Smart Urban Plan to Reduce the Green House Gas Emission

Urban areas play a critical role in reducing the amount of GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emission as it generates 70% of human induced GHGs. Smart Cities can take up this role by designing their cities that integrate climate mitigation into their urban planning process, building design, construction as well as through their services & infrastructure. The urban planning process with GHG mitigation in mind will start with administering their current emissions including public & private transport, heating and cooling, construction, and operation of infrastructure. It is also critical to assess the existing urban form that encompasses the pattern of the spatial arrangements of land use, transportation system, layout of street and buildings, the configuration of settlement and the natural infrastructure that can act as carbon sinks such as urban forest, urban parks and water bodies. 

This initial information can then be used to assess the best planning scenarios that are most climate-friendly that reduced the GHGs emission, based on the human, resource and financial capacity of the municipality. Through an impact assessment, the options of scenarios should consider the design, technology, location, scope and scale of each of the plan. This climate-friendly urban planning ought to specify the details of how it can be implemented, from role distribution between stakeholders, the energy and resource requirements and the estimation of the emission it will produce. It also requires plans to have measurable and verifiable benchmarks against which progress can be assessed. Another additional quality of the climate-friendly plan should have is the compliance to not only local climate action but also international climate obligations.

Reference:

Urban Planning Law for Climate Smart Cities: The Urban Law Module of the Law and Climate Change Toolkit by UN Habitat

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