Vancouver/Nairobi,
19 June 2006 – With over three billion people
now living in urban areas, an innovative project
to bring high quality public transport to some
of the most polluted cities on the globe was announced
to mark the opening of the World Urban Forum III.
The Forum, taking place in Vancouver,
Canada and involving thousands of delegates from
across the world, is being organized under the
auspices of UN-Habitat, the city agency of the
United Nations.
The new public transport project,
executed by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) through its Risø Centre in cooperation
with government agencies and local authorities,
underscores a growing determination among developing
countries to balance urbanization and growth with
local and global environmental concerns.
The multi-million dollar project,
funded by the Global Environment Facility and
involving Concepcion, Guatemala City and Panama
City, aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions by
at least 100,000 tonnes a year, and potentially
far more.
The project, which will lead
to the creation of modern bus networks, cycle
ways and pedestrianization schemes, will also
tackle local air pollution linked with human ill
health and damage to forests, agricultural land
and other key ecosystems.
The cities will work with others
in the region through a new information network
called “NESTLAC” –Network for Environmentally
Sustainable Transport in Latin American Countries.
Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive
Director, said: “In 2007, for the first time in
history, more people will be urban than rural
dwellers. By 2050, some six billion people are
expected to be city dwellers. The World Urban
Forum is thus an important meeting central to
all our interests”.
“The urban environment is inextricably
intertwined with the rural one and inextricably
linked with the way local, regional and global
natural resources are soundly and sustainably
managed. So it is vital that we get cities right
if we are to meet the internationally agreed development
goals, if we are to deal with such pressing global
issues as climate change”.
He said UN-Habitat and UNEP
were key partners in the Sustainable Cities Programme.
This is working with more than 100 cities world-wide
to promote environmental planning and management
under Agenda 21—a comprehensive sustainability
action plan born at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.
Mr. Steiner said he looked forward
to ever deeper cooperation with UN-Habitat—which
is co located with UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya-- and
its Executive Director, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka.
As part of the World Urban Forum
III UNEP, along with the UN-Habitat, ICLEI-Local
Governments for Sustainable Development and the
Cities Alliance is showcasing a study of numerous
cities from Cape Town, South Africa and Hyderabad,
India to Honolulu in the United States.
The study underlines how many
are proving that management of waste up top more
efficient energy use makes both economic and environmental
sense locally and globally.
Hyderabad in India is working
with local women under a ‘community collection’
scheme to collect wastes and rubbish with the
money made helping women get much needed access
to credit via the local banking system.
The city is also turning the
waste into ‘refuse derived fuel’ which, the city
says, emits less greenhouse gases than traditional
biomass like wood or agricultural wastes.
Honolulu has replaced traditional
light bulbs in the city’s traffic lights with
light emitting diodes saving over half a million
dollars a year in reduced energy, maintenance
and other costs.
Mr. Steiner said:”The rapid
rate of urbanization, especially in developing
countries, is a fact of life. But some cities
are also demonstrating other facts. Namely that
improving local air quality and curbing waste
up to countering greenhouse gas emissions can
go hand in hand with that urbanization and with
that growth”.
“Around half the world’s population
is already living in cities and the numbers are
set to rise. So the quest for sustainability will
be increasingly won or lost in our urban areas.
However, it is a quest upon which many local authorities
and city leaders are increasingly eager to embark
often for hard nosed and pragmatic economic reasons,”
he added.
Numerous studies now indicate
that air pollution alone costs not only lives
but also causes damage to productive ecosystems
like forests, agricultural land and marine environments.
UNEP’s latest Global Environment
Outlook Year Book cites findings from work by
the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and the experiences of Mexico City and Santiago,
Chile.
The US EPA for example estimates
that the benefits of America’s Clean Air Act will
be around US$ 690 billion over the period 11000
to 2010.
The Santiago study assessed
the financial benefits of compliance with the
Santiago Decontamination Plan at US$ 4 billion
over a 15-year period.
They mirror a new report by
the European Commission on achieving improved
air quality standards by 2020.
The Commission estimates that
an investment of around seven billion Euros to
reduce air pollution will deliver benefits totaling
Euro 42 billion as a result of “fewer premature
deaths, less sickness, fewer hospital admissions
and improved labour productivity”.
The Commission’s study says that “although there
is no agreed way to monetize ecosystem damage,
the environmental benefits of reduced air pollution
will also be significant in terms of reduced areas
of ecosystems that may be damaged by acidification,
eutrophication and ozone”.
Important advances are also
being made for city dwellers in African cities
as a result of the successful phase out of leaded
petrol in sub Saharan Africa.
The phase out, achieved at the
beginning of 2006, was undertaken by the Partnership
for Clean Fuels and Vehicles.
The Partnership, involving industry,
non governmental organizations, governments and
international bodies including UNEP, was established
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in 2002.
The Partnership is now working on a total global
phase out of leaded gasoline alongside initiatives
to tackle sulphur in vehicle fuels.
Mr. Steiner said there was still
a long way to go to realize sustainable cities.
He said it was vital that the rural environment
is addressed and that vital services, decent jobs
up to sustainable energy supplies are provided
in rural areas.
“The migration of people from
rural areas to cities would be better managed
if people in rural communities had better chances
for work, health care and education and this has
also something to do with improved access to sustainable
energy supplies, fairer international trade regimes
for items like agricultural products, questions
of land tenure and acceptable levels of inward
investment and overseas development aid,” said
Mr. Steiner.
Notes to Editors
The 3rd World Urban Forum or WUF III opens on
19 June. http://www.wuf3-fum3.ca/
Details of UNEP’s new GEF-funded “Nestlac” transport
project for Concepcion, Guatemala City and Panama
City can be found at http://www.uneprisoe.org/nestlac/.
and in Spanish at http://nestlac.org/
UNEP’s Urban Environment Unit http://www.unep.org/dpdl/urban_environment/index.asp
UN-Habitat www.un-habitat.org
ICLEI www.iclei.org
The Cities Alliance www.citiesalliance.org
