Think global, act local to transform cities and our planet

WITH urbanisation here to stay, our future lies in our cities. All around the world, countries are experiencing the largest wave of urban growth in history. Singapore has long achieved 100 per cent urbanisation, as announced by the United Nations in 2018, while South-east Asia’s urbanisation rate is at an all-time high.

Because of this, cities now lie at the forefront of the most pressing global challenges, including climate change, accounting for over 70 per cent of global carbon emissions. While ensuring a sustainable urban future has always been on the global agenda, with cities being hotspots of the global carbon cycle, what are the steps necessary to achieve this?

Despite their carbon footprint, cities have great potential as catalysts for change. Contributing over 80 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP), cities are hubs for innovation and creativity, offering solutions that can pave the way towards a sustainable future.

As we reflect on World Cities Day (Oct 31), not only must we continue to recognise the role cities play in realising global sustainable development, this year’s theme of “Act Local to Go Global” highlights that any transformative global agenda must first be localised within our current urban fabric.

As we place cities at the heart of sustainable development, the blueprint for linking local to global urban sustainability lies in three ways: through knowledge, solutions and partnerships.

Applying a local lens on climate issues 

Firstly, we need to apply a local lens to environmental issues, and what it means for climate action at a global level. Climate change is affecting countries all around the world. Notably, the interdependency of water and energy is set to intensify in the coming years, impacting both energy and water security. However, how these issues manifest from city to city varies – from water supply issues to urban flooding – and so requires a crucial understanding of local conditions and concerns.

Singapore faces urban climate risks including rising temperatures, with the city state warming twice as quickly as the global average over the last seven decades largely due to rapid urbanisation. Along with rising energy demands and limited renewable energy options due to resource constraints, the warming poses significant risk to Singapore’s environment and community.

As cities and the communities housed within them experience varied climate impacts and different vulnerabilities, it is vital that we do not lose sight of the local context while tackling the global issue of climate change. Only by taking a ground-up approach on understanding climate change can we ensure that no one is left behind.

Expanding our global toolbox with local solutions 

Meanwhile, local sustainable urban solutions have the potential to contribute to a broader global toolbox that can be adaptable anywhere in the world. Being on the frontlines of climate change, cities have long been developing and adapting urban solutions to mitigate and address their new climate future, all while keeping their own local environmental challenges and issues in mind.

A prime example is China’s sponge cities. As China faced worsening urban floods, sponge cities utilise nature-based solutions to address these issues that come with grey infrastructure. While the concept was adapted from predecessors around the world, China’s approach has been touted as a “revolutionary rethink” in terms of urban planning.

Cities also are increasingly incorporating digital technologies to further bolster its climate resilience and achieve greater resource efficiencies. Singapore has set its sights on becoming a world-class, tech-driven city-state. It is transforming itself to become a Smart Nation, harnessing technology to transform how its people and businesses live, work and play. Digitalisation can help cities navigate the trade-offs between more substantial sustainability efforts and their perceived barriers.

Specifically, digitalisation can reimagine water systems in cities. Water plays an undeniably important role in cities, supporting both lives and livelihoods. However, not only is it a finite resource; it requires considerable amount of energy to move, treat, and process water for municipal and industrial use, which calls for urban solutions that are both energy- and water-efficient.

For example, by working with solution providers to connect the pumping solutions in a city’s water processes via a cloud platform, some cities are already attaining significant energy optimisation in their water and wastewater network through intelligent technology. By leveraging advanced analytics and algorithms to predict leaks, municipals can also pre-emptively fix problems in the water network before they happen, preventing wastage of resources and energy.

Beyond our municipal water systems, buildings around the world – powered by water and energy – are also utilising intelligent technology to tailor to specific circumstances. Building solution providers are increasingly looking at smart technology to achieve systems that can operate in optimised conditions at any time, using water and energy in an efficient manner.

While many of these solutions were developed with the local urban environment in mind, rapid urbanisation means that cities around the world are finding greater similarities in their experiences of climate change and its profound consequences. Gathering key learnings and best practices from such case studies can provide powerful insights at a regional and even global level.

Building inclusive partnerships at all levels

Lastly, continuous knowledge-building calls for inclusive collaboration locally and globally. Achieving climate objectives cannot be achieved without commitment at every scale, involving individuals, industry, and government. For us to achieve real change, collaboration is key to knowledge-sharing and understanding learnings and best practices.

Global partners can leverage their network and reach to link up the necessary stakeholders, resources, and expertise to bring an initiative to life, while local collaborators can not only provide insights from the local landscape, but also recommendations for the best way forward.

For instance, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group partnered with Grundfos and the Grundfos Foundation on the Water Safe Cities project, where the first phase of the research quantified the dire impacts of climate-driven drought and flooding on the world’s largest cities and its residents.

The research found that, in the current climate, flooding costs Singapore US$4 per capita per year. Under a business-as-usual scenario, this is projected to increase to US$8 per capita per year by 2050. However, if emissions and the impact of climate change are stabilised, this would sit at US$7 per capita per year by 2050.

The insights from this phase have subsequently helped launch the second phase of this project, where they will work on a Water Accelerator for cities to pledge ambitious action to safeguard their water supply. The project provides a starting point for wider collaboration between cities, national governments, and the private sector, all of whom have an incentive to protect cities from water risks.

Many cities around the world are already formulating and implementing innovative policies, projects, and programmes designed to achieve sustainable growth and development. The sharing and harmonisation of these goals and actions will help us determine the best of what each city has to offer and allow us to extrapolate these, to drive the global push for a more sustainable world and future.

The writer is CEO of Grundfos