GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean


As the region continues to explore options to deal with the consequences of continued urbanization, policies must target optimizing the benefits of cities, while minimizing or altogether avoiding their negative


externalities.


Realizing the goal of sustainable living in cities will require robust policies that are integrated and act as a master plan supported by data and information acquisition for evidence–based decision making (Becerra et al. 2013). There must be seamless coordination of land use planning, energy, sanitation, transport and housing planning to monitor all aspects of urban sustainability, and attempts at sectoral policies will continue to add to the problems being experienced. The policy approach must allow for the tracing of the pathways of resource consumption and waste generation. This information can be used to track the various synergies among the various city activities (industries, transportation, among others), planning new infrastructure investment or reconfiguring existing ones, and prioritizing institutional investments. However, success will require complimentary legal regimes that empower city planning (More…40).


Strengthening the science-policy interface is particularly important for coordinated urban and city planning, moving from the use of traditional statistics at aggregate spatial levels to working with geographic information system data banks and indicators capable of addressing smaller areas (Krausemann et al. 2014). New tools, such as material flow analyses, life cycle analyses, costing and management, and social multi-criteria evaluation, will also play a role in constructing a sustainable future. Improved data availability can help identify pathways for improving the allocation of investment in infrastructure, the regulation and use of resources, and the sustainable management of chemicals and waste.


Having well-planned and managed cities directly improves the well-being of communities and the environment while saving on costs related to accidents, health hazards, time resources, and longevity of physical capital investment. Governments in LAC have long-term policies to assist the urban poor, through the provision of state housing and social


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protection such as cash transfer programmes, health care, waste collection, and sanitation. However, the often critical components of stemming environmental deterioration, increasing green areas, pollution control and addressing resource inefficiencies that accompany reaching the limits of city capacities, have not been addressed through systematic integration of ecosystem approaches in policy.


One of the most pressing challenges in and around urban areas is informal housing and preventing slum formation. This, however, requires costly public investment and cross- cutting policies and actions that are difficult to implement (Bouillon 2012).


Integrated policies must also provide alternative transport models, including investing in bicycle lanes and car sharing systems, and in public transit systems to ease congestion and provide cleaner forms of transport. Such investment is essential for tackling environmental issues, given that the largest contribution of pollution in most cities is from transport emissions.


3.2.6 Towards climate action


Effective climate change policies at the regional level will depend on the level of transboundary cooperation between countries and the deployment of economic incentive instruments (More…41). Policy priorities for the region have to include cooperation in designing climate change policies and standardizing carbon prices (Lucena et al. 2015). At the XX Meeting of the Forum of Ministers of the Environment of LAC, it was decided to establish a regional cooperation platform on climate change to increase dialogue and exchange experiences on climate public policy, climate action, financing and other means of implementation, including transfer of climate technologies and capacity building to promote regional cooperation.


The other critical intervention point remains inadequate implementation. Policies that promote clean technologies and facilitate more diversified low-carbon economies


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