While Member States were adopting a resolution on sustainable infrastructure at the UN Environment Assembly, the Cities Summit reinforced the importance of local action and the need for an integrated approach to urban infrastructure.
Already 60 per cent of waste and three quarters of resource use and greenhouse gas emissions come from cities, making them great places to tackle sustainable consumption and production. But preserving the well-being of an increasingly urban population, many of whom still lack access to affordable and adequate housing and basic services, is just as important as we seek to achieve the sustainable development goals.
An integrated approach to urban infrastructure can help do both.
In the São Paulo neighbourhood of Jardim Helian, around 14,000 people live in an informal settlement, where the unplanned nature of the area has led to obvious problems.
“One of the issues is when houses invade the river’s territory, leading to forced channelling [which causes floods during the rainy season],” said local resident Mohammed. “Another is that sewage is thrown directly into the creek.”
The Sustainable Cities Programme and UN Environment is helping create an integrated “neighbourhood approach”, which addresses multiple environmental issues by bringing locals together with government and including their concerns in city planning. Lifestyles are already becoming more sustainable there thanks to the intervention.
According to the International Resource Panel Report Weight of Cities, optimizing systems and creating cross-sector synergies between buildings, mobility, energy and urban design can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and resource use by up to 55 per cent.
“Close to 70 per cent of the urban infrastructure that we will see in 2050 is yet to be built,” said Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director of UN Environment, at the summit. It is a huge opportunity to solve different for our cities and future-proof investments.”
UN-Habitat head Maimunah Mohd Sharif, who opened the summit alongside Msuya, concurred, saying that cities are where “the most-severe challenges arising from human-made climate change will have to be confronted”.
Solutions are everywhere
Many solutions exist, such as smart supermarkets and district energy systems, which allow wider systems integration. The retail chain Aktiv & Irma in Germany, for example, has installed an integrated system that links refrigeration, lighting, heat, ventilation and air conditioning. This optimizes power use and cuts 20 per cent off energy costs.
“Remember whenever you hold your hand behind the fridge, it is warm. And today, most supermarkets don’t use this heat,” said Ziad Al Bawaliz, Danfoss Chief Executive Officer, Türkiye, Middle East and Africa. “By using waste heat from all the supermarkets in just Europe, we could replace 10 coal power plants.”
With a district energy system—a network of underground pipes that heat or cool multiple buildings—waste heat can even be stored. This includes heat from data centres, industry and metro systems, as seen in countries like Chile, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
But integration is also needed at different levels, from vertical governance to horizontal, cross-sectoral planning, policy, and finance.
“A sustainable city needs sustainable infrastructure and an integrated, holistic and circular approach to sustainability challenges,” said Tserenbat Namsrai, Mongolia’s Minister of Environment and Tourism, who backed the resolution on creating sustainable infrastructure.
The Cities Summit showed that visionary local governments, companies and communities are developing solutions that link systems like transport, energy, housing, water and waste. Some cities have set high climate and/or circularity targets.
Osaka, Japan is including energy policy and climate change measures within urban development planning to enable integrated solutions. Dakar, Senegal emphasized the need for good data to undertake holistic planning, while and Buenos Aires and the Ministry of Environment in Argentina demonstrated how multiple levels of government can jointly address the sustainable management of land, transport, and energy.
A new initiative on infrastructure
Integration of partners is just as important, which is why leading companies—including ENGIE, Siemens, JCI and Danfoss—said at the Summit that they would join forces with the UN Environment on a new public-private partnership to promote and implement urban system integration
“The technology is there, finance is there, but we need capacity,” said Michael Schack, Director of Networks and Cogeneration ay ENGIE. “Only the UN can address this gap. And we, as the private sector, stand ready to launch a new partnership with UN Environment.”
The new UN Environment Urban Systems Integration programme will help local and national governments accelerate their transitions to circular and low-carbon economies, enhance efficiency, and reduce cities’ resource demands while improving health and well-being. Country participants, including Korea, Poland and Germany, also expressed support for such a partnership.
“Our specialty is to integrate things in Korea and we stand ready to assist any city and country to fast track to integration,” said Benjamin Yoon of the Korean District Heating Corp and a member of Korea’s delegation to the UN Environment Assembly.
The initiative aims to support cities in developing integrated approaches to cross-sectoral infrastructure planning and policies and in implementing key technologies that can facilitate connections and interactions across buildings, energy, transportation, wastewater treatment and waste management.
As United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Summit Luis Alfonso de Alba, said in the closing panel, “we need concrete, bold and ambitious climate actions”.
The commitment by UN Environment and partners to accelerate integrated urban infrastructure is undoubtedly one such action.
