Climate change and urbanisation are intertwined. Cities and urban centres account for more than 70 per cent of greenhouse emissions. This is due to large-scale production and consumption-based emissions. This is mostly from industrial activities, motorised transport systems and buildings.
This means there has to be more focus on reducing carbon footprints and maximising resource efficiency in cities and urban centres. There has to be investment solutions that not only offer significant environmental benefits but also give long-term economic advantages.
Cities and urban centres are convergence challenges of sustainable development, climate change mitigation and urban resilience. Yet equally, they are hubs of generating knowledge, social transformation, innovations and new technologies.
Therefore, cities and urban centres, even being the biggest polluters, also provide immediate and effective solutions to potential co-benefits of mitigation and adaptation as communication between the public and the decision- makers is fast. There is no hope of reducing greenhouse emissions to safe levels if new and expanding cities are based on a sprawling and resource-intensive model of urban development.
The Cabinet Secretary Lands, Housing, Urban Development and Public Works together with The Council of Governors will urgently need development policies for compact urban growth models and laws.
This is characterised by dense and proximate development patterns linked by public transport systems and with accessibility to services and jobs to maximise the economic, social and environmental potential of cities and urban centres.
This will result into astute well-planned climate-resilient cities and urban centres. The ongoing controversial housing projects have no known climate change adaptation policy and environmental governance component.
Yet buildings are major emitters of greenhouse gasses. Well-planned climate-resilient compact urban growth creates cities and urban centres that are economically dynamic and healthy. The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate found that compact, connected and coordinated cities are more productive, socially inclusive, resilient, cleaner, quieter and safer. They also have lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Cities and urban centres are all about efficiency. Buildings are major sources of greenhouse emissions. Therefore both national and county governments must enforce housing policies and compact urban development firmly grounded in climate-change resiliency and environmental governance.
Uncontrolled urban expansion creates negative impacts, especially infrastructure costs, as well as diminished energy and resource efficiency. It also results in encroachment on agricultural land, forests, open public spaces, and wetlands with a corresponding loss of the economic, recreational and ecological values provided by those ecosystems. Climate change and environmental threats are among top external disruptors to the cities.
Therefore cities and urban centres must take an aggressive stance in urban planning and operations. Cities and urban centres must make climate change a focal point in everything they do and make meaningful changes to operational practices and processes.
They should have climate- focused sustainability and resiliency leadership that proactively manages the climate risks both preventable and unavoidable ones. Such leadership must be innovative and ensure technology investments in risk reduction.
Resilient and robust cities and urban centres are able to prepare, absorb and recover from shocks. They guarantee sustainable human-centred development, survival, livelihoods and dignity.
The Ministry of Lands and Urban Development together with county governments can draw lessons from Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark which in 2012 declared its intent to become completely carbon-neutral by 2025 under the multidimensional Copenhagen 2025 Climate Plan initiative.
This plan sets specific targets and outlines carbon reduction initiatives in four key areas namely governance, innovation, risk reduction, operational sustainability, and climate equity. There has to be intensive civic education, policy advocacy and strategic investments in order to achieve this noble goal.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel in supporting cities and urban centres to become climate resilient. The current Sustainable Urban Economic development programme should be expanded in mandate scope and mobilising financing.
This will create a coherent, coordinated and collaborative vehicle for county governments, national governments, private sector and civil society in climate resilient cities and urban centres. This will reduce the risk of different stakeholder groups working at cross-purposes and ensure that climate actions are focused on the key climate goals investments and financing in the cities and urban centres.
In addressing cities and urban centres resiliency piecemeal solutions are ineffective. There has to be unified and holistic solutions that deal with the climate crisis in an integrated way while tackling current and future needs to make societies and the planet more resilient.
It is equally critical to factor in social and economic demands. Urban planning and policy-making will require a systems approach. This is based on engaging a system-wide stakeholders and working at the intersections of interconnected challenges. Thus cities and urban centres must adopt integrative governance, multi-objective planning, legitimate participatory process and systems approach.
The writer is director, International Centre for Policy and Conflict, @NdunguWainaina