Claudia López was elected mayor of Bogotá in October 2019, after campaigning as a Green Alliance candidate with a focus on climate change and other environmental issues. She is the city’s first female mayor and first openly gay mayor.
Mayor López was a senator of the Republic of Colombia from 2014 to 2018 and became a prominent figure in the fight against corruption; she was the vice presidential candidate for the Green Alliance party in the 2018 presidential election.
Prior to her political career, López worked as a journalist, researcher, and political analyst. She studied finance, public administration, and political science at the Universidad Externado de Colombia, and went on to earn advanced degrees in the United States: a master’s degree in public administration and urban policy from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University.
López spoke with Senior Fellow Anthony Flint by video as she was on her way to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in the fall; they were joined by Martim Smolka, director of the Lincoln Institute’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean.
Their discussion, edited for length and clarity, is the final installment of a special 75th anniversary Mayor’s Desk series, spotlighting the chief executives of cities that share a history with the Lincoln Institute. It is also available as a Land Matters podcast.
ANTHONY FLINT:Your victory suggests that residents are ready for serious action with regard to the environment and climate change. Do you feel you have a mandate, and what are your top priorities in terms of climate?
CLAUDIA LÓPEZ: Well, there is no doubt that I have a clear mandate from Bogotá’s people. During my campaign, I [made a public commitment] to environment and climate change issues. We have a deep social debt and a deep environmental debt that we have to pay. After the pandemic, the social debt will be harder to address than the environmental debt, because the pandemic has doubled unemployment and poverty in my city. On the other hand, on the environmental issues, I am still very optimistic that post-pandemic opportunities will increase.
We have to adapt, that’s our mandate. In the context of Colombia, we have three general issues. One of them, and the major contributor to climate change, is deforestation. This is an issue mainly for rural Colombia, and is by far the largest contributor of Colombia to the environmental crisis and the climate emergency. The second factor is fossil fuels. Transportation is the second largest contributor of Colombia to the climate emergency. The third is related to waste management. Bogotá has a great impact in transportation, and we have a great impact in waste management.
What are we doing? Migrating from a monodependent diesel bus system toward a multimodal system based on a metro, a regional train system, cable system, and also buses . . . [and] transforming waste management . . . into a recycling, green, circular economy, so that we transform waste into clean energy. Making the city greener. Hardening rural and green areas, that’s basically what building cities is about. What we need to do in the 21st century, I think, is the opposite. We need to take advantage of every public space that we have, making every effort not only to plant trees, not only to plant gardens, but to transform urban areas that we had before, gray areas that we had before, into green areas.
We’re lucky that we have the legal mandate to propose a new master plan, the POT [Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial]. We can include these changes and investments, not in a four-year-term government plan, but in a 14-year city plan. We are trying to take advantage of this moment.
AF:This year marks the centenary of the Colombian value capture tool contribución de valorización, or betterment contributions. What is your vision for building on that tradition?
CL: I think that’s critical. The most important financial tool we have for sustainable development is land value capture. In our POT, we are including not only the traditional betterment contribution, but also many other ways to use land value capture. [Ed. note: Betterment contributions are fees paid by property owners or developers to defray the cost of public improvements or services from which they benefit.]
We have at least seven different tools, financial tools, all related. Basically, we [determine] the value that’s going to be generated by a transformation of land use and we agree with the developer, so that the developers don’t pay us in cash, as in the betterment contribution, but pay [by] building the infrastructure and the urban and social equipment that new development will need.
This is not about having lovely maps with marvelous plans, this is about having the money to redistribute the cost and benefit of sharing and receiving. This is actually what I think urban planning is: making sure that either through public investments or through land value capture or through private investments, we ensure an equitable and sustainable share of the cost and benefits of building the city. That’s the role of the government, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve here.
AF:I’d like to turn now to the topic of crime, and ask you how has the problem of crime had an effect on the perception of the city and public space in the city in particular?
CL: It has a huge impact, of course. The more crime you have in public spaces, as a fact or as a perception, the less well-being you have as a city. What makes a city safer? The first thing I think is to make the city sustainable, and that means greener, and that means more equitable.
My top priority to make Bogotá safer is not to add cameras and technologies. It is to make sure that Bogotá has the capacity to provide fair and legal employment for our population, particularly for our youth. I think that the social roots of security are more important.
One thing that I’m very excited and very proud that we’re building into our POT and our land use development plan is that we are including criteria for women and caregivers as criteria for urban development in our city. If you can make a city safer for women, if you can make a city safer for kids, that will be a city safer for everyone.
Now the second thing, as important as transportation, infrastructure, and social infrastructure in the 21st century, is digital infrastructure. We are going to extend fibra óptica, the best, fastest internet, to every neighborhood in our city, to every school in our city. That’s crucial to make a more sustainable, more equitable, and safer city. At this moment in the post-pandemic time, we’re having a severe backlash in insecurity in our cities. It’s not only in Bogotá, it’s global. Unfortunately, higher unemployment and higher poverty always correlate with higher insecurity.
AF:What are the policies that are working to make life better in informal settlement, such as upgrading or infrastructure, and what in your view needs to change?
CL: We have at least three innovations included in our land use plan that I’m very proud of. As you know, in Latin America, roughly half of our cities has been built informally. This land use development plan is the first development plan that clearly assumes that, accepts that, and instead of doing a land use plan that is only useful for the formal city, for half of the city, this is a plan that recognizes that 45 percent of our city is informal.
It creates an urban norm, urban rules, and urban institution to help people improve their homes in the informal city, and to improve their neighborhoods. It is including all people within the land use development plan.
We have in Bogotá an institution called curaduría, which provides urban licensing and construction licenses. We are creating a public curaduría for the informal city. There’s no way that you can impose on half of the city an urban [standard] they don’t have any chance to meet. We [also] have the Plan Terrazas, which says, after we improve your first floor, after we improve it properly, then you can build your second floor, for example, or you can build some [space for] economic activity in your first floor. You will improve your housing, but you will [also] improve your income. For poor people, housing is not only the place they live, it’s also the place where they produce and they generate income.
The second thing that I think is very important is that we created this caring system, particularly thinking about women. Half of the economy is informal. It’s not formal jobs with pension funds and health insurance. They don’t have care when you are sick or when you are [older]. Who takes care of the sick and elderly? It’s the unpaid women who do that: 1.2 million women in Bogotá don’t have jobs, don’t have education, don’t have time for themselves because they are caregivers. For the first time in Bogotá, we are reserving land for social infrastructure to provide institutional health care. For children, for women, for elders, for people with disabilities, so that we can relieve and free up time for women, so they can access time to rest. They don’t have a free week ever in their life.
We’re trying to balance. I think the development in Bogotá has been incredibly unbalanced, with [much of] the advantage on the developer side. Of course, the developers need profitability, and we are trying to find the equilibrium point.
AF:The Lincoln Institute’s work in Latin America, including Colombia, has been such a big part of our global reach. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary, could you reflect on how that presence has been helpful in the region?
I think it has been incredibly helpful really. I [have worked] with the United Nations and with other organizations, and different governments in Latin America. There’s always a specialist or academic person or professional person who has been trained by the Lincoln Institute. There’s a huge network of people thinking, researching, innovating, putting out these debates, which is incredibly important.
In my own experience, I cannot tell you how useful all the things that you taught me have been, on land value capture, for example, on land use development, on being aware of how land and urban value is created. Why this is a publicly created thing, and why we need to use all the instruments we have to capture that value and to redistribute it in a more equitable way to everybody in the city. To Martim Smolka, Maria Mercedes, and everybody in the Lincoln Institute, I cannot be more grateful, and the network of professionals and trainees and academic people and the research that they support on this topic, particularly in Latin America, is incredibly useful.
This interview is also available as an episode of the Land Matters podcast.
Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor to Land Lines.
Image: Mayor López speaks at a climate event at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. Credit: Office of the Mayor.
New Book “Infrastructure Economics and Policy” Offers an Essential Guide to Smart Public Investment
By Lincoln Institute Staff, December 15, 2021
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Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from “Investing for the Future,” published July 22, 2021.
As governments consider major infrastructure proposals, the Lincoln Institute has published a new book that will help policy makers achieve a greater return on public investments. Edited by José A. Gómez-Ibáñez and Zhi Liu, Infrastructure Economics and Policy: International Perspectives includes contributions from 30 leading international academics and practitioners on topics such as project appraisal, financing, governance, climate change, and technology.
The book comes out at a time when governments of many countries are considering infrastructure as a policy instrument to stimulate national economies that have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The book offers case studies, data, and analyses that can help governments evaluate infrastructure proposals.
It includes the following six takeaways to consider in any infrastructure investment package, based on extensive research into the ingredients for success:
Think Long-Term Growth, Not Quick Stimulus. Contrary to conventional wisdom, infrastructure investment is not an effective way to provide a quick economic stimulus. It takes many years to secure the permissions and funding necessary to begin construction on a new project, and the sophisticated equipment and training required by modern construction means such projects do not offer pathways to quick employment for large numbers of unskilled workers. Infrastructure Economics and Policy explains why infrastructure investments offer few short-term impacts, even when the long-term economic impacts are clearly positive.
Shovel-Worthy Matters, Not Shovel-Ready. The impacts of infrastructure projects depend greatly on their quality. Many infrastructure agencies are required to prepare cost-benefit analyses of the major projects or policies they are considering and of the relevant alternatives to those projects. However, few governments (if any) require the agencies to adopt the alternative with the highest net benefit. This is often because of political considerations, including concerns that cost-benefit analysis might not adequately reflect the goals of fairness and equity. While cost-benefit analyses are not perfect, they are one of the best tools available for evaluating infrastructure proposals, and agencies should be cautious about departing significantly from the option with the highest net benefit without good reason.
Beware of Over-Confidence and Over-Optimism. A landmark analysis of some 2,000 infrastructure projects found that actual costs were significantly higher than forecast, while usage was significantly lower, as Bent Flyvbjerg and Dirk W. Bester explore in a chapter of the book. The authors identify several well-known behavioral limitations that lead to these outcomes, particularly overconfidence bias and optimism bias. Fighting these biases is difficult because they are so deeply ingrained in human nature, but the book describes measures that can help, such as holding forecasters legally accountable or using independent audits.
Take Equity Seriously. The costs and benefits of infrastructure projects are often distributed inequitably. On the one hand, major infrastructure facilities such as highways and power plants are often built in locations where the negative impacts are felt disproportionately by low-income residents and people of color. On the other hand, the lack of access to basic infrastructure, particularly in the developing world, impairs quality of life and contributes to inequality. Governments need to take both problems seriously and enact complementary policies to address them.
Consider Governance Challenges. State and local governments have historically been deeply involved in regulating both private and government-owned infrastructure due to important concerns including access, siting, and protecting against monopolization. However, the advent of a major new infrastructure program—particularly one focused on decarbonizing the energy system to address climate change—will increase the role of the national government. National governments are uniquely positioned to invest in new technologies that require collective action, and to mitigate the economic impact of climate change policies—for example, compensating owners of fossil fuel plants and other assets that lose their value. These and other governance challenges related to infrastructure may prove even more difficult than the financial challenges that current debates focus on.
Invest for the Future and Address Radical Uncertainties. In the face of radical uncertainties including climate change, the pandemic, automation, and the emerging sharing economy, governments must not only fix deteriorating infrastructure, but also invest in a new generation of infrastructure that is climate-resilient and takes advantage of new technologies. This transformation will require overcoming significant institutional barriers, assessing the pros and cons of the new technologies, and putting an effective change management process in place.
Sustainably built infrastructure is indispensable to resilient, equitable, and livable communities and regions worldwide. Through in-depth analysis, Infrastructure Economics and Policy questions the conventional wisdom about several issues, from the most efficient levels of congestion charges on routes into city centers to the belief that privatization greatly affects the performance of infrastructure. With chapters covering land value capture and other funding mechanisms; the role of infrastructure in urban form, economic performance, and quality of life, especially for disinvested communities; and other essential concepts, this new book offers evidence-based solutions and policy considerations for officials in government agencies and private companies that oversee infrastructure services, for students, and for policy-oriented lay readers alike.
The Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) recently co-organized a daylong discussion about climate and energy as part of the Beijing Forum, an annual international academic event co-sponsored by Peking University, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.
The “Pathways to Decarbonizing the Planet of Cities” subforum featured scholars and policy makers from China and other countries, including Professor A. Michael Spence of New York University, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and Dr. Jun Ma, cochair of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group. Jointly organized with Peking University’s School of Urban and Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Institute, the conference was livestreamed in both Chinese and English, attracting nearly 8,000 viewers.
Spence delivered a keynote speech on carbon, energy, and urbanization, exploring the relationship between carbon reduction and economic growth and assessing current opportunities in the realms of energy and global collaboration. “While the challenges are enormous, there is an increasing array of low-cost, widely available, powerful tools and technologies available now, and there will be more to come,” he said. “That give us some hope that we can actually achieve” climate objectives.
Spence also analyzed potential challenges related to implementing climate regulations and commitments. At the international level, he used China and India as examples to argue that the appropriate paths and timelines of emissions goals should vary according to the pace of each country’s growth and development. He stressed the importance of transferable, cross-border technologies and finance for global climate success.
“We’ve got huge challenges, we’ve got mechanisms in the form of carbon trading, we’ve got commitment from people, and we’ve got powerful tools,” Spence concluded. “I think the big question mark is the level of international cooperation that’s going to accompany this, and it’s starting to look like it’s moving in the right direction.”
Dr. Zhi Liu, director of the PLC, moderated a roundtable discussion with panelists including climatologist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, professor of Environmental Science at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and former vice chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Prof. Jun Fu, academic Dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development of Peking University; Ma, who is also codirector of the Macro and Green Finance Lab of the National School of Development at Peking University; and Spence.
During the discussion, Spence analyzed the effects of past energy policy implementations and proposed that climate change and economic development should be considered as a whole. Ypersele described the positive outcomes of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, including awareness of the urgent need to take action, the formulation of carbon trading market standards, international compensation mechanisms, and the responsibilities and willingness of developed countries to invest in climate change adaptation. Director Jun Ma discussed the development of green finance on a global scale, pointing out that China’s green investment scope includes decarbonization projects, environmental protection projects, and various biodiversity-related projects. Professor Jun Fu discussed the unique challenges that China faces in decarbonization, including the respective structures of its energy sector, which relies heavily on coal, and its government. The guest speakers agreed that they were cautiously optimistic that the world could meet the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees. Jun Fu recommended an approach swiftly endorsed by the other panelists: “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”
At the conclusion of the subforum, Liu noted that he believed the world is paying more attention to climate change and carbon neutrality, but the road ahead is still difficult. The day’s discussions shed more light on the path toward urban carbon neutrality, he added. “I feel a bit more optimistic and hopeful,” he noted at the end of the roundtable, “and I hope that our audience comes away with a bit more optimism and more hope about our future planet of cities.”
Shenmin Liu is a Research Analyst with the Land and Water Conservation Program and China Program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Image: Participants in the Beijing Subforum roundtable included, clockwise from top left, Dr. Zhi Liu, director of the Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy; Professor Jun Fu, dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development of Peking University; Nobel-winning economist A. Michael Spence of New York University; Professor Jun Ma of Peking University, cochair of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group; and climatologist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of the University of Leuven, Belgium, a former vice chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Credit: PLC.
Land Matters Podcast
Season 2 Episode 9: Bogotá Mayor Claudia López, Breaking New Ground
By Anthony Flint, November 24, 2021
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Claudia López, mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, is confident the sprawling capital is ready to take action to confront climate change, despite the wearying effects of the pandemic and rising unemployment and poverty.
“There is no doubt that I have a clear mandate from Bogotá’s people” to act on the environment, López said in an interview for the Land Matters podcast, while she was en route to the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “I think we have a deep social debt, and a deep environmental debt that we have to pay now.”
The 51-year-old López, who was elected in October 2019 as the city’s first female mayor and also the first openly gay mayor, ran under Colombia’s Green Alliance party. Prior to her political career, she worked as a journalist and researcher, and brings a background in urban planning and public administration to the job.
To reduce emissions, López seeks to stop expansion of the urban periphery into forests and rural land, and to make it easier to get around the city with public transit, including gondolas, powered by renewable energy. She also wants to overhaul waste management, which relies heavily on unsustainable landfills.
At the same time, she says she remains committed to building equity and promoting economic opportunities for the metropolitan region’s 10 million residents, nearly half of whom live in informal settlements. Funding for urban amenities and social infrastructure, she says, can come from land value capture—harnessing some of the increased values associated with city-enabled urban development. That approach is part of a long tradition in Colombia; this year marks the centenary of the Colombian value capture tool,contribución de valorización or betterment contribution.
“Basically, we agree what’s going to be the value that’s going to be generated by the transformation of land use and we agree with the developer” to help build “the infrastructure and the urban and social equipment that new development will need,” she said.
“This is not about having lovely maps with marvelous plans,” she said. “This is actually what I think is urban planning—making sure that either through public investments or through land value capturing or through private investments, we ensure an equitable and sustainable share of the cost and benefits of building the city. That’s the role of the government, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”
One element of social infrastructure that López says could be transformative is providing support for an estimated 1.2 million women caregivers, essentially unpaid workers keeping families together.
“Half of the economy is informal, half of the jobs are informal. They don’t have pension funds. They don’t have health insurance. They don’t have care when you are sick or when you are (older). Who does that? It’s the unpaid care women who do that … who don’t have jobs, don’t have education, don’t have time for themselves because they are caregivers of others,” she said.
“We are reserving land for social infrastructure to provide care, institutionalized care, for children, for women, for elders, for people with disabilities, so that we can relieve and free time for women, so that they can access time to rest, first of all. They don’t have a free weekend ever in their life. (And) time to get education for themselves, care for themselves, and income generation opportunities.”
Other interventions are aimed at making life less onerous in informal settlement, including some relief from strict building codes and other regulations designed for the formal city, so that homeowners can build a second floor or run a business out of the first floor. “For poor people, housing in not only the place they live, it’s also the place where they produce and they generate income,” she said.
“We’re trying to balance. I think the development in Bogotá has been incredibly unbalanced. I mean, (much) of the advantage is on the developer side,” she said. “Of course, the developers need profitability … we are trying to find the equilibrium point.”
López saluted the Lincoln Institute’s long-running Latin America program for prompting informed discussion of land use issues in the region. “There’s a huge network of people thinking, researching, innovating, putting out these debates, which is incredibly important,” she said. “I cannot tell you how important, how useful has been all the things that you taught me before throughout the years on land value capturing, for example, on land use development, on being aware of how land and urban value is created.”
In this 75th anniversary year, the interview with López (also available as a Land Lines article) is the latest Q&A with chief executives in cities that share some history with the Lincoln Institute. Previous interviews feature the mayors of Cleveland, where founder John C. Lincoln got his start; Phoenix, where he founded the Lincoln Foundation 75 years ago; and Cambridge, site of the Lincoln Institute’s headquarters since 1974.
Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.
Image: Bogotá Mayor Claudia López. Credit: Mayor’s Office of Bogotá
Sortear la brecha
Por qué es crucial integrar la planificación del suelo y el agua para alcanzar un futuro más sostenible
Por Heather Hansman, July 31, 2021
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R
ick Schultz no detesta el césped categóricamente. Entiende que es útil en algunos lugares (seguro, tiene que haber espacios para practicar deportes), pero no es necesario en bulevares ni en amplios jardines en zonas áridas. Schultz es especialista en conservación del agua para el servicio público municipal de Castle Rock, Colorado.
Esta comunidad se encuentra en el límite meridional de la zona metropolitana de Denver, y es una de las de mayor crecimiento en el país. La población se disparó: pasó de tener 20.224 habitantes en 2000 a casi 72.000 hoy. El 70 por ciento del suministro de agua proviene de napas subterráneas no renovables, por lo que, a medida que la ciudad fue creciendo, los funcionarios debieron descifrar cómo estirar dicho suministro. En 2006, el servicio público y el departamento de planificación empezaron a colaborar para abordar este asunto.
La comunidad creó un plan hídrico de ordenamiento territorial que estableció pautas (por ejemplo, en qué lugares ameritaba tener césped) para delinear cómo y dónde se podía conservar agua sin dejar de atender el crecimiento. Schultz dice que debieron salirse de lo tradicional en regulaciones del uso del suelo y patrones de suministro de agua para buscar sostenibilidad a largo plazo, y redirigirse a partes discrepantes del proceso de planificación hacia el crecimiento inteligente: “Si queríamos obtener un resultado mejor, debíamos exceder un poco los límites”.
Desde entonces, Castle Rock ha implementado incentivos económicos, cambios regulatorios e incluso estrategias de ciencias de la conducta para procurar que el suministro de agua se considere de forma activa como parte de todo proceso de planificación y desarrollo. Desde ofrecer incentivos a desarrolladores que instalan sistemas de monitoreo del agua a exigir a los paisajistas que obtengan certificados profesionales en eficiencia hídrica, la ciudad hoy es líder en el sector, y tiene el reconocimiento del estado de Colorado por sus labores y por compartir las buenas prácticas con otras organizaciones.
En comunidades de todo el país, los planificadores y gestores hídricos están saliendo del aislamiento en el que suelen manejarse y hallan nuevas formas de trabajar en conjunto. En parte, esto se debe a que el cambio climático está provocando turbulencias en el sector hídrico en todo el país: sequías prolongadas, inundaciones e incendios perjudiciales, tormentas intensas y aumento del nivel del mar.
La urgencia por desarrollar resiliencia frente a estas amenazas es cada vez más evidente. También aumenta la colaboración, porque, si bien las comunidades se enfrentan a desafíos muy distintos y manejan incontables variaciones en sus estructuras municipales, muchas están redescubriendo una verdad única sobre el suelo y el agua: cuando se planifica para uno de ellos, se debe planificar para ambos.
“Los ingenieros hídricos empiezan a reconocer que no pueden ofrecer servicios sostenibles sin involucrar a la comunidad de desarrolladores, como planificadores, arquitectos y activistas comunitarios”, explica la Guía de políticas hídricas de la Asociación Americana de Planificación (APA 2016). “Los planificadores de vanguardia están pidiendo a los gestores hídricos asesoramiento en sus planes integrales, no solo para cumplir los objetivos medioambientales, sino también para añadir valor y habitabilidad, arraigados en la visión de la comunidad”.
Cómo llegamos aquí
Imagine la vista desde un avión al sobrevolar zonas rurales o los alrededores de una ciudad importante: los lindes en ángulos rectos de los campos agrícolas y haciendas contrastan con el serpenteo de los cauces de los ríos y las formas irregulares de los lagos y estanques. El suelo y el agua son recursos muy diferentes. Por lo tanto, se han gestionado de forma diferente y por separado.
La brecha entre la planificación del agua y el suelo tiene raíces profundas. Si bien el agua se vincula con todos los aspectos del crecimiento sostenible, desde la salud ecosistémica hasta la viabilidad económica, los planificadores y gestores hídricos trabajan por separado desde hace mucho tiempo. Desde juntas voluntarias de planificación en comunidades rurales hasta departamentos repletos de personal en las grandes ciudades, los planificadores se centran en el uso del suelo y el entorno construido. Los gestores hídricos, por su parte, ya sea que trabajen para un servicio público municipal, una empresa privada o un mayorista regional, se centran en suministrar agua limpia y apta.
“No se me ocurre ni una sola ciudad que contenga [la planificación y la gestión hídrica] en una sola división”, dice Ray Quay, investigador del Instituto Mundial de Sostenibilidad de la Universidad Estatal de Arizona, quien ha trabajado como vicedirector de planificación del suelo y de servicios hídricos en Phoenix, Arizona. Quay dice que las decisiones de desarrollo regionales y de las cuencas relacionadas con el crecimiento no suelen coincidir con el suministro de agua.
“Un ejemplo de una brecha clásica es que, al planificar el crecimiento, los planificadores suponen que el servicio público de agua podrá abastecerla, mientras que dichos servicios públicos no participan en las decisiones sobre el crecimiento comunitario, solo construyen infraestructura para atender el nuevo crecimiento que les llega”, añade Jim Holway, director del Centro Babbitt para Políticas de Suelo y Agua, creado en 2017 por el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo para fomentar la integración de la gestión hídrica y del suelo.
Ivana Kajtezovic, gerenta del programa de planificación de Tampa Bay Water, un servicio público mayorista regional de agua potable de Florida, confirma esta falta de coordinación. “Tampa Bay Water no tiene poder de decisión en el crecimiento de los condados y ciudades que atiende. Nuestra misión se limita a ofrecer agua potable, no importa el crecimiento ni su ritmo. Los condados y las ciudades que atendemos toman las decisiones sobre el uso del suelo”.
Según una encuesta hídrica de 2016 realizada por Water Working Group, de la APA, el 75 por ciento de los planificadores de uso del suelo no se sintió muy involucrado en la planificación y las decisiones hídricas (Stoker et al. 2018). “Sabemos que el suelo y el agua están relacionados, y nunca nadie discute que estén separados”, dice Philip Stoker, profesor adjunto de planificación en la Universidad de Arizona, quien realizó la encuesta de la APA. “La gente los separó, nada más”.
Esta separación, en parte, es el resultado de estructuras regulatorias históricas. “En una gran proporción, el agua se basa en leyes estatales, con alguna que otra intervención federal”, dice Anne Castle, ex subsecretaria de agua y ciencia del Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos. La gestión federal implica regulaciones como la Ley de Agua Limpia e involucra a organismos como la Oficina de Recuperación de los Estados Unidos, y los derechos hídricos se asignan a nivel estatal. Al mismo tiempo, si bien a nivel federal y estatal se supervisan algunas tierras públicas, casi todas las regulaciones y la planificación relacionadas con tierras privadas se implementan a nivel local o regional, y reflejan derechos y deseos individuales y comunitarios. Si bien hay iniciativas estatales que “enfatizan más la consideración del agua en el desarrollo del suelo”, según Castle (incluso en Colorado, donde ella trabaja), sigue habiendo brechas profundas en las prioridades y las responsabilidades.
Por supuesto, cada comunidad lidia con problemas únicos, pero la encuesta de Stoker sugiere que los obstáculos para resolverlos son similares: falta de tiempo y de recursos, miedo de perder poder jurisdiccional o delegar el control, y diferencias en educación, experiencia y lenguaje técnico. Superar estas dificultades puede ser difícil. “Por lógica, debería ser fácil, pero cuando las instituciones crecen con un solo punto de enfoque, es difícil cambiar la misión y expandirse a otros lugares”, dice Bill Cesanek, copresidente de la Red de Agua y Planificación de la APA. Cesanek dice que todo funciona mejor cuando los planificadores comparten la responsabilidad de determinar de dónde vendrá el agua para suplir las demandas futuras.
Quay coincide en que los planificadores del agua y el suelo deben trabajar juntos y deben ser realistas acerca de dónde y cómo pueden crecer las comunidades, y si deben hacerlo. “Uno de los factores fundamentales es la voluntad política”, dice. “Deberíamos pensar qué es lo más importante para la comunidad, y deberíamos asignar el agua a eso”.
Según Holway, del Centro Babbitt, esto es cada vez más común. “Con el aumento de la demanda de agua y ante los crecientes problemas para adquirir nuevos suministros, los servicios públicos y los planificadores del suelo deben descifrar cómo trabajar en conjunto para mantener el equilibrio entre el suministro y la demanda”.
“Demasiada, muy poca, muy contaminada”
Según la Guía de políticas hídricas de la APA, los riesgos asociados al agua suelen ser siempre parecidos: no alcanza el agua debido al crecimiento demográfico y al estrés climático, además de que los suministros ya están asignados o se asigna más cantidad de la disponible; hay demasiada agua debido a las inundaciones y el aumento del nivel del mar; o peligra la calidad del agua debido a las escorrentías agrícola y urbana. Todos estos casos son cada vez más urgentes.
Mapa de las condiciones de sequía en los Estados Unidos, mayo de 2021. Crédito: el Monitor de Sequía de los Estados Unidos es una producción conjunta del Centro Nacional para la Mitigación de Sequías (NDMC, por su sigla en inglés) de la Universidad de Nebraska–Lincoln, el Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos y la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica. Mapa cortesía del NDMC.
No alcanza el agua. En el sudoeste (y en particular en la cuenca sobreexplotada del río Colorado, que atiende a más de 40 millones de personas de siete estados de los Estados Unidos y dos de México), las sequías persistentes disminuyen la carga nival, merman la disponibilidad en los acuíferos naturales y reducen los embalses. Los investigadores predicen que el caudal del río Colorado disminuirá entre un 20 y un 35 por ciento hacia 2050, y entre un 30 y un 55 por ciento hacia fin de siglo (Udall 2017).
Además, la sequía tiene un efecto de cascada en otros sistemas hídricos. Por ejemplo, en los bosques occidentales secos los incendios son cada vez más frecuentes y descomunales, y contaminan las cuencas en zonas que antes no tenían este problema, como el tramo superior del Colorado. Según la Agencia de Protección Ambiental, durante un incendio y en los años posteriores el agua se puede contaminar con cenizas, sedimentos y otros agentes. Esto obliga a los gestores hídricos a esforzarse para hallar soluciones. “Creo que hay una tendencia mucho mayor y más rápida a la colaboración en la planificación del uso del suelo y la gestión hídrica en lugares con escasez”, dice Stoker.
Demasiada agua. En los últimos 30 años, las inundaciones causaron un promedio de US$ 8.000 millones en daños y 82 muertes al año en los Estados Unidos (Cesanek, Elmer y Graeff 2017). Quay dice que, dado que el cambio climático provoca eventos climáticos más extremos, las inundaciones exceden los parámetros definidos por la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias, que tradicionalmente han sido la guía para las decisiones de planificación. Agrega que es difícil adaptarse porque las pautas y leyes fijas de planificación no están preparadas para estos extremos.
Los lugares bajos, como Hoboken, Nueva Jersey (que sufrió inundaciones en algunas partes por el aumento del nivel del mar y supertormentas como el huracán Sandy), están incorporando la resiliencia en la planificación de los sistemas hídricos. La ciudad está añadiendo herramientas, como dunas artificiales de arena, que funcionan como barreras físicas y pueden desviar marejadas a bombas antiinundaciones recién construidas.
“El sistema de agua pluvial está en el mismo nivel que el río; [el agua de lluvia] no tiene a dónde ir, así que debieron construir un programa de planificación para la resiliencia muy innovador”, dice Cesanek.
Agua contaminada. Durante precipitaciones fuertes, que son cada vez más frecuentes debido al cambio climático, el sistema cloacal combinado de Milwaukee, Wisconsin, se desborda y llega a ríos vecinos y al lago Míchigan. Esto contamina las vías fluviales, compromete el ecosistema y perjudica el suministro de agua. “El agua pluvial se mete en nuestros sistemas combinados y sanitarios. Nada es estanco”, dice Karen Sands, directora de planificación, investigación y sostenibilidad del Distrito Cloacal Metropolitano de Milwaukee (MMSD, por su sigla en inglés). Sands indica que el MMSD tuvo que alinear capas geográficas y jurisdiccionales divergentes para hallar soluciones que protejan la cuenca. Una de estas soluciones fue la construcción del parque Menomonee, de 24 hectáreas, en conjunto con planificadores urbanos. Se espera que este trate la totalidad de la escorrentía de agua pluvial de las zonas industriales y comerciales cercanas. Ahora garantiza el suministro de agua potable y gestiona la demanda futura de forma preventiva.
Chi Ho Sham, presidente de American Water Works Association (AWWA), una organización internacional sin fines de lucro para profesionales del suministro de agua, dice que una de las mayores inquietudes del grupo tiene que ver con la calidad del agua, en particular con protegerla desde su origen, limitar el uso contaminante y crear barreras para detener o evitar la contaminación. “Desde mi punto de vista, nuestro trabajo es lograr una colaboración estrecha con los propietarios”, dice. “Los gestores hídricos no lo pueden hacer por su cuenta”.
Problemas de infraestructura e igualdad
Se estima que en 2050 la población de los Estados Unidos llegará a los 517 millones, y las ciudades de mayor crecimiento serán las meridionales y occidentales (Oficina del Censo de los Estados Unidos 2019). No se puede impedir que las personas se muden a Tempe o Tampa Bay, pero el crecimiento se está dando en regiones donde ya hay mucha presión sobre la calidad y la cantidad del agua. En algunos lugares, el crecimiento acelerado ha restringido a planificadores y gestores hídricos, quienes implementaron medidas de conservación y reutilización de agua para procurar que esta alcance.
Para peor, la infraestructura hídrica de la nación no siguió el ritmo de los cambios demográficos. Las antiguas tuberías de plomo se están desintegrando, y las plantas de depuración están saturadas por la cantidad de agua que deben procesar. En 2017, la Sociedad Estadounidense de Ingenieros Civiles determinó que el agua potable de la nación era de clase D, y estimó un costo de US$ 100.000 millones para hacer las actualizaciones de infraestructura necesarias (ASCE 2017).
También hay una brecha entre los lugares que pueden costear la actualización de infraestructura y los que no. A fin de garantizar el suministro de agua para todos en el futuro, es esencial atender esta desigualdad, según indica Katy Lackey, gerenta de programa sénior de la organización sin fines de lucro US Water Alliance, una coalición nacional de servicios públicos, empresas, organizaciones medioambientales, sindicatos y otras partes, que está trabajando para procurar un futuro hídrico sostenible.
“Creemos que la igualdad hídrica se da cuando todas las comunidades tienen acceso a agua potable limpia, segura y asequible, y a servicios de aguas residuales, las inversiones en infraestructura se maximizan y benefician a todas las comunidades, y estas tienen capacidad de resistencia ante el cambio climático”, indica. Para alcanzar esa meta, se necesitan nuevas formas de trabajar.
Cómo trabajar bien en conjunto
Participantes de un taller Growing Water Smart, que une a planificadores de uso del suelo y gestores hídricos de una misma comunidad para realizar debates y crear un plan de acción local. Crédito: Instituto Sonoran.
Holway, del Centro Babbitt, dice que el primer paso de la planificación integrada debe ser reunir a la gente en un mismo lugar para comprender las necesidades de la comunidad, las brechas de los procesos actuales y cómo pueden trabajar mejor en conjunto. A partir de eso, es fundamental formalizar metas relacionadas con la planificación y el agua, ya sea que se reflejen en un plan cabal o de ordenamiento territorial para el desarrollo comunitario, en un plan más específico basado en la conservación y la resiliencia, o en cambios de zonificación y regulaciones.
“Nos centramos en identificar, evaluar y promover herramientas que integren mejor el suelo y el agua, con opiniones de un grupo diverso de profesionales e investigadores”, dice Holway, y destaca que Erin Rugland, gerenta de programa del Centro Babbitt, publicó varias obras para profesionales, entre ellas una matriz de herramientas disponibles para integrar el suelo y el agua (Rugland 2021) y dos manuales centrados en buenas prácticas (Rugland 2020, Castle y Rugland 2019).
Quienes se centran en la importancia de integrar el suelo y el agua recomiendan varios pasos que pueden seguir los planificadores y los gestores hídricos para garantizar que las colaboraciones obtengan resultados satisfactorios:
Cultivar relaciones. Stoker descubrió que un primer paso importante sería lograr que la gente deje de trabajar aislada. “En los lugares con mejores resultados al integrar la planificación del agua y el suelo, los servicios públicos y los planificadores estaban en buenos términos. Sabían que, si trabajaban en conjunto, saldrían beneficiados”, dice. Stoker menciona como ejemplo a Aiken, Carolina del Sur: los gestores hídricos ayudaron a armar el plan integral. Añade que este tipo de colaboración es importante en cualquier escala.
En Westminster, Colorado, los gestores hídricos participan en las reuniones previas a la solicitud de todas las iniciativas nuevas. Desde el principio, tienen la posibilidad de asesorar sobre cómo afectarán las decisiones de tuberías y paisajismo al uso y los costos hídricos del proyecto.
Westminster es una de las 33 comunidades occidentales que participaron en el programa Growing Water Smart, un taller de varios días organizado por el Centro Babbitt y el Instituto Sonoran con financiamiento adicional de la Junta de Conservación de Agua de Colorado y Gates Family Foundation. Growing Water Smart reúne grupos pequeños de dirigentes para comunicar, colaborar e identificar un plan de acción a un año.
“La razón de ser de Growing Water Smart es reunir a planificadores de uso del suelo y gestores hídricos de una misma comunidad para que hablen entre sí, a veces por primera vez”, dice Faith Sternlieb, gerenta sénior de proyecto del Centro Babbitt, quien ayuda a moderar el programa. “En cuanto empiezan a compartir recursos, datos e información, se dan cuenta de lo valiosas e importantes que son la colaboración y la cooperación. No es que no quieran trabajar en conjunto, sino que de verdad creían tener todo lo necesario para ejecutar su trabajo. Pero no suelen tener el tiempo y el espacio necesarios para pensar y planificar de forma holística”.
“En mi experiencia, lo que ha funcionado es forjar relaciones con los planificadores que toman las decisiones”, confirma Kajtezovic, de Tampa Bay Water. “Yo me comunico todo lo que puedo con ellos y les explico la importancia de proteger el agua de origen”.
Promover la creatividad y la flexibilidad. Luego de forjar las relaciones, la creatividad y la flexibilidad son fundamentales. Dado que cada comunidad se enfrenta a distintas dificultades de planificación, “el contexto tiene una importancia tremenda”, dice Quay. Esto no solo es cierto para distintas regiones, sino también dentro de ellas, y a veces de una comunidad a otra. “Lo que sirve en Phoenix no necesariamente servirá en Tempe [que está justo al lado de Phoenix hacia el este], por lo que no es posible adaptar buenas prácticas de gestión así como así; debemos pensar en lo mejor para cada caso”. Él recomienda identificar un conjunto amplio y flexible de herramientas que se puedan usar y adaptar con el tiempo.
Tener voluntad de aprender. Debido a su especialización, los planificadores y los gestores hídricos “no hablan el mismo idioma”, dice Sham, quien indica que AWWA ha estado trabajando en capacitación colaborativa sobre protección del agua de origen para miembros y propietarios. A veces parece que es más trabajo por adelantado, y dice que la gente puede ser reacia a aceptar tareas que no le corresponden, pero es esencial desarrollar un idioma y un conocimiento en común para lograr sostenibilidad a largo plazo.
John Berggren ayuda a las comunidades a coordinar la planificación del agua y el suelo desde su puesto de analista de políticas para Western Resource Advocates. Dice que uno de los primeros pasos es capacitar a los dirigentes locales y entusiasmarlos acerca de incluir el agua en sus planes cabales. “Despertamos su interés e inquietud acerca de la conservación, y creamos un apoyo vertical para los departamentos de planificación y los servicios públicos”, dice. Cuando el agua se incluye en el plan integral, los planificadores y los servicios públicos pueden llegar a soluciones creativas y progresivas.
Abarcar. La integración del uso del suelo y la planificación hídrica funciona mejor cuando se incluye en regulaciones de nivel estatal o en planes integradores a nivel comunitario. Según el Centro Babbitt, 14 estados incorporan formalmente el agua en la planificación de algún modo, y cada vez son más. Por ejemplo, el Plan Hídrico de Colorado de 2015 estableció un objetivo para que en 2025 el 75 por ciento de los habitantes viva en comunidades que hayan incorporado acciones de ahorro de agua en la planificación de uso del suelo. Algunas comunidades ya están trabajando en ese proceso, y hay 80 que deberían empezar a actuar para llegar a esa meta. Además, hace poco el estado aprobó una ley que esboza pautas de conservación hídrica para la planificación, y designa un nuevo puesto en el gobierno que respalda la coordinación de la planificación del agua y el suelo.
Desde el año 2000, cuando Arizona aprobó la Ley de Crecimiento Más Inteligente Plus, el estado exige a las comunidades incluir en su plan cabal un capítulo dedicado al vínculo entre el suministro y la demanda de agua, y las proyecciones de crecimiento. Esto también se está observando en lugares menos secos. El plan integral del condado Manatee, en Florida, vincula la calidad del agua con la necesidad de usar el agua no potable para todo lo que sea posible. Incluye códigos de reutilización de agua y fuentes alternativas para aumentar la disponibilidad y procurar que el agua llegue al destino más adecuado.
Quay dice que, para incorporar el agua a los planes integrales, las comunidades necesitan una idea concreta del tipo y la cantidad de recursos disponibles. Luego, los gestores hídricos y los planificadores pueden trabajar en conjunto para identificar fuentes nuevas y alternativas, como tratamiento de aguas residuales y grises (agua del hogar que se usó para lavar ropa, por ejemplo, y que se puede volver a usar en el retrete); identificar la demanda prevista y definir cómo se va a suplir.
Aprovechar el poder de la acción local. Aunque el estado no exija planificar pensando en el agua ni esto se incorpore al plan cabal de la comunidad, los gestores hídricos y los planificadores igual pueden hallar formas de colaborar. Los planes locales más específicos pueden incluir planes de suministro de agua e infraestructura de aguas residuales; atenuación de peligros y planes de resiliencia, como gestión de terrenos anegables y agua pluvial; gestión de demanda; procesos y salud de las cuencas; y planes de coordinación y colaboración entre organismos. Si estas variables resultan apabullantes, Berggren sugiere que los planificadores soliciten recomendaciones sobre buenas prácticas a otras comunidades. Dice que, si bien todas las comunidades son diferentes, “no hace falta que nadie reinvente la rueda”.
Además, los cambios en políticas locales pueden incluir códigos basados en la forma que definan aspectos del entorno construido relacionados con el agua. Sands dice que, en Milwaukee, algunas buenas prácticas para gestionar inundaciones y contaminación son “actualizar los códigos y normas municipales para promover la infraestructura verde y prácticas más sustentables”. Esa infraestructura verde, que emula los procesos naturales del lugar mediante métodos como jardines de biofiltración y almacenamiento de agua pluvial, puede lograr que las comunidades sean más resistentes al cambio climático y, a la vez, restaurar ecosistemas y proteger el suministro de agua.
También se pueden cambiar las políticas hídricas mediante normas de zonificación, como reducir el tamaño de las parcelas. Los planificadores pueden usar loteos y normas de desarrollo del suelo para promover la captura, la infiltración y la liberación paulatina del agua pluvial en el mismo lugar. Algunas comunidades adoptaron códigos de plomería que exigen aparatos de alta eficiencia, o códigos de edificación que admiten reciclaje de agua o subcontaje para aumentar la eficiencia de las residencias multifamiliares. Fountain, Colorado, tiene costos de conexión orientados a la conservación, lo cual incentiva a los desarrolladores a cumplir con los estándares de eficiencia hídrica más allá del código de edificación. Pueden pagar costos de conexión más bajos si aceptan condiciones como usar plantas nativas o incluir aparatos eficientes de interior en un desarrollo.
Los beneficios de integrar la planificación del suelo y el agua son muy variados, desde resultados mensurables como adaptar planes de desarrollo para garantizar un correcto suministro del agua, hasta efectos más indirectos y a largo plazo, como reducir el conflicto entre usuarios ante la disponibilidad reducida. En Castle Rock, Schultz y sus colegas notaron que las normas de uso del suelo orientadas al agua pueden tener un gran impacto y beneficiar la calidad de vida como un todo. No siempre fue fácil, dice, pero parece que la nueva forma de hacer las cosas está rindiendo sus frutos: “Demostramos que podemos hacerlo mejor si ofrecemos una buena base”.
Fotografía principal: En Castle Rock, Colorado, los planificadores y los gestores hídricos se han asociado en planes para el crecimiento sostenible. Crédito: Robert Young via iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus.
ASCE (Sociedad Estadounidense de Ingenieros Civiles). 2017. “Infrastructure Report Card”. Washington, DC: Sociedad Estadounidense de Ingenieros Civiles. https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/.
Castle, Anne, y Erin Rugland. 2019. “Best Practices for Implementing Water Conservation and Demand Management Through Land Use Planning Efforts: Addendum to 2012 Guidance Document”. Denver, CO: Junta de Conservación de Agua de Colorado. Enero. https://dnrweblink.state.co.us/cwcbsearch/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=208193&dbid=0.
Cesanek, William, Vicki Elmer, y Jennifer Graeff. 2017. “Planners and Water: PAS Report 588”. Chicago, IL: Asociación Americana de Planificación.
Udall, Bradley, y Overpeck, Jonathan. 2017. “The Twenty-First Century Colorado River Hot Drought and Implications for the Future”. Investigación de recursos hídricos 53 (3): 2404-2418.
Un levantamiento aéreo de la zona metropolitana de Boston evidencia un sistema alimentario regional en aumento
Por Alex MacLean, July 31, 2021
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En mis cuatro décadas de fotógrafo aéreo, me ha interesado documentar la agricultura, porque tiene un modo de revelar pistas importantes sobre regiones, clima, topografía, suelo y el paso de las estaciones y el tiempo. Esta labor se centró cada vez más en el vínculo entre el uso del suelo y el cambio climático, a medida que en los transectos urbanos y rurales evolucionó de forma evidente el interés por acortar los kilómetros alimentarios (reducir la distancia entre productor y consumidor, con el fin de reducir las emisiones de carbono y minimizar las interrupciones en la cadena de suministro). Las imágenes de estas páginas representan los primeros pasos de una indagación sobre cómo está cambiando la producción de alimentos en zonas urbanas y sus alrededores en los Estados Unidos.
En los últimos años, es cada vez más evidente cómo se intensificó el cultivo a pequeña escala alrededor de Boston, Massachusetts. Desde el aire, he visto aparecer invernaderos de techo curvo en granjas pequeñas que pretenden suplir la demanda y ampliar la productividad; azoteas residenciales y comerciales grises convertidas en opulentos jardines; terrenos urbanos históricamente improductivos, como baldíos y patios, transformados en espacios cultivados. Cuando se suman, estas operaciones a pequeña escala parecen tener mucho potencial para aumentar la productividad mediante el poder de los incrementos. Los espacios verdes en zonas urbanas y cerca de ellas no solo ofrecen a las personas alimentos más frescos y accesibles. Dado que filtran el agua pluvial, absorben dióxido de carbono y promueven otros beneficios medioambientales, también pueden hacer de las ciudades lugares más saludables y resistentes.
A pesar de estos cambios prometedores, lo que se conoce como el movimiento localívoro ha logrado crear una sensación de pertenencia y de comunidad, y enseñar sobre cuestiones alimentarias, más que mejorar la seguridad o acortar los kilómetros alimentarios en una escala suficiente como para contrarrestar el cambio climático. Si bien en la última década la demanda y el entusiasmo por los alimentos locales aumentaron, se estima que el 90 por ciento de la comida de la zona metropolitana de Boston proviene de fuera de la región, según Food Solutions New England (FSNE), una red regional con base en la Universidad de Nuevo Hampshire, cerca de allí. Pero los gestores de políticas, inversionistas, productores rurales y emprendedores de la zona se están esforzando por cambiarlo, y FSNE está abogando por un “50 hacia 60”: 50 por ciento de los alimentos producidos en la región hacia 2060.
Una tendencia que podría ayudar a alcanzar esta meta, y que también se puede ver desde el aire, es la agricultura de interior. Las granjas de interior suelen encontrarse en vecindarios industriales infravalorados, y usan tecnologías como hidroponía e iluminación LED para poder cultivar durante todo el año. Las empresas que las respaldan demuestran cada vez más que la falta de espacios abiertos no tiene por qué ser una limitación para producir alimentos. En 2020, esta industria atrajo US$ 1.900 millones en capital de riesgo a nivel mundial: el triple de lo que se invirtió en 2019.
En Boston se encuentran algunas de las empresas que más están creciendo. Por ejemplo, Freight Farms democratiza más la cercanía a la producción porque usa contenedores modernizados que se pueden acomodar bajo autopistas elevadas o junto a comedores escolares. En 30 metros cuadrados, estos contenedores producen lo mismo que una hectárea de cultivo. Este tipo de soluciones innovadoras nos dan una idea de cómo puede ser el cultivo alternativo, mientras el cambio climático degrada las tierras agrícolas y reduce el suministro de agua. Sin embargo, el método tiene sus desventajas: puede requerir mucha electricidad y, si bien la producción se suele vender como “local”, en ciertos sentidos replica la centralización y la influencia corporativa que irrita desde hace mucho a los defensores de la agricultura local y regional.
Como fotógrafo aéreo, espero que siempre se integre cierta forma de producción alimentaria de exteriores en nuestros paisajes. Los veamos desde el suelo o desde el aire, las granjas y los campos nos ayudan a comprender los elementos clave del mundo natural que nos sustenta, nos ayudan a conectarnos con el planeta y nos impulsan a proteger estos lugares. Pero desde el cielo se hace cada vez más evidente que se están repensando los sistemas agrícolas, y que necesitaremos muchos enfoques distintos para que los “alimentos locales” evolucionen y lleguen a ser un modelo equitativo de soberanía alimentaria regional.
La región metropolitana de Boston importa el 90 por ciento del alimento desde fuera de la región. Arriba, los furgones y las unidades refrigeradas forman fila en los depósitos de New England Produce Center, en Chelsea, al norte del centro de Boston. Este complejo es uno de los mercados mayoristas de productos agrícolas más grandes del mundo; recibe cargamentos de todos los rincones de los Estados Unidos y de otros países. Luego, los productos de redistribuyen a puntos de venta de toda Nueva Inglaterra y el sudeste de Canadá. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Los famosos jardines Fenway Victory Gardens, junto al río Muddy, en Back Bay, Boston, están conformados por más de 500 parcelas que son vestigio de tierras que en la Segunda Guerra Mundial se usaron para producir alimentos. Fenway fue uno de los más de 20 millones de jardines de la victoria del país que ayudaron a cultivar cerca del 40 por ciento de la producción nacional en el punto más álgido de la guerra. Esta historia demuestra el potencial de adaptación y la capacidad de producir alimentos locales a gran escala. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Las cuatro estaciones del jardín comunitario de la Primera Iglesia Parroquial, en Lincoln, Massachusetts. Los cambios que tienen lugar en el jardín durante el año marcan el paso del tiempo y generan conciencia sobre la transición entre las estaciones. Los feligreses cultivan parcelas individuales y, en conjunto, una parcela de donaciones que ofrece un promedio de 300 kilos de comida al año a refugios para personas sin hogar y comedores comunitarios de la zona de Boston. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Mill City Grows gestiona cuatro granjas, entre ellas 1,1 hectáreas que alquila a la ciudad de Lowell, y distribuye los productos en mercados móviles, un programa de Agricultura de Respaldo Comunitario y donaciones. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
En 2011 la ciudad de Lawrence ayudó a fundar el jardín Cross and Cedar Street. Lo atienden residentes locales y se ubica en dos baldíos donde antes había viviendas deterioradas. Los lechos elevados protegen a las plantaciones de los riesgos del suelo contaminado. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
El jardín comunitario Nightingale, en Dorchester, Massachusetts, pertenece a la organización estatal de conservación The Trustees y forma parte de una iniciativa de la ciudad para aumentar el acceso a productos agrícolas locales y lograr que los jardines comunitarios sean una parte destacada de los espacios urbanos no construidos. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Las terrazas plantadas encima del Esplananade, un complejo de condiminios en Cambridge, Massachusetts, demuestran el potencial de los espacios de techo comerciales para acomodar la agricultura urbana. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Los gallineros móviles y las jaulas de contención se mueven todos los días en las granjas comunitarias Codman, en Lincoln, Massachusetts; es una de las prácticas sostenibles que logra producir entre 800 y 1.200 huevos a la semana. La granja está a 24 kilómetros al noroeste de Boston, data de 1754 y cuenta con 7 hectáreas. Otras 50 hectáreas de campos y pastizales desperdigados por la ciudad abastecen el heno para el ganado y ofrecen espacios abiertos a las zonas circundantes. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Más del 95 por ciento de las frutas y verduras que se consumen en la costa este proviene de California y Arizona, y suele tardar más de una semana en llegar. Little Leaf Farms realiza cultivos hidropónicos durante todo el año para reducir la dependencia en la costa oeste, en un invernadero de 4 hectáreas en Daven, Massachusetts, a 65 kilómetros al oeste de Boston. El proceso de cultivo está totalmente automatizado; las plantas se siembran y se cosechan sin contacto humano. Hasta ahora, la empresa obtuvo un financiamiento de US$ 90 millones mediante deudas y capital propio para ampliar sus operaciones por la costa este; empezará por Pensilvania y Carolina del Norte. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Freight Farms fabrica invernaderos hidropónicos verticales dentro de contenedores de carga de 12 metros. Estos contenedores están equipados con controles climáticos precisos e iluminación optimizada para determinadas plantas y, en 30 metros cuadrados, pueden producir lo mismo que una hectárea de terrenos de cultivo convencionales. Los invernaderos móviles se pueden colocar en cualquier parte, como debajo de autopistas o junto a escuelas. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Gotham Green (la estructura blanca en el extremo inferior izquierdo de la imagen) se construyó donde solía haber un terreno abandonado contaminado en Providence, Rhode Island. Hoy provee a Nueva Inglaterra de frutas, verduras y especias hidropónicas durante todo el año. El invernadero cuenta con electricidad de fuentes renovables y consume un 95 por ciento menos de agua y utiliza un 97 por ciento menos de suelo que la agricultura convencional. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Gaining Ground Farm, en Concord, Massachusetts, cultiva alimentos para refugios y comedores de beneficencia de la zona de Boston. Mediante túneles altos, invernaderos de techo curvo y nutrición del suelo duplicó la producción en cuatro años. En 2020 cultivó y donó 57.800 kilos de alimentos, comparados con 28.015 kilos en 2016. En esta fotografía, tomada en 2016, se muestran los primeros invernaderos de techo curvo incorporados. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
En esta fotografía, tomada en 2020, se observa cómo se intensificó la producción en Gaining Ground Farm. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Este jardín comunitario de Allston-Brighton, Massachusetts, se encuentra en un terreno que pertenece al Departamento Estatal de Conservación y Recreación. El follaje de mediados de octubre presagia el fin de la estación de cultivo y la llegada del invierno. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Alex MacLean es piloto y fotógrafo con exhibiciones a nivel internacional; su trabajo se ha presentado en Land Lines y el libro Visualizing Density, del Instituto Lincoln. Se especializa en documentar cambios en el suelo provocados por la intervención humana y los procesos naturales.
Fotografía principal: Los jardines comunitarios de Boston fortalecieron el sentido de pertenencia en los vecindarios. El de Worcester Street, en South End, es uno de los 56 jardines comunitarios que pertenecen a The Trustees. Lo administran voluntarios y posee más de 130 parcelas disponibles para residentes, que se distribuyen por orden de llegada. Crédito: Alex MacLean.
Graduate Student Fellowships
2021–2022 Programa de becas para el máster UNED-Instituto Lincoln
El Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) se han unido para desarrollar un nuevo programa de máster con un contenido original. Se trata de uno de los pocos programas de posgrado a nivel mundial que reúne sistemáticamente los marcos legales y herramientas que sostienen la planificación urbana, con instrumentos fiscales, ambientales y de participación.
El máster en Políticas de Suelo y Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible es un programa en formato virtual y se compone de tres módulos, cada uno de los cuales aborda una parte importante de la realidad actual de las ciudades: el derecho administrativo urbano, el financiamiento con base en el suelo, el cambio climático y el desarrollo sostenible, y el conflicto urbano y la participación ciudadana.
El programa está dirigido especialmente a estudiantes de posgrado y otros graduados con interés en políticas urbanas desde una perspectiva jurídica, ambiental y de procesos de participación, pero también a funcionarios públicos. Los participantes del máster recibirán el entrenamiento tanto intelectual como técnico para liderar la implementación de medidas que permitan la transformación de las ciudades.
El Instituto Lincoln destinará fondos para becas que cubrirán la matrícula completa del máster de los estudiantes seleccionados.
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December 6, 2021 at 11:59 PM
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Climate Mitigation, Development, Dispute Resolution, Environmental Management, Favela, Henry George, Informal Land Markets, Infrastructure, Land Market Regulation, Land Speculation, Land Use, Land Use Planning, Land Value, Land Value Taxation, Land-Based Tax, Local Government, Mediation, Municipal Fiscal Health, Planning, Property Taxation, Public Finance, Public Policy, Regulatory Regimes, Resilience, Urban, Urban Development, Urbanism, Value Capture, Zoning
Lincoln Institute Dialogue Explores Land Value Capture
Local governments around the world, no matter their size or capacity, have access to an effective land-based financing tool that can help create more climate-resilient, equitable, and sustainable cities and regions. That tool is land value capture, a policy approach that enables communities to recover and reinvest land value increases that result from public investment and other government actions. Land value capture is rooted in the notion that public action should generate public benefit—and while it is technically feasible to implement almost anywhere, it is often underutilized, says Enrique Silva, director of international initiatives at the Lincoln Institute, who deems it an “untapped source” of revenue.
In late October, Silva hosted a Lincoln Institute dialogue with guests Barbara Scholz of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and Rudiger Ahrend of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Lincoln Institute and the OECD, with contributions from GIZ, are creating a compendium to showcase the successful implementation of land value capture in 61 countries. The compendium, which will be published in 2022, will offer the first global overview of a policy approach that can fund critical infrastructure ranging from public transit to affordable housing.
With an estimated $4 trillion needed each year to improve and expand global infrastructure, Scholz said, value capture “offers a huge repertoire of instruments” that can be customized based on local needs. It can improve the financial performance of subnational governments, facilitate access to affordable and secure land and housing, protect ecosystems, and foster equitable and climate-friendly urban development. Value capture can be especially helpful in developing countries and regions, said Scholz, noting that it has successfully been used in countries including Bangladesh, Namibia, and Ethiopia. GIZ works to promote and achieve sustainable development around the world, partnering with businesses, governments, and research organizations in more than 120 countries.
The speakers noted challenges related to value capture, including a lack of shared vocabulary that can hamper conversations among policy leaders in different areas who are working toward the same goals. Developing a shared vocabulary “is one of the big opportunities of the compendium,” Ahrend said. “It will enable dialogues” that aren’t currently possible, he added. Noting that cities will absorb 2.5 billion more people by 2050, Scholz confirmed that GIZ hopes to use the compendium to foster dialogue about urban policies, value capture instruments, and country-specific challenges and opportunities, especially in places that are experiencing rapid growth and are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
“These are tools that can be applied and built in contexts where governance institutions might not be as robust as in other countries,” Silva said. “The new compendium will help us open up opportunities to consider the extent to which land value capture can not only finance urban development, but also finance climate action and climate adaptation work. This conversation is ramping up.”
The special 75th anniversary Lincoln Institute Dialogue series continues on December 8 with a discussion about sustainability in the U.S. West. Learn more about the Lincoln Institute’s 75th anniversary and related events.
Katharine Wroth is the editor of Land Lines.
Photo: Octavio Frias de Oliveira Bridge, São Paulo, Brazil. Credit: iStock/thiagogleite.
Land Matters Podcast: Bruce Babbitt on the Climate Crisis
As world leaders and some 20,000 delegates gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 climate summit, they’ll be working toward the goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, through a variety of methods aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. Much of the focus is on renewable energy and decarbonizing the power grid, transportation, and buildings. But Bruce Babbitt, former governor of Arizona and former Interior secretary, says there are two other big sectors that should not be overlooked: land and water.
“It just isn’t really getting the attention it deserves,” says Babbitt in the most recent episode of the Land Matters podcast, noting that land-clearing and the destruction of forests takes away vast carbon sinks and accounts for 20 percent of emissions worldwide, on a par with what transportation produces globally.
Global warming is also having such a big impact on water supplies all around the world, he said, more focus needs to be on near-term solutions to avert a catastrophic crisis in both urban development and agriculture. The Colorado River Basin, where the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs have dropped to historic lows, is a vivid illustration of that challenge.
“The Colorado River becomes sort of the poster child of this, because the river flow is diminishing as a result of the drought and the decrease in runoff efficiency,” he said. “What rain there is doesn’t reach the reservoirs because it evaporates from the soil [because of] the temperature constantly heating up the landscape.”
Holders of water rights established long ago are now facing drastic reductions, both in urban areas and in the agricultural sector, the biggest user of Colorado River water. They must now make due with less water—right now and in the future. The current method of irrigating crops simply cannot go on as usual, Babbitt said. “We haven’t really stared that straight in the eye, and begun to plan and to join a big region-wide discussion,” he said.
Babbitt, for whom the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy is named, served for many years on the board of the Lincoln Institute. The Phoenix-based center is promoting the better coordination of land use planning and the management of water resources. The Lincoln Institute’s work in land, water, and climate is getting special recognition in this 75th anniversary year; the organization started as the Lincoln Foundation in 1946, in Phoenix.
Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.
Image: Bruce Babbitt Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
Infrastructure and Climate Change: Four Governance Challenges in a Time of Disruption
By Henry Lee, October 19, 2021
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The following is an excerpt from a chapter in the forthcoming Lincoln Institute book Infrastructure Economics and Policy: International Perspectives, which includes contributions from leading international academics and practitioners addressing the latest approaches to infrastructure policy, implementation, and finance. Edited by José Gómez-Ibáñez of Harvard University and Zhi Liu of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy, the book is now available for preorder.
As the world focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic, the disruptive reality of global climate change looms on the horizon. Its implications for public infrastructure could be immense. Forest fires in Australia, Siberia, and California, record cold in Texas, droughts in southern India and South Africa, intense hurricanes and floods in the United States and the Philippines, and the melting of the Arctic ice sheet are all harbingers of what a changing climate has in store.
As pointed out by Martin Weitzman and Gernot Wagner in their book Climate Shock, “Climate change is unlike . . . any other public policy problem. It’s almost uniquely global, uniquely long-term, uniquely irreversible, and uniquely uncertain—certainly unique in the combination of all four” (2015).
The impact of climate change on infrastructure services will be integral to the world’s economy. How we power our factories, buildings, and homes; allocate and treat our water; and transport people and goods may look very different 30 years from now. Uncertainty surrounds both the impacts of and responses to climate change, but the direction is clear. The effects will be more disruptive in 2050 than today. More floods, droughts, fires, and heat waves will occur. While countries may struggle to transition their economies, escalating climate impacts may force them to accelerate their efforts.
The biggest challenges to meeting national and local climate goals through infrastructure investments will not be in the realms of engineering or technology, but rather in the areas of governance and public policy. Key institutional issues include the broad governance issues that prevent governments at all levels from working together effectively; infrastructure siting; stranded economic and social assets; and the need for greater public investment in preventing damages as opposed to investing only in relief and recovery.
Structural Inefficiency
The construction and management of major infrastructure projects like highways, such as this interchange in Albuquerque, New Mexico, requires cooperation between federal and state governments. Credit: Mlenny via iStock/Getty Images Plus
Governments consist of multiple agencies, each with a defined portfolio of responsibilities. The water resources department provides water to consumers. Another department might provide sewerage services, while still another addresses water pollution. In many jurisdictions, irrigation is within the purview of the agriculture department, while the public health agency sets quality standards for drinking water. In many countries there are agencies that develop plans for coastal areas, while another agency has a similar responsibility for rivers and lakes. If the country requires desalination technologies to meet the demand for potable water, it must work with the agencies responsible for electricity, since such facilities consume substantial amounts of power.
When these agencies want to make investments in new infrastructure, they must seek permits from a variety of other agencies. Finally, yet another group provides support services such as budget oversight, procurement, and human resources. This description is simply the governance structure for water infrastructure. The same complex map of complementary responsibilities exists for transport or energy.
In most cases, these water departments were established at different times to meet different public policy problems. Establishing a new department, as opposed to expanding an existing one, allowed public officials to demonstrate responsiveness to the public concern of the moment. In some countries, the existence of multiple agencies gives elected officials the ability to make more appointments, which is a key currency for elected officials. The result, however, is a balkanized system that does not effectively manage problems that cross departmental responsibilities. Interagency coordination and cooperation will be growing concerns for presidents, prime ministers, governors, and mayors as they address the underlying interconnections inherent in climate policy.
Horizontal coordination challenges are replicated at the vertical level. What responsibilities should lie with national or central governments, and which should be given to mayors? Highways, transmission lines, pipelines, and possibly water lines are important to realizing national goals and priorities; however, their construction and management often require substantial cooperation between national and subnational governments. Permitting electric generating facilities is essential to meeting national targets for adequate power, yet this responsibility is usually allocated to subregional governments.
Climate change does not recognize jurisdictional boundaries. Most countries contain states or provinces, each with its own government, its own bureaucracies, and, in many cases, its own priorities. Many of these states or provinces contain metropolitan areas, each consisting of a large city surrounded by smaller cities and towns whose economies are closely linked, but whose governments are independent of each other.
The challenge of managing climate change becomes very difficult when these jurisdictions do not share common goals and when their ability to cooperate is derailed by financial and political rivalries. The ability to develop new and innovative intergovernmental structures will determine whether subregional governments can ensure the continuing operation of infrastructure services in a climate-constrained world.
Climate is the ultimate interagency issue, and it will impact a vast majority of the existing governance structures. To meet this challenge, governments will have to organize themselves so that responsibilities for responding to the threat and damages from climate disruptions are better assigned. Which climate-related activities are best handled by local governments, and which should be tackled by higher levels of governance? To what extent should the national government be able to overrule subnational governments when an infrastructure decision or climate investment falls within the jurisdiction of the subnational government but is deemed to be of national importance?
How can governments design and implement greater interagency coordination, both horizontally among agencies at the same level of government and vertically across those at different levels? To meet this need, some governments have established major decision-making bodies at their highest levels. For example, China has a State Council, and the United States has expanded the roles of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council. However, only issues of highest priority reach these bodies. Climate change will require thousands of decisions made by thousands of officials at all levels.
Finally, subnational governments have access to only certain revenues, while national governments almost always have access to a larger portfolio of revenue sources. Climate change will dramatically increase the fiscal burden on local, state, and provincial governments. It may do so in scenarios in which local fiscal revenues are decreasing, as investors move their money to regions less vulnerable to climate disruption.
As discussed earlier, subnational jurisdictions will face substantial infrastructure costs. They will look to national governments for financial assistance, but what will be the political and structural cost demanded in exchange for those funds? For example, if the federal government provides substantial assistance, should it take on greater responsibility for the provision of local services? Will local governments voluntarily allow national governments to micromanage services that heretofore were their exclusive responsibility? Or will national governments provide substantial incremental assistance with no strings attached? Will national governments be willing to experiment with creative pilots that encourage effective coordination at the subregional level? How the institutions of governance are structured and operate will have a major impact on the provision of more resilient infrastructure services.
Infrastructure Siting
Dakota Access Pipeline protest, Washington, DC. Credit: Victoria Pickering via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
In the first half of the 20th century, western countries embarked on ambitious infrastructure programs. Intercity highways were constructed. Impressive boulevards and parkways were built as dilapidated neighborhoods were demolished to be replaced by modern downtown areas. Many countries initiated efforts to develop power-generation complexes and transmission grids to move electricity. Airports and seaports were built, and global trade was expanded. While these achievements were impressive, they often happened without much consultation with the people affected by these investments. Environmental considerations were ignored. Too often, the infrastructure seemed to be built because it could be built. Bigger and more modern projects crowded out smaller and more appropriately scaled facilities. Alternative options were not considered.
The backlash that ensued resulted in the establishment of rigorous siting procedures to ensure that critical externalities and social concerns would no longer be ignored. Stakeholders with a wide spectrum of interests were given multiple opportunities to raise their concerns. Often developers not only had to demonstrate a regional need for a project, but also had to show that it met the specific needs of each jurisdiction affected by the proposed project. A power line moving electricity from point A to point B that crossed region C had to demonstrate a benefit to the populations of all three jurisdictions.
In many instances, this process became very expensive and time-consuming. Developers (and their lenders) became reluctant to invest the time and money needed to guide a project through the labyrinthine permitting process, obtain support from multiple stakeholders, and survive legal challenges. While siting may be more difficult in democracies, even authoritarian governments such as China have encountered strong public opposition to certain infrastructure projects, forcing them to forgo or amend those investments.
It would be hard to argue against stakeholder involvement or the merits of greater sensitivity to the environmental and social consequences of large infrastructure projects. No one is suggesting that governments return to the first half of the 20th century, when officials imposed large public works projects on an uninformed, and sometimes skeptical, public. However, the infrastructure requirements to transition to a decarbonized economy will be huge. In 2019, global electricity generation consisted of 9,824.1 terawatt-hours (TWh) of coal, 825.3 TWh of oil, and 6,297.9 TWh of natural gas (BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020). In a decarbonized world, a significant proportion of this fossil fuel capacity will be replaced by renewables that have approximately half the capacity of an equally sized fossil fuel facility, which means nations will need to build many more generating stations than they have today. Further, renewable systems will require substantially more land and significantly expanded transmission and distribution systems.
In the United States alone, an analysis by Wu (2020) found that achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 would require about the land area of New Mexico for new onshore wind capacity and about the land area of Vermont for new solar photovoltaic capacity. The probability that these investments can be successful under today’s siting regimes is, unfortunately, low. The consequences of not making these investments will be to fail to transition public infrastructure to meet national climate goals and to suffer ever greater climate disruption.
Transitioning water and sewerage infrastructure (to manage ever more droughts and floods) and transportation infrastructure (to meet the realities of climate disruption) may require less investment in the siting process than energy infrastructure. However, over the next 30 years, significant infrastructure siting will be needed across all three of these sectors. Identifying this problem is easier than solving it. Many reform policies and programs have been suggested, but most have failed to improve the siting process. Any meaningful reforms must have several characteristics.
First, reforms will require a renewed trust in the public sector. The magnitude and scope of infrastructure investments required will not happen without significant government involvement. Second, the number of government agencies involved in permitting and siting will need to be compressed, which means that existing siting laws will have to be amended. A comprehensive one-stop siting shop may be too difficult to achieve, but narrowing down the fifteen to twenty involved agencies to four to five could significantly expedite the process for new infrastructure.
The biggest and most important step will be to establish siting institutions across different levels of government while incentivizing officials from the national and subregional governments to conduct joint assessments with a prior agreement that both will abide by the joint decision. For example, in the United States, offshore wind projects require permits from the federal, state, and, in some situations, local governments. Under the present system, opponents can strive to sequence the three siting processes until the developer runs out of money and leaves. Identifying processes to encourage the three levels of government to review siting in a collaborative process could significantly reduce the cost and timeline.
Third, the entire siting process for a project must be concluded in a reasonable time frame. Drawing the process out for years is a luxury that societies could afford in a non-climate-constrained world, but it will not be feasible if countries desire to effectively respond to the looming climate threat. Stakeholders need to be listened to, and environmental concerns need to be assessed; at some point, however, infrastructure decisions must be made, and appeals to the courts limited. One idea is to establish a compressed review process for only a subset of projects that meet certain criteria, such as zero greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge will be reaching agreement on the appropriate criteria.
Fourth, societies must accept that this process will produce a few bad projects and a few projects in which new facts and problems will emerge after decisions have been made. The present system minimizes the number of such projects. The siting process described above could increase that number, but the trade-off may be necessary for countries to benefit from being better prepared to manage emerging climate disruptions.
Stranded Assets
Investments to decarbonize the energy sector and adapt to climate change will result in human dislocations (for example, climate refugees, workers who lose their jobs, and communities that lose their sources of employment) and economic dislocations (for example, unamortized physical assets). These problems may be less urgent in the cases of transportation and water infrastructure, since the existing assets are unlikely to be replaced by an entirely new system.
Energy, however, will be a different case, as countries replace the existing fossil fuel system with one that relies heavily on renewables, storage, and possibly sequestration. Past efforts to deregulate portions of the vertically integrated electric industry give us a sneak preview of the importance of managing the stranded asset problem. High-cost generating facilities were not competitive in the new deregulated market. The utilities that owned these assets would not accept the proposed deregulation policies unless regulators allowed them the opportunity to recover the cost of their previous investments, approved by past regulatory bodies.
If countries intend to decarbonize their electricity sectors, the magnitude and cost of the stranded assets will be much larger than those in recent history, as will the pressure on regulators to compensate the owners of fossil-fueled generating assets. This problem will be larger in countries such as China and India, where a significant portion of their coal-fired generation was built in the last 20 years and will not be fully amortized until 2040 to 2055.
The labor-force dislocation associated with climate mitigation and infrastructure adaptation may prove to be even more challenging to manage. Millions of men and women are employed in the fossil-fuel-intensive electricity sector, and their prospects for finding work in another industry may be limited because of age or geography. Some countries have no social security net for retired workers, who are instead simply retained on their company’s payroll. If the plant is closed, their pensions evaporate. There will be understandable political opposition to retiring these facilities without a funded plan to take care of these employees. Simply retraining them to install solar collectors or build transmission lines will not be politically sufficient or practically feasible at a meaningful scale. One creative approach is an effort championed by the Evergreen climate group, inspired by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and established in 2020, which advocates a GI Bill of sorts to assist fossil fuel workers and communities through pensions, health care, and other training and financial support. While the governance solution to these stranded communities and workers may not be quite so drastic, equity considerations demand that they be addressed in any national climate-infrastructure policy.
Invest in Disaster Relief or Prevention?
Historically, governments have placed significantly more emphasis on responding to disasters than on disaster preparation and resilience. In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spends billions on disaster relief and recovery while spending negligible amounts on avoiding or minimizing those damages in the first place. Why do governments so rarely prioritize climate disaster prevention?
Some state and local governments, often in partnership with nonprofit organizations, purchase coastal barriers or create artificial wetlands or mangrove swamps; these investments are often driven by the cobenefits (in the form of habitat protection, biodiversity, or parklands) as opposed to climate adaptation. Governments in some earthquake-prone regions have inserted requirements for more resilient building practices into city zoning regulation, but those cities are frequently the ones that have repeatedly experienced severe earthquake damage, making the public more enthusiastic about investments in greater resilience. Research has shown some cases in which the government bought up land to reduce the costs of damages (both human and economic) from a future earthquake; these cases are the exceptions, not the rule.
Governments are concerned that tax revenues be spent on activities for which the benefits can be documented and the public can be assured that their tax dollars have not been misused. If FEMA were to spend millions buying private properties in areas vulnerable to significant flooding, but no floods occurred for the next 15 years, the agency would be accused of having wasted taxpayer money. But if FEMA were to spend nothing on resilience and a flood were to occur a few years later, FEMA would be judged on its response to the victims of that flood and its willingness to help that community recover. Few would point out after a disaster that the recovery costs would have been far less if FEMA had bought out the most vulnerable of the buildings prior to the disaster. The incentives are clearly skewed toward investing in recovery rather than in preparation or resilience.
To put this dilemma in perspective, southern Australia has experienced forest and bushfires that were especially severe because of years of droughts and unusually hot weather. After the 2009 Black Saturday fires, the government of Victoria implemented a housing buyback program. Its offer received considerable publicity at the time, since here was an example of a government trying to get ahead of a future problem. However, it took a year to get the program passed because of bureaucratic delays, and few homeowners were interested in pursuing the government’s offer thereafter (Herscher and Rizzo 2020). In 2019 and 2020, the same areas experienced even more severe bushfires.
Interestingly, few criticized the government for its inability to implement the buyback program, and there has been no clamor from the public to develop a new program. Some experts suggest measures such as more stringent building codes, expanded voluntary buyback programs, and enhanced early warning systems; thus far, these policies have not been pursued (Henriques-Gomes 2020; Hill and Martinez-Diaz 2020).
Will this dilemma change? It is unlikely, without a significant push from the public. Admittedly, the financial costs of relief and recovery efforts are skyrocketing as disaster intensity increases. The Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes team at the University of Pennsylvania found that post-disaster spending in response to 2017 events in the United States was more than $130 billion—a record high (Lingle, Kousky, and Shabman 2018). Perhaps as this number increases, pressure will increase for greater national governmental investment in climate preparation.
Most future investments in preparation and resilience will be made by property owners who will do their own cost-benefit analyses, realizing that government assistance in the best of circumstances will be inconsistent and difficult to predict. This outcome is not necessarily bad, but it ignores lower-income communities and households, many of which are located in the most vulnerable locations.
It might be more effective to direct incremental government adaptation funds to these lower-income neighborhoods than to attempt to convince the major public and private relief organizations to fund large-scale infrastructure adaptation and resilience. Perhaps those agencies responsible for housing and urban development should lead the national government’s efforts to promote preparation in concert with their sister institutions at the subnational level.
Conclusions
The climate problem is real, and its impacts will be severe. These impacts will be neither homogeneous nor temporally or spatially predictable. In light of these uncertainties, many governments will hesitate to invest in low-carbon infrastructure without economic and financial assistance at scales that exceed normal political comfort.
What can be done to address these challenges? First, rational pricing for infrastructure services such as electricity and water will become substantially more important in a world dependent on renewable energy, electric vehicles, and water from distant aquifers or capital-intensive desalination facilities. Pricing that reflects the true social cost of these services is essential but by itself will not be enough. In addition, governments at all levels must develop interagency and intergovernmental institutions and processes to address adaptation and mitigation investments. These initiatives should be accompanied by a commitment to transfer funds to where they are needed. Traditional political rigidities must be superseded by a willingness to be creative and to take political risks based more on vision and less on historical stakeholder loyalties. Finally, this new sense of innovation must focus on governance reforms in areas such as siting, stranded assets, interagency coordination, and preventive investments. These reforms will occur only when key stakeholders become more aware of the looming risks of climate change and demand that their elected officials respond to these threats with considerably more urgency than shown to date.
Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He also serves as faculty cochair of the Sustainability Science Program and a senior lecturer in Public Policy. He is the coeditor of a forthcoming book on the pathways to decarbonization in China, to be published by Cambridge University Press in late 2021.
Lead image: Seyhan River, Turkey. Credit: tunart via Getty Images.