Science and the Future of Cities

While it remains arguable whether cities are the ultimate sources or solutions for global sustainability problems, there is little doubt of their centrality in the 21st century. In just over a decade, by 2030, there will be 41 megacities of 10 million inhabitants or more, up from today’s 28. Urban areas already generate more than 75% of global GDP, contribute to about 75% of carbon emissions from global final energy use, and are home to the majority of the world population, including over 863 million slums dwellers. City dwellers, just going about their lives, will generate more than 2 billion tonnes of waste each year, much of it landing up in the oceans and in terrestrial sites outside of the urban edge. While urban areas are hubs of opportunities and innovation, it is difficult to deny the sustainability challenges raised by a rapidly expanding population living in a predominantly urban world. Since 2015, a series of international agreements have highlighted the importance of harnessing cities’ capacity for innovation to tackle urbanisation challenges necessary to achieving the 2030 global agenda for sustainable development. A key turning point occurred in October 2016, when policymakers, scientists and civil society delegates gathered for a once-in-twenty-years opportunity of the Habitat III summit in Quito, launching the UN’s New Urban Agenda (NUA). The Agenda solidified the international recognition by nation states for the centrality of cities through their endorsement of not only a dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (#11) but also the acknowledgement of the importance of localising all global sustainable development agreements. This political endorsement emphasizes the critical need for improving our fundamental knowledge of cities and urbanization in ways that can generate tangible improvements to present and future living conditions. Yet this political momentum comes amidst serious challenges to the operational realities of generating, gathering and mobilising urban knowledge, especially given the magnitude and speed of the challenges ahead. In the lead up and immediate aftermath of the 2030 Agenda approval in New York and then the New Urban Agenda in Quito, experts reiterated how a poor urban science-policy interface and the lack of clarity on how cities contribute to the post-2015 agenda would impede progress. Since then, numerous voices have expressed concerns as to how the set of urban development objectives associated with the SDGS might be achieved in practice, referring particularly to the lack of supporting science-policy links to inform the design and monitoring of national and local urban strategies. In September 2017, in the context of a report to the UN General Assembly by a purpose-built High-Level Panel established by the UN Secretary General to review the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda, diplomats, academics, private sector and civil actor representatives stressed the current shortcomings in mobilising effective urban knowledge in support of global sustainability goals – a concern taken up at the 2018 High Level Panel, which focused on SDG 11 and the global commitments to the urban question. Science-policy interactions between urban scholars and urban practitioners have, in the wake of the SDGs and the NUA, undergone important steps towards greater integration. As this report notes further on, climate as well as disaster and risk reduction have spearheaded this from the Sendai and Paris agreements on to, in 2018, the recent ‘CitiesIPCC’ conference (in Edmonton), clear consideration during the HighLevel Political Forum on the SDGs (in New York), and the kick off of an ‘Urban20’ track within the Group of 20 Buenos Aires summit. Arguments and evidence as to importance of forging better science-policy links, then, are a mounting not just in cities-specific fora and events, but more and more across the multilateral policymaking world. In particular, there is a rising concern to identify what type of urban science, or sciences, can address the needs of actors shaping sustainable development in very different contexts and at different scales of governance. There are known limits to the current science science-policy mechanisms that provide tangible evidence and can guide international efforts towards addressing some of today’s major urban challenges, from climate, to health, inequality and resilience. As UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed reported, we must now recognise that “the global response to the promise of urbanisation has been inadequate”.

source :

https://www.nature.com/documents/Science_and_the_future_of_cites.pdf