Africa

Impeached judge John Hlophe is set to lead opposition to President Ramaphosa's coalition government.

Impeached judge John Hlophe is set to lead opposition to President Ramaphosa's coalition government.

Impeached judge John Hlophe is set to lead opposition to President Ramaphosa's coalition government.

Marixela Ramos and Fausto Gámez in the village of El Rodeo, northern El Salvador, where a solar-powered drinking water system has been in operation since 2018. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
VICTORIA, El Salvador, Jul 17 2024 (IPS)

Setting up a community water project with a solar-powered pumping system was an unlikely idea for the peasant families of a Salvadoran village who, despite their doubts, turned it into reality and now have drinking water in their homes.

In El Rodeo, a hamlet in the municipality of Victoria, in the department of Cabañas, drinking water was an urgent need, as the government does not provide it to peasant villages like this one, in northern El Salvador. According to official figures, 34% of the rural population lacks piped water in their homes.

So the community had to organise itself to provide water from local springs. But when the board of directors of El Rodeo, in charge of the project, informed that the pumping system would be solar powered in order to reduce costs, there was some collective disappointment.

“When solar energy was mentioned, the people’s big dream of water… went up in smoke, they didn’t believe,” Marixela Ramos, an inhabitant of El Rodeo, who saw the project come to life when it was conceived as a “dream” between 2005 and 2008, told IPS."Before, we had to go to the wells and rivers to fetch water. Now it is easier, we get the water at once in the house": Ana Silvia Alemán.

But that was the most viable option at the time in the village dedicated to subsistence farming.

“Since there are only a few families, it would not be financially sustainable if we connected it to the national power grid,” added Ramos, 39, who is the secretary general of the El Rodeo board of directors.

Ramos is also involved in other community spaces, mostly linked to the promotion of women’s rights, as well as shows on Radio Victoria, a station that for decades has given voice to the demands of communities in the area.

Despite the disbelief of many villagers, work began in 2017 and the village’s water system was inaugurated in 2018, benefiting around 80 families, including those living in La Marañonera, another nearby town.

The El Rodeo project is the most innovative, having solar energy, but other villages in this area of the department of Cabañas are supplied with water from their own community initiatives, through the so-called Juntas de Agua, or Water Boards. The largest of these is Santa Marta, where some 800 families live.

Other rural communities do the same throughout the country, given the government’s inefficiency in providing the service to the country’s population of 6.7 million inhabitants.

There are an estimated 2,500 such Water Boards in El Salvador, providing service to 25% of the population, or 1.6 million people.

Ana Silvia Alemán, 45, washes a pitcher in El Rodeo, a subsistence farming village in northern El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Water for all

The system in El Rodeo is supplied by a nearby spring known as Agua Caliente. Since it was located on private land, the water had to be purchased from the owner for US$5,000, with funds from international organisations.

From there the water is redirected to a catchment tank, with a capacity of 28 cubic metres. A five-horsepower pump then sends it to a distribution tank, located on top of a hill, from where it is gravity-fed through pipes to the users.

Families are entitled to about 10 cubic metres per month, equivalent to 10,000 litres, for which they pay five dollars.

As a roof, at a height of about five metres, 32 solar panels were mounted to provide the energy that drives the pumping system.

“Before, we had to go to the wells and rivers to fetch water. Now it is easier, we get the water at once in the house,” Ana Silvia Alemán, 45, told IPS as she washed some containers with the water from the tap at her home.

José Amílcar Hernández, 26, is in charge of the technical operation of the water system installed in his community, El Rodeo, in northern El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

The water service is available two days a week from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., weather permitting. A distribution tank with more capacity than the current 54 cubic metres would be needed to extend those hours, Amílcar Hernández, who is responsible for the technical operation of the system, told IPS.

“That is one of the improvements pending. We estimate a tank of about 125 cubic metres is needed,” said Hernández, 26, who also works as a maize farmer, performs in a small community theatre group, and produces shows for Radio Victoria.

Several Salvadoran and international organisations participated in the construction of the water system in El Rodeo, including the Washington Ethical Society, the Spanish City Council of Bilbao, Ingeniería sin Fronteras and the Rotary Club.

The villagers contributed many hours of work in return.

Apart from water supply, the project included other related aspects, such as the construction of composting latrines, so as not to pollute the aquifers, as they produce organic fertiliser from the decomposition of excrement.

In each house, a mechanism was also designed to filter grey water by redirecting it to a small underground chamber with several layers of sand. The filtered water is used to irrigate small vegetable gardens or “bio-gardens”.

One of the tanks from which drinking water is distributed to families in Santa Marta, the largest village in the municipality of Victoria, department of Cabañas, in northern El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

A place of struggle and hope

The history of El Rodeo is linked to the Salvadoran civil war, between 1980 and 1992. Clean drinking water was the main goal that families set for themselves when they returned from exile after that conflict.

El Rodeo is one of several villages in Cabañas and other Salvadoran departments whose families had to flee in the 1980s because of the war, and the place was the target of constant army attacks. Several massacres against civilians took place in this locality.

They fled mainly to Mesa Grande, a camp of more than 11,000 Salvadoran refugees established by the United Nations in San Marcos Ocotepeque, Honduras.

The civil war left an estimated 70,000 people dead and more than 8,000 missing. The conflict ended in February 1992, when a peace agreement was signed.

However, before the war ended, and amidst the bullets and bombings, groups of families began to return to their place of origin, and thus El Refugio began to repopulate, in four waves: in 1987, 1988, 1999, and the last one in March 1992.

“I was born here, in El Rodeo, but we had to move to Mesa Grande, like everyone else. We came back 32 years ago, to try to live in peace in our hamlet,” said Alemán, filling the pitchers she had just finished washing.

A characteristic of villages like El Rodeo is their high level of organisation, perhaps learned during the war years. Many peasants were part of the guerrillas, who had a strict way of organising themselves to carry out common tasks.

The environmental struggle against the mining industry installed in the country in the first decade of the 2000s emerged on the lands of the municipality of Victoria. Thanks to this pressure, El Salvador was the first country in the world to pass a law banning metal mining, in March 2017.

“This level of organisation has meant that we now have projects such as water, education, health and security programmes,” Fausto Gámez, 33, chairman of the community’s board of directors, told IPS.

In addition to his role in the water system, Gámez also does community journalism for Radio Victoria, and coordinates the sexual diversity collective in Santa Marta, the largest settlement in the area.

Radio Victoria is the community station that for decades has given voice to the struggles and demands of the communities and families of Cabañas, in northern El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Challenges to overcome

The water supply system of El Rodeo has room for improvement. As it is photovoltaic powered, it stops when the weather prevents sunlight from heating the panels, especially during the rainy season from May to November.

“Having a solar-powered water project has its pros, but also its cons: sometimes the weather doesn’t allow us to have water, we depend on the sun,” explained Gámez, adding that this is a recurring complaint.

Technically, the ideal system should be hybrid, meaning that it can be connected to the national power grid when needed.

But that would represent a costly investment for the community, which it cannot afford. Moreover, the families would have to absorb the cost and pay a higher monthly fee.

However, while the interruption of service due to bad weather is a nuisance, some families manage to endure these days of shortages by saving the water they have previously stored.

“We try to consume only what we need, and as there are only two of us in the family, we have enough water,” said Alemán.

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Confrontation with a Deep Sea Mining Ship in the at-risk Pacific Region.
 
Greenpeace International activists from around the world have paddled and protested around MV COCO, a specialized offshore drilling vessel currently collecting data for deep sea mining frontrunner, The Metals Company, on its last expedition before it files the world’s first ever application to mine the seabed in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Martin Katz / Greenpeace

By Sebastian Losada
A CORUNA, Spain, Jul 17 2024 (IPS)

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) has enormous importance as responsible for the fate of the largest, and most untouched, biome on the Planet. Ahead of elections for its leadership, governments cannot ignore that its current Secretary-General has become the subject of both media investigations and criticism from other parts of the UN.

Michael Lodge faces numerous allegations such as a lack of impartiality, closeness to the mining industry, financial mismanagement, mistreatment of media, and attempts to silence protest. Even if some of these are generally disputed by Mr. Lodge, if he were re-elected, the credibility and independence of the ISA, an important organisation in the UN multilateral system, is seriously compromised.

The ISA, an autonomous organisation established under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, is currently negotiating a set of rules that could allow large-scale extraction of mineral resources in the deep ocean. These negotiations are taking place amidst growing environmental concerns and public opposition to the harm that deep sea mining will cause to marine ecosystems we critically rely on.

Credit: Greenpeace

A long list of media scandals

The upcoming meeting of the ISA Assembly, from 29 July to 2 August, will elect a Secretary-General. Michael Lodge, a British national who will complete his second term this year, is campaigning to be re-elected upon nomination by Kiribati. So far, the only alternative candidate is Brazilian oceanographer Laeticia Carvalho.

On 4 July, a new exposé released by The New York Times contained strong accusations of interference in the campaign process as well as of financial mismanagement. In the article, Kiribati’s Ambassador Teburoro Tito confirms that he offered Ms Carvalho a high level position at the ISA in exchange for dropping out of the race.

Carvalho denounces Lodge for using the ISA machinery for his election campaign. The article quotes allegations by former ISA employees of misuse of the organisation’s funds and plans from the German Government to scrutinise “questionable financial activities at the ISA.”

Media coverage highlighting misconduct at the ISA during the mandates of Michael Lodge includes pieces in NYT, LA Times, The Guardian and Bloomberg. Media attention perhaps reached a peak-high when American talk-show John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight dedicated a special issue to deep sea mining aired on 13 June. The video is approaching 3 million views on the show’s Youtube channel.

Lack of impartiality and closeness to the industry

Many of these media reports relate to Michael Lodge’s alleged closeness to the mining industry. As explained in March 2023 by “diplomats from Germany, Costa Rica and elsewhere” Lodge, supposed to be a neutral facilitator, “has stepped out of line by resisting efforts by some Council members that could slow approval of the first mining proposal.”

On 16 March 2023, Germany’s Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Franziska Brantner, reminded in a letter, that “it is not the task of the Secretariat to interfere in the decision-making of subsidiary organs of the ISA,” expressing disappointment that Lodge had “actively taken a stand against positions and decision making proposals from individual delegations.”

Perhaps the most serious accusation belongs to the NYT’s “Secret Data, Tiny Islands and a Quest for Treasure on the Ocean Floor” which in August 2022 exposed “interviews and hundreds of pages of emails, letters and other internal documents” showing that the ISA “provided data identifying some of the most valuable seabed tracts, and then set aside the prized sites for the [The Metals Company] company’s future use.”

Lodge’s closeness with the industry had been called out earlier. In 2018, he appeared in a promotional video of DeepGreen (now operating as The Metals Company). The video is not public anymore from its original host Vimeo, but can still be found in an LA Times article, which notes that “a big selling point at a time the company was courting investors, was the man shown walking on a massive ship and speaking of the need to mine the ocean floor: the Secretary-General of the ISA.”

According to the article, a bar tab in 2018 for a group of 15 attended by mining executives, which included $95 bottles of wine, came to $1,230, “according to a receipt and expense report filed with the secretariat.”

Sandor Mulsow, a marine geologist who served as the ISA’s head of the Office of Environmental Management and Mineral Resources for more than five years, until 2019, described the work of the ISA as having “a huge bias in favour of new contractors.” “It is like to ask the wolf to take care of the sheep,” he said to LA Times.

At a hearing in the Belgian Parliament in June 2020, Lodge told parliamentarians that a moratorium, now supported by 26 ISA member States, “would be anti-science, anti-knowledge, anti-development and anti-international law.” Not surprisingly, in 2020 a Radio New Zealand programme referred to Lodge as a “cheerleader” for mining interests. In response, he threatened a defamation lawsuit.

An aggressive environment for media and observers

During Lodge’s mandates, the ISA has become an increasingly difficult environment for media and civil society observers. Lodge has vocally criticised those questioning deep-sea mining, promulgated new and restrictive guidelines for observers at ISA meetings and restricted media access.

In a speech in 2018 to businesses in Hamburg, Lodge said he was disturbed by “wildly inaccurate and distorted scenarios portrayed by some sections of the media and interest groups,” saying that concerns on environmental damage resulting from deep sea mining are “grossly exaggerated and lack any basis in fact.”

In June 2021, at an International Law Conference in Singapore, Lodge talked of “a growing environmental absolutism and dogmatism bordering on fanaticism.”

Journalists who travelled all the way to Kingston to cover the ISA negotiations have expressed their dismay about how they were treated. In March 2023, Washington Post journalist Evan Halper, who had written pieces critical of the ISA, was escorted out of the negotiating chamber. Lodge has also not refrained from mocking journalists in the past, as he did in response to an article in The Guardian.

In July 2023, Greenpeace International used a spoof version of the ISA logo on billboards, calling on governments to take action to avoid being seen as the “Irresponsible Seabed Authority”. The ISA contacted the billboard agency to demand that it be withdrawn and issued new restrictive guidelines on the functioning of ISA meetings, restricting demonstrations, protests and distribution of publicity materials.

Specific measures related to the “use of the emblem of the Authority” and warned that its unauthorised use “may constitute grounds for removal of accreditation with the Authority.” The new guidelines triggered a letter signed by seven observer organisations demanding the removal of some particularly repressive provisions.

Reactions of other UN agencies and agreements

Last November 2023, Greenpeace International peacefully protested at sea against a mining company’s exploration expedition. On the high seas of the Central Pacific Ocean, activists kayaked around the vessel, and climbed its crane to demand a halt to the company’s plans to start deep sea mining in one of the world’s last untouched ecosystems.

The Secretary-General of the ISA reacted to the Greenpeace protest enacting emergency measures on the basis that the protest with inflatable kayaks was posing a “threat of serious harm to the marine environment” and ordering Greenpeace to abandon the protest, in an evident over-reach of his functions.

This caught the attention of two UN Special Rapporteurs, who had very strong words against Lodge’s attempt to undermine basic civil rights. Dr. Marcos Orellana, Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, said he was “alarmed by the manner in which the Secretary General of the ISA has responded to a peaceful protest.” Orellana considered these actions “question the impartiality expected from the Secretary-General as much as they suggest bias towards industry interests in disregard of the Environmental Protection Mandate of the ISA.”

In a video message to the ISA membership, Michael Forst, Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, criticised “the outrageous immediate measures issued by the ISA Secretary General seeking to prevent Greenpeace activists from protesting”, which he considered “yet again another example of the ongoing crackdown on environmental defenders and their freedoms of expression, protest, and assembly.”

As other multilateral institutions have addressed the potential impacts of deep-sea mining on their respective mandates, interventions by the ISA Secretary-General have raised concerns. In February 2024, when the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) had on its agenda a proposal for a resolution on deep sea mining, Lodge sent a letter to its Executive Secretary dismissing the work of the CMS Secretariat.

Lodge requested a review of a CMS document by “several internationally renowned experts”, which found that “the CMS document cannot be considered a credible basis for decision-making.” One of the main co-authors of such review is Samantha Smith who has worked for both The Metals Company predecessor DeepGreen and Belgium mining company, GSR. “We get letters like this all the time,” a member of the CMS Secretariat confided, “but from industrial lobbyists—not the Executive Secretary of a UN body.”

The ISA needs to change course

Under Michael Lodge’s mandate, the ISA has set a pace of negotiations of the mining code that is completely at odds with the uncertainty and lack of sufficient knowledge about the biology and ecology of deep-sea ecosystems.

While scientists are urging for more time, the ISA and a few of its member States are rushing towards commercial exploitation of deep-sea minerals. This pace is also deeply unequitable as most countries lack the financial and human resources required to prepare and contribute to three Council meetings of highly technical negotiations every year.

The ISA has had so far three Secretary-Generals. All male but from three different geographies (the Pacific, Africa and Europe). The ISA has also put a lot of emphasis on gender equality and Michael Lodge presents himself as an “International Gender Champion” at the ISA website. Re-electing Michael Lodge for a third term would not respect well established practices of geographical alternance and representation.

Further, Lodge’s mandates have been tainted with scandals and opacity. As civil society observers we demand an environment of trust, transparency and respect for the different views. This has been lacking.

It is of paramount importance that a new Secretary-General be elected that restores the credibility of the ISA and puts conservation of the deep sea at the heart of the mandate of the Authority. A re-election of the current Secretary-General would risk further eroding trust in this multilateral institution and contributing to a loss of public faith in international regulators more generally.

Sebastian Losada is Senior Oceans Policy Adviser, Greenpeace International.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Government promises to curb rogue building practices are too little, too late for grieving parents.

Government promises to curb rogue building practices are too little, too late for grieving parents.

Kanak Pro-Independence supporters display the Kanak flag during a rally in the streets of Noumea prior to New Caledonia's first referendum on Independence in 2018. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
NOUMEA, New Caledonia , Jul 17 2024 (IPS)

It’s been 26 years since a peace agreement, the Noumea Accord, was signed following an outbreak of conflict in the 1980s between Kanak islanders and French armed forces in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

But the eruption of turbulent protests and unrest again two months ago has shown that the cleavage of indigenous political grievances with the French state remains deep in this group of islands located east of Australia in the southwest Pacific.

The centre of New Caledonia’s capital, Noumea, a popular holiday destination in the Pacific Islands, is usually abuzz with tourists patronizing sidewalk cafes. But many of the streets, now patrolled by French police, are deserted and eerily quiet.

The protests, which began in mid-May, escalated to armed clashes between activists and French security forces, resulting in ten deaths. And the destruction of homes, public buildings and looting of shops and businesses has had a devastating impact on the small island society. The cost of the damage is estimated to be more than USD 1 billion; at least 7,000 people have lost jobs and incomes, and the territory’s economy has suffered a major downturn.

Barricades were erected in the streets of Noumea when confrontations escalated between Pro-Independence activists and French police in May following the French Parliament’s adoption of electoral reforms in New Caledonia. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

The unrest has revealed the gaping fracture between France’s determination to retain control of the territory and the indigenous Kanak islanders, who are riled at lack of progress toward their call for self-determination.

“We protested in the streets. We wanted to say to the French state, you must respect the Kanaks because France voted for the reforms without consent from us,” Jacques (his name has been changed), a Kanak activist in Noumea, told IPS.

He was speaking of the adoption of electoral changes in New Caledonia by the French Parliament, which would have opened the electoral roll to tens of thousands of recent migrant settlers, the majority from Europe.

About 41 percent of New Caledonia’s population is indigenous and many believe it would have led to the declining influence of their vote against rising numbers of Loyalists in future elections and referendums. The changing demographic balance between Kanaks and non-Kanaks is a longstanding grievance.

The uprising in the 1980s was driven by grievances about land dispossession, poverty, inequality, the absence of civil and political rights, and France’s policy of promoting migration from France to New Caledonia.

While French President Emmanuel Macron suspended the electoral reforms in mid-June, many Pro-Independence supporters are unappeased.

Jacques is among a group of Kanak activists who have set up a campaign site next to a main road on the outskirts of the capital. They are sitting around a table under a marquee, surrounded by flags and banners.

“We want our country to be decolonized, as it is written in the Noumea agreement. The French state is only interested in dominating the population here. If the French state stays here, we will have more violence,” Jacques claims.

The French government agreed in the 1998 Noumea Accord to grant New Caledonia more governing powers, recognition of Kanak culture and right to consultation, restrictions on the local electoral roll allowing only Kanaks and long-term residents to vote and the holding of referendums on its future political status.

But by 2021, three referendums had been held, all with majority outcomes, to remain part of France. There was a 43.33 percent vote for Independence in the first referendum in 2018, which increased to 46.74 percent in the second in 2020. But Kanaks, severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, boycotted the third referendum in 2021. The overwhelming Loyalist vote of 96.5 percent has never been accepted by Pro-Independence political parties, such as the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

“We firmly support the call by FLNKS for the UN to declare the result of the third referendum null and void due to the non-participation of the people of Kanaky. Voter turnout was below 50 percent of registered voters; hence, it cannot be taken as the legitimate wish of the silent majority,” the sub-regional inter-governmental organization, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, stated in 2021.

Kanak separatists’ determination to keep their aspirations alive, even though options for changing the political status quo through referendums have been exhausted, has led to an increasingly polarized political landscape. Some entrenched Loyalists believe that the French state should “take over the New Caledonian government because of all the political problems that we have,” Catherine Ris, President of the University of New Caledonia in Noumea, told IPS. And, “on the Pro-Independence side, we do not hear the moderate people anymore.”

The recent mobilization of the Field Action Coordinating Cell (CCAT) by the Pro-Independence Caledonian Union party was a sign of some Kanaks’ belief that their demands are not being met through the political process. The core group of activists were a major force behind the recent protests and the Cell’s leader, Christian Tein, is currently being held in a jail in France on charges related to the unrest. Similarly, the major presence of youths on the streets in May is evidence that a new generation has lost faith in the pace of social and political change.

“The younger people want the change now because in their lives they have experienced and seen a lot of hardship—the persecution of the Kanak people, the difficulties of getting a job,” Jacques emphasized. An estimated 45 percent of people in New Caledonia who don’t have a high school certificate are indigenous, and the Kanak unemployment rate is reported to be as high as 38 percent.

Yet the representation of Kanaks in the territory’s government and politics has steadily increased over the past two decades. The number of seats held by Pro-Independence politicians in New Caledonia’s 54 seat Congress rose from 18 to 25 between 2004 and 2014, while Loyalists witnessed a decrease from 36 to 29 seats, reports Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy.

In 2021, Louis Mapou, the first Kanak Pro-Independence President of the government, was elected. And, following the French national election this month, Emmanuel Tjibaou, a Kanak leader from the rural North Province, was voted in as one of New Caledonia’s two members of the National Assembly in Paris.

In the wider region, New Caledonia’s self-determination movement has the international support of other Pacific Island countries, especially those that have indigenous Melanesian populations, such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji, as well as Azerbaijan and Russia. And the French overseas territory has been on the United Nations’ Decolonization List since 1986.

Yet there are New Caledonians who are concerned about the viability of a New Caledonian state. The territory relies heavily on France’s fiscal support, which amounts to 20 percent of the local gross domestic product (GDP) and pays for public services, local economic development programs and civil service salaries.

“We have a good economy here,” Marcieux, a Frenchman who has lived in New Caledonia for 30 years, told IPS in Noumea. “It is easy to speak of independence, but, in reality, it is very difficult. You need a way to make independence.”

But, until the yawning political divisions laid bare by the events of May are addressed, it will be difficult for New Caledonia’s leaders to present a united will to President Macron and the French Parliament located more than 16,000 kilometres away.

However, Tjibaou, the new member of the French National Assembly, is the focus of hope that meaningful dialogue can emerge from the recent conflict. He told local media soon after his election this month that “we all have to offer a framework for discussions to resume between the three partners, which are France, the FLNKS and the Loyalists… we have to capitalize on this.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: Oritro Karim

By Oritro Karim
NEW YORK, Jul 17 2024 (IPS)

Cities, once thought to be modern utopias that foster innovation, inclusivity, and commerce, actually ended up being hubs for environmental degradation. Although the concept of urban living is inextricable from humanity, there are proposed ways to make them less environmentally taxing. One such solution is the idea of a sustainable city, otherwise known as a metropolis that effectively consumes fossil fuels and disposes of emissions with regards to the longevity of the planet as well as the economic wellbeing of its citizens. Cities can also be considered sustainable so long as they curb the consequences of consumption through means such as recycling or using healthier energy sources. Although this sounds like a simple path forward in Earth’s journey of decarbonizing, we must take a plethora of issues into consideration, such as transportation, housing, manufacturing, trade, and comfort.

An example of a sustainable city is Bristol, England. The BBC article, “Lower Carbon Emissions Recorded in City in 2022” states that greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 7.5 percent between 2021 and 2022, in part due to higher bills prompting people to use less energy. Steps like this can be seen in a multitude of other urban settings as citizens are encouraged to prioritize financial stability over consuming in excess. Additionally, commerce related emissions are reported to have dropped the most. Furthermore, Bristol has introduced “Clean Air Zones”, which are designated areas where high emissions result in fines, for vehicles in an effort to reduce their emissions from transportation. Much of the vehicles in these zones, which are hybrids and electric powered, obey these restrictions. Although Bristol has had trouble lowering emissions from vehicles, it is taking the proper steps to curb their carbon footprint altogether. This is what truly makes this city “sustainable” as it puts guidelines in place for citizens to consume fossil fuels responsibly and ethically.

Zurich, Switzerland is another sustainable city that uses different methods to ensure lower carbon emissions. According to the article “Top Five Most Sustainable Cities in the World”, Zurich is known as a “biker’s haven”. The city offers universal access to bikes, free of charge and widespread. In addition, Zurich has constructed a great number of cycling roads as well as car-free roads. This goes an exceedingly long way in lowering transportation related emissions as cars are less often used. Additionally, the fact that these bikes are free to use is something that other metropolises can learn from. For example, New York City has also implemented public bikes that cost around 19 dollars a day which greatly discourages their widespread use. Zurich pales in size to New York so one can only imagine how beneficial it would be if bigger metropolises adapted these healthier habits. Furthermore, the same article states that Zurich produces 80 percent of its electricity with renewable sources and recycles over 40 percent of its waste. Zurich is truly a sustainable city as it does its part in encouraging citizens to partake in less energy consuming behaviors and responsibly remunerates for what they do consume.

Efforts towards sustainability can be seen prominently in Asian countries as well. One example is Singapore, which has built a reputation over the years for its use of “green spaces”. Green spaces are designated areas that are dedicated to preserving nature for recreational use in parks, fields, and other urban environments. According to the article, “Asia’s Eco-Warriors:12 Cities Making Strides In Sustainability”, other nations such as South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, and Vietnam have also turned their attention towards green space preservation. The progress of these nations greatly contrasts with that of North America. The United States, specifically, is losing much of its green spaces due to rampant industrialization. Ecosystems are being disrupted and cities often tend to choose using land for housing rather than green spaces. The article “America’s open spaces are vanishing; NY has lost 344 square miles since 2002” states that America’s course of development has contributed to over 68,000 square miles of forests have been lost. In addition, each state has seen a significant loss of rural space this century. It is clear to see that for North American locations, sustainability falls below commerce and housing in priority. Although Singapore, South Korea, and China have powerful booming economies as well, they seem to be able to balance it successfully with sustainability.

This brings up the question of if sustainability is realistic for all corners of the world. Smaller or less densely populated locations have a greater ability to employ healthier consumption habits as they are simpler in nature. Compare New York City to Wellington, England, for example. Wellington has a population of around 213 thousand while New York City’s population exceeds 8 million. Therefore, Wellington will have a much easier time in adopting healthier habits such as recycling and tracking. Bigger cities have bigger economies and larger demand for transportation, energy, and housing. Although it seems impossible, large metropolises like New York City have the ability to become sustainable, or at least more sustainable than they were before. However, we must take these differences into consideration in order to make an effective plan. “New York’s Gradual Transition to a Sustainable City” states, “our local regulatory structure is pushing large building owners to decarbonize their energy use and make it more efficient. Our electric utilities are struggling but slowly replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. Some of our early attempts at siting wind power in the ocean are proving less cost-effective than we hoped, but new technologies are being developed every day”. This indicates that bigger cities are having trouble implementing sustainable practices as there is a booming economy that must also be considered. However, there are steps in place that allow bigger cities to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. New York will never not be a commercial powerhouse and significant emission contributor as that is simply the way the city is wired. Attempts such as employing alternate fuel sources will greatly impact the carbon emissions but that practice becoming widespread will occur decades from now, but it’s important that we take the initial steps now. Sustainability is possible for the world, it’s just going to take some time and effort.

Sources Used:
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjjwv891nn0o
2. https://earth.org/most-sustainable-cities/
3. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2024/02/12/new-york-citys-gradual-transition-to-a-sustainable-city/
4. https://earth5r.org/asias-eco-warriors-the-top-10-cities-making-strides-in-sustainability/
5. https://www.bxtimes.com/americas-open-spaces-vanishing/

Oritro Karim is a recent graduate from Rochester Institute of Technology and a working illustrator, graphic designer, painter, and writer.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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