Cities have been recognized as key drivers toward the successful governance of resources and as theย front lineย in combating climate change. But there is a huge urban-rural inequality in carbon emissions in the making, particularly in rapidly urbanizing developing countries. Thus, the political and economic divide between the Global North and South that historically has shaped debates on climate change could soon be overshadowed by inequalities related to a potentially stronger disparity between rural and urban areas regarding carbon emissions.
Global North-South carbon inequality is reducing in the aggregate, but the urban-rural difference is increasing in rapidly urbanizing developing countries. Those inequalities can only be properly addressed nationally/locally.
Analyzing data from more than 200 countries over five decadesย shows some astounding results.ย Although carbon emissions are heavily correlated to its wealth (in terms of gross domestic product per capita), the data analyses suggest that a countryโs level of urbanization correlates more with carbon emissions than its wealth. As countries urbanize, their citiesโ contributions of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases start toย become disproportionately highย in comparison to their population and wealth.
The rural-urban divide is likely to precipitate into a more local yet complex governance to mediate carbon disparities between urban and rural areas. This will be particularly relevant to the developing world, which faces the triple challenge of rapid urbanization, social justice and environmental sustainability. As global emissions disparities move from North-South to rural-urban, there is a greater need to address these local and sub-national inequalities at a national level. Cities in urbanized middle-income countries emit comparable levels of carbon dioxide per capita to those in richer countries, while some rural areas in these low and middle-income countries have low or even negative carbon emissions per capita.
Historically, urbanization has been correlated with wealth creation and the massive consumption of fossil fuels that accompanied it. Some accounts indicate that more thanย 70 percentย of global greenhouse gases are produced within urban areas, which consumeย 60 to 80 percentย of the worldโs energy. As the world makes an unprecedentedย rural-to-urban population shift, the 21st century poses a challenge in further addressing inequalities in access to resources and allocation of carbon emissions.
International climate governance recognizes the divide between โhaveโ and โhave notโ countries in terms of carbon emissions. The Paris Agreement 2015 has shifted the onus of mitigating emissions back on voluntary contributions (through the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) of respective nations. But focusing on inequalities in terms of carbon emissions from a rural-urban perspective further differentiates the have-nots and establishes that โruralโ developing countries are the most disadvantaged. Thus, a countryโs degree of urbanization, and not merely its economy, also determines its carbon emissions.
The rural constituencies in Africa are the most disadvantaged, withย electrification ratesย reaching only 28 percent of the population. Electrification rates are the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, at 19 percent. This has implications for designing a fair global regime for ending energy poverty and tackling climate change due toย ethical, empirical and governance gapsย related to urban-rural carbon dynamics.
Meanwhile, population growth for the remainder of this century isย predictedย to occur primarily in cities in low- and middle-income nations. Asia alone saw a surge of 1 billion urban dwellers from 1980 to 2010โmore than the population of Western Europe and the United States combinedโand the region is expected to addย another billionย by 2040. Thus, a radical and urgent transformation in the way we build our cities is needed to avoid disproportional increases in carbon emissions and disparities between rural and urban resource access and carbon emissions.
But there are new answers, and new momentum, around how to structure this transformation being discussed at the international level. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the global urbanization strategy adopted late last year, known as the New Urban Agenda,ย offer opportunities to provide solutions leading to sustainable cities by making leaders accountable for the ecological impacts of their cities.
For example, the New Urban Agenda recognizes the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production in cities with impacts beyond urban areas. See for instance the agendaโs Paragraph 63: โGiven citiesโ demographic trends and their central role in the global economy, in the mitigation and adaptation efforts related to climate change, and in the use of resources and ecosystems,โ it states in part, โthe way they are planned, financed, developed, built, governed and managed has a direct impact on sustainability and resilience well beyond urban boundaries.โ
It is clear that equal access to resources forms the bedrock of sustainable human settlements and future urbanization. However, this translates into immense barriers to changing national urbanization pathways, particularly for developing countries, which seem to be following the unsustainable examples of urbanization in rich countries. For example,ย some cities in Chinaย now emit more carbon dioxideย per capita than many cities in developed countries.
Promoting cities solely as engines of economic growth creates stiffer competitionย amongย cities, which leads to more consumption, higher concentration of wealth and carbon emissions in urban areas. In turn, these dynamics increase inequities, particularly affecting the poorest and weakest in rural areasโthose who have little voice and suffer from having fewer resources and opportunities. In order to decrease emissions and urban-rural inequalities, there is an urgent need to catalyze and scale up innovations that provide adequate housing, energy access, transportation and economic opportunities for the growing urban population in a sustainable manner.
The SDGs, New Urban Agenda and Paris Agreement on climate change together offer a chance to show the importance of sustainable urbanization in fighting inequalities within and beyond cities. Still, although changes made toward more-sustainable urbanization patterns would yield immense climate co-benefits to both urban and rural areas, the implementation of international agendas is far from catalyzing the necessary changes on the ground. For that, we need to strengthen institutions and capabilities at the local and sub-national levels so they can lead the urban transformationโone that positively impacts on cities and beyond, reducing the growing urban-rural divide in the highly urbanizing developing countries.
Jose Puppim
Johor Bahru – Cambridge – Rio
Mahendra Sethi
New Delhi
This article is based on a paper that was part of the United Nations Universityโs Habitat III series featuring research and commentary related to the U.N. Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development that took place in October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador. To read more on this topic, see the following publications:
Sethi, M. and Puppim de Oliveira, Jose A. (2015). From global โNorth-Southโ to local โUrban-Ruralโ: A shifting paradigm in climate governance? Urban Climate, 14 (4) 529โ543.ย https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2015.09.009
Doll, C.N.H and Puppim de Oliveira, Jose A. (Eds.) (2017). Urbanization and Climate Co-Benefits: Implementation of Win-Win Interventions in Cities. Routledge.ย https://www.routledge.com/Urbanization-and-Climate-Co-Benefits-Implementation-of-win-win-interventions/Doll-Puppim-de-Oliveira/p/book/9781138953444
Sethi, M. (2017). Climate Change and Urban Settlements – A Spatial Perspective of Carbon Footprint and Beyond. Routledge.ย https://www.routledge.com/Climate-Change-and-Urban-Settlements-A-Spatial-Perspective-of-Carbon-Footprint/Sethi/p/book/9781138226005
about the writer
Mahendra Sethi
Mahendra Sethi is an urban environment expert and editor at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India.
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