Citiwire.net

For Release Sunday, January 2, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group

NEW YORK — The world’s cities are impatiently demanding that they be heard earlier, and heeded seriously, in the decisions of nations — and at the United Nations.

A top case: preparations for “Rio+20,” the UN’s global conference on sustainability that’s scheduled for next June in Rio de Janeiro. It will mark the 20th anniversary of the historic 1992 Rio conference, attended by 17,000 delegates and observers including 108 heads of state. They forged the world’s first joint environmental accord, which included the start of global climate consultations.

Greater global sustainability starts with “bottom-up approaches,” so Rio+20 should — in contrast to the 1992 conference — hear local governments’ voice and report on their role. That’s the case being made by UCLG — United Cities and Local Governments, the umbrella organization of world cities.

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg presses the point even more forcefully. Speaking at an event at UN headquarters Dec. 15, Bloomberg championed a major role for cities at Rio+20, specifically including the naming of mayors to national delegations.

Even as national and global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have faltered, Bloomberg said, cities across continents have moved aggressively to the “forefront of climate change action.” And that matters hugely, he suggested, since burning of carbon fuels by cities isn’t just the source of an overwhelming 70 percent of global greenhouse emissions but in reality “clogs our city streets, pollutes our air, harms the health and shortens the lives of the people we serve.”

The mayor, who also chairs the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, cited New York’s pacesetting “PlanNYC” — the “greenprint” for his city’s future. But he pointed as well to significant carbon reduction efforts in such cities as Lagos, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Berlin and Seoul.

Yet to achieve full sustainability, Bloomberg argued, cities need far more power, resources, expertise and encouragement from national governments.

Ford Foundation president Luis Ubinas, at the same UN forum, insisted there’s an even broader agenda: “The growth of cities presents collective opportunity to reduce poverty, to achieve social justice.” First, Ubinas said, through dense, efficient development — “because density boosts creativity, entrepreneurial energy, and creates jobs.” Second diversity that welcomes all peoples, of different races or sexual orientation. And then expanding peoples’ right to secure tenure of the land on which their houses stand — all “city keys to a sustainable planet.”

Focused heavily on the environment, Rio+20 will likely not embrace quite such a very broad agenda. But the UN-Habitat organization is urging that it consider asking national governments to embrace urban strategies, to focus on slowing the rapid growth of slums (threatening to rise from today’s 600 million to 1 billion souls), and to urge cities to work toward creation of metropolitan-wide growth plans.

This second 21st century decade could, though, produce another event consciously aimed at a planet-wide conversation — namely a dialogue linking not just cities and their leaders, but also to welcome citizens of the world’s cities as direct participants.

The new event, in 2016, will be called “Habitat III” — officially a successor to earlier UN-sponsored conferences on human settlements held in Vancouver in 1976 and Istanbul in 1996. Habitat I led to creation of the UN Habitat organization — the Nairobi-based United Nations Center on Human Settlements. Habitat II, following up on the Rio Earth Summit, focused on adequate shelter and sustainable cities.

And Habitat III? It was lucky to get UN General Assembly approval because times are tight, including for UN and lead member state budgets. But sponsors can point to fast-changing conditions: the rapid rise of information technology, financial crises for governments worldwide, and a startling increase in natural and man-made disasters.

At a UN forum in October, I heard what at first seemed a wild m&eacutelange of ideas about cities that could be communicated, exchanged, debated worldwide to prepare for, and follow up, on Habitat III. The technology that was cited — from moderated Internet discussions to Facebook/Twitter to as-yet-uninvented platforms for discussion — clearly breaks with anything possible at the earlier Habitat conferences. In fact, it makes the idea of a first-ever global peoples’ urban dialogue, with ideas invented anywhere traveling across continents in seconds, an actual possibility.

Then I heard proposed topics — an amazing mix. How Habitat III discussions could focus early on neighborhood, bottom-up processes. The role of women in challenged neighborhoods. Opportunities for youth. Start-up business opportunities. Tracking clean water and healthy air strategies. Successfully integrating immigrants. Coalescing trans-national metropolitan regions. Or a global place-making campaign for neighborhoods and accessible transit and peoples’ right to the streets of their cities.

And wait — more: corporations like IBM, CISCO, Siemens and others as significant new business presences on one hand, invaluable city connectors on the other. Perhaps a global “Sustainability Jam.”

Easy to do? Surely not: there’ll be immense language and cultural barriers plus demand for a skilled global set of translators and moderators.

But if cities are mankind’s new shared home, what better way might there be to plan for — and then follow up — on a Habitat III process? To make a leap appropriate for these times, embracing globally connected grassroots dialogues, solutions and celebration? Indeed, why not?

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Editor’s Note on Durban Charter: The restiveness of cities while national governments dither on forging a clear global climate accord was illustrated in Durban in December, when 100 mayors and elected officials from around the world — representing 950 local governments — issued a bold “Durban Adaptation Charter” for localities.  One key point: the cities agree to mainstream adaptation to climate change as a key factor in all local development planning.  The breadth of points in the agreement come close to reflecting the scope of local actions that a truly meaningful meaningful global accord would require.  Commenting on the new charter, Margareta Wahlstrom, Special Represent of the UN Secretary General for Disaster Reduction, noted: “Local governments are blazing a trail for nation states to follow. Just as they did in Cancun during the COP 16 talks, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability are leading the way with practical measures to tackle climate change.”

Neal Peirce’s e-mail is npeirce@citistates.com.

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