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Low-Carbon Development: Opportunities for Nigeria

The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has formulated an ambitious strategy, known as Vision 20: 2020, which aims to make Nigeria the worlds 20th largest economy by 2020. This book argues that there are many ways that Nigeria can achieve the Vision 20: 2020 development objectives for 2020 and beyond, but with up to 32 percent lower carbon emissions. A lower carbon path offers not only the global benefits of reducing contributions to climate change, but also net economic benefits to Nigeria, estimated at about 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Building resilience to disaster and climate change through social protection

Natural disasters and climate change are among the greatest threats to development. Although natural disasters have always presented risks, climate change increases those risks and compounds them by adding a greater level of uncertainty. As a result of their increased frequency, the economic and social costs of disasters are mounting (World Bank 2010). Natural disasters and climate change can push people into chronic and transient poverty and force them to adopt negative coping strategies.

Black Carbon Finance Study Group Report

The Black Carbon Finance Study Group report finds that existing funds are already in a position to finance businesses, activities, technologies, and policies that will contribute to cutting black carbon emissions, and that several black carbon-rich sectors are sufficiently mature to absorb finance. The report also outlines key strategies and steps needed to scale up black carbon finance over time.

UN Secretary-General appoints Red from the Angry Birds as Honorary Ambassador for Green

The United Nations today announced a campaign to encourage young people to step up their actions to address climate change and ensure a sustainable and happier future for all.

The campaign is launched in partnership with the Angry Birds – the globally renowned mobile game characters – to make a direct link between tackling climate change and people’s happiness and well-being on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness.

[video:https://youtu.be/c6p7jxpzwhs]

“The Angry Birds have entertained millions of people around the world – and now they are part of making the world a better place,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who appointed Red of the Angry Birds as an Honorary Ambassador for Green at a launch event at UN Headquarters in New York.

“We are proud to give Red a reason to go Green. There is no better way to mark the International Day of Happiness than to have our animated ambassador raise awareness about the importance of addressing climate change to create a safer, more sustainable and happier future for all,” Mr. Ban said.

The campaign, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, the UN Development Programme and UN Foundation, asks the general public across the world to make the Angry Birds happy by taking actions on climate change and sharing their photos and commitments on social media platforms using the common hashtag #AngryBirdsHappyPlanet. By recycling, taking public transportation and conserving water, for example, individuals can share tips on how they can live sustainably and happily in their everyday lives.

As part of his ambassadorial duties, Red will go on a “virtual world tour” starting on 21 March, highlighting various ways to take climate action. His tour will take him to Paris, where countries adopted an historic agreement to address climate change in December, and will end in New York, where world leaders will sign the Paris Agreement at UN Headquarters on 22 April.

During the launch event, the voice actors from the upcoming Angry Bird movie, Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, and Maya Rudolph, and producers John Cohen and Catherine Winder gave hundreds of students gathered in the iconic UN General Assembly Hall a sneak preview of the #AngryBirdsHappyPlanet campaign materials, including public service announcements created to support the campaign. They also asked the young audience for their support to the campaign by doing their part to make a difference on climate change.

Bringing the voice of global youth to the climate negotiations

Last December, 195 countries reached an unprecedented agreement on climate change. Now that three months have passed since this victory, parties are faced with another, perhaps greater challenge: ensuring the implementation of the pledges made at the summit, now that the media spotlight and public attention has moved to other issues.

Bottom up initiatives will be crucial to achieving the goals set by each party, as climate change is a global challenge with local roots. Global youth have become a key actor at the local level, inspiring communities around the world to adopt environmentally friendly ways of living. All over the world, youth initiatives have grown, driven by determined young people eager to support climate action and have their say in COP negotiations.

This eagerness to impact change and be involved in deciding the future of our planet inspired Fannie Delavelle to set up an initiative aimed at bringing the voice of the global youth to the climate negotiations.

Young people from all around the world were invited to send her questions about climate change. She got lots of replies from every corner of the world: from Ethiopia to China, from Peru to Bulgaria, from the US to Australia, young professionals responded enthusiastically.

During the second week of COP21 in Paris, she asked high-level participants such as Rachel Kyte - CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and former Vice President of the World Bank- to answer their questions.

12 Design Principles for a New Urban Default

The Green and Smart Urban Development Guidelines provide a simple yet high-quality formula to set a new default for Chinese cities.

City life in today’s China is taking new shapes. Chenggong, a new city district outside of Kunming, is being built in small blocks to tilt transportation towards walking and away from driving. Board a bus in Guangzhou, and the doors open all at once in subway-like fashion before the bus motors down an exclusive BRT lane, cutting congestion and costs. Other neighborhoods, such as Liuyun Xiaoqu, are reinventing their cityscapes by creating car-free zones where pedestrians can walk and shop without the hazards and omnipresent pollution of cars.

While we are continuously learning more about what makes human habitats both livable and sustainable, a consensus has emerged on the most foundational and necessary design principles. Last year, China Development Bank Capital, Energy Innovation, and Energy Foundation created the Guidelines for Green and Smart Urban Development to outline these design principles. The guidelines are highly aligned with the Chinese government’s recent efforts to redirect cities away from sprawl and towards sustainability.

We found that there are 12 that are the most important for urban designers, planners and developers to incorporate into the planning stage. Our approach quantifies these principles to prevent greenwashing. The beauty of these design principles is that they are simple – anyone can understand them and evaluate the sustainability of their own city.

Please download the full report here for details on metrics, best practices, and case studies.

Here is a quick rundown of our 12 Green Guidelines:

1. Urban Growth Boundary: We recommend that every city has an urban growth boundary to prevent sprawl, encourage infill development, and preserve natural resources.

2. Transit-Oriented Development: Transit capacity must be matched to density. This provides better access to public transit and decreases car use. Ensuring that the greatest number of people have access to the best transit options is vital to decreasing car use.

3. Mixed-use: The intermingling of residential, commercial, and residential uses guarantees residents access to amenities. We recommend that all residents should be at least within 500-meter radius of at least five basic amenities.

4. Small Blocks: Small blocks create a dense mesh of narrower streets and paths that are more pedestrian friendly. They shift people away from cars, which can also improve air quality. They also optimize the flow of traffic.

5. Public Green Space: Attractive public spaces can bring vitality to any city space. Oriol Bohigas, a famous Spanish urban planner, said that “public space is the city.” Without enough public green space, high levels of density can make urban areas feel crowded and uncomfortable. Green space also improves local air quality.

6. Non-motorized Transit: Of the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein said, “I thought of that while riding my bike.” The most attractive cities in the world emphasize the pedestrian environment at a human scale. Walking and biking require less energy than any other type of transportation. Before cars, cities were designed for people. For example, as shown in the photo below, older areas in Shanghai tend to have more people-friendly design characteristics that make them more walkable, bike-friendly, and livable than newer areas.

Older parts of Shanghai boast narrower roads, more storefronts, and well-designed sidewalks and pedestrian crossing areas (Source: CC Huang).

7. Public Transit: If public transit is a first-class option, people will often choose not to drive. However, public transit must be well-integrated with biking and walking to solve the “last-mile” question of how people will get to their final destinations.

8. Car Control: Even with just one-tenth of Chinese currently owning a car, the major cities already have serious pollution and congestion. Car control will be essential to make streets safer for children and the elderly, alleviate costly congestion and pollution, and rejuvenate public space.

The social cost of driving is often not accounted for when cities are making economically based decisions around urban development (Source: CC Huang).

9. Green Buildings: Buildings account for a significant amount of urban emissions. Green buildings, especially when their energy use is properly monitored and managed, can mean significantly less emissions, improved air quality, and more comfort for users.

10. Renewable and District Energy: District energy can result in 30-50 percent reduction in primary energy consumption. Renewable energy is also falling rapidly in cost and increasing in efficiency.

11. Waste Management: For waste management to be sustainable, a significant amount of waste must be diverted from landfills. All buildings should have a waste classification system so that most waste is either composted or recycled.

12. Water Efficiency: Water-efficient fixtures, appliances, and plants can easily decrease water use. Buildings should implement water-saving appliances and green spaces surrounding buildings should use low water-use plants. Wastewater and rainwater should also be recycled and re-used.

Cities around the world have already put all 12 guidelines into practice, demonstrating their success in creating holistic sustainability, prosperity, and livability. Portland and Stockholm are two leading examples. Benefits include decreased climate impact, improved conservation, economic savings, and higher quality of life. Even car-centric cities like Los Angeles are now developing public transit and adding more biking and walking paths.

Chinese cities are also going green. Few have been able to put all of the pieces together as of yet, but new opportunities are arising. The 12 Guidelines are being implemented in a pilot project tin Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, over the coming years. With the urban population expected to swell in China over the next 15 years, the guidelines offer these growing cities a roadmap for how to proceed towards a sustainable future.

Banner image: This artistic rendition of a walkable urban area shows paths dedicated to biking and walking, small blocks, car control, and public space (Source: Boshi Fu).

Using Social Psychology for Climate Change Education

Climate change can be a pretty scary and depressing topic, and that makes a lot of us just want to tune it out. Social psychologists have been studying this for a while now, and have some interesting ideas.

1) Future discounting. Humans are pretty bad at long-term planning. Economists, dieticians, and anyone who’s tried to get their dads to quit smoking can tell you that. Climate change moves slowly, and while impacts are being felt here and now, people still perceive it as distant in time and space.

2) Motivated reasoning. We’d like to think we’re rational creatures, weighing evidence and making decisions based on facts, but we’re not. Humans are highly emotional, social beings that seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

3) Emotional numbing. People have been hit over the head multiple times with images of polar bears on melting ice sheets, or the earth on fire. These scary visuals are emotionally jarring, and tend to disengage people from the issue. It’s a lot to take in. So we just tune out.

So how can we effectively engage people in the biggest challenge of our time? Well, knowing is half the battle. Climate & Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP) has been using what we have learned from social psychology to create climate change education programs that counteract some of those more negative reactions.

CUSP is a network of climate scientists, learning scientists, informal educators, and community organizations in four cities in the U.S. Northeast. CUSP develops and delivers programming both in museums and in the community that focus on local climate risks and educates about tangible solutions people can get involved in at the community level. CUSP is currently active in New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., and is led by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Community programs range from short tabletop interactions at festivals, to eight-week programs at senior centers or afterschool centers, to educational workshops at community meetings. For example, in one tabletop activity, participants learn that climate change can lead to increased heavy downpours. They are then challenged to re-engineer their neighborhoods to absorb more water, using sponges to represent green infrastructure. A recent evaluation suggests that this approach not only teaches people about potential climate change impacts and responses but also leads to an increase in conversations about climate change at home. We are continuing to test the idea that engaging in a locally framed and solution-focused activity that promotes hope and empowerment will lead participants to want to learn more about the issue as a whole.

Similarly, the CUSP Map, currently active in New York City and Pittsburgh, allows visitors to make connections between their daily lives and climate impacts. The map, which is used in conjunction with other CUSP programs and products, pairs hard data with local narrative information, creating a local picture of climate impacts and solutions that values the public’s experiences and observations. For example, map users might explore a dataset about precipitation projections or floodplain changes in conjunction with a dataset that shows the location of subway lines, helping them make the connection between a projection (increased heavy downpours and flooding) and an impact (a delayed subway commute).

Our approach of keeping climate information local, relevant and solutions-focused is in line with the latest learning research and science communication research. Ultimately, we want to give hope and empower people and organizations to work beyond personal choices to make an impact on a community and city level. Collectively, we can reduce further damage to the climate and prepare for those changes that are already underway.

Are we doing what we should?

There’s one simple fact that we have to accept: Climate Change is real and it is here now.

This has been reflected in the rising of temperatures across the globe - last year was the hottest year on planet Earth since records began. Sea levels are also rising, with island nations such as Kiribati in the Pacific and even cities like Miami under threat!

It’s time to direct our energies to what we can do to get out of the situation we have got ourselves into. For centuries, humans have managed to solve many of the problems that had been tormenting them. This is reflected in The Power of Man! - a Green Hatters video that tells the compelling story of mankind and its impact on our planet.

At last, we are slowly waking up. There are lots of organizations which are focused on trying to reduce their impact on the environment. Governments, NGO’s, different industries and even oil and gas companies are acting. Efficient energy use and green focused strategies are in…LEED certification too. Electric cars are making inroads and there are more and more charging stations on the streets. Applying carbon pricing on internal projects is a good start to show we are taking social impact into consideration - even if it sometimes seems too insignificant. The truth is that it is being recognized.

But that is not enough!

It is not enough for large employers and government just to talk and act on carbon emission at the work place. They should assume they are in a pivotal position to take this beyond their work borders and follow the example of a lot of companies that are engaging employees in managing their carbon emission, by incentivizing them to make smart daily choices - reduce energy use at home, alternative commute options - sharing rides, bike, use public transportation available et.al.

Products are now out on the market that enable both companies and individuals to calculate their carbon emissions and encourage changes in behavior. It is time for the rallying call for action, as global citizens, with an individual focus.

MIT Climate CoLab: Seeking high-impact climate change solutions

On MIT’s Climate CoLab, Connect4Climate’s proud partner, your climate change solution can win a $10,000 cash prize and be part of national or global plans for climate change. New contests seek proposals for low-carbon energy, building efficiency, transportation, smart cities, adaptation, shifting public attitudes and behaviors and many more.

Authors of winning proposals will be invited to MIT to present their proposal, enter the Climate CoLab Winners Program, and be eligible for the $10,000 Grand Prize. Plus: If your proposal is included in a top global climate action plan later this year, you will receive CoLab Points, which are redeemable for cash prizes.

Even if you don’t have new ideas yourself, work with over 50,000 members in improving other people’s ideas and support the ones you find most promising.

Entries are due May 23, 2016. Enter soon to receive feedback from Climate CoLab community members and the experts who are overseeing the contests.

Can crowdsourcing save the planet? Find out at the Climate CoLab!

Time to End Solution Delusion?

Circular economy is not a long difficult journey, it’s a quick easy choice between binary options.

The 8th March 2016 is an important day for everyone concerned about resource consumption and waste issues, including climate change. It’s the 50th anniversary of the solution to these problems being offered by Kenneth Boulding. Boulding’s poetic vision of a future ‘spaceman economy’ on a ‘spaceship Earth’ more than encompassed today’s vision of a ‘circular economy’. He set us the challenge that ‘man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction of material form’. The economy must ensure that resources are continually renewed, not abandoned and lost as wastes.

Given 50 years to work on this challenge, how have we done? Would Boulding be proud of our progress? The world has not been idle. A global environmental movement of millions of people has undertaken millions of initiatives every year for decades. The circular economy vision has been reinvented and relaunched with new language roughly every decade since the 1960s. There have been multitudes of conferences, hefty reports and case studies of circular resource flows. All that’s missing is any actual circular economy.

When Boulding pointed out the option of running the economy without destroying the resources it depends upon, annual global materials consumption was around 20 billion tonnes. Today we collectively get through four times more of the Earth’s resources every year, around 80Gt. As little as 6% of this is recycled into circular flows. Boulding’s warning that “the atmosphere may become man’s major problem in another generation” turned out to be well-founded. The reckless, exploitative and violent behaviours characteristic of Boulding’s ‘cowboy economy’ remain pervasive.

We shouldn’t assume we have another 50 years to make circular economy happen. So what should we assume? The easiest assumption, that our problem-solving is on the right track, offers the least incentive for new thinking. The toughest assumption, that our efforts been on the wrong track for 50 years, offers the greatest scope for disruptive thinking and new possibilities. Real solutions to looming global problems remain possible to the extent that we can look beyond conventional solutions. Ending our collective self-destruction requires first ending our collective self-delusion, which I call the solution delusion.

Tackling the solution delusion is a special category of problem, deeper and less tangible than the logistical challenge of realigning product designs and business model designs so resources flow one way rather than another. For 50 years the solution delusion has been the problem we least want to face, because it insulates us from our persistent failure with sustainability. As the tangible local and global consequences of a non-circular economy become more overwhelming, we rely even more on it to make all these problems feel less overwhelming.

Why has circular economy felt like an uphill struggle? Photo: Craig Sunter/flickr.com

Can we overcome the solution delusion and make circular economy happen for real? Certainly, if we are willing to tackle our self-delusion as well as our self-destruction. We can be aware not only of global problems and of practical solutions but also of the likelihood that some of our most common ideas on these topics may be unintentionally reinforcing the systems we seek to change – even when we talk about system change and struggle to make it happen. It may turn out that the biggest struggle with system change is not to do it, but just to see how to do it.

Our minds trick us into translating big visions such as circular economy into the smallest initiatives that we can fool ourselves into calling ‘ambitious’. Initiatives based on long-established methods, within areas of expertise where we are most familiar, are everywhere most favoured. The assumed theory of change is that gradual incremental improvements will add up over time to trigger a spontaneous shift to a new status quo, where people’s values and behaviours align with sustainability imperatives.

The alternative viewpoint is to be wary of the solution delusion. We can deliberately cultivate the non-incremental non-reductionist thinking that is trained out of us by our education, our jobs and a half-century of too-big-to-admit collective failure. From this viewpoint, circular economy is not a long difficult journey, it’s a quick easy choice between binary options. Resources become either new resources for nature or for people, or wastes in land, air or water. The materials in a shoe, a phone, a chemical or a building can become in future either new resources or wastes. The same binary choice applies to economics as a whole.

The economics can be set up to either incentivise or ignore the need to preserve current resources as future resources. Today it’s set up as linear economics, to generally ignore the systematic conversion of all kinds of resources into wastes, causing diverse problems and diverse exponential threats. This choice of economic models is not the outcome of an international committee of experts that meets every year, weighs up both options and votes to proceed with global self-destruction. It’s the default; it’s the choice we get when we don’t make a deliberate choice. It has remained the default for the past 50 years even whilst the other choice was constantly available.

Conventionally, circular economy has ended up being about design choices in the economy. It has become the logistical challenge of rearranging products and businesses so fewer resources get trashed. What has been missed is the design choices of the economy. We could, if we weighed up the options and made the decision, simply replace linear economics with circular. Ordinary market forces, of prices guiding decisions, would then take care of the logistics just as it does today when linear outcomes prevail. As a bonus, the new economics would define a new cultural reality that guides new default values and behaviours.

Photo: Jeff Golden/flickr.com

The circular economics to get circular economy is simple, though it departs radically from traditional proposals for green economies such as taxes, cap and trade, recycling fees and degrowth. To anyone pursuing incremental reductionist change, circular economics might look like theoretical nonsense. For a start there is a new term to encompass the range of possible practices in switching to circular resource patterns. Existing language could only specify individual practices such as recycling or energy efficiency or biodegradability.

‘Precycling’ is action taken now to ensure that something does not later become waste in any ecosystem. This pre-waste focus corrects the systemic error of trying to manage waste when it’s too late, at the point when all that people can think about is how to get rid of it. For example preparing for recycling, by a new product design or setting up boxes for different materials, is precycling. Waste management is the subsequent collection and recycling of the discarded materials. In one way or another every product can be precycled, so none need become wastes. Every household, business and community can prevent future waste by precycling.

Today there is no effective incentive to get everyone precycling. Every item that ends up dumped in landfills, burnt in an incinerator or discarded in oceans is a glaring clue about missing or misguided incentives. If not ignored, these clues tell us that the conventional ragged patchwork of incentives, targets and regulations, to encourage for example more recycling or less landfilling, is futile against the scale and urgency of the challenge. Circular economics can create a circular future for products of all kinds by quickly installing an effective incentive at the necessary scale, throughout the whole economy.

Circular economics can be based on financial responsibility for the circularity of market decisions rather than intervention in those decisions. This responsibility can be fairly shared among all market participants via prices but first it needs to be allocated somewhere. Producers are given this responsibility since their decisions have the biggest influence over the circularity of their products. They should be responsible for the quantifiable likelihood of their product ending up as waste in land, air or water ecosystems, which I call ‘waste-risk’.

No existing economic tool is adequate for circular economics. My proposed new tool extends existing producer responsibility and recycling insurance from just recycling particular product types to all the ways of preventing all products from becoming wastes. Producers pay a ‘precycling premium’ to insurers according to their product’s waste-risk. Premiums go into an independent ‘circular fund’ which receives crowdsourced proposals for activities that contribute to cutting waste-risk throughout society. The circular economics would then pay to build the circular society.

What will this mean in practice? For example, fossil fuels, nuclear fuels, biofuels and all the equipment to make and use them are products. Even solar panels are products. Each of these has a waste-risk that can be used to calculate a premium to account for their compatibility with a circular future. Materials with high waste impacts, such as greenhouse gases and radioactive wastes, would pay higher premiums which would be reflected in energy prices. These prices will carry a strong message for shoppers and investors, whether or not they care about climate or circular economy or sustainability.

After a 50 year delay, we can now start the race to circular economy for real. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Precycling premiums also carry a strong message when they are spent; ‘we’re serious about making a circular society and here’s the money to make it happen’. For example, premiums from high waste-risk fuels are not just an effective way to price carbon. The premiums are spent throughout society to phase out our waste-dumping habits, including our dependence on burning fossil fuels. Premiums would support work to boost energy efficiency and substitute fossil infrastructure with renewables. Funds would be available for expansion of ecosystems, which regenerate dispersed wastes into new resources for nature and people.

What would everyone do in a future of circular economics? Firstly, those who have been saying they want circular economy would ask governments to institute circular economics. Governments would legislate, potentially across regions such as the European Union. In order for precycling premiums to be accountable, governments would regulate to ensure transparency, fairness and effectiveness but they would not handle the funds. Scientists would provide a template for producers to calculate their waste-risks. Insurers would collect premiums from producers, which would then be spent cutting waste-risk everywhere. The public would provide crowdsourced oversight.

What would happen to conventional regulatory options such as targets, taxes, bans, product design rules and public procurement criteria? With circular economics in place, these would be little needed, just as today’s linear economy is able to generate massive waste without explicit targets and rules to encourage waste. However conventional regulation can still express a nation’s particular concerns. For example, tougher targets for cutting emissions can inform higher premiums for products with high risks of becoming emissions. Green public procurement or subsidies can support favoured solutions.

The precycling approach to circular economy is a fresh response to Kenneth Boulding’s 50 year old challenge. This is the moment in history when we will continue with the default solution delusion – or choose to meet this challenge. We will continue to explore how much circularity is possible within the default linear economics – or how fast circular economy is possible within new circular economics. We will continue to struggle with the default of accelerating unsustainability – or we will learn to correct the systems that keep causing it. I hope you will join me to help make this choice!

The article was originally published here. Banner photo: Carsten Tolkmit/flickr.com