Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
is not the only way that countries, regions and urban places can become more sus-
tainable. The following sections show that progress in curbing emissions is also
occurring in two of the major sectors of the economy that contribute substantially
to non-sustainable activities, first, industry and construction activities, and second
in the transport sector, where the resources consumed, and waste produced, lead to
low levels of sustainability.
57
Curbing Emissions from Industrial Activities
Figure
5.6
has shown that the second largest source of human-generated green-
house gases and related pollutants come from manufacturing plants and construc-
tion sites—including those that extract and process raw materials—which have also
released or dumped lots of other toxic materials into the environment, while those
from transport is the third. In the nineteenth century there was often an assumption
that active smoke stacks showed the prosperity of a town, but through time attitudes
have changed. Various initiatives have led to the reduction of some of the pollut-
ants, at least in the developed world, although there is still a long way to go before
industry can be seen to be environmentally benign, while industrial cities in the de-
veloping world often have higher levels of pollution because of the greater toxicity
of modern industrial processes and a lack of concern by many governments of the
problems. Many of the policy initiatives are carried out at a national scale—some-
times internationally with recognition of the trans-border effect of some polluting
sources. But there are often opportunities for urban municipalities, or the local citi-
zens affected by pollution, to influence policy. For example, Vancouver has long
had an active environmental movement and in 2012 the city council adopted new
plans to improve its sustainability, namely by: a reduction of greenhouse gases by
a third between 2007 and 2020; trying to ensure all residents live within 5 min of a
green space or park; as well as a policy to plant 150,000 trees by 2020. In general
most nations and cities engaged in sustainable practices tend to focus on a limited
number of policy areas, but more comprehensive strategies are emerging, of which
several approaches are the most used to curb emissions: environmental regulations;
industrial initiatives, via new technologies at a plant level; new technologies for
both vehicle propulsion systems and efficiencies; as well as those involving taxes,
or cap and trade policies to reduce emissions.
5.7.1
Regulations to Reduce Emissions
New environmental regulations, at least in the developed world, enacted over the
last two decades have drastically reduced not only the development of plants with
toxic outputs in many areas, but have also restricted their ability to release such pol-
lutants. However, as the chapter on Green Cities (Chap. 4) has shown, it often takes
an industrial disaster, or the work of dedicated critics who have exposed the negative
