Cities and climate governance. From experimental initiatives to reshaping urban development.

Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa

Research on cities/climate changeTransnational city networks

Experimental governance

Aim: to focus more on question of urban political economy and development: drivers of emissions and enduring contradictions

Ontario’s GHG emissions

The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions

Density determines:Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions)

Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner

Density has big influence on:House size (key determinant of household energy use)

Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)

Source: Derived from P. Newman & J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities, Island Press, 1999. This version available at: http

://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kenworthy

The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions

Density determines:Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions)

Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner

Density has big influence on:House size (key determinant of household energy use)

Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)

Source: http://www.cities21.org/HH_NRG_consumption.htm

Low carbon city as transformation of urban development

North American urban contextIncreased density as key device for low carbon transitions

Already widely established as planning goal, even without climate/carbon as specific driver (increasingly in urban plans, but not yet a ‘driver’ in many places)

Highly contested process when new buildings proposed

Useful site to explore character of conflicts – values, desires, fears, etc invoked both for and against intensification

Intensification conflicts

Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results

Conflicts concentrated in urban coreSignificant urban-suburban conflict

Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl

Competing visions of intensificationLe Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs

Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development

Beacon Hill-

Cyrville5%

Capital10%

Kanata North3%

Kanata South

3%

Kitchissippi

19%Rideau-Rockcliffe

6%

Rideau-Vanier13%

Somerset26%

Percentage of projects per Ward

Intensification conflicts

Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results

Conflicts concentrated in urban coreSignificant urban-suburban conflict

Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl

Competing visions of intensificationLe Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs

Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development

Conclusions

Centrality of cities in climate policyControl over key policy levers

Particular types of challengesCultural

Urban development models and political-economic relations

Experiments important but attention to contradictions also important