amount to about one-quarter of that of the five highest- scoring cities and less than half of a fifty-city average (World Bank 2010).

In order to better understand these variations, data on 735 cities in six regions were analysed. The results show

<20% 20-30% 30-40% 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% 80-90% >90%

National ecological footprint (global ha/person) 2006