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Big City’s Produce Fewer Emissions Than Countryside

Posted on: Monday, 23 March 2009, 12:20 CDT

A study released on Monday suggests that major cities are getting a bad rap for the disproportionately high greenhouse gases they emit even though their per capita emissions are often a fraction of the national average, Reuters reported.

The study found that urban residents generate substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions than people in other areas of the country.

The report, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development, said: "Although the concentration of people, enterprises, vehicles and waste in cities is often seen as a 'problem', high densities and large population concentrations can also bring a variety of advantages for ... environmental management."

It was based on several studies published in the past 13 years and is meant to determine if cities have a disproportionately negative effect on global emissions.

David Dodman, the author of the report, said the real climate change culprits are not the cities themselves but the high consumption lifestyles of people living across these wealthy countries.

He showed that among the per capita emissions from major cities in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, London emitted 44.3 million tons of CO2 in 2006, or 8 percent of the national total.

Per capita emissions in London, where some 7 million people live, were only 6.18 tons per person, or 55 percent of the UK's 2004 average of 11.19 tons.

New York City produced 58.3 million tons of emissions in 2005, or around 7.1 tons per person. In 2004, U.S. per capita levels were triple that at 23.92 tons.

The large difference was likely due to the density of New York's buildings, the smaller-than-average dwelling sizes and the reliance on public transportation.

The report also said Washington DC's per capita emissions of 19.7 tons were closer to the national average, due to a high number of government office buildings versus a small metropolitan population.

The only two South American cities analyzed were Brazil's Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which both had substantially lower per capita emissions because of the country's widespread deforestation and large amounts of livestock.

Only the emissions emitted directly by a city were analyzed in the report, rather than those generated by the production of the goods consumed by its citizens.

The only cities with higher per capita emissions than the national average were so-called "production-oriented" centers like Beijing and Shanghai, which house many factories outsourced by rich countries.

The report said that many polluting and carbon-intensive manufacturing processes are no longer located in Europe or North America, as they were moved elsewhere to take advantage of lower labor costs and less rigorous environmental enforcement in other areas of the world.

Cities emit 50-60 percent of greenhouse gases; rising to 80 percent if you include the indirect emissions generated by city-dwellers, according to Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-Habitat.

Over 50 percent of the world's population now lives in cities but they consume 75 percent of global energy, she said.

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On the Net:

• International Institute for Environment and Development

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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