planted city

From TriplePundit:

Resilient cities, those that are working to transition towards a low-carbon economy while also preparing to avert the worst of climate change, are gaining interest and attention from policy makers, city councils and others worldwide. In fact, today, leaders from the public and private sector, supported by ICLEI (see below) and the U.S. Green Building Council, are launching a National Leadership Speaker Series on Resiliency and Security in the 21^st Century.

“The battle to prevent catastrophic climate change will be won or lost in our cities…” (C40 Cities Initiative)

Cities account for up to 80% of GHG emissions globally and are home to more than 50% of the world’s population (headed to 60%, 5 billion people by 2030). As I mentioned in my previous post, if we refocus our efforts on the right solutions soon enough, we can mitigate the worst of climate change while actually improving our city economies and growing corporate profits.  Hunter Lovins and I recently published a book entitled Climate Capitalism to share stories of cities and companies around the world who are profiting from that transition to the low carbon economy. Furthermore, the longer we wait the more we will have to pay for adaptation.

…

The Top 10 Resilient Cities Are….

10.) Tokyo, Japan

9.) London, UK

8.) New York, USA 

7.) San Francisco, USA

6.) Paris, France

5.) Vancouver, Canada

4.) Stockholm, Sweden

3.) Barcelona, Spain

2.) Curitiba, Brazil

1.) Copenhagen, Denmark

You can check out the runners up and why each city ranked where it did here.

From The Independent:

According to the results of a new study released June 30, San Francisco is the greenest city in the USA and Canada, with Vancouver coming a close second and New York third.

The study was commissioned by Siemens and conducted by independent research organization the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The study ranked 27 major cities in the USA and Canada across nine environmental categories - CO2 emissions, energy, land use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air quality and environmental governance.

Overall San Francisco was found to be the greenest city, however the rankings changed across each category: Denver was ranked first in terms of best “energy usage,” New York in terms of “land use,” Seattle in terms of “buildings,” New York for “transport,” Calgary for “water,” San Francisco for “waste,” Vancouver for “air” and, in terms of “environmental governance,” Denver, New York and Washington DC were all ranked joint first.

Siemens and the EIU also conducted a similar study of European cities the results of which were released on June 21. The European study looked at 29 major cities, 12 of which were in Germany; the cities ranked “above average” were Amsterdam, Berlin, Bremen, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Leipzig, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg, Oslo, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Vienna and Zurich.

According to the results of the EIU study released on June 30 the overall top ten US and Canadian cities on the Green City Index are:

01.   San Francisco
02.   Vancouver
03.   New York
04.   Seattle
05.   Denver
06.   Boston
07.   Los Angeles
08.   Washington DC
09.   Toronto
10.   Minneapolis

(Image credit: NRDC Switchboard)