Bogotá, Colombia. Fernando Vergara. AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.
Francesc Badia: Despite co-ordinated efforts at the international level, such as the United Nation’s Habit III conference in Quito this year, we’re seeing multiple crises in the sustainability of cities. What’s the role of the city in addressing this issue?
Gary Gardner: First, I think it’s important to understand cities as centres of consumption, and as centres of pollution creation in many parts of the world. Somewhere in the region of 80% of our economic activity happens in cities, and around 70-75% of resource consumption happens in cities. This is matched by the same share of carbon emissions. So cities are really important, even when we talk about global sustainability. They’re a wonderful way to study sustainability and they have a lot to offer in terms of innovation – there are a lot of exciting innovations that are coming out of cities and I would say that in Latin America, there are a number of examples that the North is copying.
