Planetary Citizenship: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Latin American Cities
The Canada Climate Change Development Fund is helping ten cities in Latin America reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Ten cities in Latin America are part of a worldwide campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While climate change is a global issue, its effects are felt most prominently at the local level.
It starts with awareness
Climate change is not in the minds of most people in developing countries. “Our main challenge was to build awareness in the cities,” says Laura Silvia Valente de Macedo, Program Coordinator in Rio de Janeiro for Local Governments for Sustainability, of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). “We have a lot of other priorities. We tried to relate issues of climate change to air quality and sustainable development to highlight the benefits of emissions reduction. We started with waste management and transportation. We convinced local governments that, by addressing these issues, they would improve the quality of life for their citizens and impact on global change at the same time.”
With funding from the Canada Climate Change Development Fund (CCCDF), ICLEI is working with ten cities in three countries of Latin America—Brazil, Argentina and Chile—under the Cities for Climate Protection campaign1. Through this project, Canada is contributing to global efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious agenda agreed upon by world leaders to promote sustainable development and improve peoples’ lives by 2015.
The project began by raising awareness about climate change and measuring community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Communities then applied their increased knowledge of climate change and GHG inventories to address specific municipal concerns, such as air quality and sustainable transport.
According to Ms. Macedo, more than 90 percent of solid waste is not adequately disposed of in Brazil. Solid waste generates methane gas that can be converted into biofuel, and Brazil actively consumes biofuels—in particular, ethanol and biodiesel. With effective municipal planning, solid waste can be transformed into useful biofuel. Municipalities can also further reduce energy consumption in the transport sector by promoting the use of bicycles and public transportation.
“This is the first project that has gotten all the different sectors involved in producing emissions in a city to work together—transport and waste management, for example,” says Ms. Macedo. “It’s a catalyst, a new way of doing public policy on environmental issues.” She adds, “People are very concerned about the short term but don’t plan for the long term. This project forces us to do that by setting long-term goals.”
How the project works
Using ICLEI’s Five-Milestone Framework, each city conducts an inventory of all its energy use and GHG emissions produced both by the local community and by the municipal administration in a one-year period. These GHG emissions include carbon dioxide emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels, methane emitted by local waste-disposal facilities, and conventional air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.
The other four milestones are: 1) establishing an emissions target (either a reduction or a stabilizing marker), 2) developing and obtaining approval for a local action plan, 3) implementing policies and measures, and 4) monitoring and verifying results.
Most of the Latin American cities have already completed their GHG inventories and are working on their local action plans. The key to success is the involvement of municipal administrators and politicians in each city.
Building success
ICLEI’s Technical Manager, Margarita Maria Parra Cobaleda, says that building awareness has worked. “Now when I visit the cities, they can explain to me what climate change is!’’ she says. ‘‘It’s a process, and I feel satisfied when I hear them using this technical language with confidence when, at the beginning, they didn’t have a clue what GHGs were. Now they see themselves as a network of cities, even though they belong to different political parties. They share information and work together.”
Ms. Macedo says that although countries worldwide are having difficulties meeting their commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, changes at the local level can help. She says, for example, “If you manage to achieve emissions reduction in São Paulo, which has 11 million inhabitants and produces 12 percent of Brazil’s GDP, you will have a huge impact on the national inventory of greenhouse gases.”
Even though Brazil does not currently have to reduce emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, Ms. Macedo says, “This is our contribution at the local level for the globe. We call it ‘planetary citizenship.’ ”
1. Betim, Goiânia, Palmas, Pôrto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Volta Redonda in Brazil; Avellaneda and Buenos Aires in Argentina; and Tomé, in Chile.
|