Environment, energy and cities: Issues, problems and strategic options for urban settlements of the developing world. Chapter 2

As the world has moved into the 21st century, energy-related challenges have already grown quite severe in cities throughout the world and in countries at all levels of development. From all corners of the globe, city residents are exposed to unhealthy levels of energy-generated pollution. Urban emissions are also having negative regional development impacts, reducing crop yields and forest integrity in wide areas across North America, Europe and Eastern Asia. Furthermore, the greenhouse gas emissions generated in the course of providing power to the world's cities are contributing significantly to the problem of global climate change. At the same time that the negative environmental impacts of urban energy consumption are manifesting themselves on local, regional and global levels, the demand for energy continues to grow. This relentless growth in demand for modern energy resources is understandable in cities throughout the developing world, where per capita consumption rates still remain comparatively low. Unfortunately, the environmental externalities generated by conventional energy systems are eroding the health and productivity of citizens in many developing country cities, and so new paths towards more efficient and sustainable patterns of energy consumption must be pursued in these areas. It has been estimated that about three-quarters of the world's commercial energy is consumed in cities. More specifically, over 75 per cent of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacturing, and 76 per cent of industrial wood consumption, occur in urban areas. A primary function of the world energy system is to provide urban settlements with massive quantities of electricity, petrol and heat for use in commercial, transport and residential sectors (World Energy Assessment, UNDP, 2000). Urban societies in developing countries are dual in nature: in some segments of the society, incomes are quite high, and their energy-consumption patterns are similar to those of industrialized countries, with increasing demand for high-intensity energy-consuming services, such as refrigeration, air-conditioning and personal transport. For the remaining segments of society, which constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, consumption patterns are similar to those in rural areas. Indeed, almost a billion urban residents live in informal settlements in developing country cities in conditions identical to or is some cases worse than their rural poor counterparts. Energy is a key input for meeting basic needs and for achieving socio-economic development goals that include, inter-alia, fuel for cooking, heating and lighting in households, power for industry, and petroleum products for transportation. The supply of and the demand for virtually every type of energy generates varying degrees of environmental externalities that affect human health, ecological stability and economic development. These effects can occur at the household, local, regional, national or transnational level. There are approximately two billion people, who lack access to electricity, and a further two billion depend on traditional fuels, such as wood and animal and crop waste, for cooking and heating. In Africa, two thirds of the population does not have access to electricity. Over a billion of these reside in informal settlements within developing country cities. For one-third of the world's population, dependence on traditional fuels results in a significant number of hours being spent each day gathering wood, primarily by girl children and women, even in urban areas. In part due to poor infrastructure and prohibitively high up-front costs, the poor often face much higher energy costs than the non-poor. This is compounded by the limited access to appropriate financing schemes that can allow the poor to overcome the high-up front costs of cleaner energy devices and appliances. Other important energy challenges facing the poor, include low incomes that are not sufficient for the procurement of energy services to meet basic needs such as suffic ient energy to cook food, provide affordable transport, power pumps for potable water; sterilize medical equipment; and, provide space heating. Cities, with their high population densities, tend to concentrate environmental problems that elsewhere, are otherwise geographically dispersed. A classic example of this is air pollution in cities where both point (e.g. industrial emissions from smokestacks) and nonpoint (e.g., vehicle exhaust) sources are concentrated in a limited, densely populated geographic area. The degree of the problem varies with prevailing winds and thermal stratification patterns, urban geography, levels of industrialization and motorization, and the incidence of indoor as well as outdoor human exposure. It is important to note that the cause of many of these problems may be urban but the impact can be felt both inside and outside the city. In addition, ambient air pollution may affect the health of urban residents and damage the crops of farmers in rural areas