Anu Ramaswami, Professor, Princeton University
Video Recording
Slides
Abstract:
This talk will draw upon a recent review article led by Ramaswami, to appear in the Annual Reviews of Energy and the Environment, on developing a new nexus science that enables transition toward zero carbon cities while advancing health and wellbeing, social equity and climate resilience co-benefits. The paper argues that decarbonization models alone do not suffice, rather, they must be integrated with design for wellbeing, health (WH), equity (E) and climate-resilience (R), co-benefits, particularly at the urban scale where most of the world’s people live. However, science is nascent on the linkages. This talk will presents a transboundary urban metabolism framework, rooted in seven key infrastructure and food provisioning systems, to connect and model urban zero-carbon urban transitions with broader sustainability, health and equity co-benefits.
Bio:
Anu Ramaswami is an interdisciplinary environmental engineer and professor at Princeton University, with appointments across India studies, civil and environmental engineer, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. She has pioneered sustainable urban systems science and knowledge co-production for developing low-carbon, healthy, and equitable cities. Her work explores how eight key sectors – that provide water, energy, food, buildings, mobility, connectivity, waste management and green/public spaces – shape human and environmental wellbeing, from local to global scales. Ramaswami’s work integrates environmental science and engineering, industrial ecology, public health and public affairs, with a human-centered and systems focus. She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, published in leading journals such as Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Environmental Science & Technology, and Environmental Research Letters. She is the inaugural director of the M.S. Chadha Center for Global India at Princeton University, the lead principal investigator and director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Sustainable Healthy Cities Network, and serves on the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Resource Panel.
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University
High Meadow Institute of Environment, Princeton University
Faculty Director, M.S. Chadha Center for Global India, Princeton University
Summary:
Lab mission: creating healthy, sustainable and equitable cities via science of sustainable, informed cities
7 Urban Sectors on which to focus emissions and decarbonization analysis:
Energy
Mobility-connectivity
Waste and sanitation
Water
Food
Buildings
Public/green space
These are major drivers of global emissions
Key societal outcomes: wellbeing, health, environment, equity, livability, co-benefits
Key pathways of change:
Tech & Design innovation
Spatial reconfiguration
Business and finance
Policy & Governance
Behavior change
Integrative scenarios
Geographic focus:
Currently regional: India, China and US
Looking to expand globally
Urban system Science:
framework for connecting decarbonization to equity, health, resilience
Cities are 3% of the urban land area but have transboundary impacts
E.g. impact largest watersheds
Fed by enormous supply chains
Urban zero carbon pathways
Unclear what cities role in decarbonization is
Can’t focus on just energy or transport
Must decarbonize all sectors together because the depend on each other and interact (e.g. construction uses trees)
Zero carbon transboundary zero carbon infrastructures
Globally these systems contribute 90% of GHGs
E.g. Cities can drastically reduce demand for polluting activities
Argument: focus on these 7
Accounting approaches:
Territorial: ignores the activities being done in these territories
7 sectors: good balance of usefulness and feasibility of accounting
Consumption-based (household consumption of the economy’s 500 sectors). Ignores local business that are exporting
Total community-wide (scope 1,2,3, all trade) comprehensive but too hard to compute
Advocacy to get cities to document emissions from the 7 sectors: ⅔ of emissions are outside of the city boundary
City-scale decarbonization pathways
Enhancing carbon stocks: trees, soil, decabonization, demand reduction
Quantitative model to quantify the impact of these activities
Cities are great at reducing demand (direct control)
Then focus on improving supply (further, harder to control)
Few multi-sector models of decarbonization
Many buildings-only, mobility-only, water waste
Few 2-sector models
Promising: Urban metabolism models
Model 7 sectors
Not their interactions or land use
Team is developing a model that models inter-sector interactions, land use and supply chain
Challenge: Zero-carbon and health
637 cities and the national power grid
Evaluate energy, waste heat, material exchanges between cities
Air pollution model
Discovered that there is significant waste heat from industrial processes to use in urban heating
Challenge: Zero-carbon and equity
233 Census block groups in St Paul
Quantified Energy Use Intensity by neighborhood demographics
Showed interaction between energy use and impact of interventions on poverty and race
Link also established in Indian cities
Can use for policy design
Scaling up data to inform action:
Many collaboration opportunities
Energy use modeling including inequality)
Mobility data (air, land-motorized, walk & bike)
Water supply modeling
Wastewater systems and waste modeling
Food (diet, demand, and supply chains)
Green infrastructure at fine scales
Buildings, urban form and construction materials