Posts tagged with 'air quality'
By using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GPC) to determine the sources of the city’s emissions, Rio de Janeiro was able to set realistic targets to reducing transport emissions. Photo by EMBARQ Brasil/Flickr.
Greening bus fleets requires a range of strategies
In 2012 alone, Latin America saw 131,000 preventable air pollution-related deaths. To reduce emissions and improve air quality, it’s essential that public transit fleets—like buses—become more fuel-efficient. Adopting cleaner fuels—like natural gas or low-sulfur diesel—and upgrading to technologies that produce ...
China's Clean Air Challenge
China’s clean air challenge: Public unrest forges the path ahead
This is the second installment of the China’s Clean Air Challenge series, exclusive to TheCityFix. This series examines the increasing social, environmental, and economic impacts of serious air quality issues in Chinese cities, and investigates the source of emissions and ...
London and congestion charging
Pricing congestion to invest in sustainable transport: lessons from London
In 2003, London adopted a program of congestion pricing that now places a roughly $17 (£11.50) daily fee on motor vehicles entering central London. The effort was expected to reduce car traffic, air pollution, and emissions in the area, and ...
Active transport and SDGs
Why are the two most sustainable forms of transport missing from the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
Walking and cycling may be the two most basic modes of transport, but they may also be the most promising for a sustainable future. In a car-filled world, it’s the people who use their own two feet or two wheels that ...
Lahore's urban roads
Lahore’s roads to nowhere
Lahore, Pakistan is on a dangerous path toward a future of urban highways, underpasses, and flyovers that will eventually suffocate the city. By prioritizing car-centric infrastructure through new development contracts, the city is making traffic congestion, air pollution, and road ...
2015 car free day Bogota Colombia
Friday Fun: Bogotá, Colombia celebrates its 15th annual car-free day
Yesterday, Bogotá, Colombia celebrated the 15th anniversary of its annual car-free day. Between 5am and 7:30pm, residents left their cars behind and turned to a variety of other modes of transport—a symbolic act that 63 percent of citizens institutionalized through ...
Londrina, Brazil. Photo by Mariana Gil/EMBARQ Brasil.
Transport plays a key role in urban air quality
The city is like an organism, and the swift movement of people and goods is the oxygen that sustains its well-being. When this circulation is inhibited, it significantly compromises the quality of urban life. For example, private cars account for ...
A type of fine particulate matter, black carbon causes millions of premature deaths in cities worldwide and is considered the second most important human emission contributing to climate change. Photo by Eduardo M.C./Flickr.
Cities fighting black carbon to achieve public health and climate benefits
Black carbon – a short-lived climate pollutant emitted into the air by incomplete combustion of fuels – is a both major contributor to climate change and a concern for public health in cities. At the global scale, black carbon has ...
As national leaders prepare plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions at COP20, they can look to sustainable transport for win-win solutions that curb emissions while generating jobs, boosting economic growth, and improving public health. Photo by Associacao Ciclocidade/Flickr.
Low-carbon urban transport boosts social and economic development
This week in Lima, Peru, national-level decision makers, mayors, business leaders, international finance institutions, and civil society actors come together for the COP20 climate negotiations, and the world is expecting progress towards an international climate agreement expected to be reached ...
Sustainable transport plays an important role in helping Chinese cities address their debilitating air pollution. Photo by Da Yang/Flickr.
China’s clean air challenge: The health impacts of transport emissions
This is the first post of the China’s Clean Air Challenge series, exclusive to TheCityFix. This series examines the increasing social, environmental, and economic impacts of the serious air quality issue in Chinese cities, and investigates the source of emissions ...
Would you be happier commuting on a bike path floating on London’s Thames River? Photo by Chris R/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Is the future for London’s cyclists on the river, the street, or both?
TheCityFix recently examined some of the most innovative bicycling infrastructure projects in cities worldwide, but a recent proposal for an eight-mile floating bike path on London’s River Thames might top these in originality. The “Thames Deckway” would cut through the heart of the ...
Urbanization is a driver of both economic growth and global climate change. Between 2011 and 2030, the urban areas of the world are expected to add 1.4 billion people, including 276 million in China and 218 million in India. Photo by Ken Marshall/Flickr.
How cities can save trillions, curb climate change, and improve public health
No strategy for reducing the impacts of global climate change is complete without addressing the challenge of urbanization. Cities contribute about 70% of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite only accounting for 2% of global land area. Reducing this environmental impact may ...
By prioritizing sustainable transport solutions, Beijing can shift away from car culture and improve quality of life for its rapidly growing population. Photo by Philip/Flickr.
The making of a livable city: Inspiration for a sustainable, healthy Beijing
Each year, 440,000 people move to Beijing in search of economic opportunity and better lives. Their rural to urban migration is a driver of economic growth, part of a larger plan to catalyze economic development through urbanization across China. However, ...
Raahgiri is promoting sustainable, active transport in the capital of India. Photo by Raahgiri Day, New Delhi/Facebook.
Friday Fun: Delhi announces Raahgiri at the center of week-long Independence Day celebrations
Delhi’s government just announced a week of Independence Day celebrations culminating in a Raahgiri event at Chandni Chowk. Raahgiri Day first came to Delhi in July as a weekly event that closes city streets to cars to celebrate walking, biking, ...
Solar roadways have the potential to decrease carbon emissions and increase the potential of electric cars, all by harnessing the power of the sun. Photo by James Rintamaki/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Following the solar-grid road to sustainable mobility
We’ve come to the convergence of two parallel stories in technology: it is now cheaper to get energy from solar power than from coal-fired power plants in the United States, and everyday citizens are increasingly able to prototype and cheaply manufacture hi-tech goods. ...
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