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Need strategies to clear the air? Ask a Megacity

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Much of the world’s air pollution comes from large cities. This pollution can be carried thousands of miles away. It affects the health and livelihoods of people who live far away from large cities. City governments around the world are developing new strategies to control air pollution.

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a group of 96 cities around the world. They share ideas and resources for solving environmental problems common to many cities. The C40 says that air pollution is the most important shared environmental problem.

The C40 works to support projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 17 cities. These projects aim to reduce emissions from transportation, energy generation, and waste disposal (throwing things away). The projects use a variety of high- and low-tech approaches. Examples of C40 projects include the following: planting more trees and putting gardens on roofs, requiring low-emission vehicles and fuels, increasing efficient, sustainable energy production.

Reducing emissions from the ground up

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The goal is ambitious: creating cities that are "net carbon negative". To be net carbon negative, a city must do two things. It must reduce existing atmospheric carbon dioxide and offset new emissions. "To offset" means to balance out, counteract, or neutralize.

A city can offset its carbon emissions in two ways. They can capture the greenhouse gases they emit. Or they can use credits for emissions eliminated elsewhere.

Tomas Gustafson is a sustainability advisor to the city of Stockholm, Sweden, a member of the C40. He says that smart, low-carbon solutions are a practical way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An example of a low-carbon solution is solar power. Solar power produces energy with far lower carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels.

The C40 monitors projects from beginning to end in clearly defined phases. Mahindra World City was the first Asian city to complete phase 2. Mahindra World City is in Jaipur, India. It is a partnership between Mahindra Group and the government of the state of Rajasthan. Mahindra group is a large multinational corporation. Mahindra World City is a newly constructed city. It combines residential (living), commercial, (businesses), and other needs into a single, sustainable environment. By 2025, it will house and employ almost 300,000.

Other C40 projects have also reached the second phase. These include projects in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Sønderborg, Denmark; London, UKI and Oberlin, Ohio, in the United States.

Collaborating to get it right

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Every city requires its own specific solutions. Through the C40 network, each city receives support. The C40 also analyzes each city's solutions and approaches. They carefully review and evaluate these solutions. The C40 looks for strategies that can be replicated in different settings. They share these in the C40 network so that other cities can try the same approach.

Mahindra World City is an example of a brand new C40 city. From the beginning, it was built to be net carbon negative. Other cities such as London, Mexico City, and Delhi, India are very old. These older cities must work to retrofit old neighborhoods. Retrofitting is the process of adding new technology or features to an old system. Older C40 cities must do two things at once. They must retrofit their old neighborhoods and also develop new, sustainable ones.

The C40 facilitates partnerships for creating zero-emissions cities. It also maintains databases of case studies and an interactive open-data portal. Open access to data allows the cities to collaborate and learn from each other.

© 2021 by FHI 360. "Intermediate Reading Practice: Need Strategies to Clear the Air? Ask a Megacity" for the Online Professional English Network (OPEN), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is an adaptation of "Need Strategies to Clear the Air? Ask a Megacity", by Lea Terhune / ShareAmerica licensed under Public Domain / U.S. Government Works, and can be found at ShareAmerica.gov. To view a copy of the license, visit https://www.usa.gov/government-works. Adapted content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/