Building Climate-Resilient Cities Exploring the Five Lenses of Climate Action
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FEATURE Building climate-resilient cities Exploring the five lenses of climate action Irena Pichola, Mahesh Kelkar, and Mateusz Bratek DELOITTE CENTER FOR GOVERNMENT INSIGHTS Building climate-resilient cities: Exploring the five lenses of climate action Cities should take a multidimensional approach to climate change. Based on insights gleaned from our survey, we recommend that cities view climate action through five lenses: governance, innovation, risk reduction, operational sustainability, and climate equity. ACK IN 2012, Copenhagen, the capital of installing additional biking infrastructure, Denmark, declared its intent to become expanding the reach of public transport, and completely carbon-neutral by 2025. If discouraging the use of private vehicles through B 6 successful, Copenhagen will not only be the first measures such as higher parking fees. As of capital city in the world to achieve this goal but will 2019, about 66% of trips within Copenhagen likely beat other major cities by more than were made either by bike, on foot, or via a decade.1 public transport. Key to this initiative is the Copenhagen 2025 • City administration: The city aims to make Climate Plan (CPH 2025). This multidimensional its operations and structures more sustainable approach to climate change was co-developed with by focusing on reducing energy consumption in more than 200 stakeholders, including businesses, municipal buildings by 40%, transitioning academics, and citizen representatives. The plan administrative vehicles to alternative fuels, and sets specific targets and outlines carbon reduction installing solar panels in administrative initiatives in four key areas—energy consumption, buildings. It is making buildings more energy- energy production, mobility, and city efficient by retrofitting old structures with green administration.2 technology and designing new ones to be more sustainable. Furthermore, the city is creating a • Energy production and consumption: “living lab” in its new district of Nordhavn by Copenhagen has already installed 62 wind embedding sensors in the buildings. turbines with a total capacity of 158 megawatts— Researchers can use the data from these enough energy to fully power more than 30,000 sensors to develop new insights on homes.3 They aim to increase it to 460 energy management.7 megawatts by 2025. The city has also commissioned a new power plant that converts Moreover, these achievements did not hinder the trash into energy and repurposed an existing city’s economic growth. Despite the climate plan’s powerplant to run on wood pellets instead of high price tag—it is estimated to cost US$4 billion coal.4 Through efforts such as these, in total—and shifting business models, Copenhagen has already cut its emissions by Copenhagen’s GDP has increased by nearly 31% 42% from 2005 levels and reduced heat between 2010 and 2018.8 consumption by 15%.5 Copenhagen’s plan provides a view into the • Mobility: Copenhagen aims to establish a new changing role of government in addressing transportation model that will facilitate 75% of climate change. It’s not just about setting all trips in the city being made on foot, by bike, ambitious goals but following it up with bolder or via public transport. To do this, it is actions and a collaborative approach toward 2 Building climate-resilient cities: Exploring the five lenses of climate action climate change. Copenhagen’s ambitious goals Building climate resiliency around energy consumption and mobility cannot needs a new approach to be successful without coordination and cooperation with different stakeholder groups. climate change Historically, city governments have looked at After years of heated scientific and political debate climate change in terms of mitigation and around climate change, the scientific community adaptation. While these are important concepts, has now reached a near-total consensus on cities should evolve a broader, more holistic humanity’s role. About 97% of climate scientists approaches to climate change, such as the agree that climate warming trends in the past Copenhagen plan. They need to reimagine century are likely due to human activities.9 This governance, relook at their climate innovation was made amply clear in 2020 when the pandemic- ecosystem, and be laser-focused on climate equity. induced economic slowdown and lockdowns reduced global emissions by 7% (or nearly In this article, we deep dive into each of these 2.4 billion tons of CO2) compared to 2019. But key climate action areas to understand the carbon emissions are expected to return to progress made by cities globally. normal levels—and beyond—as economic activities Recommendations and observations are informed resume globally.10 by the ESI ThoughtLab and Deloitte global city survey. (Find more details about this survey in the Postpandemic, climate change is likely to become a “About the survey” sidebar.) top policy agenda for cities globally for many years. A quarter of surveyed city leaders said they consider climate change and environmental threats to be a top external disruptor. Additionally, about About 97% of climate scientists half of the cities surveyed have made considerable progress toward the UN’s “Climate Action” SDG. agree that climate warming But there are large regional variations. Asian and European cities have made considerable progress trends in the past century are toward the goal—67% and 65%, respectively. likely due to human activities. Europe’s success is due in part to significant ABOUT THE SURVEY ESI ThoughtLab, in collaboration with a coalition of business, government, and academic leaders, including Deloitte, surveyed 167 cities globally to understand their progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), how they coped with the pandemic, and how they are leveraging digital technologies, data, and other innovative solutions to drive progress in the postpandemic era. The survey was conducted between August and November 2020. It covered cities across 82 countries with varying income levels and population sizes. The survey also classified cities into three stages of smart city maturity—beginner, intermediate, and leader—based on their progress in harnessing technology and data across various urban domains, and their ability to foster citizen and stakeholder engagement. Based on the survey results, 29% of cities were classified as beginner, 49% as intermediate, and 22% as smart city leaders. 3 Building climate-resilient cities: Exploring the five lenses of climate action public support. The European Union’s 2021 transforming energy systems to supporting zero- Eurobarometer survey found about 93% of emission transportation to encouraging innovation its citizenry considered climate change in clean energy technologies such as carbon a serious problem.11 capture and will have wide-ranging effects on urban planning and operations.12 North America has lagged by comparison, with only 10% of cities surveyed in the region having There is no doubt that climate change and its made considerable progress toward their climate effects will continue to be an important issue in the action goals. In the United States, the Biden-Harris coming decade. And cities should evolve a different administration has brought a new sense of urgency. approach to address the challenge, something that The administration has taken an aggressive stance, we term as the five lenses of climate action. The issuing a series of executive orders addressing five lenses expand on the traditional mitigation and climate change and mandating a whole-of- adaptation approach to assist city leaders in government approach. These include actions from identifying opportunities for action (figure 1). FIGURE 1 Cities shift to a multidimensional approach to climate change Governance Using the city’s technical and operational mandate to address climate change–related issues at the policy, funding, regulatory, and data level Climate equity Risk reduction Innovation Using the transformational Identifying, prioritizing Leveraging the power of the challenge of climate and adapting public sector to promote change to provide access to, measure the impact of, government investments advanced technologies, new improved social, in infrastructure, solutions, and innovative employment, and environmental outcomes operations, and services financing partnerships to for all citizens to address climate address the challenges change risks and of climate change promote resiliency Operational sustainability Measuring and reducing carbon emissions from and increasing the mission resilience of government infrastructure, operations, and services Source: Deloitte analysis. Deloitte Insights | deloitte.com/insights 4 Building climate-resilient cities: Exploring the five lenses of climate action In subsequent sections, we will explore how cities Gilbert also plans to start making small are addressing climate change and map their incremental changes in how the city functions to progress in each of the five lenses. We will also tackle the growing heat problem. This includes explore regional differences and identify regions discouraging retail spaces from keeping their doors that are leading the way on climate change. open when the air conditioning is on, changing work schedules to avoid extreme heat periods, GOVERNANCE educating citizens on taking shade breaks, and Climate change is one of the biggest global threats replacing palm trees with shade-giving trees, to cities are facing today, and leaders need to adopt name a few.15 governance models