Introduction

Recent IPCC reports have addressed the issue of urban land under the topic of industry, settlement, and society (IPCC, 2007). Since reviews of human settlements from the perspective of climate change have been primarily focused on climate change mitigation, topics of land cover and use, urbanization, land planning and management, land markets, property rights, and fiscal and legal issues, which will be key to responding to impacts of climate change, have not received extensive coverage. We argue in this chapter that it is important to focus on urban land as a sector or as the overarching framework in order to recognize the challenges of government coordination and integration necessary to address climate change. In incorporating urban land in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts one would be able to include a fundamental set of strategies, such as policies concerning land conversion, land tenure, and urban land markets that have not been fully addressed.

This chapter provides an introduction to the role of urban land in climate change, discusses the potential for urban planning and management to address climate change challenges, and reviews current planning efforts focused on climate change. It is organized into several sections. This introductory section develops several key concepts, such as recent trends in urbanization, and discusses their relation to urban land and climate change. The second section focuses on urban form, impacts on ecosystems, including the urban heat island effect, and discusses the vulnerability of informal and slum settlements to climate change.

Introduction

Although the inextricable relationship between ecology and society has long been understood (Yearly, 1991; Martell, 1994; Bruntland, 1997), the link between social policy and the environment in the industrialised countries, referred to here as ‘the North’, has only been drawn quite recently (Hill, 1993; Huby, 1998). That the environment is increasingly understood as a social policy issue derives in part from growing concern with the global commons (Yearly, 1996; Goldman, 1998), and in part from changes in social policy itself, related to the valuing of integrated approaches and the promotion of intersectoral partnerships. It is in this context and alongside a convergence of paradigmatic approaches to social development internationally, that greater attention is being paid to lessons from late developing countries. This chapter engages with these issues through a discussion of the urban environment and, more specifically, urban water supply and sanitation in cities of the developing world, referred to here as ‘the South’. We argue that social wellbeing is inextricably linked to secure access to an adequate and safe water supply, along with appropriate and affordable sanitation. As such, basic urban services constitute a critical area of concern for social policy in late developing countries. Through a case study of Johannesburg we consider the enormous challenges for urban governance that are presented by the dual requirement of addressing the pressing service needs of burgeoning numbers of historically disadvantaged urban dwellers, without compromising the standards of services and supply to better-off rate paying citizens. This chapter concludes by suggesting that while a policy focus on basic services might address urban poverty and indeed be environmentally sound, issues of inequality are not addressed.

Environmental health and the ‘brown agenda’

While the North has for a long time been urbanised, this is a more recent phenomenon for the South. Nevertheless, it will soon be the case that more than half the world's population will be living in urban centres. In absolute terms, by 2000 the urban population of late developing countries was more than twice the urban population of industrialised countries, and by 2025 the global urban population is expected to be five billion, almost equal to the entire world population at present (Buckley, 1996). Moreover, it is from cities and towns that the majority of people already derive their livelihoods, either directly or indirectly.