Sustainable Urban Energy for Dhaka City

by Md. Zahidur Rahman and Saeed Ahmed Siddiquee
October 5, 2012

Blitz

Our entire way of life and all of our economic projections relies on more energy. Howbeit, the world is now facing most serious challenge in energy supply which could be a more devastating crisis than world wars. Global energy depletion has already begun, although few countries have realized it. The peak energy affects the future of the entire global economy. Presently the energy producing resources like fossil fuel, gas, coal, and uranium has placed in peak position. It is predicted that those non-renewable energy is going to be declined position in every place of the earth.

Dominant consumption of non-renewable energy for electricity is leading to Green House Gasses (GHG) emission into the atmosphere. According to the International Energy Agency (2011), approximately 901 grammes of CO2 or equivalent are released per kilowatt hour of electricity that generated from coal. Presumably, global urban populations are principle responsible for GHG emissions due to the consumption of bulk amount of energy for the aristocratic lifestyle. While on the contrary, Renewable World stated that still 1.3 billion people in the world still live without access to electricity and 2.7 billion people have no access to clean cooking facilities. Admittedly, energy crisis will happen in future and then urban inhabitants will be more sufferer compare to rural people. In this situation, global economic wheel may be plummeted and thus leading to global inevitable poverty. Indeed, a concerning era has already arise in front of the global leaders to make them busy thinking alternatively about how to overcome this energy crisis?

At present, what is the overview of Bangladesh's energy situation? Currently, around 43% population belongs to electricity facilities with per capita consumption of 140 kilowatt hour. The electricity consumption rate has increased gradually due to the demand of overwhelmed growing population. Reported by the country power system Master Plan 2010, the forecasted demand would be 19,000 megawatt by the year 2021 and 34,000 megawatt by 2030. Till now majority of our energy come from non-renewable sources which are facing challenges in order to growing energy demand for mostly electricity generation. Presently, Bangladesh has 20.5 TFC recoverable natural gas reserve and 420 million tones of coal reserve. Noticeable gas fields are already facing multifaceted crisis for gas supply for electricity generation. For example, Sangu gas field has reduced the supply of gas from a well. In addition, day by day oil prices have increased in the global market schemes which lead to raise prices per unit cost of electricity.

Surprisingly, the capital city of Dhaka itself consumes almost 41.22% of the total generated electricity while the demand of electricity is approximately 12000 megawatt and only 5493 megawatt is on pipeline. Stated by DESA, the demand for power in Dhaka city has increased by around 10% a year. As the supply is not adequate to meet the demand in the city, so either we have to adopt it or think alternative path way to solve the power crisis. If we consider Thailand, we can see that almost 28% electricity comes from the renewable sources. Bangladesh also has plenty of renewable energy sources to innovate and mainstreaming it to the main grid.

In Dhaka city we have not enough wind speed for windmill, neither enough River current for hydroelectric power plant nor even any suitable peri-urban places for nuclear power station installation. Nuclear power plant might be a suitable option for bulk amount of power generation and also it has no carbon emission but it is supposed to be risky in terms of earthquake frequency. Surprisingly, Dhaka is situated in the solar radiation receiving zone on the earth with almost 335 sunny days a year. Hence, solar photovoltaic energy generation is the best option for Dhaka city to face the present energy crisis.

According to CDMP's Urban Risk Reduction Specialists, there are 3,26,000 (appx.) buildings in Dhaka City. If we consider introducing a 5m² solar panel for each building, it might produce about 222 megawatt (5*136W*326000) electricity. Another expert from the same domain said that, we have almost 20000 shopping malls in Dhaka city and where we could introduce renewable energy for electricity generation. Furthermore, the growing real estate companies could also use environment favorable architectural design like Council Building-2 (Solar energy capturing building) in Melbourne where produce a substantial amount of electricity locally for every building. Apart from this, solar technology also reduce GHG emission rate by absorbing around 20% solar radiations that might balance the inner city heat. Cutting down of existing load shading, long term health and financial benefits are also might be ensured and even people could get installation cost back within three years.

From renewable energy sources, Bangladesh government has set a target to meet 5% by the year 2015 and 10% by 2020 of total power demand (RENDEV). However, our government has already been taken some effective initiative for enhancing efficiency of electricity through energy saving distribution within urban communities. Bangladesh has an extensive renewable energy policy. Few governmental offices, institutions and common places are now being implemented solar power installation for the purpose of alternative power generation.

Energy is one o f the most important ingredients required to alleviate poverty, realize socio-economic and human development. Energy returned on energy invested, banning of profligate users, increase people awareness, policy implementation, generation of individual or household level options, community or private sector initiative along with investment, zero interest bank loans for renewable energy and enforcement of law and order situation are required to overcome the present condition. Furthermore, we need feasibility study of those technologies aiming to adopt suitable technology for electricity production from renewable resources. For an instance close your eyes and think, what will be the situation without or insufficient electricity supply of Dhaka? Completely become dead city!

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2626/sustainable-urban-energy-for-dhaka-city

Does Delhi Need a Cap on Car Ownership?

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

NY Times

September 10, 2012

Is it time for India to take lessons from China about pollution and congestion?

The municipal government of Guangzhou, one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing centers, plans to halve the number of new cars on the streets, The New York Times reported, by introducing “license plate auctions and lotteries.”

The move comes as the city struggles to address traffic congestion issues and curb pollution – issues that also bedevil India’s biggest cities, particularly its capital. Despite the current slowdown, India is still one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and, according to a World Economic Forum study released this year, also has the world’s worst air pollution.

The problem is particularly acute in Delhi, where an average of 1,335 vehicles were added to Delhi’s roads every day during 2010 and 2011. Infrastructure improvements have not kept pace with the influx of vehicles, mostly cars and motorcycles, and the city faces a capacity crisis in less than a decade, an expert says.

“The capacity of roads in Delhi will be exceeded by 2021 on most major roads and junctions,” Geetam Tiwari, a professor of transport planning at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi who is also associated with the city’s contentious Bus Rapid Transport pilot project, told India Ink.

So far, the Delhi government has been mulling measures to discourage private vehicle use and promote other methods of transportation, like B.R.T., rather than direct limits on ownership.

“Increasing vehicular population is a major challenge facing the city, and we will have to take tough decisions to deal with it,” a senior Delhi official said in an interview with The Jagran Post last week.

The “tough decisions” so far include making parking more expensive, levying congestion charges on certain routes during peak hours and upgrading the public transportation system, all of which are being gradually implemented in Delhi. The government is also considering a proposal to levy parking charges in residential areas, unlikely to be a popular idea among car owners, who are the city’s wealthiest and most influential people. The B.R.T. project, for example, has spawned vociferous opposition, especially among the car-owning population. A recent court order, in response to their complaints, allows other vehicles to use the bus-only corridor, negating its benefit for those not using private cars.

Some cities in India, however, are already experimenting with rules to check car ownership.

Aizawl, the capital of the northeastern state of Mizoram, has linked the granting of licenses to parking availability. Vehicle owners have to show that they own garages before their vehicles can be registered. But as a consequence, “a number of vehicles have been left unregistered due to the inspectors’ inability to verify that the garages exist,” the local news media reported.

In Jaipur in the western state of Rajasthan, the state government was directed by the high court to register only those vehicles whose owners submit an affidavit that they have a parking space for the vehicle. The order came into force on May 1 and local transport officials have not encountered the same difficulties as their peers in Aizawl, for a simple reason. “We were asked to get the affidavits from the vehicle owners. The high court did not direct us to crosscheck the affidavit,” officials told the The Daily Bhaskar.

Vehicle ownership levels remain fairly low in Delhi at 85 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with a developed country like Britain, which has 760 vehicles per 1,000 people. But owning one remains a goal for many. “Rising appetites for personal mobility are buttressed by the association of car ownership with high social status,” a report on changes in bus transportation pointed out.

Growth in car sales remains a strong point in India’s economy. In a mid-term review of the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016, the government outlines plans to make India a “destination of choice in the design and manufacture of automobiles.” According to the review, vehicle production in the country increased from 9.7 million units in 2006 to 20 million in 2011.

India’s courts have occasionally addressed questions about the addition of more cars to India’s roads. Dismissing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s plea this year to limit the cycle rickshaws on Delhi roads, a Supreme Court judge said the government was not prepared to put limits on cars. “In your so-called vision, you must have thought that by scrapping rickshaws there will be enough space for cars and other vehicles on the roads,” The Hindu quoted him as saying.

Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Center for Science and Environment and head of the transport planning program, said the government should focus on influencing commuting choices and encouraging people to use cars less and public transportation more.

“A quota system should be a last resort,” Ms. Roychowdhury said. “But that is something Delhi would have to consider if the current government policies do not solve the transport problems soon.”

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/does-delhi-need-a-cap-on-car-ownership/?src=rechp

A Dictator Is Gone, but Egypt’s Traffic and Congestion Seem Immovable

September 10, 2012

By SCOTT SAYARE

NY Times

CAIRO — It seems a measure of how little has changed since Egypt’s revolution that Nasr Mohammed Ghaleb still peddles tamarind juice here beneath an overpass, 15 cents a glass, amid the smog and piercing horns of the line of traffic he is blocking.

“The people in the cars coming this way are all hot, and so they want something to drink,” Mr. Ghaleb, 43, said the other day from behind his stand in Ramses Square. The people are hot, in part, because of the traffic, and the traffic is bad, in part, because of Mr. Ghaleb.

“I’m off to the side,” he insisted, smiling and looking a bit embarrassed.

So it was before the revolution, so it is now. Police officers come, sometimes, to clear out the street vendors — there are thought to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, in this massive city’s vast informal economy — and to ease the flow of traffic. The street vendors return, with nowhere else to go, and so does the congestion.

Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist leader who is Egypt’s first democratically elected president, has inherited far larger problems: an economy devastated by unrest, a broken system of food and fuel subsidies and plunging foreign currency reserves. He has turned to the International Monetary Fund for assistance in the form of a $4.8 billion loan, to Saudi Arabia and Qatar for aid and investment, to the United States for debt relief. His country is desperate to attract tourists and investors.

Mr. Morsi has also pledged to remove the street vendors and improve traffic, though, echoing the promises of decades of other officials who have sought to tame Cairo’s infamous crush of jalopies and buses and taxis and motorbikes. Mr. Morsi has called traffic a high priority for his first 100 days in office, not least because of its tremendous cost to the economy: as much as $8 billion in lost productivity, delays and excess fuel consumption, according to the World Bank. That amounts to about 3 percent of gross domestic product, putting Cairo’s rate several times higher than that of comparable cities. It is one of several basic but intractable problems still troubling Egypt, one that belies the revolutionary fervor of early 2011 and speaks to the longstanding challenges this country still faces.

Everything has changed, many Egyptians say, and nothing has changed.

“Chaos is the master of the situation,” said Saad Hagras, a columnist and the managing editor at a business newspaper, Al Alam Al Youm, describing traffic in Cairo but also life in Egypt, more generally. “Politics has been brought back to life,” to be sure, Mr. Hagras said, but the revolution has solved little else. Crime and violence are up, he noted, with fewer police officers on the streets since the uprising that deposed President Hosni Mubarak. Poverty remains extensive — more than 40 percent of the population is thought to live on less than $2 per day — and unemployment is high and rising.

“The citizen’s life is worse now than it was before the Jan. 25 revolution,” Mr. Hagras said.

Mohammed Ahmed, 31, who sells pirated software and videos in the street in Ramses Square, echoed that sentiment. “It’s no different now than under Mubarak,” Mr. Ahmed said at his stand in central Cairo, outside the city’s principal railway station. Commuters flow out into the shaded road here, between the cars and battered microbuses that crawl around the pilings of the bridge overhead. The police come most weeks to chase him off the street, Mr. Ahmed said. “We’re causing a problem, yes,” he said, referring to the traffic, “but we’re not the main reason for it.”

Designated parking spaces are difficult to come by in Cairo, so drivers park in the street. The traffic police often appear wildly unpreoccupied by traffic. Gas is subsidized and inexpensive, and stoplights are rare, the World Bank notes in a report, and the city’s transportation infrastructure was simply never meant to handle so many vehicles or human beings. While accommodations have been made — bridges, a ring road, a subway system, a bus network — they have not kept pace with the city’s growth.

About 2.2 million vehicles now ply Cairo’s streets, a number that has risen an average of 4 percent each year since the 1970s, said Safwan Khedr, an engineering professor and transportation expert at the American University in Cairo. Egypt’s population has grown by about 13 million in the past decade, a rise of nearly 20 percent; greater Cairo has absorbed much of that growth, to reach 18 million residents.

Road accidents kill about 1,000 people — half are pedestrians — in greater Cairo each year, and injure 4,000 more, according to the World Bank. Ambulances here are equipped with loudspeakers; emergency workers plead with drivers to find room for them to pass.

Local driving habits are famously problematic, too. Cairenes often shrug off stoplights and traffic rules and what more timid souls might call prudence, Dr. Khedr noted, and the revolution has done nothing to change this. Many Egyptians learn to drive from friends or family, he said, not in classes, and licenses are generally awarded without a road test.

“If a person is doing something wrong, he should know he is doing something wrong,” said Dr. Khedr, a bit exasperated.

Police checkpoints, to check drivers’ licenses, often cause traffic problems as well.

“To check drivers’ licenses, would you make the whole country stop moving?” asked Mohammed Hedi, 49. He stopped his white taxicab in the middle of the road along the Sixth of October bridge to point to several rows of halted midday traffic below.

There are the street vendors, too. Mr. Morsi’s government has suggested placing the vendors at designated markets once a week; the vendors complain that they would never be able to feed their families with just one day’s work. There are vague plans to build new market areas, off the pavement, but the appropriate land has yet to be identified or prepared. Nor is it altogether clear where, in central Cairo, such land might be found.

“Where do they want us to go?” asked Mr. Ahmed, the salesman of pirated software. “Do they want us to stay home?”

Business has fallen sharply since last year, he said, with customers concerned about the country’s stability. He now sells no more than about $50 of goods a day, he said, and takes home just a fraction of that to support his wife and twin boys.

But he has yet to pass judgment on Mr. Morsi, who took office in late June, despite his pledge to clear out the street vendors; two months is too little time, Mr. Ahmed said. “We’ll give him a chance,” he said. “We hope God is on his side.”

Still, Mr. Ahmed has every intention of keeping his stand here amid the traffic, where it has been for nearly eight years, though he does not much like the work or the noise.

“Every day, I wake up and say, ‘I hope God will let me stop coming here,’ ” he said, laughing. “But I keep coming.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/world/middleeast/for-egyptians-no-relief-from-cairos-infamous-traffic.html?pagewanted=all

A Chinese City Moves to Limit New Cars

September 4, 2012

New York Times

By KEITH BRADSHER

GUANGZHOU, China — It is as startling as if Detroit or Los Angeles restricted car ownership.

The municipal government of Guangzhou, a sprawling metropolis that is one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing centers, introduced license plate auctions and lotteries last week that will roughly halve the number of new cars on the streets.

The crackdown is the most restrictive in a series of moves by big Chinese cities that are putting quality-of-life issues ahead of short-term economic growth, something the central government has been slow to do on a national scale.

The measures have the potential to help clean up China’s notoriously dirty air and water, reduce long-term health care costs and improve the long-term quality of Chinese growth. But they are also imposing short-term costs, economists say, at a time when policy makers in Beijing and around the world are already concerned about a sharp economic slowdown in China.

“Of course from the government’s point of view, we give up some growth, but to achieve better health for all citizens, it is definitely worth it,” said Chen Haotian, the vice director of Guangzhou’s top planning agency.

Nanjing and Hangzhou in east-central China are moving to require cleaner gasoline and diesel. Cities from Dongguan and Shenzhen in southeastern China to Wuxi and Suzhou in the middle and Beijing in the north are pushing polluting factories to the outskirts, where they are typically being rebuilt with better pollution controls. And Xi’an and Urumqi in northwestern China are banning and scrapping cars built before 2005, when automotive emissions rules were less stringent.

“There’s a recognition finally that growth at all costs is not sustainable,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, the managing director of Silk Road Associates, a Hong Kong consulting firm.

Facing public pressure to address congestion and pollution, municipal governments from across China have been sending delegations to Guangzhou. But the national government in Beijing is pushing back against further car restrictions because of worries about the huge auto industry, said An Feng, a senior adviser in Beijing to transportation policy makers.

“This has really become a battle,” Mr. An said

Beijing’s municipal government started limiting new license plates at the start of last year when the economy was in danger of overheating, but Guangzhou is the first city to act during the current slowdown. Faced with public dissatisfaction over congestion, Guangzhou has also built an extensive subway system in the last few years, along with large parks and a renowned opera house.

The local government initiatives are not the main cause of the Chinese economy’s difficulties. The government clamped down on credit a year ago in a successful bid to rein in inflation, but starved many small and medium-size businesses of credit in the process.

Other broad economic problems have been building for years. These include industrial overcapacity and the monopolistic grip of many state-owned enterprises, as well as the inefficient allocation of loans.

But for now, the growing regulatory burden on business is reinforcing a trend toward slower growth, economists say.

“That’s why I think the slowdown is likely to be a trend, instead of just a short-term cycle,” said Xiao Geng, the research director at the Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong.

Polluting factories being pushed out of increasingly affluent cities in southeastern China are being turned away by poorer cities in western and northern China unless they install costly, extensive equipment to control emissions, said Stanley Lau, the deputy chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Industries, a trade group representing manufacturers that employ nearly 10 million workers in mainland China.

“There is no hint that these costs will be lowered because of the market slowdown,” he said.

Some executives in China complain about rising regulatory costs, particularly as new rules at the local level coincide with rising wages. Critics in the business community say that an economic slowdown may not be the best time for China to turn away from the largely unrestrained dash for prosperity of the last three decades.

But while the local measures may limit short-term growth, they are part of a broader transition. China is no longer just a developing economy that has pursued a particularly raw form of capitalism, while remaining Communist in name. It is becoming a modern, industrialized economy whose leaders increasingly listen to public opinion and seek to balance the environment, social welfare and many other issues against economic growth.

The question is how much short-term pain will China endure, in the form of slower growth and higher costs, to achieve a more balanced and sustainable economy.

Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an environmental group in Beijing, said that local officials had become more interested in the environment in the last year after street demonstrations against polluting factories in cities like Dalian, Shifang and Qidong. In each case, local officials agreed to halt construction of the projects or close them after becoming the targets of local and national ridicule.

Bernadette Brennan, a senior lawyer in the Beijing office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that after three decades of experience in China, she had seen change in the last year. Instead of resisting pressure to address pollution, she said, municipal officials have begun contacting her office to seek advice on how to improve.

Measuring the environmental benefits of the changed policies is difficult.

A series of typhoons makes it hard to compare air quality data in China this summer with previous years, said Alexis Lau, the director of the atmospheric research center at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In Guangzhou, emissions of a wide range of pollutants peaked in 2007 and 2008 and receded in 2009 and 2010 because of weaker economic growth. Emissions started to rise in 2011 as growth returned, but did not match 2008 levels.

Pollution per dollar of economic output has clearly declined, Mr. Lau said. Emissions of sulfur dioxide, a top priority in China in recent years because of its role in acid rain, have declined across China but particularly in Guangzhou.

The financial dependence of local governments on the sale of land leases to new developments may limit the extent to which some cities confront businesses. But city governments also own many of the businesses within their borders, making these businesses think twice about challenging policies like license plate restrictions.

“The car companies are owned by the government,”said Mr. Chen, who drives a Toyota Camry built in Guangzhou. “The car companies must obey the government.”

He added, “What do we need gross domestic product for if we don’t have health?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/business/global/a-chinese-city-moves-to-limit-new-cars.html?hp

Chinese eco pilots find habits hard to change

Low-carbon city programmes are doing well on public awareness, but survey finds little evidence of greener habits

• Zhang Chun and Wang Haotong for ChinaDialogue, part of the Guardian Environment Network
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 August 2012 10.44 EDT

Only a small proportion of people in China's low-carbon pilot cities are living "low-carbon lives" in spite of widespread knowledge of the green agenda, a year-long survey of household energy consumption carried out by Beijing-based NGO Green Beagle suggests.

The study of habits in eight Chinese cities identified as green leaders by China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, involved 3,200 questionnaires and interviews with three to five households in different income brackets in each region. The NGO wanted to find out if inhabitants of these places had heard about "low-carbon" lifestyles and whether they were making efforts to reduce their own environmental footprint through their daily choices.

Under the "low-carbon" pilot scheme, which launched in 2010, the eight cities – Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding – are trying to find ways of reducing carbon emissions while continuing to grow economically (Beijing and Shanghai were added to the list in 2011, but are treated as a separate category). Five provinces are charged with the same task: Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shanxi and Yunnan. If they perform well, they will be treated as an example for the rest of the country.

Green Beagle found that public knowledge of the low-carbon agenda and the green actions people can take is already widespread in these cities thanks to television coverage, advertising campaigns, internet forums and print media. Almost 99% of respondents had heard about climate-change and were aware of the concept of a low-carbon lifestyle.

But, while most respondents had heard about "low-carbon" ideas, and some expressed support for the principle of reducing their cities' carbon emissions, only a minority were implementing these ideals. Out of 135 people polled in Tianjin, only 10 said they would avoid buying a car for the sake of protecting the environment, for example. Of respondents who already owned a car, 62% said they use it for daily life and 31% for long-distance journeys.

Household energy use was – unsurprisingly – closely correlated with income, social status and local energy supply. An average settled family in a southern coastal city, for example, was found to have between four and six air-conditioning units, all set to 26 degrees, while a migrant worker in the same city had none. Some families said they could afford to jet overseas for a high-carbon holiday, while others reported that time off alone is a luxury and they have little opportunity to travel.

The researchers also noted a disparity between the awareness of the low-carbon agenda of different groups: average wage earners have no alternative to cheap public transport, but do not consider it a low-carbon choice. White collar workers, meanwhile, said they tend to travel by car, as it is convenient or necessary for their work, even though they know it is not low-carbon.

Green Beagle's report is the latest addition to a growing literature on China's energy-use patterns. Recent years have seen a string of studies come out about the structural difference in energy use across Chinese households, from researchers including Zhi Jing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Between the early 1980s and late 1990s, the percentage of energy sourced in the countryside being consumed by rural households (as opposed to servicing the cities) fell from 80.3% to 50%. Meanwhile, the overall contribution of biomass to household energy supplies fell from around 80% to 70%, while electricity and coal use increased. But rural energy use is limited by economic factors, and the energy structure changes quite slowly. In comparison, transportation and housing account for most of the energy consumption of urban dwellers.

In China's reform era, uneven economic development has also created something of a north-south divide in energy consumption. In the economically developed south, gas and electricity came into use early and spread quickly – by 1996, electricity was common in the villages of Jiangsu and other southern provinces, while in northern herding areas, most rural household consumption was still for the sake of survival.

The huge differences across regions are still reflected in the types and quantities of energy consumed energy. Low-carbon advocacy should take this into account, while targeted energy-saving measures are needed from government.

Energy consumption habits have an impact on the environment, mostly determined by the type of energy used. Rural households mostly get their energy from biomass. Between 1991 and 2008, carbon emissions from Chinese agriculture rose by an average of 2.59% annually and accounted for 10.43% of total emissions. More than 90% of those emissions were due to the burning of straw, which happens largely to provide household energy. This kind of energy use creates huge carbon emissions, damages the land's ability to recover, and results in the loss of soil, water and fertility.

In the cities, energy sources are more diverse. Electricity, coal and natural gas are used in the home, while transportation is powered by diesel, petrol and natural gas. Every aspect of urban life uses energy and creates emissions. Individual energy use and efficiency is determined by factors like how frequently and for how long residents shower, what they eat, how they travel, how they entertain themselves, how they work and so on. Wasting food, electricity and water damages the interests of all and, over time, has an irreversible impact on the environment. In the two decades from 1979 to 1999, the carbon footprint of food eaten in Beijing households increased by 28.5% as consumption of meat, which is carbon-intensive to produce, soared, supplementing or replacing grains.

Green Beagle also drew attention to the "lock-in effect". Once large items of equipment and infrastructure are in place, the associated energy sources and efficiencies will remain fixed. A neighbourhood's energy supply will also determine what kind of fuel households use, meaning that any attempt to build a low-carbon community has to be closely integrated with urban planning, the authors of the study said. Meanwhile, huge amounts of energy are consumed in the manufacture of everyday goods, and there is a real need for energy-saving and emissions-reduction in factories, at the same time as insulating low-income families from extra costs.

The external environment will of course influence consumption habits. With most external environmental factors – resource availability, level of economic development, energy and technology prices, market conditions, environmental policy – the government must take the lead.

The Green Beagle survey shows that, in the face of social norms and everyday inconveniences, individuals find it hard to change their habits – they don't see the impact of their choices and often feel powerless and isolated. This suggests that a top-down, policy-led approach is suitable for reforming household energy use. Appropriate economic levers can be applied to encourage low-carbon choices, with subsidies or awards for low-income, low-carbon families and high-income, high-carbon families subject to some type of carbon tax to rein in their consumption.

At community level, green offices, organic markets and low-carbon advocacy can all increase monitoring and supervision within communities and increase the sense of achievement for those who manage to live low-carbon lives.

• Zhang Chun is an intern at chinadialgue and Wang Haotong a Beijing-based journalist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/06/chinese-eco-pilots-habits?newsfeed=true

Christian Science Monitor

To save power, Bangladesh bans suits and ties
By Eoin O'Carroll | 09.05.09

In an inspiring display of sensibility, the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has ordered male government employees to stop wearing suits, jackets, and neckties.

In addition to eliminating pointless and uncomfortable decorative elements from men’s clothing, the move will help minimize the need for air conditioning. Accompanying the government’s laudable decision was an order not to turn air conditioners in government buildings below 75 degrees F.

According to the BBC, Bangladesh has been suffering from a major energy shortage, with daily blackouts as the state-owned power plants are unable to meet demand. The British news service reports that the plants’ output has not been able to keep up with the country’s economy, which has been growing 6 percent annually for the past five years.

Additionally, the energy sector has been plagued by allegations of corruption, which, if true, could possibly be exacerbated by the low morale that inevitably results from forcing workers to tie useless strips of fabric around their necks every day.

Under the new dress code – which applies even to the highest levels of government – men may also wear their shirts untucked, instead of stuffing the bottom portion into their pants for no good reason other than to conform to some arbitrary display of professionalism.

The BBC reports that the government plans to encourage private businesses to follow its example.

As can be expected, Sheikh Hasina was praised for her compassionate and pragmatic – albeit long overdue – change to the official dress code. Writing in The New Nation, an independent English-language news source in Bangladesh, columnist Maswood Alam Khan suggests that the new attire, in addition to saving energy, might help restore a sense of national pride.

Wearing suits and stuffing our necks with a tie, in spite of ourselves, is a sartorial fashion we have borrowed from the British who were our colonial rulers. Our ancestors enjoyed punishing themselves by mimicking the British style and fashion, which was seen as synonymous with being chic and modern. They wanted in vain to be ‘brown sahibs’! So, as a legacy our office executives-the fashion victims-now find it prestigious to chill their car and office chamber to [64 degrees F.] so that they and their guests can wear pinstripe suits and silk ties wrapped over the designer shirts when the weather outside is extremely hot and humid and when the general people are sweating and panting due to power outage.

Despised by all but the most inveterate masochists, the necktie traces its origins to the uniforms of 16th century Croatian mercenaries in the employ of King Louis XIII of France. In a sartorial choice that has baffled and dismayed people ever since, upper-class Parisians adopted the mercenaries’ knotted scarf, which they called a “cravat” – a mispronunciation of the word “Croat” probably caused by a restricted larynx.

The cravat eventually “evolved” into the modern necktie, which was eventually paired with an outfit consisting of a heavy jacket and flimsy slacks, a design that guarantees that its wearer will be uncomfortable regardless of the ambient temperature.

The predecessor to the modern suit and tie emerged in Britain the early 1800s, with Beau Brummel, an influential fashion arbiter and friend of the Prince Regent, the future George IV. Brummel, who claimed to have spent two hours getting ready each morning, can also be blamed for introducing the expectation that men should have to shave their faces every single day.

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/09/05/to-save-power-bangladesh-bans-suits-and-ties/

A How-To Manual for Large Cities to Build Climate Resilience

NEW YORK, New York, August 6, 2008 (ENS) - With eight of the world’s 10 largest cities located near rivers or seas and exposed to such climate hazards as flooding, sea level rise, and hurricanes, a United Nations-World Bank report released today offers advice on how to make these population centers more resistant to the effects of global warming.

"Climate Resilient Cities" is intended as a primer for East Asia and the Pacific to curb vulnerability to climate change and strengthen disaster risk management in the face of the frequent and extreme weather events expected as the planet's temperature climbs.  "Ultimately, the cities hardest hit by climate change will be the ones least prepared," said Neeraj Prasad, the World Bank’s lead environmental specialist for the region.

Jointly produced by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the World Bank and its Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, the report urges managers to protect their cities sooner rather than later.

Downtown Mumbai fronts onto the Arabian Sea.(Photo by Jasvipul Chawla)

With an estimated population of 13.6 million, India's financial capital Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is the world's largest city.

Located at the mouth of Ulhas River on India's Arabian Sea coast, Mumbai is among the cities most vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, says a 2007 study published by the Institute for Environment and Development.  Mumbai was listed along with Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Jakarta and Dhaka as cities where millions are at risk of heavy storms and flooding.

"Ninety percent of disasters are already weather-related, and more intense and frequent hurricanes and floods are predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says Salvano Briceño, director of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. "We cannot wait. We already have the tools to reduce the impact of climate-related hazards and we need to use them now."

Briceño points to the Hyogo Framework for Action adopted by 168 governments in Hyogo, Japan in 2005 as a tool that offers practical and efficient measures to reduce the impact of disasters, including extreme climate events.  These measures include not building houses in floodplains or close to coastal areas and instead building on higher ground with resilient materials able to sustain the force of winds and water pressure.

Protecting critical infrastructures such as schools, hospitals and roads; and building early warning systems and shelters for people who must evacuate are some of the common sense measures included in the Hyogo Framework.  Briceño urged governments to start sourcing adequate funds for adaptation to climate change, as many vulnerable countries will be unable to pay for adaptation out of their own budgets.

Shanghai, China, the world's fourth largest city, lies at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which empties into the East China Sea. (Photo by Nat Meyr)

The UN points to estimates predicting that for every one meter (39 inch) rise in sea levels, there will be a corresponding two percent drop in a country's Gross Domestic Product due to the decrease in fresh water, damage to agriculture and fisheries, disrupted tourism and reduced energy security, among other consequences.

The concentration of people in cities increases their susceptibility to damage from the warming climate. The study finds that East Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable areas.

"We have seen events like the 2004 tsunami, and recently Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and a typhoon in the Philippines," said Jitendra Shah, who coordinates the World Bank’s environmental program in Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand.

The report advises cities to strategize now to adapt to future climate change and to slash greenhouse gas emissions.  Some of the recommended measures are simple, such as raising awareness of global warming’s impact, promoting the use of bicycles and increasing the use of energy-efficient public transport vehicles.

Other measures entail legislation and increased investment, such as providing alternatives to fossil fuels and improving public infrastructure.  "Every city is different," said Prasad. "There is no cookie-cutter solution to climate change impacts. It’s important that you are able to anticipate the likely impacts on your city and make the decision to deal with that."

Seeking to lead by example in addressing climate change, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has initiated a "Cool UN" policy to reduce energy consumption and the shrink the carbon footprint of United Nations Headquarters building in New York City.  Lauched on July 30, the campaign will reduce the use of air conditioning, cut greenhouse gas emissions and save money by raising the temperature of the headquarters building by 5° F.

During a month-long trial period in August, the thermostats would be turned up from 72° F (22.2° C) to 77° F (25° C) in most parts of the Secretariat building and from 70° F (21.1° C) to 75° F (23.9° C) in the conference rooms, UN officials said.  Accompanied by a relaxed business casual dress code, the UN will shut down the buildings’ heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems on weekends.

The initiative is expected to save about 4.4 billion pounds of steam during the month of August, or the equivalent of 300 tons of carbon dioxide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions - equal to a 10 percent reduction in energy consumption.  It is expected to produce cash savings of $100,000.  In winter, the process could be reversed, with a 5° F reduction in thermostat settings.  The campaign is expected to reduce emissions by 2,800 tons of carbon dioxide annually.  Secretary-General Ban hopes the initiative will encourage staff to explore other innovative ideas for making the United Nations a model in the global fight against climate change.

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