Sustainability in higher education

This blog was first published on 30th November 2021 for the Association of University Administrators

Universities across the UK were prominent at COP26.

Our students protested and our academics gave evidence. In the most populous of COPs our universities were there. Never before has a COP meeting been such a circus. To those who were there – well done. You ensured that leaders, politicians and civil servants knew just how important all this is.

We saw Glasgow packed and the Glasgow pact signed but just as the final cards were being played our croupier, Alok Sharma, admitted it nearly all fell apart as China and India played aggressive hands and the pact nearly cracked. The phasing down, as opposed to phasing out, of coal was a significant and defining moment for the conference but also the Paris Agreement.

Whilst China has leaned in to the negotiation and insisted on a phasing down of coal it’s surprise statement to work proactively with the USA caught us all out – but it’s noteworthy the big breakthrough on methane – (cutting methane emissions is a low-hanging fruit because the main sources (oil and gas companies) are easily monitored). The US-led deal could cut global emissions by 30 per cent even though Russia, China and India did not sign up.

In amongst the myriad of commitments announced during COP26 the Department for Education published its draft climate change and sustainability strategy and recognises that schools and universities represent 36% of total UK public sector building emissions.

In announcing the draft strategy the Secretary of State for Education, The Rt Hon Nadhim Zahawi MP, said “Education is critical to fighting climate change. We have both the responsibility and privilege of educating and preparing young people for a changing world – ensuring they are equipped with the right knowledge, understanding and skills to meet their biggest challenge head on”.

But the strategy is light on higher education. It’s a predominantly schools-focused and lacking any clear expectations or signals to universities.

Over the next few months I hope the strategy develops further to recognise the enormous opportunity universities provide for government’s climate change strategy. COP26 showed that universities across the UK are developing new technologies, approaches and techniques to reduce emissions in our urban environments, in agriculture, aviation, land and marine transport, material efficiency, chemistry. Our universities are crucial to understanding not only how to reduce global warming but also how to cope with climate change – adaptation and resilience to future climates is vital. Educating young people and adults throughout their lives is key and enabling society to understand and learn new skills that meet the future green jobs market has to be at the heart of our teaching programmes.

Universities can also show real leadership in how they operate – many have made commitments to reduce their carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement – and their role as influential players in their towns and cities is never more important as we recover from a global pandemic. Indeed, there is a fantastic opportunity for universities to show real civic leadership together with their local authorities, health trusts and local businesses. There are some great examples out there, including the Universities for Nottingham initiative which my own university has been part of, where by working at scale universities can be a force for good working at scale to make real impact.

I was pleased to see Universities UK publish Confronting the climate emergency: a commitment from UK universities – a strategy that coalesces ambitions to address climate change. 140 universities have committed to climate action and champion the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

We’re seeing universities recognise the important role they want to play in tackling the most pressing of global challenges and it’s no longer a minority sport. It’s time for all facets of our universities to get behind it.

So, what does it mean for our university estates? Without doubt, the challenge of climate change is here right in front of us and we need to respond. We need to:

• Reduce our contribution to the problem by reducing the amount of energy used from fossil fuels (especially gas). We need to phase out gas fast and move towards renewables in all new construction and refurbishments.
• Tackle the emissions associated with the consumption of goods and services in our supply chains (which are often 5 or 6 times bigger than our emissions from gas and electricity). This will mean repurposing and retrofitting buildings and protecting the carbon embodied in their structures.
• Preparing our campuses and supply chains to be more resilient to future climate change.

If we’re going to reduce the carbon impact of our estate, we need to invest heavily and improve glazing and the wider building envelope – walls, roofs and doors as well as the systems that keep the buildings warm or cool. Whilst no one wants high gas prices, the business case for moving to alternatives to gas has never been stronger. I want to see more renewable energy generated on campus and to invest in walking, cycling and public transport as well things like electric vehicle charging points. But how about if a good number of universities came together and invested, collectively, in large scale renewables, such as offshore wind, that would make a big difference. That would be real impact.

Within the UK Higher Education sector every university is already highly engaged on this issue, but the Decarbonising Heat Networks in University Estates reportcarried out by the Association for Decentralised Energy on behalf of the Association (and the Scottish Association) of University Directors of Estates – points to a stark truth. While the UK government has been among the first to establish a clear national target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which in turn has encouraged others including local authorities and universities to make their own similar commitments, it has not yet used every lever at its disposal to draw together the required whole-system approach. It urgently needs to do so.

There is a fantastic opportunity for the Government to make inroads to the UK’s carbon emissions by supporting large organisations like universities. For instance natural gas is responsible for around 60% of carbon emissions in the HE sector and considerable barriers remain for universities to move to low carbon alternatives. Whilst amazing work is being carried out across UK HE in everything from climate science to the practical delivery of new energy-efficient technologies, universities need a public policy framework that gives long term confidence in alternatives to gas, the financial resources for infrastructure investment and the cross-sector links into other public or private sector organisations that would facilitate collaborative action, to achieve the 2050 goal, which is now less than 30 years away.

I hope the higher education sector, with its various representative bodies, such as Universities UK and the Russell Group, BUFDG, AUDE and EAUC, can shape the DfE’s strategy; work with Government to show the potential the sector can bring if the right policies and investments are made; and accelerate the transition we need in enabling our graduates to have the skills to tackle this challenge.

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To be Frank There are no Blue Policies for Blue Space

Floods hit communities every day worldwide. Rarely do they, or have they, hit the UK with such impact as they have recently. Rarely too, do they have a direct impact on the bigger cities in the UK but this Christmas holiday has seen devastating floods hit the valleys on the Foss, Aire, Calder and through the North West of England. Cities such as York, Manchester and Leeds have all been directly affected with elevated levels of rainfall and rivers in Newcastle and Liverpool too.

Manchester’s new beach – silt left by the high water levels.

Let’s not forget it wasn’t so long ago that both Newcastle and Sheffield were flooded (2007) and Bristol, on the Severn, is regularly affected. By my reckoning 4 or 5 of the ‘Core Cities’ are now seriously worried about the effect these periods of exceptionally heavy and sustained rainfall will have on their citizens’ health and the wider city economy.

In the short term, committed volunteers are helping out. They’ve responded to the crisis to find warm and dry shelter for the most vulnerable whilst the blue light services pump water away from those areas.

Already questions are being raised about who is responsible, what more could be done, why there hasn’t been enough flood protection schemes built to protect the most vulnerable areas. The Chief Executive of Leeds City Council has stated that the cities of the north have been under-invested in whilst significantly bigger sums have been spent in London.

Who is responsible for the floods and what should we do about it?

These are the sort of odd questions that get asked on mainstream media. Firstly, we’re almost certainly seeing the effects of climate change and warming global temperatures intensifying the strength of those storms, like Desmond, which have carried huge volumes of rainfall following the jet streams from the Atlantic and dumping it over the UK.

Secondly, as George Monbiot writes, “Vast amounts of public money, running into billions, are spent every year on policies that make devastating floods inevitable“. Monbiot qualifies his comments by saying “Flood defence, or so we are told almost everywhere, is about how much concrete you can pour. It’s about not building houses in stupid places on the floodplain, and about using clever new engineering techniques to defend those already there.”

Thirdly, it’s certainly about the limited policies and duties all levels of Government have to deal with this. Whilst there is an expectation that local authorities in both rural areas and cities have resilience plans these often are little more than having all the infrastructure to respond to a devastating flood rather than anything about prevention. In truth, local authorities have very few policy tools they can use to mitigate the risk of flood. Much is responsive to planning applications. But the solution to reducing the risk and impact of flooding isn’t simply about allowing or denying a developer to build in a floodplain.

Under the last Labour government local authorities were tasked with adopting a number of key performance indicators from the ‘National Indicator set’ that monitored their performance and encouraged collaboration between authorities and their services. The least well known and understood of these was NI 188 – which set local authorities the challenge of implementing an adaptation action plan and a process for monitoring and review to ensure progress with each measure. Very few local authorities adopted this and virtually none continue to prepare plans since their resources have been reduced and the requirement to report to NI188 has been washed away too.

The intention of NI188 was to think laterally about climate adaptation and to identify how the impact of the floods could be reduced even if the likelihood of them couldn’t be effected by the local authority on its own. Almost certainly this would require local authorities to work with DEFRA (the weakest of all Government departments in the new Conservative government), the Environment Agency (now experiencing heavy cuts and putting on a very brave face), it’s neighbouring local authorties (all embroiled in the creation of economically-focused city regions and combined authorities without a mandate or appetite for climate adaptation and resilience).

The sort of outcomes NI 188 was intended to encourage are documented in Monbiot’s piece such as the group of visionary farmers at Pontbren. If similar measures have been taken in the Peak District before 2007 it is likely the flood that hit Sheffield would have been less devastating. But the tools to affect upland farming policies at a local level simply aren’t there.

In short, the political landscape hasn’t helped at all. The funding has dried up and the Government must listen to the advice it’s already heard from the Committee on Climate Change and from respected spokespeople like Lord Deben.

Climate change is already having an impact. As the UK prepares for another big storm there needs to be a change in the governance around resilience, climate adaptation and more funding. More importantly, a realisation that we will have more water falling in more intense storms and we simply cannot build our way out of this situation. We’ve sealed-in our urban areas and our drains and sewers cannot and will never cope with the volumes we’ve experienced. A more holistic approach which includes upland management, river valleys, urban areas, key infrastructure and ownership by a genuinely cross-agency approach is the only way forward.

 

#COP21 -Now We Know the Rules, Let’s Play the Game

Over the past two weeks or so we’ve seen some good coverage of the talks in Paris that have set the objectives for carbon reduction across 97% of the world’s population (and 94% of all emissions). In fact, the UK have covered the talks extensively in mainstream media.

What’s been agreed is usefully summarised in this excellent infographic by The Conversation. To use a sporting analogy, it’s as if, over the past two weeks, a FIFA delegation has sat down to agree the new rules and objectives for football and the next World Cup. The overall objective hasn’t shifted and everyone knows what’s needed to win – it’s the subtleties of the rules which have changed. Imagine this:

• We don’t have time for 90 minutes, you’re going to have to play faster, harder but over 60 instead.
• If you’re an established World Cup qualifier from the ‘developed world’ you’re going to have to do even better just to qualify because you’ve had it good for far, far too long. Show some leadership on this Germany, UK, France.
• Developing nations – we know we make it tough for you to qualify, so we’re going to relax things a little for you, but if you fail, we all fail. So don’t get complacent. You still need to improve, score goals and up your game.

The good news is – to win you still need to play well and score goals. There are many ways in which you might achieve this but we’ll be asking to see your tactics every five years and we’ll decide whether we think they’re good enough. But, unless everyone plays well and scores lots of goals the World Cup will fail. Success is dependent on everyone winning – not just a few of you.

Even then, there are many who have questioned whether the talks have created a contract strong enough to avoid dangerous climate change beyond the 2 degree increase. That’s where my analogy ends. But other commentators have been superb in unpicking the nuances of the agreement.

Several, unsurprisingly, recognise that deal doesn’t go far enough. They are not applauding the efforts of the bureaucrats and diplomats who fought their corner and, to be fair in many cases, championed the commitment of their nations. They are identifying that the deal wont avoid that 2 degree increase. It wont avoid devastating climate change that will follow it. They are pointing out that there is a very real risk that these wont be achieved and that it’s all very well having clear rules and objectives – what we need now is compliance and for those nations to play the game as it is intended.

Katja Frieler, the Deputy Chair, Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research  says:

At the Paris climate summit, delegates have struck an agreement that calls for the world to “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5℃”.

But the climate action pledges made by 185 countries ahead of the summit don’t add up to 1.5℃ or warming or even 2℃. Taken together, they add up to a 2.7℃ world.

As the negotiations go on, 2015 is about to set a new global temperature record, and is likely to have reached 1℃ warming already. (Read the full article here).

Myles Allen writes in The Conversation:

I wonder how many of the delegates in Paris realise that they have just created the mother of all “take-back schemes”. As a consumer, you may have already come across this sort of deal: if you don’t want to dispose of the packaging of your new sofa, you can take it back to IKEA and it’s their problem. In many places, you can even take back the sofa itself when your kids have wrecked it. For the Paris climate deal to succeed something similar will have to happen, where companies that rely on fossil fuels will be obliged to “take back” their emissions.

I remain optimistic. For the first time since Kyoto it feels like the World’s Leaders get it … but leaving behind their own short term political time horizons and their nation’s own self-interest means there is a very real danger the objectives wont materialise. It’s likely that it will be those in the poorest of nations who will suffer the consequences of failure first, deepest and longest. They may never recover from a failure to deliver these targets.

The involvement of businesses in these talks has been scrutinised. This is complex, but there are companies out there – micro to global – with the solutions to these challenges. Their involvement has been to illustrate how a low carbon revolution is good for society, good for the planet and can deliver sustainable economics. It’s this argument that stands between Paris being a success or being considered a two week jamboree of hot air. A solid, unwavering commitment to low carbon policies that encourage investment in new technologies that harness the energy of the sun, the wind, the waves, the tides is central to this. A commitment to leaving as much coal, gas and oil in the ground as is possible is necessary.

Holding politicians to account is important. They’ve signed up to this because, in the UK at least, it’s something voters believe is important. The UK government has been warned that a major U-turn in energy policy is required if it is to avoid charges of blatant hypocrisy following the commitments it made in the Paris climate deal this weekend. Critics say that the first test for Amber Rudd, the energy and climate change secretary, will come later this week, when she announces whether or not she plans to go ahead with a proposed 90% cut in solar subsidies.

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, the UK’s main employers’ organisation, demanded on Sunday that ministers take action at home as well as making their voice heard abroad. “The government must provide a stable environment that enables investment in cleaner, more affordable and more secure energy generation, including renewable technologies and new gas plants,” she said.

The negotiators have done their bit. The deal is drafted and there is a contract of commitment in place. The politicians have signed it off and now need to deliver. Fortunately, business sees the opportunity this challenge presents. It’s a huge, trillion $ opportunity. But we cannot rely on politicians and business alone. If we do, we’ll likely end up 20 years on without having made the necessary cuts in emissions we need.

We all need to contribute – that means taking individual action too. This brilliant piece about home comforts and energy consumption by Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs says it eloquently.

What characteristics would your ideal home have? A sauna? Lots of natural light? An open-plan kitchen? Whatever your answer, you probably didn’t consider how the things you wanted would affect the energy you use. The link between comfort and energy is not something that troubles most people, but actually it’s very important. In the UK, our houses consume up to 27% of the energy we produce.

What a pity then, that the UK Government scrapped the introduction of the Zero Carbon Homes policy for 2016. It’s scrapped the Green Deal and has withdrawn millions of £ of funding to improve the existing stock’s energy efficiency. As Jeremy Leggett, the founder of world leading renewable energy company Solarcentury, spelled out: the challenge for Rudd and George Osborne, the latter being seen as the real axeman of green policies. “The government has a huge credibility problem, having signed a treaty of historic importance, and yet [having] been pursuing a path of [energy policy] travel that is 180 degrees opposed to what is needed,” he said.

 

Why we need a COP21 or: how scientists know climate change is happening

Paris remains prominent in the news, thankfully, this time it’s because the world’s leaders are in the city to discuss how we’ll avoid dangerous climate change.

It comes on the back of the recently agreed Sustainable Development Goals which I drafted a blog on a few weeks back. This is the first big test of those SDGs in my opinion. I mean, if the SDGs can’t be translated into meaningful commitments towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions what is the point of the SDGs at all?

Let’s hope those world leaders come away with something meaningful. Let’s hope the debacle of Copenhagen 2009 is avoided. Let’s hope that developing and developed nations can work collaboratively to achieve this objective. If not, we’re doomed.

How do we know? Well as Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London, explains – we do know climate change is happening. In fact, I urge you to read this superbly succinct piece to remind yourself of exactly what is known about the causes and the effects.

Source: Explainer: how scientists know climate change is happening

“Fundamentally, I want energy policy to be boring”. Oh.

I’ve just read Amber Rudd’s speech on a new direction for UK energy policy (Source: Amber Rudd’s speech on a new direction for UK energy policy – Speeches – GOV.UK). I have to say, nothing in it surprised me. She wants it to be boring. I’d like it to be a little more enthusiastic, exciting and innovative. It chimes with the Conservative approach to energy policy we’ve seen before. It even celebrates the sell-off of the UK’s energy assets.

So, read the speech and make up your own mind, but there were some [amusingly?] redacted ‘political content’ that didn’t make it and then it was a case of ‘Tory Bingo’ with some common phrases – these all made it in:

1. This Government is focused on securing a better future for Britain.
2. We’re encouraging investment in our shale gas exploration so we can add new sources of home-grown supply to our real diversity of imports.
3. We know competition works. It keeps costs low and can deliver a clean and reliable energy system.
4. It’s about the long term security of our energy supply. And my view is that is best served through open, competitive markets.
5. And I can say to Europe that Britain stands ready to help make this vision a reality.
6. Opponents of nuclear misread the science. It is safe and reliable.
7. So our approach will be different – we will not support offshore wind at any cost.

The bits I expected to see were all there:

It’s pro-nuclear, pro-fracking. With regard to heat: “We will set out our approach next year, as part of our strategy to meet our carbon budgets.” Disappointing given the good work done by DECC on its Heat Strategy not so long ago – and still a long way down the contents of her speech unfortunately. Pleasingly: To set an example to the rest of the world, the UK also has to focus on where we can get the biggest carbon cuts, swiftly and cheaply … and Innovative, new suppliers, which range from start-ups to local authorities, are demonstrating how competition is working for people.

Deep, deep in the statement a final mention for energy efficiency: More than 1.2 million households are seeing lower bills due to energy efficiency improvements over the last 5 years. We are committed to ensuring a million more get the same benefits by the end of this Parliament. But no mention of the Green Deal, the commercial opportunities in energy efficiency nor the links with housing policy.

Boring? Is that the same as ‘unsurprising’?

 

How to ensure governments stick to their Paris climate commitments

There was a great piece written and published in The Conversation today –  How to ensure governments stick to their Paris climate commitments.

Earlier this year I wrote “… the UN Climate Talks present a challenge to draft and agree a meaningful commitment that supersedes the Kyoto Protocol. Two major hurdles remain as the Paris deadline nears: climate finance, and emissions cuts. Back in 2010, the world agreed on building up a Green Climate Fund to help developing nations to tackle the impacts of climate change. The developed nations promised to provide the fund with US$100 billion by 2020. That hasn’t been forthcoming.”

More recently a considered group of esteemed universities, colleges and educational institutions lay a challenge to COP21 – “The collective voice of the world’s universities, colleges and students will be heard at COP21. The United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place in Paris, France during the first week of December. In an open letter they remind us of “the critical role universities and colleges play in finding and implementing solutions towards climate change mitigation and adaptation and places it in the context of addressing wider issues of sustainability, including social and economic policies and practices.”

More than 146 countries covering 87% of global greenhouse gas emissions have now submitted their national pledges to tackle climate change in advance of the major climate summit in Paris. These are known as Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions. Note the language: these aren’t commitments and are only “intended”.

But will countries stick to these pledges? And what happens if they don’t? Read the full piece by Peter Newell of The University of Sussex.

District level heating could help achieve EU 2020 energy efficiency goals

Recycling of excess heat, via ‘district heating’, has the potential to improve energy efficiency in Europe. This study mapped excess heat and demands for heat in EU27 Member States to identify regions suitable for the large-scale implementation of district heating. The authors identified 63 ‘heat synergy regions’, generally large urban zones, which generated almost half of all excess heat generated in the EU27.

A recent briefing suggests there is a clear role for district heating. This study mapped heat resources in EU27 Member States, using data from 2010. The research, which forms part of Heat Roadmap Europe – a research project investigating energy efficiency measures in the EU’s heating and cooling sectors – assessed the annual excess heat produced by the energy and industry sectors in Europe using CO2 emissions data.

The development of ‘modern’ district energy (DE) systems is one of the best options, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a new publication: District energy in cities – unlocking the potential of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Launched at the International District Energy Association’s (IDEA’s) annual conference last month, the report calls for the accelerated deployment of DE systems around the world. The full report is available here.

The UK Government’s own Heat Strategy states that producing heat is the biggest user of energy in the UK and in most cases we burn gas in individual boilers to produce this heat. This is a wasteful method of producing heat and a large emitter of CO₂, with heat being responsible for 1/3 of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Household heat demand has risen somewhat over the past 40 years from 400 TWh/y to 450 TWh/y, despite a marked improvement in the energy efficiency of homes and a slight reduction in the severity of winters. The average internal temperature of homes has risen by 6°C since the 1970s, and this combined with growth in housing – the number of households has risen by around 40% since the 1970s – has offset energy efficiency gains in terms of total energy used to heat homes Some studies suggest these temperature increases are due to factors including the move to central heating, rather than householders actively turning up their thermostats.

People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership – Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

At the end of September the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed and published.  They will come into effect at the end of 2015, following the completion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and cover the period 2016-2030. Unlike the MDGs, the idea is to involve the whole world in taking responsibility for development and place greater emphasis on three key issues that were missing previously: the role of women; the importance of education; and the focus on cities.

All of this is hard to argue with of course but it is worth remembering we are now fast approaching another critical conference in Paris where the UN Climate Talks present a challenge to draft and agree a meaningful commitment that supersedes the Kyoto Protocol.

Two major hurdles remain as the Paris deadline nears: climate finance, and emissions cuts. Back in 2010, the world agreed on building up a Green Climate Fund to help developing nations to tackle the impacts of climate change. The developed nations promised to provide the fund with US$100 billion by 2020. That hasn’t been forthcoming.
Not only that, it is clear the pace of negotiations is troubling. With just weeks remaining all Parties were almost unanimous in acknowledging that progress was insufficient. “It would be a catastrophe if the new treaty froze the existing reduction targets and pledges. We do need more regular adjustments that respect the latest climate science outcomes and the development of renewable energies” said Martin Kaiser, head of the Greenpeace climate policy unit.

The United Nations definition of sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Previous dialogues on sustainability have more or less focused on climate change and environmental issues, but the new paradigm of sustainability includes all efforts towards an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and the planet. There is a significant departure from the previous framework to now include a “harmonising” of three elements: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.

Politically Led

The document is considered a political statement not a technical solution. Criticism that there are too many goals and targets is understandable but the SDGs cover a much broader range of issues than the MDGs. The millennium goals only covered “safe” themes such as poverty, primary education and child mortality. The SDGS weigh in on more meaty topics, such as governance, institutions, human rights, inequality, ageing, peace and climate change. The inclusive, detailed international negotiations have involved middle income and low income countries and as a result they are universal , holistic and ambitious –  the product of the 7m people who have given their views.

That said, not everyone agrees with the goals. Medical journal The Lancet, for example, describes them as “fairy tales, dressed in the bureaucrats of intergovernmental narcissism, adorned with the robes of multilateral paralysis, and poisoned by the acid of nation-state failure”.

“This is the people’s agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind,” said Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general. Putting people first is undoubtedly a strategic signal that global population, health and sanitation will top the list of priorities, but for the first time there is an explicit commitment towards education, something welcomed by a wide group of expert practitioners including The Global Alliance of Tertiary Education Sustainability Networks who wrote an open letter to present to the Chair of COP21 in Paris this December.

Whilst the ‘western’ approach to education for sustainable development has largely been focused on environmentalism, Iain Patton, CEO of the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges who are a key player in the Global Alliance, believes there ‘will [be] benefit from this wider and more inclusive perspective … it’s no longer just about a nice green lifestyle but about international hunger, injustice and poverty’.

‘The new Global Goals say to us in the north: you may have much higher GDP per capita, but that doesn’t mean your societies are immune to problems that affect everyone in our interconnected globe’, says Patton. ‘It’s a reminder that the pursuit of prosperity isn’t just something for people far away to worry about’.

A New Prominence for Cities

It is arguably the eleventh goal, SDG 11, and its promotion of safer, more inclusive and resilient cities that makes them genuinely revolutionary. After all, two thirds of humanity will reside in urban settings by 2030 and by 2050, roughly 6.4 billion people – almost the equivalent of the planet’s current population – will live in a city. SDG 11 calls for greater investment in infrastructure, governance and safety in all urban spaces and human settlements, including slums, shanty-towns, ghettos and favelas of the world’s most fragile cities. The focus on informal settlements is crucial since the proportion of people living in slums is massive, and growing. There are already around 1 billion people living in slums today, as compared to 650 million in 1990. This population will grow to almost 2 billion over the next three decades.

Steve Turner, a city policy maker in Manchester believes overall the ‘goals are valuable in generating a ‘shared’ vision, providing some form of collective view of where we want to be going’. But he, like many, recognises that whilst the SDGs and the Climate Treaty are drafted, agreed and published by UN Members they will not be delivered by the UN or even national governments, but rather at the city/metro level where the Commission are not the delivery agents.

Critically, Turner recognises that without an effective mechanism for enforcement they can be ‘ineffectual’, ‘if we are serious about this then there needs to be an injection of rigour around their delivery.’

The UN recognises this and the targets will be reviewed systematically using a set of global, largely quantitative, indicators. These will be developed by a specially convened Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators and agreed subsequently by the UN Statistical Commission as well as the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly. Each nation and region will then go on to develop its own indicators.

Whilst the stats, numbers and measures might all sound rather clunky and dull, the SDGs give us an unparalleled opportunity to shape the international and national development agenda.

Women and Education – Fundamental to the SDGs

For example, much greater emphasis has been placed on the role of women and their access to education around the world. Whilst the rhetoric of the Sustainable Development Goals is laudable they are criticised for not garnering the financial commitment to achieve it. “In order for the SDGs to be met, implementation and financing plans must address inequalities and human rights, especially for women and girls. The financing plan being advocated by the US and other northern countries will merely uphold the world we have and not get us to the world we want,” said Serra Sippel, President of the Center for Health and Gender Equity.

Like re-taking your marriage vows, the Sustainable Development Goals re-state the importance of those Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000 and, with the benefit of hindsight, experience and in the light of a rapidly changing world, reaffirm those commitments. So, are the Sustainable Development Goals the world’s biggest promise…. or the world’s biggest lie? Will the SDGs really re-shape the plans and behaviours of nations, multilateral institutions, companies, development organisations and people, to make the world a fairer and more sustainable place?

Many believe the goals have helped to direct public policies and budgets towards the poorest and are recognised as important drivers of international policy which ensure that national governments maintain a commitment to these global challenges.

Eddie Murphy, a respected sustainability expert at Mott MacDonald believes that ‘the MDGs have had some impact on driving governments to put in place legislative interventions to implement positive impacts, and this has helped the green agenda’.

In addition to the evidence about indicators, the MDGs created a real ‘hook’ that kept global poverty on national and international agendas.  Annual multilateral reviews of achievement; the MDGs + 5 and MDGs + 10, UN General Assembly meetings; and numerous regional and national meetings meant that poverty reduction received much greater attention around the world than it had in the past. At the same time, there are perfectly plausible arguments that most of the numerical progress made wasn’t a direct consequence of the MDGs, and that critical promises were broken.

It’s [Not] All About the Economy [But]

Amongst the financial recessions that have hit globally perhaps the MDGs have maintained at least some profile for the environmental agenda. Teresa Hitchock, a Partner in DLA Piper UK LLP and Head Safety, Health and Environment believes the Millennium Development Goals fell short of achieving their objectives in the face of other world crises such as terrorism , ebola and the Syrian conflict.  She believes ‘sustainability is still seen as the second cousin to immediate pressures’ and hopes the SDGs will redress that.

Many believe that whilst governments and policy makers have been active they have been unable, or unwilling, to lock-in business benefits to achieving the goals set out. Whilst there is a strong human rights agenda emerging there is a growing belief the SDGs must concentrate on making sustainability good business sense. This is a view shared by Paul Caulfield, Director of the MBA in CSR at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at The University of Nottingham Business School. He sees ‘the main objective of SDGs as being to provide a common language and currency for business strategies’ so that what makes good business sense is doing the right thing. Are you listening Volkswagen?

Ahead of the climate negotiations in Paris it’s reassuring that SDG 13 states the need to ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’ including the commitment to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related hazards and natural disasters in all countries ; integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning; improve education, awareness raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning; a implement the commitment undertaken by developed country Parties to the UNFCCC to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible; and to promote mechanisms for raising capacities for effective climate change related planning and management, in LDCs, including focusing on women, youth, local and marginalized communities.

That sounds like a pretty sound framework – making it absolutely crystal clear that the delivery of Goal 13 is, in no doubt, dependent on some concerted effort and commitment at those talks.

The new SDGs bring together people, organisations and governments committing to reducing poverty and inequality, moving towards environmental sustainability and promoting social justice.  What’s not to like? The ambition is great, so let’s not do them down for that. If even half of the SDGs were achieved then by 2030 we should be living in a better world.

If only everything in life was as reliable as a … oh.

In the first blog I contributed to ‘Sustainable Smart Cities’ I wrote about the known impacts of poor air quality – particularly in urban areas. In that blog it said:

A report ‘Public Health Impacts of Combustion Emissions in the United Kingdom’  (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es2040416) states ‘Combustion emissions are a major contributor to degradation of air quality and pose a risk to human health. We evaluate and apply a multiscale air quality modeling system to assess the impact of combustion emissions on UK air quality. Epidemiological evidence is used to quantitatively relate PM_2.5 exposure to risk of early death. We find that UK combustion emissions cause 13,000 premature deaths in the UK per year, while an additional 6000 deaths in the UK are caused by non-UK European Union (EU) combustion emissions.

In the EU, with a raft of legislation and Directives, there was frustration that nation states were failing to put in place the policies that would drive local air quality improvement. Local government would be nervous of introducing any policies that were considered ‘anti-business’ or ‘anti-car’ for fear of losing votes. National governments just ran scared of dictating uniform standards and policies. But there was hope. There was an increasing growth in electric vehicles, hydrogen technology, and compressed natural gas. Major hauliers have moved away from diesel and reaped the rewards. However, whilst there were tax incentives for motorists for lower emission vehicles there was always going to be an uptake of diesel and its growth in the UK has been in direct response to that.

We need to move away from diesel towards ever increasing cleaner fuels. Increasingly, we see two short-medium term winners – for lighter vehicles electric hybrid and electric plug-in solutions are likely to fair well and, given the improvement in battery technology and capacity the concept of ‘range anxiety’ (that awful fear that you might be left stranded somewhere without a hope of plugging-in) will become a thing of the past. More and more of these lighter vehicles appear to have switched from petrol to diesel in recent years as subsequent UK policy incentivised the uptake of diesel through reduced road tax as a way of reducing carbon emissions. For once, what’s been good for carbon dioxide (and only very marginally) hasn’t been good for local air quality.

But, overall, the policy makers have been weak to press harder despite the fines from Brussels hanging over Member States for whom air quality improvements have yet to be realised.

The growth in diesel vehicles by number has probably masked the very fact that has been exposed this week – that it is in the interests of car manufacturers to ‘fiddle’ the system to ensure in tests their vehicles pass the emissions tests. But in reality, on the roads, they are performing knowhere near where they say they are and a dirty, choking country mile from where they need to be. Don’t think either that it’s just diesel. Petrol, whilst more refined, is not much better and the real challenge is to switch from petroleum based products altogether.

The revelation that the respected car manufacturer, Volkswagen, has been ‘fiddling’ has brought a backlash that meant the CEO walked. The company’s credentials for reliability smashed by the story breaking. They wont be alone, surely. In a report ‘Don’t Breathe Here: Tackling Air Pollution from Vehicles’ – T&E analyses the reasons for and solutions to air pollution caused by diesel machines and cars – the worst of which, an Audi, emitted 22 times the allowed EU limit. In fact, every major car manufacturer is selling diesel cars that fail to meet EU air pollution limits on the road in Europe, according to data obtained by T&E.

As a consequence of this and emissions from diesel machines, much urban air in Europe is not fit to breathe. The high levels of particles, nitrogen oxides and unburned fuel create a cocktail of harmful pollution. The effects are half a million premature deaths each year; a quarter of a million hospital admissions; and 100 million lost working days cumulatively costing over €900 billion.

The regulators in whom we trust have been undone in the US and, who knows, in the EU too. So why is it that it we are surprised? The Brussels-based NGO Transport & Environment aren’t. They have long been among those highlighting the fact that the real world experience of many car owners, even in terms of fuel consumption, did not come anywhere near to the official figures that resulted from emissions testing.  The question arises of why it takes underfunded NGOs to discover these problems, rather than the regulators themselves.

Now that the truth is out will politicians respond and toughen up? Will the outcry and outrage of the car-driving public demand politicians sort things out? Or will they, like they did with the banking industry, simply wait for the dust, particulates, NOx and ozone to settle and let the auto industry carry on the way it has?

Source: How Volkswagen got caught cheating emissions tests by a clean air NGO

Disquiet among Danish city’s residents over Apple district heating deal

Whilst cities continue to take the lead on district heating development, the Danish town of Viborg is unhappy about what they believe is a lack of transparency surrounding a planned data centre, which had been supposed to provide district heating for residents. Indeed, in the UK, the consumer watchdog, Which?, has been calling for consumer protection and it seems like the residents in Denmark would welcome it.

On the back of the recent UNEP report promoting district energy, this is one of those difficult issues that needs to be addressed in the modern 21st century schemes.

It’s very likely that the town is paying the price for being one of the early movers in the integration of data centre development and district heating. Many have been supportive of the concept of capturing purged heat from high density computers for the benefit of those living nearby and high latitude countries remain attractive to the likes of Apple where they can reduce costs of overheating with lower ambient temperatures. Equally, local residents in these high latitude towns demand heat to warm homes and businesses. Sounds like a win-win. Except it’s clear that unless there is transparency over who pays for, and who owns, what there will be legal and financial challenge.

You can read my thoughts on ‘4th Generation Heat Networks‘ and an earlier blog on transparency in district and communal heat network data.

Source: Disquiet among Danish city’s residents over Apple district heating deal