Cities

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Political and Institutional Challenges facing Local Climate Change Policies: The experiences of Buenos Aires, Mexico City and São Paulo (2012)

 

During the last few years, Buenos Aires, São Paulo and Mexico DF, the three largest urban areas in Latin America, have taken steps in developing an institutional and policy framework to address climate change.  During the Rio + 20 summit, the mayors from these three cities signed a joint declaration in which they stressed that the local governments should take an active role in addressing climate change issues and made a series of commitments to generate a common agenda. Despite the relevance of these developments, climate change policies still face many political and institutional obstacles in these cities. This brief identifies four main challenges confronting reformist actors to advance climate change agendas at the local level, and proposes courses of actions to address these issues.

 

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January 10, 2013 | More on Adaptation, Cities, Public Climate Change Policies, Publications | Argentina, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Mexico City, São Paulo | Comment

Melting glaciers: The Slow Disaster in the Andes

 

January 3, 2013 | More on Adaptation, Cities, video, Vulnerability, youtube | Bolivia, Glaciers | Comment

Latin American side events at COP18

 

Next week COP18 will kick off in Doha, Qatar. As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s main conference of the year, COP18 will draw thousands of civil society delegates in addition to the country delegations beavering away to try and find common ground for a new climate deal. Here we provide a brief list of the official side events related to Latin America scheduled for the Doha Conference.

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November 23, 2012 | More on Cities, Indigenous Peoples & Tribes, International Climate Negotiations, REDD+ | Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, COP18, México, Perú, UNFCCC | Comment

Daniele Cesano – Sustainable Urban Planning – Brazil

 

June 21, 2012 | More on Cities, video, Vulnerability, youtube | Brazil, Floods | Comment

Emilio Lèbre La Rovere (Chief Scientists, CDKN) On Climate Action in Rio de Janeiro

 

December 9, 2011 | More on Cities, Public Climate Change Policies, video, youtube | Brazil, COP17, Rio de Janeiro, Slums | Comment

Rio+20 – Video by Government of Brazil

 

July 8, 2011 | More on Cities, video, youtube | Brazil | Comment

IDB on Sustainable Emerging Cities

 

April 17, 2011 | More on Cities, video, youtube | Inter-American Development Bank | Comment

COP 16 ICLEI SIDE EVENT – Martha Delgado – the Mexico City Pact

 

December 14, 2010 | More on Cities, video, youtube |

Latin American Mayors seek Global Leadership Role on Climate

 

By Guy Edwards and Taryn Martinez*

On the 21^st November the World’s Mayors Summit on Climate took place in Mexico City where city leaders highlighted the progressive role played by urban centres on climate change in the face of sloth-like progress by national governments. Pioneering schemes in a number of Latin American cities illustrates how cities can be an ideal avenue to push low carbon development in the region.

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November 23, 2010 | More on Cities, Food Security, International Climate Negotiations | Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Mexico City | Comment

Latin American cities risk being swamped by one metre sea level rise this century

 

Revised predications for sea level rise this century put a significant number of Latin American cities’ prosperity in jeopardy, reports the BBC’s James Painter:

Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Ecuador are seen as most at risk. New York City and southern parts of Florida are also thought to be particularly vulnerable.

Several scientists at the Copenhagen meeting spoke of a rise of a metre or more, even if the world’s greenhouse gas emissions were kept at a low level.

“A rise of one metre will irreversibly change the geography of coastal areas in Latin America,” Walter Vergara, the World Bank’s lead engineer on climate change in the region, told the BBC.

“For example, a one-metre rise would flood an area in coastal Guyana where 70% of the population and 40% of agricultural land is located. That would imply a major reorganisation of the country’s economy.”

A November 2008 study by UN-Habitat on the world’s cities pointed out that in most Caribbean island states, 50% of the population lives within 2km (1.2 miles) of the coast. They would be directly affected by sea level rise and other climate impacts.

The Bahamas, the Guyanas, Belize and Jamaica have been pin-pointed by the World Bank as being particularly at risk from a one-metre rise.

The coastal plains around the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, the country’s main economic hub, are also known to be vulnerable to a combination of sea level rises, storms and sea surges.

According to a recent World Bank study of more than 80 developing countries, Ecuador features among the top 10 countries likely to be most affected by sea level rise when calculated as a percentage of its GDP.

Argentina, Mexico and Jamaica also appear in the top 10 when measured by the impact of a one-metre rise on agricultural lands.

Scientists stress that uncertainties remain about future sea level rises, including the behaviour of the giant polar ice sheets, the time span over which rises will take place, and their interaction with existing coastal conditions.

“There is an urgent need for Latin American leaders to take account of these new figures on sea level rises in designing new policies,” says Arnoldo Matus Kramer.

“They are not doing it at the moment.”

April 10, 2009 | More on Cities | Sea level rise | Comment