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The Santa Monica city council approved an ordinance at the end of October requiring all new single-family homes built in the city be net-zero energy (ZNE). There are various definitions for ZNE buildings, but Santa Monica is using the one in the 2016 California Green Building Standards Code, which defines a ZNE building as one where the building generates as much energy as it consumes, using renewable sources such as solar or wind.

The ordinance will go into effect in 2017 pending approval by the California Energy Commission, according to a city statement. The new ordinance also requires that new low-rise multi-family buildings be designed to use 15 per cent less energy than the 2016 California Energy Code requires, while new high-rise apartments and non-residential buildings will have to use 10 per cent less.

Located in water-scarce southern California, Santa Monica’s new ZNE by-law is the first of its kind in the world – and is well ahead of California’s energy efficiency roadmap requiring all new residential construction achieve ZNE by 2020, and all new commercial construction by 2030.

Dean Kubani, the city’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said the ordinance makes environmental and economic sense. “With the price of utility power continuing to rise, ZNE homeowners will avoid those escalating costs while benefitting from local renewable power for all of their energy needs.”...

The city of Zurich compared the results of the survey, which was conducted with residents from Basel, Bern, Lucerne and Zurich. The results were similar in all four cities, according to a statement from Zurich’s Department of the Mayor.

Nearly all those surveyed are happy or very happy with the city that they live in. The values range from top-ranked Zurich with 98 per cent to lowest-ranked Lucerne with 96 per cent.

In the individual areas, public transport has the highest satisfaction rating with an average of 96 per cent. Respondents also expressed high levels of satisfaction with the range of green areas and parks, culture, and education and training. The majority of respondents gave high notes to the municipal authorities for the services that they offer. Only around one fifth of respondents indicated that they would like to save costs and reduce services.

Traffic was ranked the number one problem in Bern and Zurich, and came in second in Basel. Other frequently named concerns are housing problems, litter and vandalism, crime and issues related to foreigners....

Sameh Wahba, director of Urban and Territorial Development, Disaster Risk Management and Resilience at the World Bank’s Social, Rural, Urban and Resilience Global Practice (GSURR), lays out a vision of cities in 20 years time. In the first vision, cities are ungovernable due to inadequate planning and poor management. Not only are they incapable of providing affordable or effective basic services, but inequality has worsened because vast numbers of people live in slum-like settlements at the fringe of the city, unable to access the jobs concentrated in central areas due to failing transport networks.

In the second vision, cities are well planned and well managed, able to accommodate rapid population growth while still creating liveable and sustainable urban environments. Effective urban infrastructure, public transportation systems and data-driven, people-centred urban planning work together to make cities resilient, but also to increase green public spaces.

To reach the second vision in the future, regional, national and city leaders need to make the correct urban planning decisions today, writes Wahba. As a first step, it is necessary to strengthen institutions for integrated land use and transport planning, as well as for land management and property rights. Investing in resilient basic infrastructure to meet the population’s needs, and in particular connecting city dwellers to jobs and markets, is a necessary second step. Recognising that the infrastructure financing needs of cities is immense, Wahba urges governments to better leverage private sector financing....

According to a European Commission statement, the five-year TURAS project, which ended in 2016, brought together 32 organisations – academic institutions, location authorities, and small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) – from 13 countries to address climate change and mitigation, explore how to build green infrastructure, and examine how cities grow.

“The project sought to devise mechanisms and toolkits for changing behaviour to build resilience,” said project co-ordinator Marcus Collier. “Many solutions were devised and tested – all of which would make urban living more tolerable, equitable and sustainable.”

One such example is a system for managing floods designed by TURAS partners in the Netherlands. The strategy, which is already in place in Rotterdam, is also now being used by project participants in Ljubjlana, Slovenia. Another project result is the Ecomimicry toolkit, a green infrastructure design toolkit that allows planners, designers and users to retain biodiversity when building new developments.

The project also produced unexpected results, such as the Green Living Room, which used plants and green wall gardening techniques to create a green comfort zone in a heavily built-up area of Ludwigsburg, Germany. According to the European Commission, it has attracted orders from cities across Europe and China, and the SME involved in the project has since doubled in size and scaled up its international programme.

SMEs were intentionally involved in the TURAS project because they are in the best position to exploit and scale up any solutions to emerge out of it. “We hoped that our SMEs would build European expertise and bring it to a global scale, making Europe a leader in devising resilience solutions,” said Collier....

All eyes were on Quito, Ecuador last week as national leaders, local and regional authorities, civil society, community groups and urban planners adopted the New Urban Agenda at the UN Habitat III conference, which sets the framework for sustainable urban growth for the next 20 years. But just one week before, city actors also attended the 5th UCLG World Congress in Bogotá, Colombia to discuss climate change and sustainable development.

Mayors from cities all over the world played a decisive role at both meetings to turn plans into action. While in Bogotá, they shared personal testimonials on the threats they face in their own cities from climate change and they steps they are taking to enhance mitigation or boost resiliency, writes the Compact of Mayors. 

And in Quito, mayors showed that their on-the-ground experience is key to transforming national plans into action. As the Covenant of Mayors explains: “While national delegations were tasked with both defining what cities of the future should look like and how they will be shaped to get there, throughout the negotiating process, it was clear that mayors were the ones with the answers.”

With their ability to respond to global challenges on a practical, local scale, cities will play a key role in implementing these agendas, strategies and agreements on climate change....

Last week’s Habitat III conference came to a successful end on Friday when 167 countries unanimously adopted the New Urban Agenda. According to a UN statement, the UN’s 20-year global strategy on sustainable urban development aims to make cities and human settlements safer, resilient and more sustainable places based on improved planning and development. Its key provisions include cleaner cities; strengthening resilience and reducing carbon emissions; improving connectivity and green initiatives; and promoting safe and accessible green public spaces. It also calls for equal opportunities for all, an end to discrimination, and respecting the rights of migrants and refugees.

But the document has been strongly criticised for failing to include specific actions on how to achieve these goals as well as a lack of mechanisms to monitor or review progress on implementing its vision, as Gregory Scruggs and Carey L. Biron wrote for citiscope. And unlike the Paris Agreement on climate change or even the Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda has failed to generate political momentum. Few high-level political figures showed up in Quito, leading some to wonder if national governments and the private sector are serious about implementing it.

Even the secretary general of the conference and executive director of UN-Habitat, Joan Clos, seemed to recognise this when he said that the hard work of making the New Urban Agenda a reality needs to begin now: “If we don’t implement, it’s going to be useless,” he said....