Megacity mix and match

Hot topics – or hot air? Iain Aitch looks for the action when big cities club together on climate change.

Prefix a number with a letter, hold an international summit, and what do you get? Fine phrases, vague promises and mass protests? C40 could be the exception. This isn’t a traditional government-to-government structure. It started when the mayors of 40 megacities met in London a couple of years ago to look for ways to bolster their efforts on climate change. And it kicked on with this year’s C40 meeting in May in New York, where mayor Michael Bloomberg’s carbon-cutting ‘PlaNYC’ fits squarely with the group’s ethos of ‘stretch’ target-setting.

“50% of the world population lives in cities – producing 80% of the world’s carbon emissions”

Getting cities talking and sharing experiences is a good start, says Newcastle University cities expert Richard Dawson, core researcher for the cities programme at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. “It’s part of the process of getting things happening. These cities in the C40 are among the world’s biggest, in terms of economic throughput, but also in terms of their expansion. And quite often the more successful policies have been implemented by cities, as it’s their inhabitants who are most aware of the problems and the need for action.” Beijing’s current acute concerns about air pollution, ahead of next year’s Olympics, are a case in point.

The basic proposition behind C40 is that big cities can find distinctive remedies by pooling the energy, creativity and experience of places as distant – and disparate – as Beijing and Bogota, London, LA and Sydney.

Cities choked by gridlocked traffic, for instance (as so many are), are keen to learn from London’s congestion charging scheme – the standout achievement of mayor Ken Livingstone, who chairs the C40. Another oft-cited exemplar is Curitiba in Brazil, a C40 affiliate renowned for its innovative but now ageing public transport system. Mayor Carlos ‘Beto’ Richa has recently re-energised its efforts, cutting fares in a successful bid to reduce emissions from private car use, and developing ‘green lines’, akin to car pool lanes, for energy-efficient vehicles.

Public procurement is also an important focus. Last year the C40 agreed to work hand in glove with the Clinton Climate Initiative, whose business-led approach should help participating cities use their combined buying powers to beneficial effect. There’s huge potential here, and not just to keep down the cost of their projects. The sheer scale of the contracts they could place would provide a secure basis for massive expansion, and market-transforming economies of scale, for ‘green’ producers around the world – from the recyclers to the cutting edge technologies.

Sceptics might automatically dismiss C40 as a talking shop, and certainly it has yet to prove its effectiveness. But Dawson makes a telling point in its favour. “One of the major concerns of people going it alone,” he points out, “is that they worry about reducing their competitiveness with other cities. By working together, they reduce the chances of people saying: ‘Well, they’re not doing it, so why should I?’.”

- Iain Aitch

20 September 2007

Iain Aitch

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