CONTENTS
- The Earth and Its People
- Pollution and Health Risks
- Feeding a Future World
- Freshwater: Lifeblood of the Planet
- Oceans in Decline
- Forests: The Earth's Lungs
- Endangered Biodiversity
- Toward a Livable Future
- Improving Energy Efficiency
- Planning Cities Better
- Ending Environmentally Destructive Subsidies
- Adopting Water Resources Management
- Saving Forests
- Accomplishing a Second Green Revolution
- Managing Coastal Zones and Ocean Fisheries
- Curbing Pollution, Improving Health
- Safeguarding Biodiversity
- Stabilizing World Population
HIGHLIGHTS
- Can development be sustained?
- Scientists point to environmental distress syndrome
- Cities grow ever larger
- Global temperatures rising
- Are we setting the stage for our own extinction?
- World population must stabilize
Population Reports is published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202-4012, USA
Fall 2000
Series M, Number 15
Special Topics
Planning Cities Better
Massive migration and rising population densities have made effective city planning and urban environmental management both a necessity and an increasing challenge. Effective urban planning and management require strong local government supported by active citizen groups (257).
Curitiba, Brazil, provides an example of effective urban environmental management sustained for over two-and-a-half decades. The World Bank has supported the Curitiba effort since the 1970s (214). Early in its planning process the city set aside large tracts of land and allowed poor squatters to build low-cost housing there. The city provided sewerage and water at a price that residents could afford (32, 156).
 Paraná Turismo |
| Curitiba, Brazil, provides an example of good urban management sustained for over two-and-a-half decades. Planning cities better in the face of rapid population growth requires strong government commitment and support from citizen groups. |
The city of Curitiba also introduced public transportation to link outlying areas with the city center through five primary roadways, built like spokes on a wheel. The result was less pollution and more economic growth, since people could travel farther to work by mass transit without as many private vehicles clogging the roads (32, 156, 171). In addition, Curitiba has achieved twice the amount of green area per person recommended by the UN (32).
Citizen action groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also can do much to improve living conditions. For example, in Orangi, a slum in Karachi, Pakistan, an NGO that mobilized the community was able to provide 70,000 households with sewerage and drains at one-seventh the unit cost that municipal authorities would have charged. The NGO also helped to obtain a low-interest loan to pay for the construction materials (198).
City governments also can enforce legislation that regulates air and water pollution. Nearly every city in the world has set limits on air and water pollution, but these regulations are rarely enforced. Clamping down on major polluters would yield many health benefits. Pollution control can be phased in to allow industries to adopt pollution abatement technologies and reduce waste through recycling or reuse of resources. Cities also could offer tax inducements for avoiding and for cleaning up pollution (198).
Ending Environmentally Destructive Subsidies
Worldwide, governments spend between US$650 billion and US$900 billion every year to subsidize environmentally destructive practices in agriculture, energy, and transportation (47, 196). Wasteful subsidies abound. Rice growers in Southeast Asia over-irrigate their fields because subsidies cover most of the costs of water, even though the amount of water used exceeds the natural recharge rate of many aquifers. Drivers in California use congested highways because road building and repair is subsidized more than public transportation. Uneconomical and highly polluting brown coal is still mined in Germany to keep miners employed (47, 195, 196).
As an alternative to wasteful subsidies, governments can consider the following:
Environmental taxes. Taxing activities that harm the environment can promote more sustainable resource use. In Malaysia the government began to tax leaded fuel to make it more expensive than unleaded fuel. As a result, unleaded gasoline has taken more than 60% of the market. Similarly, Costa Rica has placed a 15% duty on oil products in order to pass some of the costs of road construction on to drivers (195).
Tradable permits. Introducing permits to limit exploitation of public resources can help reduce waste. For instance, Chile has auctioned off permits to regulate fisheries and water use on irrigated farms. Nearly all of New Zealand's fisheries are regulated by permit systems that, among other things, limit the number of fishing vessels allowed to fish and also limit the types of species they can harvest.
The US has become a leader in tradable permits to control emissions of sulfur dioxide, a main ingredient in acid rain. The system, which was introduced in 1990, limits sulfur emissions after 2000 to half the 1980 level. Companies that reduce pollution below industry standards can sell credits to companies that are above the limits. This initiative created a US$1.2 billion a year industry in pollution credits and has spurred companies to reduce sulfur emissions (195, 196).
Getting the price right. Phasing out subsidies that encourage waste of resources should be a goal of every government. Getting the price right is a vital step in natural resource management, as in other sectors. A study of three oil exporting countries—Algeria, Iran, and Nigeria—found that removing subsidies to domestic use and bringing the price of domestic oil up to world levels would improve the efficiency of domestic oil use, resulting in savings of 10% to 18% of current production, which could then be sold abroad (47).
