RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Integrating Carbon Management … · 62 Journal of Industrial Ecology. RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS in urban planning (Tiwari 2003; Carpenter et al. 2004; Shatkin 2004)

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Integrating CarbonManagement into theDevelopment Strategies ofUrbanizing Regions in AsiaImplications of Urban Function,Form, and Role

Louis LEBEL, Po GARDEN, Ma. Regina N. BANATICLA,Rodel D. LASCO, Antonio CONTRERAS, A. P. MITRA,Chhemendra SHARMA, Hoang Tri NGUYEN, Giok Ling OOI,and Agus SARI

Summary

The way urbanization unfolds over the next few decades in thedeveloping countries of Asia will have profound implicationsfor sustainability. One of the more important opportunitiesis to guide urbanization along pathways that begin to uncou-ple these gains in well-being from rising levels of energy use.Increasing energy use for transport, construction, climate con-trol in houses and offices, and industrial processes is often ac-companied by increasing levels of atmospheric emissions thatimpact human health, ecosystem functions, and the climatesystem. Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry alter car-bon stocks and fluxes as carbon dioxide, methane, and blackcarbon. In this article we explore how carbon managementcould be integrated into the development strategies of citiesand urbanizing regions. In particular, we explore how changesin urban form, functions, and roles might alter the timing,aggregation, spatial distribution, and composition of carbonemissions. Our emphasis is on identifying system linkages andpoints of leverage. The study draws primarily on emission in-ventories and regional development histories carried out inthe regions around the cities of Manila, Jakarta, Ho Chi MinhCity, New Delhi, and Chiang Mai. We find that how urbanfunctions, such as mobility, shelter, and food, are provided hasmajor implications for carbon emissions, and that each functionis influenced by urban form and role in distinct ways. Our casestudies highlight the need for major “U-turns” in urban policy.

Keywords

carbon emissionsclimate changeco-benefitsglobal warmingindustrial ecologysustainable cities

e-supplement available on the JIEWeb site

Address correspondence to:Louis LebelUnit for Social and Environmental

ResearchChiang Mai UniversityChiang Mai 50200Thailand<[email protected]><www.sea-user.org>

© 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology and Yale University

Volume 11, Number 2

www.mitpressjournals.org/jie Journal of Industrial Ecology 61

R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LYS I S

Figure 1 The core functions cities and urbanizing regions provide to residents and visitors are mobility,shelter, food, and lifestyle. How these are provided has a major bearing on emissions and can be modified byurban form and roles. BC = black carbon.

Introduction

Not so long ago, most people in the cities andtowns of newly industrializing nations of Asiawalked or cycled to work, the market, and school.Compact patterns of settlement with mixed landuses and basic services meant that public trans-port systems were hardly in demand. Modest in-comes meant that few could afford cars even ifthey wanted them. Most households maintainedroots in rural areas, where the vast majority stillresided. Towns were centers of commerce in aneconomy built around agriculture.

The expansion of manufacturing industries ur-banized landscapes almost overnight. First, na-tional development policies focused on import-substitution started attracting more and morefarmers to the capitals to work, first in the agricul-tural off-seasons, and then all year round. Urban-izing regions became the place to make a living,but not necessarily a place to which one belonged.With time, urban locations provided people withthe services they wanted and needed, muchmore effectively than comparable rural locations.

Second, policies began to shift to encourage for-eign direct investment and stimulate trade. In-dustries and their workers were pushed out of theexpanding commercial, retail, and service centersand regathered into industrial estates and specialexport and investment zones at the urban-ruralperiphery, drawing further surplus rural labor intomanufacturing.

Rapid economic growth fuelled and was madepossible by urbanization (Douglass 2000). Urbanforms, functions, and roles (figure 1), however,were repeatedly transformed by the interactionof local needs, aspirations, and authority withthe demands of competitiveness in the broaderregional economy. The speed and complexityof changes, including many impressive gains inhealth, welfare, and education, also producedmultiple environmental and social challenges inurban areas (Marcotullio 2003; Imura et al. 2005;Bai 2003). Social equity often remains low despiteexpansion of democratic institutions. The poor-est continue to be exposed to unacceptably highlevels of atmospheric pollution and are ignored

62 Journal of Industrial Ecology


in urban planning (Tiwari 2003; Carpenter et al.2004; Shatkin 2004). The larger cities of Asiadominate lists of the most polluted (Molina andMolina 2004), and direct and deemed (embodiedor otherwise attributable) per capita CO2 emis-sions continue to grow, but along different tra-jectories, even in the cleaner megacities (Dhakal2004). At the same time, the openness of na-tional economies to trade and foreign investmenthas also created many opportunities for firms toobtain cleaner technologies and upgrade workerskills (e.g., Angel and Rock 2000; Rock andAngel 2005).

Interactions between urban function, form,and role as urbanization unfolds help drive, butmay also be constrained by, the associated car-bon emissions (figure 1). Fossil fuel and biomassburning produce black carbon, a major compo-nent of particulate matter, which affects humanhealth (Ezzati et al. 2004; Han and Naeher2006) and which also is an aerosol that im-pacts radiative balances at the regional level(Lelieveld et al. 2000). At the global level,greenhouse gas emissions, especially of carbondioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), are dis-rupting the climate system (Field and Raupach2004; Socolow et al. 1994). Carbon is a keyelement in atmospheric pollution at multiplelevels.

The goal of this article is to explore howcarbon management—a carbon’s eye view ofdevelopment—could be integrated into develop-ment strategies of cities and urbanizing regions(Global Carbon Project 2003; Lebel 2005). Ouremphasis is on identifying points of leverage andopportunities for decoupling growth in carbon-related emissions from improvements in well-being that go well beyond adoption of individ-ual technologies or sector-based regulations. Tothis end, we explore how changes in urban func-tions, sometimes moderated by urban form androles (see figure 1), might alter the amount, tim-ing, and spatial composition of carbon stocks andflows.

Decarbonization—use of less carbon-intensive and even carbon-free energy as majorsources of energy—has been a longstandingtheme in industrial ecology (Nakicenovic 1997).Much of this research has focused on the roleof changes in materials use as a lever for its

accomplishment (Gielen 1998; Hekkert et al.2001). Municipal environmental managementand urban metabolism have also been importantthemes in industrial ecology (Bjorklund et al.1999; Burstrom and Korhonen 2001; Carlsson-Kanyama et al. 2005).1 This article weavestogether these themes with illustrations fromurbanizing regions in Asia.

Five Urbanizing Regions

In this article we report on a set of case studiesin five developing country cities at roughly sim-ilar levels of economic development, where theauthors had good understanding of both emis-sion inventories and the social and political con-texts under which air quality and emission prob-lems associated with urbanization were unfolding(table 1). Jakarta, Manila, and Delhi are largecapital cities with serious pollution problems.Chiang Mai and Ho Chi Minh City are regionalcenters. Jakarta, Manila, and Ho Chi Minh Cityhave wet tropical climates. Chiang Mai, beinginland and further north, has strongly seasonalrainfall and modest temperature variations. Delhiis also seasonal but even drier.

In defining the boundaries of our case stud-ies, we chose to go beyond conventional mu-nicipal boundaries, so that our prospective andpolicy analyses could consider surrounding areasthat are not yet, but could soon be, urbanized.For this study, carbon stocks and fluxes includecarbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), thetwo most important greenhouse gases, and blackcarbon, an aerosol that impacts radiative bal-ances and is also important to public health asa component of airborne particulate matter. Wecharacterized changes in carbon stocks and fluxesfor at least 1980, 1990, and 2000 using Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)standard methods for inventory of energy-relatedemissions and removals by sectors (Houghtonet al. 1997). Much of the effort was expendedin disaggregating statistics to fit the urbanizingregions selected. In general, much more previ-ously synthesized information was available forthe three larger cities than for either Chiang Maior Ho Chi Minh City. Details of some of the in-ventories are presented elsewhere (Ajero 2003;Lebel et al. 2004; Mitra and Sharma 2002).

Lebel et al., Integrating Carbon Management into Development Strategies in Asia 63


Table 1 Basic geographical characteristics of the case study regions in 2000

City region—definitionof urbanizing region Study region Regional population Averagearound focal city (urban area) km2 millions income U.S.$

Jakarta—JABOTABEK or Jakarta,Bogor, Tangerang, Bekasia, Depok

4,000 (1,730) 20.9 7,300

New Delhi—National Capital RegionTerritory

1,500 (750) 13.0 2,900

Metro Manila—Metro Manila +Laguna Lake Basin

3,800 (636) 9.9 8,500

Ho Chi Minh City—Ho Chi MinhCity

3,000 (1,000) 5.2 4,695

Chiang Mai—Chiang Mai + Lamphunprovincial capital districts and eightneighboring districts

2,900 (180) 0.9 3,400

Note: One square kilometer (km2, SI) = 100 hectares (ha) ≈ 0.386 square miles ≈ 247 acres.

Two illustrations of changes in overall carbonemissions budgets are given in figure 2. Despitelarge differences in population size, emissions percapita were similar across all five cities. Patternsover time for different components, however, dif-fered. Electricity consumption in Chiang Mai,for example, has grown relatively fast comparedto transport emissions, in comparison to the esti-mates for Manila (figure 2). Agriculture, althoughdeclining in both regions, remains relatively moreimportant to the carbon budget of Chiang Maithan to that of Manila.

We organize the rest of this article aroundthe four urban functions in figure 1. Observationsabout the significance of urban forms and rolesare woven throughout these discussions, whereappropriate.

Mobility

Mobility of people and goods within and be-tween cities is important to quality of life andeconomic gain. How urbanizing regions and citiesservice the changing mobility demands of theirpopulations has direct and indirect implicationsfor carbon in several sectors.

Modes

For those able to afford it, personal mobility isincreasingly met through private vehicles. Vehi-cle registrations in New Delhi, for example, in-

creased at an annual growth rate of 6.7% between1991 and 2001, almost doubling in a decade(Mitra and Sharma 2005). In Chiang Mai thenumbers of registered passenger cars and motor-cycles increased 20-fold between 1970 and 2000,during which time population only doubled. Thenumber of pickups, minivans, and trucks in-creased more than 40 times (Lebel et al. 2004). Inthese regions, pickups have had a transformativerole in urbanizing regions, opening possibilitiesfor small market entrepreneurs and farmers tobring goods to and from markets.

The implication of massive increases in pri-vate vehicle ownership has been a huge increasein consumption of diesel and petroleum in thetransport sector. CO2 emissions from diesel con-sumption in Delhi, for example, rose fourfoldfrom 1,835 gigagrams (Gg)2 to 7,225 Gg between1980 and 2000 (Mitra and Sharma 2005). Emis-sions in the transport sector in Manila tripledover the same period, contributing 42% of totalcarbon emissions in 1980, but rising to 52% in1990 before declining slightly to 51% in 2000(Lasco et al. 2005).

Cross-country comparisons indicate that carownership increases strongly with rising incomelevel in Asia, but for motorcycles the pattern ismuch weaker, with both higher and lower usepossible at a wide range of income levels (Nagaiet al. 2003). Despite health and accident risks,motorcycles are widely perceived as contributingsignificantly to lifestyles and livelihoods. In 2000,



Figure 2 Changes in per capita carbon emissions for two urbanizing regions.

the number of motorcycles per thousand in Chi-ang Mai was 342, up from 55 in 1980 (Lebel et al.2004). In Ho Chi Minh City there were 348 mo-torcycles per thousand population in 2000 (Nagaiet al. 2003). Nevertheless, in a study of 84 globalcities (Lyons et al. 2003), Ho Chi Minh Cityranked lowest in terms of per capita passengertransport emissions of CO2. Motorcycle owner-ship in Manila and New Delhi is, relative to percapita income, substantially lower than in thethree other cities.

All cities have problems with high level ofemissions and consequently episodes of above-standard ambient PM2.5 and PM10 concentra-tions (particulate matter less than 2.5 and 10microns in size, respectively). In Delhi, blackcarbon emissions from diesel vehicles are com-pounded by large but falling emissions fromcoal-fired power generation plants (Mitra andSharma 2005). Ambient PM2.5 levels in Manilaare well above the U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency annual standard of 15 microgramsper cubic meter(µg/m3), with 45% being organicmatter and 28% elemental carbon (reviewed byHan and Naeher 2006). In Ho Chi Minh City,cement and steel industries are major sources.

One of the key challenges for urban policy inall five cities is to cater to increasing average in-comes against a backdrop of persistent and signif-

icant levels of poverty. Nonmotorized transport,including cycling and walking, remains an im-portant option for those who cannot afford moreconvenient and safer ways to move. In Delhi, asmuch as 64% of trips by the low-income popula-tion are nonmotorized, whereas another third areby bus (Tiwari 2003).

All five cities talk about the need for improve-ment of public transport and the possible con-tribution that mass transit technologies (buses,trains) can make to multimodal mobility systems.Today’s public transport has evolved from com-binations of largely private nonmotorized andshare-taxi transport into more bus-oriented sys-tems that remain street-bound. In Manila, 70%of trips are on public transport, but still 39% areon diesel “jeepneys” (modified Jeeps) (Hayashiet al. 2004). In Chiang Mai, up until the end of2005, there had been no inner city bus system formore than a decade; the public transport is stilllargely based on “songtaews” (modified pickups),three-wheeler motor scooters, minivans, and mo-torcycles. Licensing and ownership are complex,with many forms of state–private combinations.

In the larger and higher density cities, rail-based mass transit systems are most plausible.In Metro-Manila, support from the World Bankhas helped shift urban commuters toward an ex-panding public rail system, which currently only



provides 2.3% of trips. A mass rapid transportsystem is also being developed for New Delhi that,together with a high-capacity bus system andlight rail, should help reduce dependency onroads for daily work-related trips.

In Jakarta, the nongovernmental organizationPELANGI and the Swiss Foundation for Tech-nical Cooperation have facilitated the inclusionof air quality and transport issues in public policyagendas. This eventually led to the successful in-troduction, for example, of dedicated bus lanes.Mass transit systems based on dedicated bus linesare much cheaper than elevated rail or subwaysystems.

The difficulties with introducing and financ-ing mass public transit systems are a reflectionof the political economy of transport and landdevelopment, which remains dominated by inter-ests aligned with the automobile industry, trans-port authorities with mandates to build roads, andinsider speculation on real estate pending publicinfrastructure investments (e.g., Ooi 2000).

Forms

The evolution of urban form in all five citiescontinues to reinforce the convenience of privatevehicles. Sprawling urban growth, in which largeareas of land are hard to access for either residen-tial or agricultural use, makes personal vehiclesessential. This is most apparent in the largest ur-banizing regions, such as Jabotabek and MetroManila, where major highways connecting whatwere separate cities become the focus of new rib-bon development. As a result, for example, aver-age trip lengths of Metro Manila residents haverisen from 5.3 kilometers (km)3 in 1980 to 6.4 kmin 1996, whereas the average commuting timesto work rose from 36 to 51 minutes (Lasco et al.2005).

Road-based radial-centric development pat-terns dominate recent evolution of urban formin all five cities. In the radial or spiked urbanform, moving from one place to another usuallyrequires traveling the central business district,resulting in traffic congestion. For example, ap-proximately 30% of people working in Jakartaactually live in the surrounds or “Bodetabek.”Between 1985 and 1993, the number of com-muters into Jakarta increased fourfold. Without

corrective measures, the number of car-basedtrips is expected to rise to 56% in 2010 (Sari andSusantono 1999). In Manila, predictions are thatthe proportion of trips in private vehicles willrise from 21% in 1995 to as much as 34% in 2015(MMUTIS 1999).

Even the smallest city we studied, ChiangMai, now has a major set of concentric ringroads, in part because its old center is full ofnarrow and winding streets unsuitable for carsand trucks, and of such cultural significance andnow tourism value that redeveloping it is not re-ally an option. Even in rapidly expanding urbanareas, urban form is a product of history. Majorbuildings, transport routes, and areas of employ-ment, commerce, and cultural significance, suchas temples, exert a long-term influence on wherepeople choose to settle and where firms set upshop.

City authorities have struggled to anticipateneeds for mobility, with the consequence thatrapid motorization has overwhelmed inner-cityroads with spectacular traffic congestion. Conges-tion leads to inefficient fuel use and local build-upof PM10 and other pollutants. Although it is truethat per capita road surface area in most Asiancities is well behind Europe and U.S. cities (Sariand Susantono 1999), road lengths per unit areaare actually higher on average, reflecting muchhigher urban densities overall and still reason-able road connectivity (Barter 2000). Moreover,car use across Asian cities is much lower than incomparable U.S. cities, even after adjustment forincome (Lyons et al. 2003). Life cycle-assessmentsuggests that road construction, although initiallyimportant to emission inventories, declines overtime relative to the emissions associated with themanufacture, use, and maintenance of vehicles(Treloar et al. 2004).

Overall, the impacts of transportation invest-ments on land use are complex (Polzin 1999) butimportant to understand, because they may pro-vide important levers for reducing harmful emis-sions. Forward planning can proactively shapethe form of new urban areas with prelaid com-muter rail and road-based public transport sys-tems and renew old areas by adding stations withintegrated service facilities. Proximity to freewayaccess points in Jakarta, for example, has pre-dictably large impacts on office and retail rent



Figure 3 Factors influencing the carbon intensity of mobility systems.

premiums, which could be used, through prop-erty taxes, to help recover costs of providinginfrastructure more broadly (Cervaro and Su-santono 1999).

Freeways are not built only to service the resi-dents and businesses of urban regions, but also toconnect them to other places, for example, portsand other cities. Mobility systems may thereforealso reflect a city’s role relative to its region—inparticular, the need to provide transport logistics.This aspect of mobility systems, however, has re-ceived little attention in the context of urbandevelopment and energy use.

Although we are not yet able to quantifyall relationships in providing mobility functionsfrom a carbon perspective, our explorations sug-gest that urban form helps shape some mobil-ity service-emission relationships. The influenceof urban roles, however, is smaller and more in-direct, for example, through impacts on prop-erty prices and the places the poor are as aresult forced to live. Figure 3 summarizes ourworking hypothesis for how urban form androle modify function-emission relationships. Itincludes several quantitative indicators, whichcould be the focus of further measurement andanalysis.

Shelter

The way in which commercial and residentialbuildings are sited, built, and used influences theamount of electricity and other forms of energyconsumed.

Designs

Architectural, social, and landscape fashiontrends in Asian cities have often driven uprather than helped reduce energy consumptionand carbon-related emissions. Urbanization hasaltered family structures by moving away fromextended families sharing homes, and by givingincentives for smaller family sizes, for example,through providing higher education and full-timeemployment opportunities for women. Poor de-sign is a common feature of many new suburbandevelopments around the case study cities. Thisis reflected in the failure to incorporate energydesign principles following replacement of tra-ditional wood construction materials with con-crete and glass, and the shift to closed rather thanopen structures, which require air conditioning.In 2002, for example, already 7.8% of householdsin Ho Chi Minh City had air conditioners.



Cement production directly releases CO2 tothe atmosphere, and energy for steel productionused in construction is high. These latter emis-sions often take place outside the regions wherematerial is used and constitute a major proportionof deemed emissions. In Delhi, growth in directCO2 emissions slowed in the late 1990s, whereasdeemed emissions from steel and cement con-sumption continued to grow to reach over 50%of estimated direct emissions budgets.

Opportunities in architecture, through bet-ter insulation, use of trees to cool down build-ings, and attention to cross breezes in traditionalwarm-location building designs, have generallynot been taken up. Lighting is either poor or,through poor placement of windows, results inhigh needs for air conditioning. Solar waterheaters and heat pumps are still relatively un-common. On the other hand, there are severalpositive trends with respect to what people put intheir houses, such as adoption of energy-efficientfluorescent lighting and refrigerators.

House ventilation, fuel type, and stove designmatter in surprisingly large ways for emissionsimportant to human health. Incomplete combus-tion of biomass fuels creates multiple health risksfrom indoor air pollution and makes a significantcontribution to global budgets of CO2, carbonmonoxide (CO), and nitric oxide (NO) (Ludwiget al. 2003). The trend in all cities has been awayfrom biomass, although there is still substantialuse. Thus, in 2002, 39.5% of households in HoChi Minh City had electric or gas cookers (Triet al. 2005).

India has a major shortage of houses. Tiwari(2003) argues that an appropriate energy taxcould be used to encourage a switch to materi-als and building technologies that produce feweremissions and at same time reduce costs and pro-vide employment. The revenue could be used tosubsidize houses for the poorest, who cannot evenafford low-cost houses. Much could be learnedfrom pre-electricity architecture for redesigninglow-energy but comfortable houses.

Energy efficiency measures in design and oper-ation of workplaces is a second area related to theprovision of shelter arguments made above. Gov-ernment and corporate buildings, because of theirlarger size and possibilities for standardization ofprocurement and operating practices, perhaps of-

fer more potential gains than private residences,being more on par with, for example, condomini-ums and apartments. Improved spatial organiza-tion of industrial activities and climate controlprovisions, for example, may allow waste heatrecapture. More sophisticated ecological link-ing of different firms could help reduce materialand energy use through reuse and recycling of“wastes.”

Overall, residential and commercial electric-ity consumption has also grown rapidly withwealth as people purchase, and use, more appli-ances to make their homes and workplaces morecomfortable and convenient. In Chiang Mai, forexample, electricity consumption across the studyregion expanded by an astounding 21% per yearbetween 1990 and 2000 (Lebel et al. 2004). In1980 electricity accounted for 17% to 18% ofcarbon emissions whereas by 2000 it had jumpedto 46% to 53%, outstripping growth in the trans-port sector (Lebel et al. 2004). In a similar period,residential electricity consumption in Manilatripled, whereas commercial electricity consump-tion increased about one-and-one-half times. In-dustrial use of electricity in Manila, however, hasdeclined since the mid-1990s.

Actual emissions from the consumption ofelectricity depend on how and where electricityis produced. Growth in electricity consumptionis often not directly related to ambient air qualityin urban areas, as emissions take place at energyproduction facilities located elsewhere. Depend-ing on the quality of these facilities, emissions ofsulfur dioxide (SO2) and particulates may be inaddition to high greenhouse gas emissions. Thepower generation mix of the five cities remainsdominated by coal, oil, and natural gas. Luzon,the province in which Manila lies, for example,reduced reliance on imported oil: between 1990and 2000, use of domestic coal jumped from 9% to47%. Since then, several large natural gas plantshave come on line, resulting in a 31% share ofenergy now being supplied from natural gas. ForNew Delhi, coal consumption in thermal powerplants within the city has decreased and beenreplaced by natural gas or electricity purchasedfrom the national grid. As a consequence, directemissions of CO2 from power generation fell from4,810 Gg in 1995 to 4,570 Gg in 1999, whereasindirect emissions increased from 7,330 Gg



in 1994 to 11,300 Gg in 1998 (Lebel et al.2004).

The share of renewable energy in power gen-eration mixes is already significant, but could beeven larger. For Jakarta, which draws its powerfrom a Java-Bali national grid, the contributionof hydro and other renewable energy sources suchas geothermal in 1980 was 20% and despite grow-ing in absolute terms by a factor of 5 had fallen to15% of the total share by 2000 (Sari and Salim2005). For Manila, which draws on the Luzongrid, the contribution of hydro and geothermalsources to the power generation mix has remainedstable, 30% in 1980 and 32% in 2000 (Lasco et al.2005).

Layouts

Trends toward fewer people per dwelling andlarger house sizes in wealthier urbanizing areasmake it difficult to reduce growth in aggregateelectricity consumption. In Chiang Mai, Jakarta,and Manila, much of the rapid expansion in res-idential building since 1990 took place in gatedhousing estates with large block sizes and repli-cate houses, which, because they need more land,were placed in the periurban fringe. Urban plan-ning, in other words, is led by property developersand banks. Uniform and poor architecture for cli-mate are characteristic features of developmentsbased on subdivision of former agricultural fields,often with single remote access to main corridorhighways with private transport services, but nolocal markets or other services, reinforcing cardependence. Land speculation, made possible bythe low cost of leaving land idle, has left inter-mediate land unused, increasing travel distances(Yarnasarn 1985; Pearson 1999).

It is worth underlining that the 1997–1998Asian financial crisis was started and amplifiedby the collapse of a real estate bubble made pos-sible by weakly regulated financial institutions.The impacts of that event are still imprinted onthe periurban fringes of Chiang Mai, Manila, andJakarta in partly abandoned housing projects. Re-alistic and scenario-informed perspectives on re-gional development and urbanization are impor-tant for planning and decision making in bothprivate and public sectors. This includes planningfor the unexpected: built environments need to

be able to adapt to new social and ecological re-alities over time (Kay 2002).

An important issue in all cities studied is en-suring the provision of accessible low-cost hous-ing as part of any efforts to improve air quality andreduce exposure in the most polluted locationsand of overall carbon management. History sug-gests that the needs of disadvantaged groups areotherwise likely to be overlooked. Early successesin improving environmental health through theKampung improvement programs in the city ofJakarta were not always sustained, and someslum areas ended up being converted to com-mercial business and retail uses and residents dis-placed (Werlin 1999). Other areas are leveledfor freeways. Similar patterns were observed inManila, where a larger global role led to plan-ning that increasingly ignored needs of low-income earners, with the result that informalsettlements expanded in absolute and relativeterms (Shatkin 2004). Compactness improvessocial equity in some regards, for example, byimproving access to public transport and otherfacilities, while being negative in others, for ex-ample, availability of lower-cost housing (Burton2000).

The extent and distribution of vegetation inand around transport routes, including sidewalksand median strips, and in gardens may contributeto, if well designed, climate control, flood pro-tection, air pollution removal, and aestheticsthat impact well-being and health. The place-ment of buildings on a site with respect to shade,sun, and pollution sources also matters. Changesin urban forests and green spaces varied widelyacross cities.

Overall, green spaces in Jakarta have beencontracting with the massive growth in built-upareas (Rustiadi et al. 2004). In contrast, in theNew Delhi National Capital Territory there hasbeen an increase in forest cover from around 15square kilometers (km2)4 in 1987 to more than170 km2 in 2003 (Mitra and Sharma 2005). InHo Chi Minh City, approximately 4% of landcover in urban areas is trees. Improved manage-ment of the 40,000 hectares of mangroves in theCan Gio Mangrove Biosphere reserve could be animportant strategy for the city to conserve biodi-versity, at the same time as benefiting from airpollution cleaning and climate control services



Figure 4 Factors influencing carbon intensity of the urban function to provide shelter.

that this major green space provides the city (Triet al. 2005).

The contribution of carbon sequestration bygreen space and parks, however, is fairly limitedrelative to the magnitude of emissions from urbanareas that contain them. Ono and colleagues(2002) estimated the net CO2 sequestration fromvegetation in Metro Manila at 29.4 Gg/yr, whichis only 0.2% of annual emissions, estimated at14,500 Gg/yr (Lasco et al. 2005).

Urban role has had some impact on urban lay-out. Capital and administrative centers have sub-stantial areas of land administered by governmentauthorities. These vast tracts are often poorly uti-lized, being largely inaccessible to the public asgreen spaces, but remaining largely vacant. His-torical and cultural legacies, such as those re-flecting Chiang Mai’s role as a regional centerfor Buddhism scholarship, have shaped buildingcodes, restricting building heights, and encour-aged preservation of narrow streets in older partsof the city, which are also favored by tourists. Atthe other extreme, special zones to attract foreigndirect investment in industrial estates attempt tobring form and role together.

The way shelter is provided affects carbonstocks and fluxes in several discrete ways, withdeemed emissions being very significant. Shel-ter is dependent more on neighborhood-level ur-ban form characteristics (Engel-Yan et al. 2005;Molle and Thippawal Srijantr 2001). The urbanrole is likely to have larger impacts on commer-

cial buildings than residences. As for the mo-bility system, we provide a graphic summary ofour current understanding of how urban formand role may influence the carbon intensity ofshelter-providing functions in cities and newlyurbanizing regions (figure 4). Not much up-to-date research has been done in these tropi-cal locations on household energy expenditure,where, for example, use of air conditioning hasgrown very fast. Some possible indicators andrelationships to explore further are suggested infigure 4.

Food

Food systems have reorganized in profoundways to support and help drive further urban-industrial transformation of societies. Dietschange with urbanization and contribute tochanges in land use inside and in supporting land-scapes. The implications for carbon sequestrationand emissions of intensified production practices,new consumption patterns, redistribution of ruralworkforce, and competition between urban andrural land and water use are complex.

Land

People in New Delhi and Chiang Mai are nowdrinking much more milk. People eat out more,store more food in refrigerators, and throw awaymore food. Consumption of meat is rising, with



implications for landscape, as livestock and poul-try ultimately feed on grains. Finally, urbaniza-tion can reduce rural population densities, withimpacts on how rural land is managed. These var-ious trends have mixed impacts on emissions.

Methane emissions from paddy rice are alsolarge but variable, depending on managementpractices. In most regions, except Delhi, wherevery little rice is cultivated, these are decliningrelative to livestock and other sources as wetlandsare converted to urban uses. Thus, for Laguna andRizal provinces near Manila, the area of rain-fed and irrigated rice fell almost 50% since 1980(Lasco et al. 2005). Estimates of methane emis-sions have correspondingly changed over timeand are expected to fall much further in the nexttwo decades. Around Chiang Mai, methane emis-sions from paddy fields fell from a high of 410 Gg(CO2 equivalents) in 1980 to 300 Gg by 2000.In 1980 they represented 50% of the total emis-sions budget, whereas in 2000 they were only 15%(Lasco et al. 2005).

Enteric fermentation by livestock producesmethane. The indirect CH4 emissions resultingfrom consumption of dairy products in Delhi havegrown from an estimated 85 Gg (CO2 equiva-lents) in 1996 to 102 Gg in 1999 (Mitra andSharma 2005). This is an order of magnitudelarger than the approximately 11 Gg producedin 1997 by livestock populations living withinthe Delhi area. Calculations for Rizal and Lagunaprovinces around Manila suggest that methaneemissions from manure management are similarin magnitude to those from enteric fermentationand that total emissions from domestic livestockhave varied, with no clear trend, between 160and 250 Gg/yr between 1980 and 2004. Takentogether, these findings underline the importanceof methane to greenhouse gas emissions budgetsin these regions (figure 2).

Agricultural land-use changes also reflectchanges in livelihoods as rural households aredrawn into urban employment opportunities.Land-use-related emissions calculated within ur-banizing regions of once forested areas that havebeen cleared, however, will often decline as moreand more of the emissions associated with con-sumption take place outside, in the ecologicalfootprint of the city. Growth of emissions fromother agricultural activities overall in the Laguna-

Rizal region has fallen from 800 Gg in 1980 tobetween 470 and 570 annually from 1990 to 2004(Lasco et al. 2005).

Where agriculture remains dominant, effortsare often being made to further intensify produc-tion systems for export. This invariably impliesincreased emissions from fossil-fuel energy usedto power machinery and cultivation practices re-sulting in loss of soil organic matter or emittingmethane, and indirectly through energy requiredto manufacture fertilizers.

Activities in the periurban fringe and ruralhinterland can be a major source of particulatesin urban areas. Thus, seasonally poor air qualityin Chiang Mai (Vinitketkumnuen et al. 2002) isdue largely to deliberately lit fires used in landpreparation in upland fields or in the lowlandsto remove crop residues or weed growth on landunder speculation for development (Murdiyarsoand Lebel 2006). The net impacts of urbanizationon biomass burning have not been assessed. Airquality in Jakarta is also affected by biomass burn-ing, especially in the dry phases of the El NinoSouthern Oscillation (Murdiyarso et al. 2004).

Water

Most of the direct and easily identified rela-tionships between food system performance andcarbon emissions are related to land use for agri-culture and forestry. An alternative perspectivebased on water, however, is also valuable becausewater management issues interact strongly withland use, being crucial to both agricultural in-tensification and the costs of flood protection fornew urban areas (Lebel 2005).

Irrigated fields, for example, grown aroundthe huge freshwater lake Laguna de Bay, adja-cent to Metro Manila, produce around 2.3 kgCH4/ha/day,5 whereas rainfed fields at higher el-evations produce about 0.4 (Lasco et al. 2005).It is envisaged that water conservation programsarising out of competition for water with urbanand industrial users could lead to further reduc-tions in methane emissions in rice-growing areas.

Around Chiang Mai, expansion of dry-seasonirrigated land in the 1980s, made possible by newirrigation infrastructure, was followed by contrac-tions in areas planted over the 1990s, as a re-sult of both building over of agricultural fields



and insufficient dry-season water storage remain-ing once urban and industrial user allocationswere made (Pearson 1999). The alterations offood regimes in both fields and riparian wet-lands along the Ping River could conceivablyhave impacted methane emissions, but no rele-vant measurements have been made. Ribbon de-velopment disrupts irrigation systems and altersflood regimes, making agricultural uses of landmore difficult, even if they are still “temporar-ily” available in the periurban margins. At thesame time, abandoned agricultural land may stillcomplement paddy fields in providing urban ar-eas with flood protection services if it is able toflood during peak flows.

Residential, commercial, and agriculturalwastes often make their way into waterways inthe urbanizing regions we studied. Such pollu-tion may impact the quality of water supplies forother users downstream (for example, those in-volved in aquaculture), increase health risks, andraise costs of pretreatment for domestic and com-mercial uses.

Lifestyle

Apart from the cars we drive, the houses welive in, and the way we eat, there are other aspectsof lifestyle and culture to which people aspire andurbanization contributes. Impacts of these otheraspects of lifestyle often result in emissions toproduce goods and services as well as in their useand, in the case of “stuff,” in their disposal.

Work

The mix of livelihood reflects the relationshipof an urbanizing region to its wider context, thatis, the urban role.

In Manila, Jakarta, and Delhi, for example, na-tional export-oriented development strategies ledto industrial estates and export processing zonesbeing established in rural peripheries to take ad-vantage of cheap surplus rural labor and lowerland prices. In the case of Chiang Mai, this led tothe creation of an industrial estate-town in theneighboring province of Lamphun. Industrial dis-persion, whether induced by government policyor by sheer market forces, allowed the metropoli-tan core to retain its commercial nature, where

trading in goods and services is the core economicactivity. Shifts in the structure of the economyare reflected in emission inventories.

As a city takes on more commercial and ser-vice functions, industrial output may fall, result-ing in relatively high deemed but fewer directemissions, as evidenced by declines in indus-trial sector electricity use for Manila (Manasanand Mercado 1999; Secretario et al. 2002). HoChi Minh City, however, has yet to show muchevidence of such a transition. Economically dom-inant, it produces 30% of the total industrial out-put of Vietnam, with much of that coming fromsmall and medium-sized enterprises. This has pro-duced a tremendous surge in jobs and wealth, buthigh levels of obsolete equipment and poor reg-ulatory capacities have also meant rapidly dete-riorating air quality. A key issue is whether torelocate or transform the many small industries(Frijns 2001).

Chiang Mai, as a major tourist destination,needs to consider emissions associated with pro-viding services to 3.5 million visitors annually.With an average stay of just over 4 days, butmuch higher levels of energy use than the averageresident, we expect that contributions to annualemissions budgets would be substantial. Air qual-ity and convenient and safe mobility are impor-tant considerations of tourists and provide signif-icant motivation to city planners and businessesinterested in maintaining the city’s competitive-ness as a tourist destination. Consideration ofemissions associated with air travel of coursewould be even larger, but are considered largelythe responsibility of the “traveling” population.

Culture

People have benefited substantially fromurban lifestyles. Literacy rates in Delhi in 1970were 65%, compared to a national average of34%. By 2000 the gap was closing but still large:82% versus 65% (Mitra and Sharma 2005). In1993, 15% of Delhi’s population was below thepoverty line, down from 26% one decade ear-lier, and much less than the nationwide rate of36%. By 2000 the rate had fallen to 8.2% inDelhi. Likewise, Manila has the lowest incidenceof poverty in the Philippines, with 11.5% be-low in 2002, and a high literacy rate of 95%.



The concentration of better schools and tertiaryeducation in major cities is a significant reasonfor both rural-urban migration and long-distancecommutes for those rural families with the skillsand means. In Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and othercities in the region, city schools are points of ma-jor traffic congestion, exposing children to highPM2.5 and PM10 levels. Possible carbon indicatorsfor this urban lifestyle function would be CO2 orcumulative PM2.5 per average year of schoolingattained.

In Asia, urban lifestyles leave their mark mostclearly as waste. Across Asia, waste generation in-creases with per capita GDP (Imura et al. 2005).Increased consumption of take-away and pre-pared foods and material goods is often associ-ated with increasing production of waste, againwith implications for emissions from incinera-tion or landfills. Solid waste management is amajor issue for all five cities studied. Movementtoward localized recycling, composting, and dis-posal is mixed. Emissions from open and con-trolled dumps or from incineration facilities canvary greatly. Methane emissions from waste gen-eration in Manila were estimated to have risenfrom 885 to 2,220 Gg (CO2 equivalents) between1980 and 2000. Per capita waste generation overthis same period has risen from 0.39 to 0.59 kg/day(Ajero 2003). For Delhi, estimated growth wasfrom 460 to 680 Gg between 1990 and 2000.

Urban areas are the focus of marketing andmarkets. The more a city aspires to be “on theworld map,” the more its inhabitants are ex-pected to adopt the lifestyle of the global con-sumer class (Lebel 2004b; Myers and Kent 2003;Lebel 2004a). They are helped by advertisingagencies that go to any lengths to create andwiden aspiration gaps. This is dramatically illus-trated by the oversized advertising billboards thatnow line the “superhighway” ring road of ChiangMai, blocking out Doi Suthep Mountain and itsfamed temple with scenes of mythical promises ofhappiness through oversized luxury pickups andbeautiful families in white playing in manicuredgardens with a backdrop of palatial homes. Tele-vision dramas in these cities tell the same storiesof consumption and success and are filled with“product placement” opportunities.

Changes in lifestyles are a widely recognizedand often the defining feature of urbanization in

the cities we studied—a fact that has not passedunnoticed by marketing and advertising agencies.Key lifestyle components can vary hugely in en-ergy and material implications. Urban form, how-ever, appears to have few direct effects on service-emission relationships, except perhaps throughquality or diversity of services available in localneighborhoods, which could lead to greater useof services elsewhere. Many impacts are throughdeemed emissions or the footprint of consump-tion activities on the rural hinterland or coastalseas.

U-Turns

In the preceding sections, we discussed someof the carbon implications of addressing the wantsand needs of residents and visitors to urbanizingregions. Joint consideration of urban functions,form, and role (figure 1) provide a framework forexploring “U-turns” that could help decarbonizedevelopment (table 2).

In this concluding section we speculate onhow a common urban development strategy ofgrowing fast, keeping wealth happy, staying com-petitive, and cleaning up the rest later might betransformed into one that does more to improvethe well-being of the worst off and, simultane-ously, does a much better job of managing carbonstocks and fluxes important to public health andclimate protection. Our starting point is that fur-ther urbanization is inevitable and indeed desir-able from a social development and carbon per-spective and could unfold in ways that need notbe in imitation of the “modern” cities of the af-fluent West (e.g., Robinson 2006).

Urbanization as Decarbonization

Needs for mobility in the five cities arelikely to continue to grow for some time, evenwith improvements in spatial organization. Thetrend in these societies is still mostly away fromself-employed, home-based enterprises to em-ployment in firms elsewhere. The prospects oftelecommuting, often muted for postindustrial so-cieties (e.g., Tayyaran and Khan 2003), remain,therefore, remote. Moreover, other studies sug-gest skepticism, as people’s choices and use of au-tomobiles, for example, may have less to do with



Table 2 Challenges and opportunities for decoupling social development from emissions growth throughchanges in the ways four urban functions are achieved

Opportunities toValued urban Critical service-emission Challenges for integrate carbon intoservices linkages integrating carbon development strategies

Mobility Fuel-related includingCO2, and particulatematter (PM)

Wealth-linked rise inpersonal motorized vehicleownership

Lags and poor initial spatiallayout of transport systemsrelative to work andresidences

DemotorizationHigh use and density

makes mass transitsystems economicallyfeasible

Shelter Embodied in electricitygeneration andmanufacture, especiallyof cement and steel

Increased use of airconditioning and heatingfor climate control at workand home

Green neighborhoodsWaste energy recycling;

efficiencies from higherdensities

Well-being and health

Food Methane from livestockCarbon from clearing of

forests for agriculture

Increased consumption ofmeat and dairy products

Healthy and adequateProtein substitutesEfficient production and

processing methodswith waste recyclingand energy capture

Lifestyle Energy consumed andother pollutants emittedin manufacturing

Indirect and deemedemissions in servicesector work

Vicious cycle of overwork topay off credit card debtsfrom overconsumption

Poor regulation or perversesubsidies leading to highpollution intensities offirms

Modest footprintsLow-energy and -materials

goods and servicesWise use of information

technologiesMeaningful work

“going to work” than with needs to make businessand shopping trips (e.g., Jarvis 2003; Mokhtarian2002), which can be expected to expand withincreasing wealth.

A key goal must therefore be to introduceless carbon-intensive mobility systems. We ex-pect these to be multimodal but organized aroundthe public mass transit systems that urbanizationmakes plausible (Hayashi et al. 2004). Whenwell-designed, such systems should help shapeurban form rather than just respond to it. Muchmore investment needs to be put into public masstransit systems rather than roads for private ve-hicles. Multilateral financial institutions have amajor responsibility to reorient their loan priori-ties away from conventional road building towardfinancing mass transit systems. At the same time,

they need to be designed with midterm flexibilityin mind, so that they can be reconfigured overtime with changes in demography and behavior.We concur with Barter (2000) and others thatrestraints on private vehicle ownership and useneed to be combined with promotion of and in-vestments in public transport. We also anticipatethat in Asian cities this will mean creating muchmore secure nodes and corridors for nonmotor-ized transport with good links to public transportinfrastructure (Whitelegg and Williams 2000).Core retail, education, and entertainment areasmay be closed permanently to aboveground mo-torized transport.

Urban land-use and transport infrastructurewill need to be much better coordinated, whetherthis is through planning and regulation or more



Figure 5 Emission types associated with different consumption (horizontal)-production (vertical) relations.

self-organizing opportunities to rezone and re-configure. Building designs and layout could al-low much higher densities and efficient creationof comfortable indoor climates. Green spacesmay also be important in moderating urbanheat island effects that can exacerbate demandfor air conditioning.6 Rooftop gardens may beone way to reestablish modest levels of green-ness at otherwise very high settlement densi-ties. Parks and large trees may help in lower-density residential developments. The diverseservices provided by urban ecosystems need tobe better acknowledged in urban planning andmanagement.

Spatial planning is critical and can build onthe legacies of market and other social spaces orinnovations in decentralized local government.Fun and meaningful cultural activities need notbe carbon-intensive. A good example is street clo-sures to create new inner urban social spaces foreating and meeting. Local performances of musicand plays in the tropical climate can take placeout of doors in the evenings with modest energyrequirements. Higher densities mean that betteruse of public and private space may be warranted,

for example, through sharing and multiple uses ofvenues on weekdays and weekends.

Cities and urbanizing regions are points ofconvergence of many production-consumptionsystems (figure 5). They provide opportunitiesto influence both deemed and direct emissions,for example, through regulations, policy integra-tion, and technological upgrading and by shapingnorms and consumer cultures (Munksgaard et al.2005; Rock et al. 2000). In this study we began ex-ploring deemed emissions related, for example, toproduction of cement and steel used in construc-tion. We suggest that a better understanding ofthe implications of urbanization for emissions inproduction-consumption systems will help withbetter management of carbon at multiple spa-tial scales (e.g. McGranahan 2005; Decker et al.2000).

A Carbon Constituency

Cities are seats of political and economicpower and windows to regional and internationalalliances. But they must navigate through rela-tionships with a formidable range of powerful



stakeholders, from automobile manufacturers andtheir lobbyists through various private-state en-ergy consortia and transport authorities withmandates and budgets to build roads with thehelp of private contractors and banks. Deliber-ation is crucial for society to negotiate visionsand criteria about the cities it wants to live in.Accountability and transparency of authoritiesto residents are crucial. Well-informed residentsas consumers and citizens can make demands onfirms and authorities that give their cities thecompetitive edge they want to have.7

Decentralization reforms have opened anewthe possibilities of local urban area stewardshipand planning, but at the same time have increasedthe problems associated with coordination of ur-ban functions, for example, with respect to mobil-ity and underlying energy and water systems. Na-tional government line agencies responsible forroad building, energy policy, or pollution controldo not give up authority willingly to area-basedjurisdictions. An ensuing interplay between mu-nicipal, metropolitan, and national institutionscan be expected when it comes to raising possi-bilities for carbon management.

For example, public interest litigation initi-ated by nongovernmental organizations throughthe Supreme Court of India and using under-standing of technical line agencies has been cru-cial for getting New Delhi authorities to acton their serious air pollution problems (Bellet al. 2004; Badami 2005). In the Philip-pines, civil society in Manila strongly influ-enced the introduction of the Clean Air Actof 1999. This comprehensive environmentallaw includes action plans for research and de-velopment on fuel formulas, controlling by-products of combustion, and removing pollu-tants from fuels (Gallardo 2003). The Act alsoincludes, at the insistence of civil society, aban on incinerators, which could have beenuseful in waste management and energy recap-ture. In Chiang Mai, a persistent urban-orientednongovernmental organization has played animportant role in getting air quality issues, es-pecially high PM concentrations (Vinitketkum-nuen et al. 2002), onto local government policyagendas.

The health costs of pollution in Jakarta, oneof the most polluted cities in the world, exceed

U.S.$220 million per year (Resosudarmo andNapitupulu 2004). Lack of research into urbanpublic health and of political will to take actionon pollution remain critical problems. Air qualitymonitoring equipment was moved to residentialareas with lower levels of pollution after WHOlabeled Jakarta the world’s third most pollutedmetropolis in the early 1990s (Marshall 2005).Nongovernmental organizations have played animportant role in several campaigns to alter urbanplanning and transport policies. The nongovern-mental organization PELANGI has played an on-going and influential role in improving air qualityin Jakarta through its policy research and liaison.One example was an assessment of Jakarta’s de-velopment that helped provide the impetus forthe Blue Skies initiative (Sari and Susantono1999).

Like others, we conclude that to effectivelyaddress climate change, actions are needed atmultiple levels, because some of the key emis-sion reduction strategies, for example, related toregional planning and energy policy, are taken atlevels well beyond the local community or city(Betsil 2001; Kates and Wilbanks 2003).

Municipalities and citizens that take actionsto improve air quality stand to benefit from thoseefforts. People are mobilized by dust in their nos-trils. But why should control of greenhouse gasemissions and carbon sequestration for climateprotection be a local concern?

Lindseth (2004) notes that in the Citiesfor Climate Protection Campaign it is the co-benefits, in terms of energy efficiency and secu-rity or better urban air quality for health, thatare emphasized (Betsil and Bulkeley 2004). Weconcur but would add that addressing social andenvironmental injustice could be seen as a thirdrationale.

Ezzati and colleagues (2004) show that inte-grating air pollution and GHG reductions formajor urban areas in Chile such as Santiago iseconomically plausible. They also show that thebenefits of carbon reduction to public health areeven larger than those for climate protection. Li(2002) developed a model for a carbon tax andapplied it to Thailand to show that the benefitsof considering local health improvements fromactions taken to address GHG emissions couldreduce the impacts on GDP by almost half.



Energy security is also a major challenge loom-ing for all the countries we studied. Experiencewith decoupling emissions growth from socialdevelopment should be beneficial in a futurewith greater competition for energy resources andmuch higher prices for fossil fuels. Prospects alsoexist of increasing international pressure and in-centives to reduce CO2 emissions being appliedby developed countries under the emerging en-vironmental regime around the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change.

Public investments in infrastructure to sup-port systems of mobility, shelter, and qualitylifestyles have not targeted those most in need.The poor living in slums, often underemployed,are frequently forced to live and work in placeswith high exposure to air pollution. Efforts to in-corporate carbon management into developmentstrategies could specifically aim to empower suchdisadvantaged groups, for example, through con-sultation on design of accessible and low-fare mo-bility systems and housing.

Much of the effort required for an effectivecarbon emissions reduction agenda requires ac-tions by both consumers and producers. A greateremphasis on public declaration of goals and moreeffective communications of the plans and pro-grams to achieve them is needed. Civil societyactors can become conduits for the developmentof a carbon constituency, which can be used toprovide not only support mechanisms for policyinitiatives, but also venues to articulate demands,and pressures for city and national governmentsto act.

Conclusions

Actions to improve air quality and addressrapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions in ur-banizing regions of Asia remain strongly focusedon sector-specific strategies for upgrading tech-nology. These are clearly important to develop-ment strategies of cities and urbanizing regions.But, as we have argued in this article, there areother, large and complementary opportunities fordecoupling growth in carbon emissions from im-provements in well-being within the process ofurbanization. These include how urban functionsare provided as well as policies that shape formand role. A carbon management perspective may

be more strategic than one focused just on energyefficiency or greenhouse gas reductions because itis multilevel, with significant management issuesat local (PM2.5), regional (aerosols), and global(GHGs) levels.

Actions taken to reduce fossil fuel dependencein newly urbanizing regions now have co-benefitswith respect to public health and energy securitywell into the future. Current ways of providingmobility and shelter, in particular, are vulnerableto constrained supplies of fossil fuels. Enhanc-ing carbon sequestration with renewed cover ofmature trees can help make cities better placesto live. Diets based on good agricultural plan-ning and practices can conserve organic mat-ter in productive agricultural soils. Compact andmodular forms can help cities function more effi-ciently. Urban redevelopment and renewal pro-grams should focus on providing cheap, clean,and safe mobility, shelter, work, and food to thepoorest. These programs should be funded bythose whose lifestyles contribute most to driv-ing rises in harmful local and global emissions.Owners of oversized cars and palatial homes orpoorly designed offices and retail outlets are ob-vious targets within Asia and elsewhere.

Acknowledgments

The cooperation of government agencies, re-search groups, and civil society organizations ineach of the study regions is gratefully acknowl-edged as well as international researchers con-tributing to the Global Carbon Project. Wethank the Taiwanese Government for their fi-nancial support provided through the SARCSsecretariat office at the National Central Uni-versity, the International START Secretariat,and the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Envi-ronmental Change Research for their support ofthe U-TURN network’s activities.

Notes

1. Editor’s note: For a review of urban metabolism stud-ies in industrial ecology, see the article by Kennedy(2007) in this issue.

2. One gigagram (Gg) = 106 kilograms (kg, SI) = 103

metric tons.3. One kilometer (km, SI) ≈ 0.621 miles (mi).



4. One square kilometer (km2, SI) = 100 hectares(ha) ≈ 0.386 square miles ≈ 247 acres.

5. One kilogram (kg, SI) ≈ 2.204 pounds (lb). Onehectare (ha) = 0.01 square kilometers (km2, SI) ≈0.00386 square miles ≈ 2.47 acres.

6. Editor’s note: For a discussion of urban heat islandeffects in the context of urban metabolism, see thearticle by Kennedy (2007) in this issue.

7. Editor’s note: For a discussion of the role of partici-patory processes in urban policymaking for sustain-ability, see the article by Ooi (2007) in this issue.

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About the Authors

Louis Lebel is director and Po Garden is a re-searcher in the Unit for Social and EnvironmentalResearch, at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. Ma.Regina N. Banaticla is an assistant scientist and RodelD. Lasco is the Philippine Programme coordinator withthe World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Laguna,Philippines. Antonio Contreras is dean of the Collegeof Liberal Arts at De La Salle University in the Philip-pines. A. P. Mitra is an honorary scientist of eminenceat the National Physical Laboratory, in Delhi, India,and Chhemendra Sharma is a consultant at WinrockInternational, Delhi, India. Hoang Tri Nguyen is a di-rector of the Center for Environmental Research andEducation, at Hanoi University of Education, in Hanoi,Vietnam. Giok Ling Ooi is a professor at the Human-ities and Social Studies Education Department of theNational Institute of Education at Nanyang Techno-logical University in Singapore. Agus Sari is countrydirector for ecosecurities in Indonesia.


Documents

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Integrating Carbon Management … · 62 Journal of Industrial Ecology. RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS in urban planning (Tiwari 2003; Carpenter et al. 2004; Shatkin 2004)