World Future Council establishes expert commission on Cities and Climate Change

The new commission holds its first meeting on the 9th and 10th October in Hamburg.

The primary focus of this commission is the need for a major new international initiative on the sustainable development of cities. This is becoming a critical issue in an age of climate change. 80 per cent of people in the richer countries now live in cities and about 50 per cent worldwide. Built on just three per cent of the world’s land surface, cities use about 80 per cent of its resources. The bulk of the world’s fossil fuels are burned in and on behalf of cities, contributing very significantly to climate change. Whilst cities all over the world are the primary agents of climate change, they are also likely to become its primary victims – particularly those located near the sea and in river valleys prone to flooding.

The WFC’s commission special contribution should be to develop a holistic perspective on how cities and their regions in an urbanising world can strive to be sustainable habitats for humanity. Given that for the time being urbanisation is an unstoppable trend, it is crucially important for cities old and new to play a key role on
sustainable development. That means, first and foremost, that they need to wean themselves off a systemic dependence on fossil fuels. But it also means that they need to develop sustainable relationships to the ecosystems from which they draw their resources - be they farmland, forests or marine ecosystems that are also relating quite remarkably to Climate Change.

I have accepted the invitation to become a permanent member of the commission which is expected to have no more than 15 permanent members. Read more about the commission and the meeting in upcoming blog entries.

Read more about the commission here.

See the agenda for the meeting here.

Visit the World Future Council webpage.