Expert and Government Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 Second Order Draft – Chapter 12
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Expert and Government Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 Second Order Draft – Chapter 12 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 23631 12 In this and in many other tables including units (ie Average built-up area density is likely km2) and more Not relevant anymore for revised chapter descriptive captions would be very helpful 23634 12 Is this table necessary? Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 23635 12 It would be very helpful with this table to include the population distribution (% urban/% rural) for each area Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 23641 12 the impact of decentralized systems do not appear to be considered here Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 23638 12 D- I have no idea what D is, namely what a1-a4 refer to, in part A I don't understand what the legend means for A Not relevant anymore in the revised and B chapter 23640 12 This table may be skewed because as you discuss earlier in the chapter, higher density cities are generally less Not relevant anymore for revised chapter developed and likely have less access to electricity 34229 12 Figure 12.18: The title for this figure is misleading: “Impact of urban density and GDP (PPP) on network length...” Not relevant anymore for revised chapter The term “impact” is too strongly causal. The graphed relationships here likely reflect a correlation of high poverty and poor living conditions with dense cities. Density doesn’t cause these things, though GDP might partly explain them. 34226 12 Table 12.9: I would start section 12.4 with this table and organize the section around it. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 34217 12 Figure 12.13: Is this only infrastructure (emissions from concrete), and not use of infrastructure (e.g., VMT, Not relevant anymore for revised chapter heating & cooling) affected by the spatial arrangement of infrastructure and human settlements? Communicating this distinction clearly would be an improvement. Page 1 of 74 Expert and Government Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 Second Order Draft – Chapter 12 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 33223 12 policy change; top-down or bottom-up. Historically the top-down approach prevailed because it aligned with a Noted: not relevant hierarchical organisation of governance since neolithic ages. This led to many compromises as lobby groups tried to retain established businesses despite the quest for change. The bottom-up approach, often occurring in parallel, was driven by spontaneous initiatives, which most governments viewed with suspicion. However, it was grass root movements that gave rise to green parties in the developed countries, and which now have a strong influence on political outcomes (i.e. the abandonment of nuclear power in Germany). I wonder if the urgency of climate change will allow approaches to run parallel, both supported by governments. This, however, will need citizens to be both informed and enthusiastic. Hence I find it important to leave the reductionist, materialist view on cities, as pursued in chapter 12, behind and take a wider approach. Rather than leaving input to the “experts” or specialists we need to be open to much broader input from people from different backgrounds and skillsets; together this could generate much richer and integrative information, ideas, and/or solutions. By including the metaphysical context of urban inhabitants, I expect both greater traction and the widest possible engagement amongst the people in order to fast-track response to climate change. The United Nations are the best possible driver of these efforts and this Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC should initiate this bottom-up development. After the failed Copenhagen Conference, we can’t just return to a routine delivering reports, new pathways need to be found and pusued additionally. Chapter 12 is intrinsically about reducing GHG emission by urban planning. I haven’t found any reference about utilising urban design to protect cities from the consequences of climate change. The majority of both human settlements and infrastructure are located in coastal areas that are exposed to sea-level rise. “A 2°C warming limit, if interpreted either as a temperature-stabilization level, or as holding temperature below this level, would probably lead to many metres of SLR in the coming few centuries and would maintain rates of SLR higher than today for many centuries” (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1584.html#/f1), which would make all coastal metropolises and infrastructures disappear. In city terms 300 is a brief time-span; hence short-term measures, such as sea walls, won’t ensure the survival of coastal settlements. I’d suggest that a variety of soft engineered interventions need to be developed within coastal regions as well as strategies put into place for scheduled retreat of wide areas from the impact zones. Both scheduled retreat from endangered coastal land and the compaction of urban form in general with contribute to human resilience to climate change as a first response to sea-level rise to win time before a complete re-structuring of our civilisation can come to fruition. Bernd Gundermann Auckland, New Zealand, April 2013 31625 12 Source is missing. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 31622 12 Source is missing. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 31626 12 Source is missing. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 31620 12 One "(" is too much. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 31623 12 Regarding all figures in chapter 12: Not relevant anymore for revised chapter Please check the description above figures for unity! Sometimes the authors write source with a big letter "S", sometimes it is "source". Page 2 of 74 Expert and Government Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 Second Order Draft – Chapter 12 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 20641 12 The city of Essen does not have 11 million inhabitants, but 573,000. It is the entire "Ruhr metropolitan area". This Not relevant anymore for revised chapter should be the correct name. 19168 12 General comments. This chapter talks about urbanization and how urban areas make up over half the world's Not relevant anymore for revised chapter population. This trend will continue. To a certain extent it will assist in electricity supply, for it is much cheaper to connect urban households. Never-the-less, there will still be about 500 million households in rural areas. These need good communication systems to get products to market and to buy products from trading centers. Without such services, rural people will not be able to increase their income. Use of sustainable natural resources is key to poverty alleviation, especially in rural areas. 20665 12 There is an inconsistent use of terminology around the concept of "land use" throughout the document. Rather Noted than a fault of the authors, this is reflective of disciplinary boundaries that have evolved around the issues of consideration. The first few pages of this chapter (5-10) focus on "land use" as conceptualized from the field of geography. Simplifying grossly, the emphasis in such view is on conversions of land from agricultural or forested uses to urban uses. Within an urban use it is less important whether it is residential, commercial, or a street --it's an urban use. By contrast, the later pages of the chapter (on spatial planning) use the term "land use" from the field of City Planning. Again simplifying, the term refers to the type of use within the area (high density residential vs. strip mall retail). The two are used interchangeably in the text, and this is confusing to the reader. One way to reconcile the terms is to use "land coversion to urban uses" instead of the more generic "land uses". It is also important to say that Ian McHarg's approach to considering land use was more aligned with the a textured and rich way of considering changes to the landscape and within the landscape, than what both of these approaches suggest. 20669 12 Not all cites are in the references. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 20667 12 Definitely a candidate for cutting Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 20673 12 Figure is hard to understand and adds little to the main point. Consider cutting. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 41092 12 table has no units of measurement. No description and interpretetaion of the table in the text. No standard Not relevant anymore for revised chapter deviations are given. 41094 12 relevance unclear, no connection to text. Not relevant anymore for revised chapter 34949 12 unit of built up area is missing Addressed in revised text 34950 12 this should be turned into a figure as these numbers are hard to relate Addressed in revised text 35048 12 Explore whether information in this table can be synthesized and ideally be presented as a figure. Addressed in revised text 34954 12 Consider changing this into a figure (e.g. only 1 column wide) Addressed in revised text 34962 12 Remove, as too detailed. It is sufficient to explain Scope 1-3 in the text. In general there is no space for such Addressed in revised text information in the chapter as other more important issues should be covered in the chapter. 34974 12 Delete. This is not information policy makers are interested in. Doing an assessment of these studies, Addressed in revised text summarizing the GHG estimates of infrastructures across studies is what should be done in an assessment. Please try to do this. 34988 12 This table can be turned into a figure.