City pangs

Cities are already responsible for more than 80 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. By 2030, the world will have almost 5 billion city residents -- about 60 percent of the world's population.

So, it makes sense for cities to get smart and learn to build housing and transportation systems, ensure food and energy supplies, and deal with waste in a sustainable manner that cuts greenhouse-gas emissions.

Perhaps as a first step cities must know their emissions and have policies to lower these. At a recent meet, the attention was on C40's collaboration with International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) -- Local Governments for Sustainability -- to develop a standard for measuring city greenhouse-gas emissions.

ICLEI draws upon the expertise of World resources Institute in this regard. WRI has begun developing a city-level emissions accounting framework tailored for China. WRI's city framework will measure both direct and indirect emissions. This means that emissions from goods and services produced and consumed by city residents would be included in a city's emissions assessment.

Then there are the BRT systems which lowers commuting time and also reduces emissions! A step ahead, inspired by IPCC's recent report that renewable energy could provide 80 percent of the world's energy by 2050, how about distributed on-site solar that sees solar panels on individual homes? To make the installation and financing easy, WRI has been looking at collaborative solar financing for a group or community.

Surely, there are many ways cities can lead the way in becoming climate champions. All it takes is some innovative thinking and a visionary leadership.