The future of cities is through resilience and zero emissions

Most cities around the world have committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. This means that their net greenhouse gas emissions must be equal to or less than those eliminated through the natural absorption of the planet. .

Despite the fact that urban centers only occupy 3% of the Earth’s surface, this is responsible for the consumption of 75% of the planet’s resources, emitting around 70% of greenhouse gases, according to a study carried out. by the United Nations. An effect that may be greater if the UN calculations are certified, which ensure that cities will accumulate 70% of the world’s population in 2050 compared to 54% today.

However, despite becoming an urgent need to address these imbalances, as well as increasingly pressing global challenges such as population growth, scarcity of resources, pollution, and the management of water and energy resources For the sake of efficiency, the reconversion of these cities is not easy, nor can it be undertaken on all fronts with equal efficiency and speed.

An example of this is the weight of the circular economy at a global level. This production and consumption system based on the optimization and reuse of material and energy flows represents only 8.6% of the global economy, according to the Circularity Gap Report of 2021.

Resilience: a roadmap to decarbonization

As the world grapples with the economic, health and social setbacks stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, solutions that solve multiple problems are critical and can maximize limited resources. This is the key to the paradigm shift that the transition to decarbonization will entail: a holistic, “systemic efficiency” and resilient approach.

But what exactly is this ‘systemic efficiency’ system? In rethinking, in a transversal way, the reconversion of our cities with solutions such as ultra-efficient buildings that can, through intelligent systems, maximize their energy efficiency, for example, by regulating the temperature of the rooms according to their use, or the incorporation of photovoltaic panels in its exterior and gardens on roofs or underused spaces, as a method of absorbing CO2. The transformation of buildings will be essential because, contrary to what it may seem, 50.1% of CO2 emissions in a city like Madrid comes from the residential, commercial and institutional (RCI) sector.

Transport, for example, only represents 23.9% of emissions (according to figures from the City Council in 2018), although for this reason it will also be a vital sector in which to incorporate solutions. Among them, the use of shared vehicles powered by renewable energies, individual mobility alternatives (bicycles, e-scooters, electric scooters), or the recovery of space for pedestrians with systems such as the ’15-minute city’ model, in implantation process in Paris, and which aims that all citizens have access to any basic service, including leisure, less than 15 minutes from home.

A new generation of smart cities

Applying these solutions in large cities will be a slow, costly process that will undoubtedly affect the lives of citizens. However, projects that incorporate all these new solutions are beginning to appear in newly created cities, smaller, adapted to the environment and completely replicable throughout the world, which will give rise to the first generation of comprehensive or 360º ‘smart cities’.

Cities like Aguaduna, a Hispanic-Brazilian project in the state of Bahia, Brazil, which is committed to becoming a replicable model of a 100% resilient and circular city. In addition to having a medium size – it expects to have 60,000 inhabitants in the future – which will allow it to integrate into its natural tropical environment in a simple and natural way – it will bet on a model based on circular flows of resources and reducing climate impact.

This system aims to generate job opportunities for residents and inhabitants of the environment, and to transform itself into a prosperous city where companies, the community and the administration will work together to make the most of renewable resources, reduce waste, and improve the quality of life. of the citizen.

A transition that will translate into energy independence through photovoltaic capture fields, reuse of rainwater, passive conditioning systems of buildings, the circulation of vehicles only powered by clean energy, reduction to 50% of pavements in public spaces and buildings of only 14% of the total surface of the soil to guarantee its high permeability, in addition to the application of technologies such as big data or blockchain to manage the different city services in an efficient, transparent, safe and decentralized way.