Climate Change-Sensitive Cities: Building Capacities for Urban Resilience, Sustainability, and Equity

Climate Change-Sensitive Cities: Building capacities for urban resilience, sustainability, and equity. Directory National Autonomous University of Mexico Dr. Enrique Luis Graue Wiechers Rector Dr. Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas General Secretary Ing. Leopoldo Silva Gutiérrez Administrative Secretary Dra. Mónica González Contro General Attorney Dr. William Henry Lee Alardín Coordinator of Scientific Research Dr. Carlos Gay García Coordinator of the Research Program on Climate Change Climate Change-Sensitive Cities: Building capacities for urban resilience, sustainability, and equity. Edited by Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos National Autonomous University of Mexico Research Program on Climate Change Mexico, 2017 © 2017 Research Program on Climate Change of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. First Edition. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or thru any information storage or retrieving system, without the written authorization of the publisher. Digital format publication to be distributed on the following web sites: www.pincc.unam.mx www.giandelgado.net Electronic format: PDF Number of pages: 352 pp. Document size: 11 Mb This publication was financed by PINCC-CONACYT Research Project, number 279528 for “Strengthening climate change research activities and public awareness” (Fortalecimiento a las actividades de investigación y fomento a la vinculación en cambio climático). Proofreading: Hugo Brown Dalley Editorial design: Uziel Soriano Flores Cover design: Ángeles Alegre Schettino E-ISBN: 978-607-02-9973-5 Index • Climate change-sensitive cities. Editor’s introduction 7 Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos I. Cities sensitive to climate change associated risks • Chapter 1. An approach to integral risk management 35 associated with climate change in Mexican cities Marisol Angles Hernandez • Chapter 2. Climate change, urban expansion and 55 conservation in Mexico City’s periphery: between ignorance and good intentions. Jorge Escandon Calderon II. Adaptation and integral management in climate change- sensitive cities: challenges and opportunities in urban governance • Chapter 3. Water quality risks associated with climate 81 change: three Mexico City case studies Blanca Jimenez Cisneros, Ines Navarro Gonzalez and Raquel Montes • Chapter 4. Water management and adaptation to climate 133 change in urban settings: between dominant paradigms and local dynamics. Celia Ruiz de Oña Plaza • Chapter 5. Green infrastructure in walkable neighborhoods: 163 a climate change adaptation strategy for cities in drylands. Adriana A Zuñiga-Teran 5 III. Water, energy, land use, urban nexuses and synergies in climate change sensitive cities • Chapter 6. Water-energy nexus in semiarid regions and 183 coastal cities of California and Baja California Gabriela Muñoz Melendez, Sonya Ziaja and Guido Franco • Chapter 7. Transforming urban water infrastructure for a 229 changing climate context in Los Angeles and Mexico City Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos and Hilda Blanco IV. Cross-cutting issues in the urban transition agenda: finance, gender and education • Chapter 8. Green financing for cities: current options and 283 future challenges Antonina Ivanova • Chapter 9. Gender, climate change and cities: A case study 307 of gendered climate policy in Mexico City Ana De Luca Zuria and Miriam Gay-Antaki • Chapter 10. Climate change education: an analysis of the 327 educational measures in Climate Action Plans of urban municipalities in Mexico Veronica Vazquez Zentella About the authors 347 6 Climate change-sensitive cities Editor’s introduction Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos Growing ecological degradation, including anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG), the principal cause of climate change, with all its implications, is undoubtedly induced by economic growth in a far greater degree than population growth or other variables (IPCC, 2014). This is confirmed by the strong correlation –observed for more than a century at least—between economic growth, energy consumption, and generation of waste (Kraussmann et al., 2009; UNEP, 2016; Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata, 2012). In consequence, human beings are responsible for more than half the warming observed between 1951 and 2010, a period during which an increment has also been observed in extreme climatic events, such as heat waves, cold fronts, intense rains, cyclones and others (IPCC, 2014). According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), each of the past three decades has been hotter than any other since 1850 (IPCC, 2014). The surface temperature of our planet has increased 0.85º C since 1880, and the oceans have warmed –considering depths up to 700 meters, the first 75 m of which registered increases of 0.11º C per decade—since 1971 (IPCC, 2014). Furthermore, the absorption of ever-increasing quantities of CO2 by the oceans has caused their acidification (currently by about 26%), with negative implications for marine biodiversity, particularly in coral reefs where the intensity of bleaching suggests that the phenomenon might be irreversible as, for example, in the north section of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (Hughes et al.,2017). Also, as a result of climatic change, average sea level has increased 19 7 Delgado Ramos centimeters since 1901, the ice sheet in the Arctic and Greenland has lost part of its mass in every successive season, and North Hemisphere glaciers have also diminished (IPCC, 2014). The most recent major event of ice mass loss was the breaking away of a 5,800 square-kilometer iceberg with an estimated weight of roughly a billion tons from the Larsen C ice sector in Antarctica in July 2017. This is the third event of this importance to occur in recent years. For these reasons, and considering that the risk of abrupt and irreversible changes grows in direct proportion with the magnitude of global warming (IPCC, 2014), international climate negotiations have established as their central objective an increment in temperature of no more than 2º C compared with the 1861-1880 period, which requires that CO2 emissions accumulated since 1870 should not surpass 2,900 gigatons (GT) of CO2. Achieving the goal of 2º C established in the Paris Accord (UNFCCC, 2015) doesn’t mean there will be no negative impacts at all, as those resulting from such temperature increments will continue for centuries, even if anthropogenic emissions of GHG stop. What this accord is thus trying to achieve is to minimize the adverse effects; in pursuit of this idea, the intention has been voiced to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 º C above pre-industrial levels (Article 2.1a; UNFCCC, 2015). The necessary actions are pressing, because the estimated effects could be worse than previously calculated. On the one hand, the Accord itself is insufficient, based as it is on voluntary national contributions which, even if they were accomplished totally, would still allow an increase in temperature greater than 2º C (Delgado, 2016), and on the other, because of the implications to climate if the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Accord –the second global generator of GHG, after China— is actually carried out. Recognizing that climate change is a shared concern –as established in 8 Climate change-sensitive cities the resolution of the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Frame Convention on Climate Change—and that climate change is an unavoidable part of global environmental degradation, this collective publication is focused both on the analysis of the state of the situation, and on the necessary capabilities to gravitate towards scenarios which include sustainability and urban resilience. In such a context, the urban element is a key factor, both in the evolution of what has been termed “the great acceleration” or global change (Costanza et al., 2007; Steffen et al., 2011) and in the search and construction of solutions and alternatives. It is there, in the cities, where 80% of world wealth is generated, where the vast majority of consumption is located, and where a great proportion of infrastructure is sited, which already represents a global stock of 792 billion tons of materials, absorbing around half of the material and energy extracted annually on a global scale for its renovation and expansion (Kraussmann et al., 2017). Cities are thus, directly or indirectly, responsible for a considerable part of global environmental degradation, including the emission of between 71 and 76% of GHG (IPCC, 2014). And, given that the urbanization of existing space is proceeding at a rate never experienced before in history1, the time frame for making adjustments and implementing corrective measures is undoubtedly getting shorter. It is hardly a minor issue. Implications derive from both the deep transformations experienced by urban settlements themselves on a local- regional scale, and from those which result from accelerating urbanization on a global scale, associated with economic growth and the dynamics of capital 1 While some Latin American cities became well established over two centuries, European cities managed it in one and a half, American urban settlements (U.S.) in one century, and Chinese cities completed this process in little over 50 years. 9 Delgado Ramos accumulation, to the extent that the real estate sector already represents 217 trillion dollars, or almost 60% of the total value of global assets, including shares, bonds and gold (Savills, 2016). In this context, the

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