Resilient cities

URBAN GREEN GROWTH IN DYNAMIC ASIA PROJECT

Tadashi Matsumoto, Ph.D. OECD 8 June 2015, Presentation at ICLEI Resilient Cities Conference, Bonn, Germany

Location matters! • OECD’s Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia project

Managing critical risks requires investment not only on hard but also soft and social infrastructure • OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical

Risks • The OECD High Level Risk Forum

Cross-cutting policy approach, based on dialogue between national and subnational governments • OECD national urban policy reviews • OECD Urban Roundtable for Mayors and Ministers

OECD’s approach to enhance resilience

• One third of GDP growth during 1995-2007 was produced by just 2% of OECD regions.

• Cities account for 67% of global energy use and 71% of global energy-related CO2 emissions.

• Average global flood losses, estimated at about USD 6 billion per year in 2005, could reach USD 1 trillion by 2050 in 136 of the world’s largest coastal cities.

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Cities are focal points for growth but also for environmental externalities and vulnerabilities:

Green Growth and Resilience: Cities Matter!

Urgency in Asia: vulnerability to floods

Top 20 cities most exposed to floods in terms of population in the 2070s

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China: 143.9m (11%) India 63.2m (6%)

Bangladesh: 62.5m (46%) Vietnam: 43.0m (55%)

Indonesia: 41.6m (20%)

Source: Hanson, S. et al. (2011), “A Global Ranking of Port Cities with High Exposure to Climate Extremes”, Climatic Change, Vol. 104, Issue 1, pp. 89-111.

Altogether, the ten countries with the largest populations in low-lying coastal zones have some 400m inhabitants living in such places.

JPN '70

JPN '05

BRZ '70

BRZ '05

KOR '70

KOR '05

Malaysia ‘70

Malaysia ‘05

CHN '70

CHN '05

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Income gap relative to US=1 vs Urbanization rate

Income growth comes with urbanisation; however urbanisation doesn’t guarantee it

5 Source: Own creation based on World Bank World Development Indicators.

Urbanisation rate (%)

Income gap

(US=1)

GDP per capita gap vs urbanisation rate

Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia: Objectives and key outputs

• Promote green growth in fast-growing cities in Asia by examining policies and governance practices that encourage greening and competitiveness in a rapidly expanding economy.

• Key outputs: – Conceptual framework: working paper (2014) – 5 city-based case studies (2014-15) – Knowledge sharing workshops (2014-15) – Policy assessment report for strengthening urban

resilience / disaster risk management (2016) – Synthesis report (2016)

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CASE STUDY: BANGKOK

• Strong long-term growth potential, but also challenges – Catch-up held back by skill shortages – Income disparities undermine social cohesion

• Obstacles to greener growth need to be

overcome – Increasing motorisation/urban sprawl – Rising energy consumption/reliance on fossil fuels – High flood risk – Relatively high levels of untreated wastewater – Landfilled solid waste

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Green Growth in BMR: Potential and challenges

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Street layout undermines potential to develop green and resilient cities

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BMR’s resilience to floods

Source: UN ESCAP (2012), “The Thailand floods of 2011: While businesses lost millions, the urban poor lost out most the floods”, Sustainable Urban Development Section’s internal working papers

Impact of the 2011 floods on low income communities in the City of

Bangkok

Key recommendations: • Encourage more adaptive

management of infrastructure (e.g. natural habitats, semi-permeable surfaces)

• Assess and map flood risk

• Introduce business continuity plans

• Enhance awareness and response capacities in districts through schools, religious centres, and the media

• Metropolitan commissions informed by BMR-wide performance indicators and supported by metropolitan funds

• Community-based actions to leverage local knowledge and expertise

• Attracting private investors (e.g. green municipal bonds) and diversifying sources of revenue (e.g. wastewater tariffs)

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Strategic and implementation levers

• Integrated approach – green growth and urban disaster risk management

• Location specific solutions, e.g., urban planning

• Metropolitan governance - functional urban areas

Key implications from the study

• 4 more case studies

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Next Steps

• 4th knowledge sharing WS (25-27 June, Hai Phong) • Side-event at COP21 (Nov-Dec 2015) • Synthesis report (early 2016)

Cebu

Iskandar Malaysia

Bandung

Haiphong

THANK YOU

For further information:

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