Visioning Cities for the Future

Hello. This is Lena Neij, and today, I will talk about visions for the cities of the future.

What will future cities look like, and what actions do we need to take in order to develop
sustainable cities? In order to move in a more sustainable direction, we need visions of how
sustainable cities can look like in the future. We need to create images that help us to
visualize how this future can materialize, and what actions are needed in order to realize
these visions.

Visions and ideas about the future, can show us how to change direction and move
toward sustainability. Visions are vital for mobilizing individuals, organizations towards
creating greener cities. Many cities experience poor air quality, poisonous emissions, noise,
and degradation of natural resources that lead to serious environmental and health
problems.

Researchers and policymakers across the globe tend to agree that something needs to
change, and bold visions for the future can help initiate that change. Officials illustrate an
alternative future, a city that is livable, exciting, while minimizing the impacts on the
environment. Visions provide goals, directions that can lead towards a sustainable future.
Many of these visions may look bold, but they also highlight alternative city structures,
new modes of transportation, new types of exciting buildings. For example, vertical
greenhouses like this one that is being developed here in Sweden right now.

It's also important that local communities define sustainability from their own perspective.
This will make sure their vision is appropriate to the local context and accepted by the
community. Visions can be used as a point of discussion among different stakeholders and
in turn, be further refined by their input.

Here we see a vision developed by students at Lund University. This vision illustrates
artificial islands constructed outside Malmo as a measure to adapt to climate change,
extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. Visions are not only about the distant future,
but can also be used to accelerate near-term changes.

Green roofs can reduce the negative impacts of heavy rain, and provide insulation
to cool down buildings in summer and keep them warmer in the winter, as well as many
other benefits like improve air quality and biodiversity. Green roofs are already being
used and developed in many cities around the world. We can find many examples of this
right here in Sweden.

A good example already existing in one city can also be used as a vision for other cities.
Visions can also be applied in experiments with changing this existing city. An example is
how New York City in collaboration with Danish firm, Gehl Architects, experimented with
visions of its city squares. In 2009, they closed Times Square to cars and they developed
into a nice open area with cafes and bicycle lines. The idea was to experiment with the
concept by using only paint and temporary furniture for the first stage of transformation,
and then evaluate the results for successive stages. With positive feedback, the city is
continuing to refine Times Square as a new sustainable space in the center of the city.
Similar experiments bringing sustainable visions to life, are being developed in many cities
today. Various methods have been developed and are applied to construct visions and
discuss what actions should be taken in order to realize those visions.

The vision-making process should begin with a discussion between the city and the
different actors around the problem that need to be addressed. For example, pollution and
climate change. One method known as back-casting can then be applied. Essentially, this
involves working backwards from a vision (Present reality to Future vision) to identify
necessary system shifts and potential barriers. The key question at this stage is, if
we want to realize a certain vision, actions must be taken to connect the future vision with
the present reality.

A back-casting study can also demonstrate a tension between short-term actions

and long-term goals. It does this by identifying steps in the transition process that can't
be reached without more radical changes than the changes that are currently being
implemented. In this way, back-casting can also challenge cities to assess whether their
current policies really align with their future visions and ambition. The evaluation of
various actions along the way to achieving visions is important. By evaluating, we can see if
policies and actions are successful in moving the city towards its goals.

The development of Western Harbor in Malmo, provides a good example of how

evaluation can improve the process of sustainable urban transformation. The vision is to
transform the area into a sustainable neighborhood. The area has been developed in
stages, all of them being evaluated to provide important insights for the next stages. For
example, the requirements of energy efficiency of the buildings being developed in the
first ways, were relatively tough. The requirements were lowered in the second phase,
and the third phase, they combined lowered requirements with tougher voluntary
requirements. In this way, the experimental construction in the first stage was developed
into more mainstream action that are now used in other areas of Malmo.

Visions challenge what is conceived as possible. At the same time, long-term visions are
an underlying foundation for achieving sustainable urban transformation. Visions can be
utilized to build and to bind a network of actors. Visions can also serve as a bridge
between different perspectives, it contributes to shared learning. In my research, I
continue to explore how we can improve participation and interaction between public
authorities, private actors, citizens, and academia.
WWF and Sustainable Cities

Great to be here and just in case some of you are still wondering what the panda has got to
do with construction in cities, let me give a brief background. So we work for a future where
we live in harmony with nature. And we do this by protecting biodiversity and by seeking
solutions to reduce our global ecological footprint. And the trends so far are not favorable.
We see in our biannual Living Planet Report, an accelerating loss of biodiversity. And the
constant growth of the ecological footprint.

Today being in the state were we use 50% more of the resource productive capacity
and the carbon absorption capacity, than what the Earth can sustain.

And the size of our ecological footprint is determined by how we live. The fact that this
is an urbanizing planet makes it clear that the design of cities will determine the global
footprint. And will also determine whether we win or lose our battle for a future in harmony
with nature.

You may already be aware that urban dwellers account for 70% or more than 70% of
the global carbon emissions already. And the global urban population is set to double,
almost double, by 2050 meaning that the urban area will more than double within that
period of time. And that will be coupled with huge investments approximately 350 trillion
US-dollars are expected to be invested in urban infrastructure and is used over the
next three decades, that’s approximately 5 times the global GDP.

Now to put it bluntly, where this investment goes, will determine whether billions of people
will be locked into fossil fuel dependent and wasteful infrastructures and
lifestyles, or, if this investment can actually become the seed that can drive a
transition of our cities into places, where we all can live sustainable and
attractive lives.

Together with Booz & Company, WWF have assessed the different alternatives of
having all these investments going into business as usual infrastructure, or choosing the
best available technologies. And clearly the latter option is not only helping us and giving us
a chance to save the climate, it's also radically reducing the costs, the overall costs for urban
infrastructure in the long run.

But for this route to be taken, we now already need very aggressive targets set on the
urban level in terms of emission reduction and renewable energy production. And
we need to make sure that the cities are built using the best practice urban planning
methods, and the best available technologies. But in order for that to happen, we also
need to make sure that the places where urbanization is happening at the fastest rate, that
is in Africa, Asia, we develop innovative financing strategies in order to enable the
cities to meet the upfront capital cost for the better alternative. In the longer term it pays
off, but in the short term, we need about 6% more capital to do this choice. The
better choice.

And all of this is the reason why WWF is engaged in cities and why we developed the Earth
Hour City Challenge.
Which is a recurrent, year-long program, where we invite the cities to demonstrate
the leadership necessary by publicly reporting on a globally recognized reporting platform,
commitments and actions to transition toward a sustainable and renewable future.

The cities, they report these commitments (on a global climate reporting
platform) and then an international jury of experts from all the key organizations like
the C40 Network, UN Habitat, several development banks, ICLEI, academic institutions,
they assess the data. And then, on a level playing field, the jury selects the most
ambitious city for each country and one for the world, and these winners are entitled
the Earth Hour Capitals of the Year.

This is the platform where the so far up around 200 Earth Hour City Challenge candidates
have been reporting. And it's also a platform that the major city networks, and the UN have
agreed as the central repository for collecting city level data, and feeding it into
the global climate negotiations.

The reason for doing this, is of course, to raise the ambition of the global climate
negotiations: you may be aware that cities all together already have committed to
more carbon reduction than all the nations altogether. So by putting this on a
transparent platform, it will hopefully enable, increase national level ambitions. And by
transparently documenting the actions taken by cities, we also wish to encourage finance
actors and also governments to help remove obstacle and help cities access the finance
needed, to scale up the most promising climate actions.

Now, in order to get elected officials to really do this commitment, to help the cities, they
need support. And that's why we've coupled the Earth hour city challenge initiative with a
yearly social media campaign, where we engage the public. We educate the public by
promoting the leading examples from the city challenge cities, and showing them
what's possible within the areas of transport, building, waste, energy production. And
we invite the public to express support for a strong sustainability action. And just with the
pilot campaigns, we've received within a couple of weeks hundreds of thousands of
expression of support for an urban development, that can enable citizens to live more
sustainable lifestyles.

And we have lots of great examples also coming from the leading city challenge cities. For
example, Vancouver (global winner 2013) demonstrates the value of strong, ambitious
targets. And they've been working on green district development and a lot on sustainable
mobility, and that has paid off both by the delivering on the ambitious climate targets,
but also by doubling the number of green jobs, and cementing the position of
Vancouver as one of the most attractive cities of the world.

And in Cape Town (global winner 2014), we have seen the excellent combination of
equity challenges with climate challenges in large scale programs. For example,
the program developing solar heat for the thousands of poor households in the poorer
districts of Cape town.

And this year, the global winner, Seoul (global winner 2015), is a great case in point of how
you can implement the latest available technologies at scale, with tens of thousands of
installations of solar power, as part of an overall ambition of the city to turn the whole city
into solar power plant.

Last but not least, I want to mention Gothenburg. Gothenburg (Swedish winner 2015), the
Earth hour capitol of Sweden was a strong contender in the city challenge this year, and the
jury provided special mention to this city for its climate strategy and its ability to think
outside of the box. Which partly demonstrates in the choice to set also consumption-
based emission targets, thus looking at the lifestyle of the citizens, but also of course, in
its pioneering use of green city bonds to finance big win initiatives in the city. As part of
the transition of the city, such as biogas production, and of course, electromobility
initiatives.

So, WWF looks forward to keep highlighting really promising and impressive climate action
at the local level, and to keep building this critical mass of cities that publicly reports strong
commitments in climate actions, but the cities can't do it alone. So we will keep encouraging
citizens, finance actors, business, governments to do their share in speeding up this
transition needed on the local level.

And the good news is that, this is not only about saving the climate. This is a fantastic
opportunity to enable more attractive lifestyles, and to build social and economic resilience
for both cities and businesses and our communities.

Thank you for your attention. I hope I kept to the time. Thank you, Karina
Smart and Sustainable Cities – an introduction

The Climate Crisis is the biggest challenge of our generation. It’s a symptom that society
today is not designed to allow us to live within the planetary boundaries.

Today, 55% of all people live in cities. In 2050, that number will be 66%. A majority of all
emissions come from cities and that’s why cities are key to solving the climate crisis.

So, what kind of society do we want? That is the key question for all innovation on
smart, sustainable cities. Our mission is to make cities climate neutral by 2030. There are
already people in cities living without emissions but we need to change the society so that
becomes the norm, and easy to live that way.

To reach our goal 2030, we need to make sure everyone can live a good life – without
emissions. This challenge is complex. We don’t know how this can become a reality – yet.
We need to start doing things, prototype solutions to learn things we need, to scale the
solutions that can have a real impact.

Our work is similar to the US mission to put a man on the moon in the 1960s. they don’t
know how to do it, but the mission was clear and our mission is clear too. We are to
achieve climate neutral cities by 2030. With a good life for all – within planetary boundaries.

Within Viable Cities, more than 200 actors are working together for a climate neutral
society. Minimizing our climate impact and maximizing our quality of life is what this is all
about. We aim for transformative change on a systems level. Shallow changes are not
enough.

At Viable Cities, we combine innovation, research and storytelling to explore and explain
what good life will be like, in order to engage citizens to change our cities as quickly as
possible. Nine (9) Swedish cities are taking the lead. They do what no one has done before
them: change to become climate neutral in ten years. (Malmo, Goteborg, Jarfalla,
Enkoping, Lund, Vaxjo, Stockholm, Uppsala, and Umea).

We will become climate neutral because we have to. Together, we create the ability to
change our cities. For a better life for everyone.
Smart and Sustainable Cities – future possibilities

How do we design our future cities? How do we make better use of time and space? And
who has the power to decide?

How can we take back our time?

Our cities are expanding. With more and more people in the cities, space is increasingly
scarce. This increases stress for the climate, but also for humans. Rush Hours, Crowded
Spaces, Traffic jams. What if we changed the ways we travel in the city? The ways we
work? The ways we spend every hour of the day?

What would our time in the city look like? How can we reclaim public spaces?

People have their everyday life in the city. But cars and mass consumption dominate the
urban environment and social spaces for a good life and urban nature are compromised.
Parking areas and vehicles are taking up a lot of space. What if less people rode alone in
their own cars? What if we traveled differently? Or if we built the city in a completely
different way?

What would city life look like? How can we reclaim the narrative?

People live and work in the city. But the city is not suited to our needs. Who decides the
way it should be? What if the elderly were to decide how cities are designed? Or people with
functional diversity? Or the children? What would they say? And what do you say?
WWF Food

Food and drink comprise around 16% of an average Swedish citizen's carbon
footprint. Including other greenhouse gas emissions from food production increases this
figure dramatically. But there are several ways in which cities can play an active role in
reducing this negative impact. For example, by ensuring green public procurement and by
promoting citizens' awareness of climate smart eating.

Lund, a well-known university town in Sweden, is a city with high ambitions for reducing the
environmental impact of food. Rewarded for its excellent green procurement in 2010, the
municipality has managed to increase the share of organic food from 10% to 36% in only 5
years.

Through the youth forum for Agenda 21, the city supports initiatives by young people who
work towards environmental improvements. One campaign, meat free Monday, highlights
the environmental impact of meat consumption, and the simplicity of cooking tasty,
healthy vegetarian food.

Lund is also cooperating with the local society for nature conservation on events such as
public lectures and annual fairs that promote environmentally sound and climate
friendly food.

Kristianstad, one of Sweden's main food producing centers, has a strong profile called the
Spirit of Food, which encompasses every link of the food chain. The city works to actively
promote locally produced food and offers local producers the opportunity to participate in
the annual food festival, where they sell and promote their products in the central
marketplace.

Kristianstad also has a somewhat unique stand-alone biogas system, which produced
energy from industry and household food waste. The waste is processed together with
manure from farms, producing bio gas that is used for city buses, which are run on 100%
biogas, as well as for other vehicles.
The Green Urban - Part 5

>> The City of Paris host to the United Nations Conference on climate change has been
recognized for its huge commitment to create a more sustainable city by focusing on
sustainable mobility, renewable energy and the reintroduction of nature in the city.

>> Paris is firmly committed to meeting these challenges by developing innovative solutions
with less impact on the environment. For example, in promoting soft mobility, strengthening
the role of nature in the city, deploying circular economy and developing sustainable energy.

>> We have now in Paris a big issue about air pollution, this is big trouble for health as
well. So, we have decided to develop many measures on one hand and we give incentive
to people that they shift to a sustainable mobility. And on the other hand, we have a
special program that step by step is going to forbid the most polluted cars within
the city by 2020. That just like the cleanest one can circulated to the city to lower the
pollution

We are subsidizing taxis and individual purchases of clean electric vehicles. Also, the buying
of electric bicycles. If you buy an electric bicycle, you get a subsidy of a fourth of the
total price from the City of Paris. So we are really pushing very hard on electric vehicles,
it is one of our priorities. And now we can see the result, that the Parisians are promoting
the electric vehicles.

>> Increasing investments in renewable energy and retrofit programs is a clear priority for
Paris, as is their Sustainable Development Action Network.

>> In Paris, we're going to have many actions in the next years to implement our acclimate
action plan. But I would say, we have three big issues right now, it's to develop green
energies in the city. It's also to strengthen out retrofit plan to mitigate GHG
emissions, but also to tackle energy poverty. We have in Paris created what we call
Sustainable Development Action Network and it gathers Individuals, associations, but also
startups that have made commitments to face climate issues. And instead of being alone in
that fight, we are gathering them, helping them to share experiences, to go to grow bigger
and also to be more known from the Paris population and this network now is gathering
nearly 10% of the Paris population.

>> Two South African cities, Cape Town and Tshwane have both been praised for their
commitments to sustainable development while simultaneously battling challenges, such as
poverty and social inequality.

>> In the City of Tshwane and in South Africa in general, we are faced with triple
challenges. Unemployment, poverty and inequality. So, it is important that we are able to
skill people to participate in the mainstream economy.

>> We all have a responsibility as citizens to do what we can to protect the planet from the
harmful effects of climate change and it is an imperative that we see a shift from our
reliance on traditional energy sources, and look to as many clean energy sources as
possible.

>> One of our natural advantages is the number of sunny days. So we must exploit that
resource and that's why we are introducing solar powered energy, but we also want to use
it to resolve the housing question in our city. So as we expand and give more free houses to
the poor, the roof panels must be designed in a manner that allows solar panels. So in this
way, you are resolving both an existing and immediate question, but also a future question
with regards to your energy mix and that's how we want to use solar going forward.

>> It's clear that cities need the support of national politicians and strong policies in order
to achieve their real potential, and ambitious goals. A combination of both a top-down and
bottom-up approach is absolutely necessary, and demands a common effort that truly
involves city residents.

>> Changing our energy system to renewable energy is possible, technically possible. But
we have to move very fast, the economical framework, the legislative framework. We have
to inform people. We have to make actions on all levels. I myself, on my roof and everyone
else in his city, in this municipality and in this region. And if we do that, then we can reach a
100% renewable world in 2050.

>> Leaders in a city do have to approach individuals to make them partners. It cannot be
done top down. People have to embrace solutions and feel that they are part of a new
world.