The urgency of sustainable cities – and ways to get there

Speaker: Dr. Daniel Hoornweg (FESNS)

Abstract: Cities are home to more than half the world’s population, and by 2050 cities are likely to swell by an additional 2.5 billion people. Cities today are responsible for almost 80 percent of the world’s pollution, like GHG emissions, and biodiversity loss. Cities, or more accurately, the people who live in cities, are also responsible for the lion’s share of wealth. In order to meet targets like the Paris Climate Accord (keeping temperature increases below 2oC) and the Sustainable Development Goals, cities need to be built and managed much differently than they are today. People living in cities need to use less energy and resources, and generate much less waste. Likely, the only way to accomplish this urban transformation is through a greater reliance on the ‘science of cities’. This talk will introduce the science of cities and key components of the discipline, such as urban metabolism, city scaling, life cycle and material flow analysis, and the city as ecosystem.