Contextualizing carbon reduction initiatives: how should carbon mitigation be addressed by various cities worldwide?

Sustainability and human development initiatives cannot be considered in isolation of each other. Yet, depending on the forum, different critical sustainability and development issues are highlighted as ‘the key issue’ with important statistics cited to back that specific issue’s importance. At a global forum on carbon reduction, for example, it is expected that presenters will elaborate on the scale and scope of GHG emissions and the importance of reducing emissions, placing all of this perhaps within the context of rapidly urbanizing cities that now consume approximately 75% of the world’s energy and emit 80% of the world’s GHGs [1]. Conversely, global forums on poverty alleviation and human development may well emphasize the need for developing improved access to clean drinking water, sanitation and healthcare, citing statistics such as 20,000 deaths each day caused by conditions caused and fostered by extreme poverty [2]. These are examples of issues that have been identified as important at the global level, and yet still have different levels of relevance and priority in various local contexts.

The popular literature shows that, over the past two decades, it has been difficult to achieve consensus on environmental sustainability targets at the global level. Several meetings between national heads of states have ended up with relatively large documents but without any binding standards for various sustainability issues [3,101,102]. As sustainability, development and sustainable development discussions continue at the global level, it is important that they are not simply conducted in a relatively artificial environment that has no context, but that they are cast against realistic local and regional contexts of typologies of countries that share similar constraints, have similar objectives and perceive common opportunities – economically, environmentally, socially and technologically. This is because in considering various elements of development and of sustainability in a relatively isolated manner, we run the risk of adopting inferior pathways to sustainability, resulting in sustainability initiatives occurring at higher than necessary opportunity costs as far as human development is concerned, or, alternatively, adopting development initiatives that will occur at higher-than-necessary opportunity costs as far as progress toward sustainability is concerned. For example, a community considering alternative long-range transportation plans may choose to place higher value on a plan that is most promising for economic development and public health, than one that favors natural environment quality goals, and may choose to treat the natural environment as a constraint rather than an objective. Conversely, another community with a noticeably degraded natural environment, for example, may place higher value on a plan that helps to restore the natural environment while still achieving positive economic impacts (although this may not be the best plan for economic development or enhancement per se). These are subtle differences in emphasis, yet have potentially different outcomes. Ultimately, because of the potential development costs of sustainability initiatives and, conversely, the potential sustainability costs of development initiatives, it makes sense to consider them together. Adopting a systems approach that couples environmental sustainability and human development provides a method for assessing their combined impact on sustainable development, reducing the risks of investing in piecemeal initiatives with higher opportunity costs.

The human development and environmental sustainability conditions in various communities around the world should therefore influence the way we approach related initiatives, with more care given to how we conceptualize the problem of environmental sustainability, human development and sustainable development. Do we conceptualize a particular sustainable development issue as a primary objective, an ancillary benefit or as a constraint? Do we consider the issue in a multiobjective problem that has several sustainable development issues valued as equally important objectives? When does it make sense to go with one but not another of these conceptualizations? Whose values are considered in decision formalization? These questions are important because the formulations we adopt may end up giving us quite different outcomes and pathways, with significant implications on community quality of life and economic and environmental conditions.

An article by Amekudzi in this special focus issue presents a mathematical modeling approach for formulating such multicriteria problems [4], while another by Ramaswami et al.[5] discusses how participatory community-based research can help to identify sustainable development priority issues in communities by asking the simple question ‘what does sustainability mean to you?’ The answers to which are indeed rather complex. One way to simplify the complexity for decision making is to consider a typology of three types of communities based on the manner in which they articulate climate action and sustainable development plans.

Carbon reduction as a primary objective

Several cities in the US with a high human development index have articulated climate action plans that emphasize GHG mitigation as a primary and quantitative benefit. For example, the climate action plan from Denver (CO, USA) specifies a target of reducing per capita GHG emissions by 10% from 2005 to 2012; other sustainability issues such as water savings and economic savings are presented as co-benefits. EU countries have articulated individual, concrete GHG reduction targets. Indeed, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEIs), Climate and Air Pollution Planning Assistant (CAPPA) tool presents the data in such a manner. Because human development issues have largely been addressed, although job creation and economic development are always important, environmental issues have an opportunity to surface as high priority issues. Establishing GHG mitigation goals explicitly as a high priority at the local level becomes very important, even in affluent societies because many environmental pollution parameters, particularly GHG emissions, do not follow the classic Kuznets curve wherein increasing affluence in society over time is associated with reduced environmental pollution.

Economic development as primary goal

By contrast, China has articulated economic development – one component of the human development index – as its primary goal, with carbon mitigation targets represented in terms of decreasing the CO₂ intensity of the economy. This is consistent with observations that China’s human development index has increased steadily in the past few decades (2% annually from 0.368 in 1980 to 0.663 in 2010) [103], as has its per capita energy use.

For cities in countries with a much lower human development index, it is not surprising that human development becomes the overriding goal. In many of these cities, carbon mitigation is rarely placed as a primary driver that shapes development projects – and perhaps appropriately so for the current urgent needs and priorities. Here, infrastructure investments may want to maximize human development index with or without specifications on minimizing GHG emissions, or while addressing GHG emissions with some intermediate local policy standards. As development agencies try to incorporate carbon mitigation goals, this can pose ethical questions on the opportunity costs to development; for example, the provisioning of water supplies and sanitation services can impact public health and longevity significantly: should agencies try to optimize wastewater treatment plants to maximize pathogen removal in drinking while minimizing GHG emissions? Or simply maximize pathogen reductions in water? Or maximize pathogen reductions in water with a local policy standard that must not be exceeded for GHGs? Japan, for example, has taken several steps, including policy and technical dialogue, to promote the co-benefits approach that aims to address climate change concerns while also improving the local environment, to enable achievement of development goals in a sustainable manner [6]. The reader is referred to the Amekudzi article for various ways of formulating sustainable development priorities [4].

Framing carbon reduction initiatives using this broader systems thinking paradigm would also raise questions of equity and require the use of good data for capital accounting (e.g., economic, environmental and social) to help address such questions, to evaluate the relative costs of alternative initiatives, and to help with setting targets that while not necessarily identical, have commensurate impacts with respect to typologies of local conditions. Such targets would be more likely to gain enough traction with stakeholders and foster consensus for sustainability and development targets commensurate with local initiatives. This is one approach that comes with a willingness to think through issues holistically in space and time, ask hard questions and make tough choices, but is more likely to result in true progress at the global level in the long term.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.