Management into the Development Strategies of Urbanizing Regions in Asia: Implications of Urban Function, Form, and Role

Abstract

The way urbanization unfolds over the next few decades in the developing countries of Asia will have profound implications for sustainability. One of the more important opportunities is to guide urbanization along pathways that begin to uncouple these gains in well‐being from rising levels of energy use. Increasing energy use for transport, construction, climate control in houses and offices, and industrial processes is often accompanied by increasing levels of atmospheric emissions that impact human health, ecosystem functions, and the climate system. Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry alter carbon stocks and fluxes as carbon dioxide, methane, and black carbon. In this article we explore how carbon management could be integrated into the development strategies of cities and urbanizing regions. In particular, we explore how changes in urban form, functions, and roles might alter the timing, aggregation, spatial distribution, and composition of carbon emissions. Our emphasis is on identifying system linkages and points of leverage. The study draws primarily on emission inventories and regional development histories carried out in the regions around the cities of Manila, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, New Delhi, and Chiang Mai. We find that how urban functions, such as mobility, shelter, and food, are provided has major implications for carbon emissions, and that each function is influenced by urban form and role in distinct ways. Our case studies highlight the need for major “U‐turns” in urban policy.

Ecosystem services in a peri-urban protected area in Cyprus: a rapid appraisal

“…In the case of RNFP visitors live and work locally, therefore contribute relatively small amounts to the local economy while there are no extra facilities on site where money could be spent on. Within a peri-urban park, green areas and tree plantations can function as carbon sinks (McHale et al 2007), although urban vegetation only sequestrates a small part of annual CO 2 emissions of a city (Jansson and Nohrstedt 2001;Lebel et al 2007). In fact, urban parks can function as carbon sources because management and the use of parks produce multiple amounts of CO 2 emissions compared to the carbon sequestration capacity of a green area (Oliver-Sola et al 2007).…”

Towards a comprehensive system of methodological considerations for cities' climate targets

“…As discussed in Section 4.1, depending on each city's purpose with its targets, different approaches are chosen. This can be based on a service approach, in which the focus is on the functions of activities for the user Jonsson et al, 2011;Glaeser and Kahn, 2010;Lebel et al, 2007;Lenzen et al, 2004;Ellegård, 1999;Baccini and Brunner, 1991), from a sectored perspective (Baynes et al, 2011;IPCC, 2006), based on an organisational delimitation, i.e. the scope of influence (Kennedy et al, 2010;Sovacool and Brown, 2010;ICLEI, 2009;WRI-WBCSD, 2004), or on a combination of these.…”

“…The regional approach allows local authorities to benchmark their industries with other similar industries elsewhere, while the consumption approach gives a more realistic picture of the energy use from an urban area and is therefore useful for observing impacts from changing household consumption patterns and lifestyles. Lebel et al (2007) distinguish between direct emissions (from goods and services produced and consumed locally), responsible emissions (produced locally, consumed elsewhere), deemed emissions (produced elsewhere, consumed locally) and logistic emissions (from transports passing through). In their 'metropolitan accounting bubble' however, only direct emissions and responsible emissions from electricity and fuels are included.…”

Determinants of cities' GHG emissions: a comparison of seven global cities

“…slum dwellers of large metropolitan cities experience limitations to their mobility as they cannot afford the costs of private of even transit modes and housing is often located in areas that lack connection to the urban transportation network, Bertaud et al, 2009). Rapidly, developing countries are experiencing extraordinary private motorization growth rates associated with rising incomes (Lebel et al, 2007, on Asian countries), and this is also entailing a significant growth of emissions in the transportation sector, even if for lower income groups non-motorized modes still constitute a relevant part of private mobility (Lebel et al, 2007).…”