Urbanisation took centre-stage at last week’s Rio+20 conference for good reasons. Cities collectively consume 75 per cent of world’s natural resources, generate 50 per cent of waste and emit about 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas. With no slowing down of urbanisation in sight, this consumption is bound to increase. It is now abundantly clear — as UNEP’s recent report on sustainable cities convincingly demonstrates — that unless cities become resource efficient and reduce waste generation, national and global sustainable development would be impossible to achieve. This is a warning bell to Indian policymakers, who have so far focused on the economic growth of cities and ignored their environmental performance. Consuming 40 billion tonnes of raw material every year has its consequences. The first visible challenge is the staggering waste cities produce. Conventional wisdom has been to find more landfill sites. This approach would demand more land over time and cities cannot endlessly appropriate the resources of their region. It would lead to potential conflicts and the loss of productive agricultural land would partly offset the economic benefits provided by the cities. Pursuing standard solutions and treading the beaten path of town planning would not help. Only a radical change in course will create zero-carbon, zero-waste habitats, which is imperative.
It would be impractical to cap the growth of cities. Neither is it the objective of the current debate. The question is how to transform them. Certain cities have taken the lead and shown a way forward. For instance, Copenhagen recycles most of the waste it generates and lets only 3 per cent go to the landfill. Extending the idea of recycling, Kitgum town in Uganda traps used water from houses and utilises it to grow food in greywater gardens. Cities in Malta have opted for a smart bi-directional grid system to regulate their power consumption. There are more inspiring examples. With the Central government dithering on commitments to reduce emission levels and the National Mission on Sustainable Habitats failing to offer anything substantial, Indian cities can no more rely on centrally directed policies and projects. They have to adopt best practices on their own and launch projects with clear green benchmarks. A good beginning would be to promote non-motorised transport. Even in larger cities such as Chennai, the share of bicycle trips, despite poor arrangement, is as high as 12.5 per cent of the total trips. Building dedicated bicycle tracks would significantly reduce transport related emissions. If Indian cities are keen to improve the quality of life and remain economically competitive, they have to leapfrog to become desirable green places to live in.
Keywords: Rio+20, natural resources, urbanisation, sustainable development, Indian cities
Develop rural areas by putting in place communication,education,medical and employment
facilities so that migration to urban is put to an end.this environmental conducive planning is
sine quo non both for economic and health of people of country.
Moving ahead to development is an unstoppable & irreversible reaction.
And when this process is going on, the amount of negative impact it
will put will also be substantial. The only thing we can do now is to
control it with whatsoever means we have. It can be promoting the new
cleaner technology, reducing the prices of green devices, funding the
developing nations to urge them to use such technologies. Although the
efforts in these terms are going on, the check must also be performed
on them so as to know how much they are adding up positively. Reviews
must be taken from the users to make the amendments in policies or
instruments etc. It can help immensely if we promote the developing
nations from the start of their growth cycle to go green so that it
will stay for quite a long time.
all urban authority and municipal corporation should have ensured an efficient waste disposal system while allowing any residential or commercial setup.
Copenhagen, Uganda and Malta, among others, are setting very good examples of working towards sustainable development. All these and similar initiatives require innovative technologies and vast resources. We have the brain power to do it. But most of the wealth the country is able to generate is only going to feed the greed of our people. Amassing tonnes of money is a kind of disease our politicians and bureaucrats are beset with. All our energies are getting sapped in fighting against each other. I don't know how and when we will get together to combat the common enemies of mankind!
"It would be impractical to cap the growth of cities. Neither is it the objective of the current debate." This approach seem to be the fundamental problem with our planners. Without a debate on to cap the growth of cities we are hopelessly lost. With so much population and still growing, the growth of cities must be a major concern. "Cities collectively consume 75 per cent of world's natural resources, generate 50 per cent of waste and emit about 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas." It seems impossible to reduce these numbers without reducing the urban growth and improving the rural India. All other measures may amount to tinkering with the problem only. They will not provide sustainable solution.
Only policy makers can not check the amount of waste and greenhouse gas produced in urban areas.In many families each person use their own vehicle instead of public transport like metro in Delhi, which is convenient and fast. By using public transport, we can reduce greenhouse gases.
Similarly, the plastic bags are the potential threat to the, stray cattle, environment.
Government alone can not check all this. We must co-operate with the government.
There is a need to introduce something like Carbon credit which is done in many industries. The biggest problem is that cities produce less and consume more. There should be a limitation over the waste generated and local government and municipal bodies should be held accountable if the limit is crossed.
Tremendous amount of waste generated by ever expanding cities can certainly be put to better use than landfills and incineration. Waste water for agricultural use, solid waste for biogas etc.will certainly help in bridging the demand - supply gap beside reducing the cost of waste handling system.
Urbanization is the necessity of life to improve our quality of life. but we should always remember that our natural resources is limited. so we should understand that how we use these limited resources given by nature as a god gift.................
Waste generated by the city dwellers is indeed a matter of great concern. We always go for short term solutions and as you have observed in edit, our objective should be to treat all waste and recycle as much as possible. Urban waste is a matter handled by Municipal administrations. Left to the elected Members of the corporations, it is unlikely to receive attention it deserves. Usual experience in Maharashtra is that the elected representatives in corporations have high stakes in awards of contracts for transportation of the garbage. The State government machinery is complacent too. In such a scenario, creating people awareness on the subject appears to be a better option.
Urbanization begets environmental problems. For its extension or upkeep
natural resources are consumed and, a heavy waste is left.
Yes , I am cent percent agree that we must discover the optimist way to use the natural resources. Maximum emphasis should be given in utilisation of renewable resources.
Radical discovery is required in power sector to cut the dependency on coal that is on non renewable resources.
Indeed the effort of Copenhageners in recycling is commendable. Managing
small things like household/industrial trash can make a big difference.
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