Climate Change and Health Seminar: "Climate change, cities, and health: advancing solutions through systems-based research

Transcript

• 00:00<v ->Okay.</v>
• 00:03It's time to get started. I'm Robert Dubrow.
• 00:05I'm the faculty director of the
• 00:07Yale Center on Climate Change and Health.
• 00:09I know most of you, but maybe not everyone.
• 00:12And it's a great pleasure today to introduce Jose Siri,
• 00:18who is speaking to us from London.
• 00:22And since 2019,
• 00:24he's been the senior science lead for
• 00:27Cities, Urbanization and Health for the Wellcome Trust's
• 00:30Our planet, Our Health Programme.
• 00:33Some of his previous positions have included
• 00:36being a research fellow in Urban Health for the
• 00:39UN University International Institute for Global Health.
• 00:43He's been a research scholar for the
• 00:45International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis,
• 00:49and he got his PhD in Epidemiology with a concentration
• 00:54in infectious disease epidemiology
• 00:57from the University of Michigan.
• 00:59So without further ado, I'll let Jose start his talk.
• 01:06<v ->Great!</v>
• 01:07Many thanks, Robert. Can you hear me? Thumbs up?
• 01:11Great, great.
• 01:13So it's great to be with you today.
• 01:14Thanks again to Robert.
• 01:15Thanks to the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health,
• 01:19and thank you to you all for joining.
• 01:22Today, I'm gonna talk about
• 01:23the central role that cities play
• 01:24in climate change and health and how systems-based research
• 01:28can contribute to the solutions.
• 01:29And I hope that you'll see or you'll agree with me
• 01:32why we need this type of approach to compliment
• 01:34traditional public health research.
• 01:36So I want to start with a few concrete examples.
• 01:41Just this past month,
• 01:43we saw one of the most intense heat events in history
• 01:46in the Western North American heat wave.
• 01:49So starting in late June,
• 01:50the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada
• 01:52saw maximum temperatures up to 19 degrees Celsius
• 01:55above normal, lasting through early July.
• 01:59This is a map showing temperature anomalies on June 27th,
• 02:03compared to the typical average for the same day
• 02:05in different years.
• 02:07The heat caused power outages,
• 02:09it destroyed infrastructure,
• 02:11it buckled roads across the region,
• 02:13it spoiled crops, and damaged trees,
• 02:16some places saw major water quality declines
• 02:18because of fish kills,
• 02:20and of course, it sparked wildfires,
• 02:23which continue to be a major concern in the region.
• 02:26Some places even saw serious flooding from snow melt.
• 02:29So the drought, excuse me, the fire had a whole range,
• 02:32excuse me, the heatwave,
• 02:34had a whole range of complex consequences.
• 02:37And we still don't know the full health impacts,
• 02:40but there've been estimated 700 plus excess deaths so far.
• 02:45There was a significant rise in hospitalizations,
• 02:48and there was morbidity, not just from the heat,
• 02:50but also from cascading events
• 02:52like smoke inhalation from wildfires,
• 02:55major mental health impacts, of course, for those effects.
• 02:59In this context, impacts were much worse because this region
• 03:02has a low uptake of air conditioning,
• 03:04and it hadn't prepared in other ways for this level of heat.
• 03:07So in other words, they're not adapted.
• 03:10A preliminary attribution study has estimated
• 03:12that this is about a one in 1,000 year event
• 03:15in today's climate,
• 03:16but that it would have been 150 times rarer
• 03:19without human-induced climate change.
• 03:21Under two degrees Celsius warming,
• 03:23which is the minimum goal for the Paris Climate Agreement,
• 03:26an event of this magnitude might happen
• 03:28every five to 10 years.
• 03:30Of course, we know that cities amplify heat waves
• 03:32because of urban heat island effects.
• 03:35Cities can be significantly hotter than surrounding areas,
• 03:37especially at night.
• 03:40In the left figure below,
• 03:42you see how climate change might shift
• 03:44the distribution of hot days.
• 03:45Now, to the right.
• 03:47In the right, you see the additional shifts
• 03:49from urban heat islands.
• 03:50And the message from from this figure is that
• 03:52even small rises in average heat
• 03:55can lead to large increases in extreme heat
• 03:57at the leading edge of the distribution,
• 03:59especially in cities where you have
• 04:01the additional amplifying effects.
• 04:04So let's cross the world to South Africa,
• 04:07and three years earlier.
• 04:09In 2018, after three consecutive years of low rainfall,
• 04:13Cape Town had one of the worst water crises
• 04:15ever recorded in the major city.
• 04:18Early that year, officials estimated that the water system
• 04:21would actually fail on a so-called "day zero" in April.
• 04:25In other words, they projected that water levels
• 04:26would be too low for any withdrawals
• 04:28and the city would essentially have to shut the system down.
• 04:32The chart you see here is a measure of water storage
• 04:35for the city over the five proceeding years.
• 04:37The black lines at the bottom
• 04:39show have the minimum levels needed to allow withdrawals.
• 04:42Now,
• 04:43in this case, the city averted the crisis,
• 04:46but not before it drew up security plans
• 04:48to protect emergency water supplies.
• 04:50Water was severely rationed.
• 04:52Citizens were challenged and in some cases, even shamed,
• 04:56into conserving and consumption was reduced
• 04:58by more than half, which allowed the city to survive
• 05:00until the rains came.
• 05:03But even though the crisis was averted,
• 05:05it sort of highlighted some of the severe inequities
• 05:08and conflicts related to water in the city.
• 05:11Now for example,
• 05:11informal settlements in Cape Town
• 05:13received less than 4% of the water supply,
• 05:16even though they represent 20% of the population.
• 05:19There were conflicts over the use of water for public health
• 05:23versus for agricultural priorities.
• 05:26And again,
• 05:27this is a situation where the systems
• 05:29that the city of Cape Town had put into place
• 05:32just weren't designed for the conditions they encountered.
• 05:34They weren't well adapted.
• 05:37As for the Western American heat wave,
• 05:40this was a quite rare event,
• 05:42perhaps 0.7% per year in today's climate,
• 05:46but made five and a half times more likely
• 05:48because of human-induced climate change.
• 05:51In an intermediate warming scenario,
• 05:53the probability of a drought as bad as this or worse
• 05:56could rise to 25% per year by the end of the century.
• 06:00In a high warming scenario, it could rise to 80%.
• 06:03So you would see this kind of drought most years,
• 06:05essentially.
• 06:08Again, cities amplified drought risks
• 06:10because they concentrate massive amounts of people
• 06:13in a small area,
• 06:15they impact health directly,
• 06:16but also through loss of livelihoods,
• 06:19impacts on agriculture,
• 06:20and sometimes even increased infectious disease risks.
• 06:24So for example,
• 06:25where hygiene suffers because of lack of water.
• 06:28As with almost all climate risks,
• 06:30the greatest impacts are on the poor and marginalized.
• 06:35So coming back to the U.S. now,
• 06:37one year earlier than that.
• 06:38In 2017,
• 06:40Hurricane Harvey dumped as much as five feet of water
• 06:43on parts of Texas.
• 06:45Over a hundred people died,
• 06:4730,000 people were displaced,
• 06:49and the storm caused $125 billion worth of damage.
• 06:54Aside again, from the direct health impacts
• 06:56and environmental exposures,
• 06:58many, many people suffered mental trauma from the disaster
• 07:01and from the losses of their homes or their livelihoods.
• 07:04Again, impacts felt disproportionately on Black
• 07:07and poor residents.
• 07:09This was another extremely rare event,
• 07:13perhaps one in 2,000 years in today's climate,
• 07:15I've seen as low as one in 9,000 years.
• 07:18But again, the rainfall totals were made more than
• 07:20three times as likely, like human-induced climate change,
• 07:23and the risk might increase to one in 100
• 07:26by the end of the century.
• 07:29In Houston itself, within the city,
• 07:31modeling suggests that the urban environment
• 07:33not only exacerbated the flooding,
• 07:35because of impervious services and channeling the water,
• 07:39but the urban environment actually increased local rainfall,
• 07:42through interactions with meteorological system,
• 07:44making the observed flooding,
• 07:46the observed water levels 21 times more likely.
• 07:51So,
• 07:52it's not hard to find material unfortunately
• 07:55for climate and health.
• 07:57There are hundreds of other examples
• 07:59that I could have used here.
• 08:01All of these have connections to adaptation
• 08:03because they speak to the need to plan for such impacts,
• 08:07but they're also intimately linked to mitigation
• 08:09because all of them were made much more likely
• 08:11by human greenhouse gas emissions.
• 08:14So these events really illustrate that climate change
• 08:16is not just the concern for the future,
• 08:18we're already seeing serious impacts today.
• 08:21They show how cities mediate and modify
• 08:24both overall climate impacts and the distribution of impacts
• 08:27across society.
• 08:29They show how much human-induced climate change
• 08:32has already increased health risks,
• 08:35and how these health risks may increase in the future.
• 08:38And they tell us or they show us really,
• 08:40the cities are critical part of solutions
• 08:43for climate mitigation, adaptation, resilience.
• 08:47So for the rest of my talk,
• 08:48I'm gonna be discussing why cities are critical
• 08:51for climate and health impacts and solutions,
• 08:54what challenges we face in implementing
• 08:56healthy climate action in cities and beyond,
• 08:59why we should see many climate and health challenges
• 09:01in cities as systems problems,
• 09:04and how a systems-based research agenda can help catalyze
• 09:08solutions.
• 09:10So, first of all,
• 09:11why are cities critical for climate and health impacts?
• 09:15First of all, cities are where we mostly live.
• 09:19And this is a fairly new situation.
• 09:21Most of us tend to think of, for example,
• 09:23the Industrial Revolution
• 09:25as the time of massive urbanization as I do.
• 09:28But the population of England in 1800
• 09:30was maybe just 10 to 20% urban.
• 09:33Urban population growth began to overtake rural
• 09:36about half a century ago.
• 09:38And according to the UN,
• 09:39we became majority urban around 2007,
• 09:42where you see these two curves cross.
• 09:45Today, the UN estimates that we're about 55%,
• 09:48and by 2050, two-thirds of us will live in cities.
• 09:52Now it's worth mentioning that these numbers are quite
• 09:54uncertain.
• 09:55We actually can't measure who lives in city
• 09:59and how many people live in city directly.
• 10:01We've tended to use national definitions for urban,
• 10:04whatever they are.
• 10:06But in Norway or Sweden, a city with 200 people
• 10:09is considered urban.
• 10:10In Japan, you have to have 50,000 people
• 10:12to be considered urban.
• 10:14So cross country comparisons are quite difficult.
• 10:17There have been a few efforts to apply
• 10:19a single standard everywhere.
• 10:21One effort using a construct called degree of urbanization,
• 10:23puts the global urban share of the population
• 10:27at about 75 to 80%.
• 10:29Most of the increase coming from Asia and Africa.
• 10:33There's some controversy over that definition.
• 10:35There's other efforts, but whatever method you use,
• 10:38the take home message is that we're mostly urban
• 10:41and we'll be adding billions of more city dwellers
• 10:43over the course of the century.
• 10:45So,
• 10:46given that we're mostly urban species today
• 10:50from the standpoint of an ecologist,
• 10:51cities are our dominant habitat
• 10:53and they've profoundly affect our health.
• 10:56And I like to think of the analogy of a fish tank.
• 10:59So if you buy a fish tank,
• 11:01you have to supply it with fresh or salt water,
• 11:03depending on the kind of fish,
• 11:04you need to add light and heat,
• 11:06gravel, hiding places for the fish,
• 11:09you have to regularly add food, you need a filter,
• 11:12and so on and so forth.
• 11:14If you imagine building an ideal habitat for a human being,
• 11:18it probably wouldn't look too much like modern cities,
• 11:21that some are better than others.
• 11:23This list here is from Stephen Boyden's seminal work
• 11:26on human ecology in Hong Kong.
• 11:28And I love that this includes not just physical,
• 11:31but psychosocial needs.
• 11:33So, of course,
• 11:34cities should supply clean air, water and food,
• 11:37but it's equally important that they supply
• 11:39emotional support, and variety, and a sense of purpose.
• 11:44But again, the key is that cities, in many ways,
• 11:47determine the health of the human species.
• 11:51Virtually, every urban system affects health
• 11:53in familiar ways,
• 11:55but also along pathways that we may not be aware of,
• 11:58or when we think about, excuse me.
• 12:03Urban transport systems affect physical activity,
• 12:07they affect the air pollution and exposure to air pollution,
• 12:10mental health and opportunities for social interaction.
• 12:15For women, in some contexts,
• 12:16they also can seriously affect safety
• 12:18or perceptions of safety.
• 12:20Housing affects exposure to extreme temperatures,
• 12:23infectious vectors, toxic pollutants,
• 12:26but it can also influence a sense of belonging
• 12:28and variety and daily experience.
• 12:31Cultural systems have impacts on creativity, of course,
• 12:35but also on loneliness,
• 12:37and even on infectious disease transmission
• 12:39as we've seen in lots of examples during COVID-19.
• 12:43And I'm sure I've left relevant systems off this list.
• 12:47I won't go through them all,
• 12:48but I just really want to emphasize the point that cities,
• 12:51through their complex integrated dynamic systems,
• 12:54are among the main drivers of our health and wellbeing.
• 12:58Now, importantly, for what we're discussing today,
• 13:01cities affect virtually all the pathways along which
• 13:03climate change affects health.
• 13:06So you have direct impacts, for example, through storms,
• 13:09drought, flooding, and heat.
• 13:10And as we've seen,
• 13:12these are all modified and sometimes amplified by cities
• 13:15in urban systems.
• 13:17You have indirect impacts,
• 13:18might mediated through ecological systems.
• 13:21These are also affected by cities.
• 13:23So for example, cities drive deforestation,
• 13:25increasing the likelihood of zoonotic disease transmission
• 13:28when previously separated species come into contact.
• 13:33They can cause food system disruptions when they grow over
• 13:36or expand over productive agricultural land,
• 13:38which is quite common.
• 13:40Indirect impacts can also be mediated
• 13:42through social processes like migration or trade.
• 13:46And of course, cities are the primary driver
• 13:48and destination of those processes as well.
• 13:52Cities are also where most mitigation and adaptation actions
• 13:56either are implemented or are the driving force behind it.
• 14:03Perhaps most importantly,
• 14:05cities emit about three-quarters of all greenhouse gases
• 14:08from final energy use.
• 14:10They use more than three quarters of all natural resources.
• 14:13They produce about half of all the waste
• 14:15that humanity produces.
• 14:17And the graph on the left shows
• 14:20global greenhouse gas emissions by economic sector.
• 14:24Electricity and heat production, transportation, buildings,
• 14:28and to some extent, industry,
• 14:29are important sources of urban emissions
• 14:32as you might imagine.
• 14:33But even emissions that happen in rural
• 14:36or undeveloped areas,
• 14:38so for example, from agriculture or forestry,
• 14:41are mostly the result of urban demand
• 14:43for goods and services.
• 14:46On the right,
• 14:48the figure shows two common ways of accounting for emissions
• 14:51and the bluer circle towards the top,
• 14:54shows all emissions arising from goods and services produced
• 14:57within the city,
• 14:58whether they're consumed there or exported somewhere else.
• 15:01That's the usual way that we measure emissions.
• 15:04The greener circle shows all emissions
• 15:06arising from goods and services consumed by the city,
• 15:09wherever they're produced.
• 15:11And in fact, especially in wealthy cities,
• 15:14a high percentage of emissions are from imported goods
• 15:17and services.
• 15:18So, you buy your iPhone,
• 15:19and you don't have any emissions from that,
• 15:21but emissions are produced in China or somewhere else
• 15:24or where that phone is produced.
• 15:27We've done a lot less well at documenting
• 15:29so-called consumption-based emissions.
• 15:31For example, they're not generally included
• 15:33in net-zero commitments,
• 15:34which are pledges to reach a state of carbon neutrality
• 15:38by a certain date.
• 15:40There are efforts underway to change that,
• 15:42led by groups like C40 Cities,
• 15:44which is a network of the world's largest
• 15:47and most influential cities.
• 15:50So,
• 15:51just as urban populations are growing,
• 15:54so too our urban extents.
• 15:56The amount of land that we devote to cities is projected
• 15:59to increase dramatically over the century.
• 16:03In fact, many analysts suggest
• 16:06that we're more than double total urban land extents.
• 16:10I believe Karen Seto, who I think is with us here,
• 16:13has estimated that 60% of all of the urban infrastructure
• 16:16that we're going to need has yet to be built.
• 16:22Under some scenarios of fossil fuel development,
• 16:25as you see on the right graph here,
• 16:27models have projected that we could have as much as
• 16:29six times as much urban land by the end of the century
• 16:32as we have now.
• 16:34More than two-thirds of the expansion in urban land
• 16:37will happen in Africa and Asia.
• 16:40And so,
• 16:40you can imagine that this is a tremendous opportunity
• 16:43to rethink how we design our fish tank,
• 16:46how we make our cities healthier places,
• 16:48both for people and for the planet.
• 16:53So,
• 16:54I've highlighted some troubling trends and statistics here,
• 16:58but I really want to emphasize that
• 16:59cities can be forces for good.
• 17:02It's really important to remember that.
• 17:03These two pictures are before and after shots of a place
• 17:07in Seoul, South Korea,
• 17:08called Chonggyecheon.
• 17:10I'm positive, I'm butchering the pronunciation, but I try.
• 17:15From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s,
• 17:18this was a site of major industrialization
• 17:21and really a perfect example of car dependency.
• 17:24You can see in the upper picture that the site included
• 17:27an elevated highway.
• 17:29This was constructed over the bed of a former river.
• 17:33In 2003, the then mayor of Seoul initiated a project
• 17:37to remove the highway and restore the river.
• 17:39It was highly controversial.
• 17:41It was expected to lead to terrible congestion
• 17:43and other consequences,
• 17:45but actually it's become a showcase for the city.
• 17:48The new watercourse, which you see in the lower picture,
• 17:52led to locally cooler temperatures,
• 17:55by some measures an increase in biodiversity,
• 17:57less traffic congestion,
• 17:59less pollution,
• 18:00more tourism,
• 18:02and cultural and economic revitalization.
• 18:05And cities everywhere are taking actions like this,
• 18:08and trying experiments like this.
• 18:10Now, we saw a host of new experiments in public space
• 18:13and infrastructure,
• 18:14and working in mobility during COVID-19
• 18:18in cities around the world.
• 18:20Cities are also taking the lead on net-zero commitments,
• 18:24and adaptation matters,
• 18:25and on integrating all these activities
• 18:27under one-governance structure.
• 18:29So the city of Amsterdam, I believe,
• 18:32is taking an explicit Doughnut Economics Approach
• 18:34to their development, where they both mitigate
• 18:39the excesses of growth,
• 18:41but also provide all the social needs for the population.
• 18:44So really important that we see cities not as problematic,
• 18:48but as a source of solutions.
• 18:51So now,
• 18:53I want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges
• 18:55to implementing healthy climate action in cities.
• 18:59Many of these things that I'll talk about, of course,
• 19:01apply to climate and health more broadly.
• 19:05One challenge is that we just don't know where we're going
• 19:08in terms of emissions pathways.
• 19:10This figure shows annual growth,
• 19:12global greenhouse gas emissions under different scenarios.
• 19:15If we do nothing, we're up in this pink gray area,
• 19:18and we're probably looking at
• 19:19more than four degrees Celsius of warming,
• 19:22which would be catastrophic.
• 19:24But fortunately, we are already doing something,
• 19:26and under current policies, we're probably in this tan space
• 19:30in the middle and looking about three degrees of warming,
• 19:33which would still be extremely serious.
• 19:36Our current pledges and targets under the Paris Agreement,
• 19:39get us down to about 2.4,
• 19:41and if we were able to take the urgent massive action
• 19:44that we need to take,
• 19:45we might still be able to hold a warming to two degrees
• 19:48or even 1.5.
• 19:51But it's important to remember that all the climate impacts
• 19:53that we're seeing today are just
• 19:561.1 or 1.2 degrees of warming.
• 19:59So even 1.5,
• 20:00even if we meet the goals of the Paris Agreement,
• 20:03we're looking at significantly more serious health impacts
• 20:05and other impacts.
• 20:08Now, of course, not knowing what to adapt to,
• 20:11makes it quite difficult for cities to plan effectively.
• 20:14It also makes it quite difficult and challenging
• 20:16to project impacts.
• 20:19So,
• 20:21a second issue is that we don't know enough
• 20:23about tipping points.
• 20:26A tipping point is a set of conditions
• 20:28where small changes can lead to abrupt shifts
• 20:31in the state of a complex system.
• 20:33Most often, we hear about climate change tipping points.
• 20:37So for example,
• 20:38there's a hypothesis that if the Greenland ice sheet melts
• 20:41too quickly,
• 20:42the influx of cold water could shut down
• 20:44the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean currents
• 20:47and that would cause a very rapid shift in global climate.
• 20:51So that's one climate tipping point.
• 20:53There are many other potential climates tipping points,
• 20:55but tipping points aren't limited to climate systems.
• 20:58So you can have ecological tipping points,
• 21:01and socio-economic tipping points as well.
• 21:04So to give an example of an ecological tipping point,
• 21:07drier conditions can cause less vegetation growth,
• 21:10which leads to less evapotranspiration, even less rain,
• 21:14and eventually leads to rapid desertification.
• 21:17And there's evidence that that may have
• 21:20already started happening in some areas.
• 21:23In terms of socioeconomic tipping points,
• 21:26sea-level rise, or sustained drought
• 21:27can lead to sudden abandonment of settlements
• 21:30and out-migration.
• 21:31Imagine if the Cape Town drought
• 21:33had gone on a couple more years.
• 21:36Importantly, tipping points can also be positive.
• 21:39We might see a sudden transition to renewable energy
• 21:42when a critical mass and cheaper technology
• 21:44leads to universal adaption.
• 21:46We've seen that kind of rapid spread for mobile phones
• 21:49and social media, for example.
• 21:52But deep uncertainty about the likelihood, magnitude,
• 21:55and timing of tipping points is another factor that
• 21:57complicates city planning and even global climate planning
• 22:01and policy discourse.
• 22:05We don't have enough information
• 22:07about the limits of adaptation or its effectiveness.
• 22:11The figure here shows frequency of adverse impacts
• 22:14from some event on the Y-axis
• 22:17and intensity of adverse impacts on the X-axis.
• 22:22So when frequency or intensity are very low,
• 22:25when they're in the blue,
• 22:26we don't worry about them.
• 22:27They're acceptable risks.
• 22:29Beyond some limit of acceptable risk,
• 22:31which is shown here by the curve line at the lower left,
• 22:35we adapt to the risk,
• 22:36but there are limits to what's possible or feasible.
• 22:39A limit to adaptation is a point at which an actor
• 22:42can no longer secure valued objectives
• 22:45from intolerable risk through adaptive action.
• 22:49So the point at which your adaptive action can't secure
• 22:52what you need to secure.
• 22:54Above the limits of adaptation,
• 22:56which is the second curve line in this figure,
• 22:58to the upper right, risks are so severe
• 23:00that we have to try to avoid them or mitigate them.
• 23:03And you may have heard the phrase,
• 23:05"Adapt to what you can't avoid, avoid what you can't adapt."
• 23:10Barriers to adaptation can be physiological.
• 23:14So for example, where heat and humidity go beyond
• 23:17the human body's capacity to cool itself,
• 23:19they can also be ecological, social,
• 23:21cultural, physical infrastructural, or technological.
• 23:25I'm sure there are other things that they can be.
• 23:28So we need to have a much better understanding of the limits
• 23:31to adaptation.
• 23:34One second.
• 23:37In terms of effectiveness,
• 23:39we have lots of projections and sort of modeled estimates of
• 23:43the effectiveness of potential actions,
• 23:45but far fewer measurements of performance of adaptation
• 23:49in reducing health or climate impacts or risks.
• 23:52So,
• 23:54as things become more and more implemented in the world,
• 23:56we need evaluations of those projects.
• 24:00Even when we know adaptation has been effective,
• 24:02it's hard to separate out
• 24:03the effects of personal behavioral change,
• 24:06changing contextual factors, and specific interventions.
• 24:09So we need a theory that helps us
• 24:11disentangle those patterns.
• 24:14Another challenge,
• 24:15and this is a really important one,
• 24:17from my perspective, is that existing research
• 24:20doesn't reflect non-patterns of risk.
• 24:23The figure above is from a preprint of a new review.
• 24:26They used machine learning approaches
• 24:28to evaluate about 16,000 climate and health studies.
• 24:32And if you notice the scale, there is a log scale,
• 24:34so keep that in mind.
• 24:36Notice where the studies are concentrated.
• 24:39The second figure below shows the locations of heat wave
• 24:43and health research over close to half a century.
• 24:46It's even a starker pattern,
• 24:47and that's for one specific risk,
• 24:49but you can do that for any different climate analysis.
• 24:53In both cases, there's a significant lack of research
• 24:55in countries and cities that will experience
• 24:58serious climate and health impacts.
• 25:01That includes Latin America, Africa,
• 25:04the Middle East, Central Asia and Oceania.
• 25:08And lots of research in the U.S. and Europe,
• 25:11India and China, but much of the rest of the world
• 25:13needs a lot more.
• 25:16We still don't have nearly enough evidence
• 25:18on how cities interact with modify and mediate
• 25:20climate health relationships.
• 25:22And because we haven't done the research,
• 25:24we especially have limited information about
• 25:26how these interactions are already affecting residents
• 25:29of informal settlements, secondary cities,
• 25:32cities in the Global South,
• 25:34or how they'll affect in the future.
• 25:37We don't have enough evidence on impacts
• 25:38on marginalized groups or intersectional impacts,
• 25:42even in high-income countries.
• 25:44And we don't have enough evidence on impacts
• 25:46mediated via complex indirect pathways,
• 25:49which I'll talk a little bit more about later.
• 25:53And of course we've seen the climate change
• 25:55will push our infrastructure beyond the tolerances
• 25:58that it was designed for.
• 26:00That was something in several of the examples that I gave.
• 26:03We need much more information on how our infrastructure
• 26:06would respond to and what we do to fix it.
• 26:11So another issue is that we have systematically incomplete
• 26:15information on how to catalyze climate action.
• 26:18And some of you may be familiar with this picture.
• 26:21This picture represents a story from World War II.
• 26:25Bombers were being regularly shot down
• 26:27when they went out on raids,
• 26:29and the U.S. Military was trying to figure out
• 26:30what to do about it.
• 26:32So when the bombers came back, they systematically mapped
• 26:34the bullet holes in planes returning from combat,
• 26:37and they proposed to add armor to the parts
• 26:39that had the most holes.
• 26:41But a statistician named Abraham Wald,
• 26:44pointed out the solution was the exact opposite
• 26:47because these were the planes that had survived.
• 26:49So the military should armor the parts with no bullet holes,
• 26:52because any plane that got hit in those places
• 26:54didn't make it back.
• 26:56This type of effect has been called survivorship bias,
• 27:00and it's really common.
• 27:02In the context of climate change,
• 27:04we're beginning to have many collections of implemented
• 27:06mitigation adaptation and co-benefits actions.
• 27:09And often these collections try to pull out and identify
• 27:12the salient shared features of success.
• 27:15But we have far less information on interventions
• 27:17that failed during implementation.
• 27:20Almost no information at all on actions that were rejected
• 27:23during ideation or planning.
• 27:26Actions that were proved and never implemented.
• 27:29In this context, survivorship bias can arise
• 27:32to drawing conclusions only from successful climate action.
• 27:36So we need to look at the failures.
• 27:40Another challenge is that research policy and practice
• 27:42tend to operate in silos.
• 27:45In other words, people tend to engage, primarily,
• 27:47with the concepts, people, problems and actions
• 27:51that relate to their own specific area of work or interest.
• 27:55Obviously, this challenges effective communication,
• 27:57the challenges are believed to integrate
• 27:59research policy and practice,
• 28:01and it challenges the coherence of the actions
• 28:04that we implement.
• 28:06One thing that I and many others have observed is that
• 28:09health has actually, often particularly,
• 28:12separated from other sectors.
• 28:14And maybe this is because of deference to the health sector,
• 28:17maybe it has something to do with specialization,
• 28:19maybe it's because health is life and death,
• 28:21and so occupies a sort of a different place.
• 28:24But the result is that in many cities,
• 28:27just to give one example,
• 28:28urban and transport planners have little or no contact
• 28:31with the health department,
• 28:32even though their actions have huge implications
• 28:35for health and wellbeing, and obviously for climate.
• 28:40Another challenge is that the pace of the required change
• 28:43of what we have to do is getting faster and faster.
• 28:47Every year that we delay action,
• 28:49the climate challenge becomes greater.
• 28:51As of 2019,
• 28:53we would have had to cut emissions by 7.6% each year,
• 28:56globally,
• 28:57to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
• 28:59And just for perspective, in 2020 with COVID-19,
• 29:03we had just a 6.4% drop in emissions.
• 29:07So that starts to give you a sense of the scale
• 29:09of what we need to do every year.
• 29:12The figure here shows how the pace and trajectory
• 29:15of the needed emissions reductions changes
• 29:16with the year when they begin.
• 29:18So if they had started in 2000,
• 29:21it would have been a much shallower
• 29:22reduction that we would have had to have.
• 29:24Now it's much deeper.
• 29:26Not only do we have to move faster than ever,
• 29:28but we have to do more than ever before.
• 29:31So our goal can't be just to reduce emissions,
• 29:34but we also have to meet all the other goals
• 29:36to sustainable development.
• 29:37We have to the end poverty and hunger,
• 29:39provide education and equality,
• 29:42and all of the other SDGs.
• 29:48The figure on the left
• 29:51just shows how health is intimately linked
• 29:53with all of those goals.
• 29:55And on the right,
• 29:55we have countries plotted, excuse me,
• 29:57on the right we have countries plotted with respect to their
• 29:59ecological footprint per capita on the Y-axis,
• 30:03and their human development index on the X-axis.
• 30:05So the further to the right on this chart,
• 30:08the better your standards of living.
• 30:10The lower down, the more sustainable you are.
• 30:14The shaded square at the bottom right
• 30:15defines the space within which countries
• 30:17have high human development
• 30:19and live within the world's limits.
• 30:22And you can see that there are very few countries
• 30:24in that space, and we need to get everyone there
• 30:26quite quickly.
• 30:28So one last challenge is that we have lots of commitments,
• 30:32but actual implementation lags far behind.
• 30:35Here, we see cities and regions that have pledged
• 30:37a net-zero emissions target,
• 30:39and we also have the percentage of national populations
• 30:41that are covered by these targets.
• 30:43As of 2020, 126 countries and 51% of global emissions,
• 30:47As of 2020, 126 countries and 51% of global emissions,
• 30:50excuse me, of the global population had net-zero goals,
• 30:53either formerly adopted, announced, or under consideration.
• 30:57But pledging and implementing are far different things,
• 31:00politically and practically.
• 31:02So we need to keep an eye on this
• 31:03and we need mechanisms for accountability.
• 31:08So I want to shift gears here and talk about
• 31:11the systemic nature of many urban challenges,
• 31:13including those related to climate and health,
• 31:15and why we should think of them as systems problems.
• 31:19So, first of all, what do I mean by systems problems?
• 31:23Systems problems arise from the interactions of networks
• 31:26of interconnected elements or systems.
• 31:29They tend to have various features,
• 31:31detailed complexity, so they have lots of variables,
• 31:34there's lots of things going on.
• 31:36Dynamic complexity.
• 31:38Cause and effect can be hard to define in these systems.
• 31:41The outcomes of interventions aren't obvious.
• 31:45They usually have multiple stakeholders acting on
• 31:47incomplete information, often with conflicting motives.
• 31:51They operate across multiple scales and sectors.
• 31:54They're often resistant to change or sometimes
• 31:56they'll change very suddenly and unexpectedly.
• 31:59And they're usually related to other problems.
• 32:04So the defining feature of systems problems is feedback,
• 32:07which can be reinforcing or balancing.
• 32:10Reinforcing feedbacks lead to exponential growth decline,
• 32:14balancing feedbacks lead to stable values.
• 32:17So remember the example of desertification before,
• 32:20where less rain went to less vegetation,
• 32:23went the less rain and so on,
• 32:24that's a reinforcing feedback loop.
• 32:27Your thermostat in your house operates
• 32:29on the principle of balancing feedback.
• 32:31When the gap between the room temperature
• 32:34and your thermostat setting gets large,
• 32:36it turns on the furnace and the room heats up.
• 32:38When the gap becomes smaller,
• 32:41it turns off the furnace so the temperature stays close
• 32:43to the desired temperature.
• 32:46So an important observation here is that you can have
• 32:49a valid causal relationship between A and B,
• 32:52perfectly valid, but still see all sorts of different
• 32:54behavior in the real world,
• 32:56depending on other connections in the system.
• 32:59System behavior can be explained endogenously
• 33:01in terms of feedbacks, delays, stocks, flows,
• 33:04and parameters within the system.
• 33:07That means that the way the system behaves
• 33:09depends on the way the elements of the system are connected.
• 33:13Simple system structures,
• 33:15or combinations of feedback loops and delays,
• 33:17give rise to characteristic patterns of behavior.
• 33:22Sometimes, we see these called systems archetypes.
• 33:26So seeing a certain pattern suggests a certain relationship
• 33:29between the elements in a system.
• 33:31So just to give a couple of examples,
• 33:34the top example here,
• 33:35you have a balancing feedback loop with a delay
• 33:38and that gives dampening oscillations.
• 33:40So if your thermostat is slow to react,
• 33:43you'd see this kind of pattern.
• 33:45The second example,
• 33:46a reinforcing loop tied to a balancing loop
• 33:50can give you a typical logistic growth curve.
• 33:52So,
• 33:54in the second diagram, we have population growth
• 33:56with an ecological carrying capacity.
• 33:58At low populations, the reinforcing loop dominates
• 34:01and growth is exponential,
• 34:02and at high populations, the balancing loop dominates,
• 34:05so growth slows until the population equals
• 34:08the carrying capacity.
• 34:10There are many other well-established systems archetypes,
• 34:13and of course, these relationships can be expressed
• 34:15mathematically and modeled.
• 34:19Simple systems structures combined into broader systems
• 34:22in constant dynamic flux.
• 34:25And this is where conventional approaches really struggle.
• 34:28So when you have health needs and risk factors
• 34:31and diseases and health resources that are all fluctuating
• 34:34constantly over time,
• 34:36it's hard to develop valid conclusions.
• 34:41Earlier, I mentioned silos,
• 34:42here's where they really become relevant.
• 34:45So when dealing with a system virtually, everyone sees,
• 34:47tends to see their own part,
• 34:49the part most related to their own work, or their own ideas,
• 34:52or their own community.
• 34:54So climate scientists tend to look at climate variables,
• 34:58city planners look at urban variables,
• 35:00health professionals tend to look at
• 35:01direct health relationships.
• 35:03Now, of course,
• 35:05there's intentional reaching across the boundaries.
• 35:08Health scientists certainly look at the impacts of variables
• 35:11in other parts of the system,
• 35:13but it's rare that anyone is able to perceive
• 35:15the whole system and the way things co-vary
• 35:17and interact at the same time.
• 35:20So an important guideline and systems thinking
• 35:23is that you can't understand
• 35:24the behavior of that whole system
• 35:25by understanding the behavior of individual parts.
• 35:29This is especially true in critical feedback loops,
• 35:32especially if feedback loops that have delayed action
• 35:36when they cross silo boundaries.
• 35:38And under those circumstances,
• 35:39it's very common for decision-makers to be surprised
• 35:42by the counter-intuitive outcomes
• 35:44or the failure of policies or interventions.
• 35:49Now,
• 35:50practitioners of systems analysis and systems thinking
• 35:52have developed heuristics about when and how to intervene
• 35:56in a system to have greatest impact.
• 35:59These are so-called leverage points,
• 36:01and some of them are more effective than others.
• 36:03So the lowest value leverage points are parameters.
• 36:06So for example, the rates of flow into or out of stocks.
• 36:11Higher up on leverage scale are physical system structures
• 36:15like buffers and material stocks and flows.
• 36:18Even higher are control structures.
• 36:21The structures that control of the working
• 36:22in the system, feedback loops,
• 36:24information flows and rules.
• 36:27The highest leverage points are those that allow
• 36:29the system structure or the goals to change,
• 36:32so if you can add feedback loops or remove them.
• 36:36And if you look at the very peak are interventions to change
• 36:38the paradigm out of which systems arise.
• 36:41In a real sense, that's what we're trying to do
• 36:43in the context of climate change
• 36:45and sustainable development.
• 36:47We want to shift our shared understanding of the goal
• 36:50of the human system, of humanity's place in the world.
• 36:56In the meantime,
• 36:58systems thinkers tell us
• 37:00that most of what we do to solve problems
• 37:03of the options that we look at,
• 37:06tend to rely on low value leverage points,
• 37:09and that we often, after we've identified them,
• 37:11push them in the wrong direction.
• 37:13So the systems approaches offer an opportunity
• 37:15to identify higher quality actions.
• 37:20Many urban climate and health challenges have features
• 37:23or show behaviors that we associate with systems problems.
• 37:26There are processes that we see replicated again and again
• 37:30in cities around the world.
• 37:32Urban sprawl, traffic congestion, gentrification,
• 37:35slum formation, air pollution,
• 37:37patterns of consumption growth.
• 37:39All of these are processes that resist change,
• 37:43that involve multiple stakeholders, and so on.
• 37:46We also see persistent why they replicated social patterns
• 37:50like prejudice and denialism.
• 37:53And this should be no surprise.
• 37:55Cities are the most complex systems
• 37:57that human beings have ever created.
• 37:59And all of this suggests that we need
• 38:01a systems-based research agenda to address
• 38:04these and other climate and health issues.
• 38:08Now, what I mean by a systems-based research agenda
• 38:10is not a replacement of traditional epidemiological
• 38:12or public health approaches.
• 38:14I think those are absolutely critical.
• 38:17And we have to make sure that we don't disrupt
• 38:20traditional science.
• 38:21What I rather mean is a program of work
• 38:23that complements traditional methods,
• 38:26that frames them within a systems context,
• 38:28and that draws on them to map complex problems,
• 38:32and identify solutions.
• 38:34A systems agenda would include components
• 38:36that apply methods to understand complexity
• 38:38and that engage broadly across disciplines,
• 38:41and especially beyond science.
• 38:44Now, this could be more or less expensive,
• 38:46but I've mapped out some of the components
• 38:48that I think are necessary.
• 38:50And these include conceptual mapping,
• 38:53systems-based case studies,
• 38:55simulation modeling,
• 38:56systemic analysis of governance planning and policy,
• 38:59and transdisciplinary research.
• 39:01And I'll talk about each of these just briefly.
• 39:06At the most basic level,
• 39:07concepts mapping can help organize information.
• 39:10I know this doesn't look very organized to you,
• 39:12but it actually helps a lot.
• 39:15It allows for exploration and hypothesis generation.
• 39:19This particular diagram is a causal process diagram
• 39:22for droughts and mental health from a systematic review.
• 39:25Now, the numbers that you see in brackets
• 39:27are the number of papers meeting the search criteria.
• 39:30So, you can see that this gives a sense of the state
• 39:32of knowledge across the system,
• 39:34and suggests where more research may be needed.
• 39:37And then there's the area of the shaded in green here,
• 39:41gives a sense of how this whole system diagram can be used
• 39:43to identify subsystems of interest.
• 39:46In this case, between drought, agricultural productivity,
• 39:49workloads and the health of the economy.
• 39:52Conceptual diagramming of this sort can also help identify
• 39:55potential co-benefits or co-risks between climate actions.
• 40:01On a more applied level,
• 40:03place-based, systems-based case studies can help,
• 40:06can also help with hypothesis generation
• 40:08and problem diagnosis.
• 40:10They can also play an important role in communication
• 40:12and advocacy because they provide a common language
• 40:16that cuts across silos,
• 40:17the language of feedback and stocks and flows.
• 40:21This is a case study series from a research project
• 40:24that I led a few years ago at UNU, it was called,
• 40:27Systems Thinking in Place-Based Methods for Healthier
• 40:30Malaysian Cities, SCHEMA for short.
• 40:32Don't ask me about the acronym.
• 40:37The case studies were produced in
• 40:38iterative cycles of engagement between a systems thinker,
• 40:42who provided technical knowledge and encourage
• 40:44thinking about dynamic processes,
• 40:46and a set of urban stakeholders who supplied
• 40:48local relevant knowledge,
• 40:50and evaluated the options, the structural options
• 40:53that were given to them by the system figure.
• 40:56In the end,
• 40:57the local stakeholders made all the decisions
• 40:59about the final model.
• 41:02This particular model explores how to assure safe food
• 41:04in school cafeterias, but the series covered a wide range
• 41:07of sustainability and health issues.
• 41:10There's lots of different methodologies
• 41:11for producing this kind of study
• 41:12and it could be done quite easily,
• 41:14so I think it's actually also a really useful tool
• 41:16for education and systems they need.
• 41:19On an even more applied level, of course,
• 41:21you have simulation models.
• 41:24Treat these with caution,
• 41:25absolute prediction is difficult,
• 41:27but they can provide useful insights to the system behavior,
• 41:31the probable outcomes of different scenarios,
• 41:33and potential unintended consequences.
• 41:36Simulation models can also be used to design
• 41:38and assess interventions,
• 41:40which is especially important for interventions
• 41:42with long time horizons.
• 41:44This particular model is of climate population
• 41:47and water supply.
• 41:49The agents here,
• 41:49which include households,
• 41:51and the water utility manager,
• 41:53make decisions based on their own attributes
• 41:55and rules for behavior,
• 41:56but also based on the current state of water system.
• 42:00Agent-based models are especially useful
• 42:02for looking at issues with distributional impacts,
• 42:05but there are many other classes of simulation model.
• 42:11Analysis of urban governance policy and planning
• 42:14is another really crucial element
• 42:15of the system-based agenda,
• 42:18just because these are the information
• 42:19and control structures for urban systems.
• 42:22So these are potentially high leverage points.
• 42:25This particular chart,
• 42:28maps different modes of urban climate governance
• 42:30against mitigation sectors.
• 42:33So for example, for transport,
• 42:35it distinguishes self-governing like procuring
• 42:38energy-efficient vehicles for the government fleet,
• 42:42governing through enabling like educational campaigns,
• 42:46governing by provisions, such as
• 42:48the provision of public transport,
• 42:50and governing by regulation such as road user charges.
• 42:56I don't want to go through this in detail,
• 42:58but just to make the point that understanding
• 42:59how each of these modes functions and practice,
• 43:02and how they themselves are connected in feedback systems
• 43:06and hierarchies.
• 43:08It again offers opportunities for problem diagnosis,
• 43:11hypothesis generation, and advocacy.
• 43:14One of the things that this kind of mapping does
• 43:16is it allows for documentation of the early stages
• 43:19of policy and planning to reduce the survivorship bias
• 43:22that I talked about earlier.
• 43:25And finally,
• 43:29transdisciplinary research is increasingly recognized
• 43:32as an important modality for resolving complex
• 43:35societal challenges.
• 43:37This is an OECD report that I helped coordinate in 2020,
• 43:41because recommendations for universities,
• 43:43research funders, researchers,
• 43:45and international organizations,
• 43:47are looking to foster this kind of work.
• 43:49Transdisciplinary research,
• 43:50which is across the boundary between science and society.
• 43:54That's the defining characteristic.
• 43:56It involves non-stained stakeholders and co-design,
• 43:59blending knowledge and creating new theory
• 44:01in search of common goals.
• 44:03It generally involves cycles of conceptualization,
• 44:06implementation and evaluation.
• 44:08It takes longer.
• 44:10It's usually more difficult.
• 44:11It's almost always more messy than traditional research,
• 44:14but well-designed and this is where research can generate
• 44:18scientific breakthroughs and local solutions
• 44:20at the same time.
• 44:22And that's something that's really important at this moment
• 44:24when we have to act at the same time as we learn.
• 44:28And just to give an example of transdisciplinary research,
• 44:32through my program at Wellcome,
• 44:33we fund a research partnership called RISE,
• 44:36Revitalizing Informal Settlements and their Environments.
• 44:39And this is a randomized control trial,
• 44:41The complex, nature-based water and sanitation
• 44:44and intervention in informal settlements
• 44:46in Indonesia and Fiji.
• 44:49The intervention itself has core features.
• 44:51It's based on a nature-based approach to sanitation,
• 44:54but ultimately an intervention is tailored
• 44:56to each community.
• 44:57Community stakeholders make the final design decisions.
• 45:01RISE measures a wide range of health
• 45:03and environmental outcomes,
• 45:05and scientifically, its generated knowledge,
• 45:08not only about the intervention,
• 45:09but about community engagement,
• 45:11and the capacity involving the informal settlements.
• 45:15So for the study communities,
• 45:16it's generated livelihoods, ownership and agency
• 45:19beyond the benefits of the intervention.
• 45:22And I think that we need much more of this type of research
• 45:24to tackle the challenges of climate and health
• 45:27in cities and beyond.
• 45:29So that brings me to the end of my presentation.
• 45:33I think that we're at a time when we need to harness
• 45:36the brilliance and the exuberance of cities
• 45:38to meet the needs of people in the planet.
• 45:40And I think that systems thinking is critical
• 45:42to that effort.
• 45:43So thank you for listening.
• 45:46I'm glad to take any questions.
• 45:52<v ->Well, thank you, Jose.</v>
• 45:53I could start with a question to get things started.
• 45:58So you gave a number of examples of conceptual diagrams
• 46:03of systems models that, you know, were hard,
• 46:08obviously hard to digest deeply, you know,
• 46:12given the timeframe, which, but my question is,
• 46:17do you see a role for more quantitative systems models
• 46:21in doing this kind of work?
• 46:24<v ->Yeah, I absolutely do.</v>
• 46:26And I, when I was talking about simulation modeling,
• 46:29I was more talking about quantitative models.
• 46:32I think that you do get into difficulties
• 46:35when you try and get into that exact prediction.
• 46:38We've seen, for example, with COVID-19,
• 46:40how difficult it is to predict the exact behavior
• 46:43of a system,
• 46:44but we are actually quite good at predicting
• 46:46the general shape.
• 46:48So we may not be able to say that the people come now,
• 46:50but we can say that there will be a peak.
• 46:53So certainly, all sorts of climate and health questions
• 46:58in cities and beyond are amenable
• 47:00to that kind of quantitative model, yeah.
• 47:04Rafael?
• 47:06<v ->Yes.</v>
• 47:06Thank you for a very insightful presentation, Jose.
• 47:10And my question is about, first of all,
• 47:13And my question is about, first of all,
• 47:17realizing through your presentation
• 47:20and the work that some of us are doing with food systems,
• 47:23how it is important to not fear complexity,
• 47:28that at the end of the day,
• 47:30we have to deal with it
• 47:33the way it is in reality on the one hand,
• 47:36and we can come up with very wonderful
• 47:39spaghetti-like diagrams,
• 47:41like some of the ones you showed us to
• 47:43all the innumerable factors and subsystems
• 47:47that are interconnected,
• 47:50explaining the problem that we have.
• 47:52But then, I think for decision making, for policy making,
• 47:57at the end of the day,
• 48:00the secret sauce is in actually breaking down
• 48:03those systems into subsystems,
• 48:06that we can really understand in a reasonable way,
• 48:09that we can really understand in a reasonable way,
• 48:12and that we can actually come up with very specific policies
• 48:17or interventions to address them
• 48:19versus trying to do everything at the same time.
• 48:22So,
• 48:24what is your take with regards to not fearing complexity,
• 48:25what is your take with regards to not fearing complexity,
• 48:29but at the same time embracing simplicity to try to address
• 48:34the humongous problems that we face?
• 48:38<v ->Yeah.</v>
• 48:39So first of all,
• 48:40I think that you're right about spaghetti diagrams.
• 48:43There's a diagram,
• 48:44a famous diagram on obesity
• 48:47and the factors that lead to obesity,
• 48:48and called, I think the framework shift model,
• 48:51which is so crazy that I decided I didn't want to show it.
• 48:55And those sorts of diagrams actually,
• 48:59I think can lead to paralysis.
• 49:01So they're not useful in that sense,
• 49:03but they are useful in constructing them
• 49:06to think about the subsystems and to learn about the things
• 49:08that were not, you know,
• 49:10you didn't consider it to be related and actually are.
• 49:12But I agree with you,
• 49:13that pulling out the subsystems is really where you get more
• 49:16interesting and applicable results.
• 49:19I did some work with a colleague at ANU
• 49:21that made the argument that low order systems models.
• 49:24So five variables or less are really useful
• 49:27for influencing policy makers if you can get them
• 49:30to engage with the process.
• 49:32I have another talk.
• 49:35I remember where actually, I was at a meeting
• 49:39and there was a policy maker speaking.
• 49:40She had been, I think deputy director
• 49:42of the city of Lens in France,
• 49:44and someone asked her, you know,
• 49:46how do you get policy makers to engage with
• 49:48systems thinking?
• 49:49And she said, don't ever use the word system.
• 49:51Once you've used the word system, they've checked out.
• 49:55So you do have to find ways to express these things in ways
• 49:59that are more palatable and more understandable
• 50:01for the audience.
• 50:03But I think that that's part of the challenge.
• 50:04And I don't think it's, I don't think,
• 50:06I mean, I don't think it's daunting.
• 50:08I think it's actually really exciting that there's this
• 50:11whole area of space that maybe we haven't spent enough time
• 50:14thinking about, but that we can,
• 50:17especially sort of in mapping the government structures
• 50:19and the barriers that come about
• 50:20through the structure of governments.
• 50:24<v ->Thank you.</v>
• 50:36<v ->Are there any other questions?</v>
• 50:38Feel free to speak up.
• 50:40While you're thinking, I'll ask another question.
• 50:44So,
• 50:46I guess the question is,
• 50:48what are the limitations of cities'
• 50:53city-level policy in a context where you don't have a
• 50:57coherent, you know, good national policy around
• 51:02climate change or climate change and health?
• 51:07<v ->That's a good question.</v>
• 51:08I think that, well, for one thing,
• 51:10it depends on the context.
• 51:12There's some places where there will be more importance
• 51:15to have coherence or not depending on the climatic factors,
• 51:18depending on social factors.
• 51:21I think that in general, cities are a good unit to use
• 51:24because they can, you know,
• 51:28they can take action at a large enough scale
• 51:30to affect people, and they're close to people.
• 51:33National policy makers often have less understanding
• 51:36of the issues than city policy makers.
• 51:38I think where you really do have to have coherence between
• 51:40cities and countries is in finance,
• 51:44because cities don't have the finance to be able to take
• 51:47the kinds of actions that they need to take.
• 51:49So for example,
• 51:50there's a group called the Coalition for Urban Transitions,
• 51:54which I believe is funded by Bloomberg.
• 51:56It's sort of a partner to the C40 Cities program,
• 52:00which advocates and provides evidence for governments
• 52:03to fund climate action through cities.
• 52:06But,
• 52:07yeah, so in general, I think the cities are a good unit.
• 52:11Obviously, it's much better if you can coordinate
• 52:13city action with national action.
• 52:15And that's something that we don't see enough of.
• 52:17In the United States, you have huge disparities
• 52:19between city climate action and national climate action,
• 52:22but hopefully that's changing for the better.
• 52:31So I see a question here. Why don't I read it out?
• 52:35Based on your research,
• 52:36do you see a potential role for environmental lawyers
• 52:39in overcoming the silos you mentioned
• 52:41and perhaps addressing the need for accountability
• 52:43and meeting commitments pledged by national governments?
• 52:47So, first of all, I see a role for everybody.
• 52:50You know, we're having the silos that I mentioned,
• 52:52so lawyers, architects, urban planners, engineers,
• 52:58public policy makers, civil society, everybody has a role.
• 53:01But specific to the role of law, that's actually,
• 53:04that's something that we're thinking about
• 53:06at Wellcome, right now,
• 53:08because we're designing a whole new strategy
• 53:10that includes climate and health
• 53:12as one of the three fundamental areas that we'll fund
• 53:14for the next several decades.
• 53:17And one of the elements in there,
• 53:19is how do we design funding for,
• 53:22to produce the kind of research that lawyers
• 53:24will be able to use in holding governments
• 53:27and other players accountable.
• 53:29So you'll have seen, or you may have seen that recently
• 53:32there was a judgment in Holland against
• 53:35the Shell oil company that said,
• 53:38that basically, it was liable for not having a policy
• 53:41that basically, it was liable for not having a policy
• 53:44that did enough to curb emissions.
• 53:47And we hope that we're gonna see many, many more judgments
• 53:50like that.
• 53:50Not just against the oil companies,
• 53:52but really against all sorts of players
• 53:55that are not taking appropriate climate action.
• 53:57So I think the role of lawyers is actually quite critical
• 54:00in all of this.
• 54:13<v ->Okay. One last chance.</v>
• 54:15Any other comments?
• 54:17Feel free to either put it in the chat
• 54:19or just speak right up.
• 54:24Okay, well,
• 54:25thank you very much, Jose, for a wonderful seminar,
• 54:30it was very comprehensive and...
• 54:35<v ->Thanks, Robert. It's great to be here.</v>
• 54:37And if anyone has any questions,
• 54:38I'm very glad to answer it so,
• 54:42you know, just write me.
• 54:44<v ->Okay.</v>
• 54:45So, bye everyone.