{"id":4317,"date":"2019-04-01T04:15:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T04:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/?p=4317"},"modified":"2019-04-01T04:16:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T04:16:39","slug":"asias-mega-cities-need-clean-energy-drive-to-cope-with-environmental-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/2019\/04\/01\/asias-mega-cities-need-clean-energy-drive-to-cope-with-environmental-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Asia’s mega-cities need clean energy drive to cope with environmental threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post first appeared on Thomson Reuters.\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Avoiding threats from climate change and pollution will require Asia\u2019s booming cities to become much more efficient in their use of energy resources, delegates at a city development conference said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Asia is home to 15 out of the world\u2019s 20 biggest cities, and the United Nations estimates another 2.5 billion people will live in cities by 2050, by far the most in Asia.<\/p>\n

This growth caused serious pollution problems and will challenge transport networks, food supply chains, and energy supplies, the delegates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities occupy 2 to 3 percent of our planet\u2019s surface, yet they consume 70 percent of all energy,\u201d said Soren Kvorning, President for Asia Pacific at Danfoss, a Danish engineering firm with a strong focus on Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer we wait, the higher the cost will be,\u201d he said, adding there were three key improvement areas: building efficiency, cold chains for food supplies and a transition away from fossil fuels in transport.<\/p>\n

Transportation is the biggest contributor to air pollution, which as per the World Health Organization estimates kills 4.2 million people every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can no longer stand by and watch. Electric cars and buses are an attractive option, and cities can also go fully electric in ports,\u201d Kvorning said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In most cities, buildings are the biggest energy consumers, making the investment into better energy efficiency important.<\/div>\n

\u201cEfficiency measures all come back with a return on investment within 2 to 4 years, at current technologies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To improve efficiency, Ang Kian Seng, Director for Environmental Sustainability at Singapore\u2019s Building and Construction Authority, said the government had last year launched a \u201csuper low energy program\u201d to cut emissions as far as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will set the highest efficiency standards for these top echelon buildings, and then move the mass population towards that standard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In food supply, Kvorning said a third of all food produced was lost because of lacking cold chains. He estimated current cooling technologies could save 40 percent of the lost food.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest problems is the scope of the problems, the delegates said, with Asian cities – several of which have populations of over 20 million – struggling to provide enough housing, electricity, food and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to put out the fire, you don\u2019t tend to think about integrated solutions. That\u2019s a problem,\u201d said Lauren Sorkin, Asia Pacific Director at 100 Resilient Cities, an consultancy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Still, change is happening, delegates said, with most major Asian cities now having sustainability plans, with credit readily available.<\/div>\n

\u201cThere is more capital available for sustainable solutions than there are projects. We will see quite a lot of change soon,\u201d said Nicolas Parrot, Asia Pacific Head of Transportation Investment at French bank BNP Paribas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post first appeared on Thomson Reuters.\u00a0 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Avoiding threats from climate change and pollution will require Asia\u2019s booming cities to become much more efficient in their use of energy resources, delegates at a city development conference said on Thursday. Asia is home to 15 out of the world\u2019s 20 biggest cities, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4319,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4317\/revisions\/4319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}