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    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
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      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
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How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse - the example of cities

Alistair Woodward, School of Population Health, University of Auckland
Cities occupy a tiny fraction of the Earth, less than 2 percent of the planet’s surface area, but account for about 70 percent of global CO2 emissions. The vibrancy and opportunity of urban life have attracted more than half the world’s people, but there are also many negative aspects of cities – pollution, crowding and wide inequalities, for instance. And, in general, the health of human populations, including those in cities, has improved hugely in the last century, but preventable disease and injury and lost well-being are still common.

The carbon footprints of cities will need to shrink substantially to meet the climate targets agreed at Paris. Certainly there are opportunities to simultaneously reduce emissions and improve health, but win-win outcomes are not guaranteed.

There are many ways in which low carbon policies may in fact be health neutral or health damaging. Land use and urban form and transport are just two examples. There are many others, such as housing, food systems, industrial processes and urban energy – we depend on wise choices in all these domains to achieve just and health-promoting transitions to climate safety.

So, is it possible to respond to climate change in ways that will simultaneously make cities more successful and improve human health? It is, but full alignment is not guaranteed. Here are two examples:

Land use and urban form shape the operation of cities, including environmental impacts and social consequences. A critical parameter is density. We know that compact cities tend to use less energy per capita and release fewer greenhouse emissions. In well-designed cities[1], residential density brings other benefits, including increased opportunities for social interactions, nature contact and incidental physical activity (such as walking and cycling).

In American cities, recent work on the spread of COVID-19 finds that higher density may also be associated with slower transmission of infection. This apparently counter-intuitive finding is explained by differences in mixing patterns – those who reside in low density suburbs typically travel further and interact with a greater variety of fellow citizens, and therefore have the capacity to propagate infection more rapidly. Residents of high density inner city areas are more likely to use local facilities and mix mostly with others in the same part of the city.

In a report for the Australian Heart Foundation, Billie Giles-Corti and colleagues recommended steps to be taken to maximise the health benefits of greater urban density while minimising the harms. These include separating housing from arterial roads, making noise reduction a priority in planning and design, limiting the height of high-rise housing, providing high quality local amenities, and avoiding neighbourhood injury hazards (e.g. curb parking, poor lighting, unkept and obstructed public places, high traffic speeds and volumes). With lack of forethought and poor design, density leads to crowding, which is generally health-damaging, but the two don’t necessarily go together.

Thirty eight per cent of Auckland’s greenhouse emissions are caused by road transport, and the city’s Climate Action Plan requires these emissions are halved, at least, by 2030. (A 70% reduction may be needed in fact if other sectors such as agriculture cannot make deep cuts quickly.) Cities all round the world are in a similar position – road transport is one of the largest sources of emissions, it is the most rapidly growing source, and it is, in theory, where gains can be made most rapidly because the causes are obvious and there are remedies at hand. 

Electric cars are frequently cited as the obvious means to de-carbonize transport, especially in countries like New Zealand where power is most generated by renewable sources. However, electric cars do not improve the efficiency and safety of cities, since congestion is not a function of the fuel that drives the vehicle. And electric cars do little for health. The improvements in air pollution and noise are slight, and there are no gains in physical activity, which is the biggest contributor to transport-induced mortality and morbidity.

Transport researchers have examined the changes in disease burden for different carbon-saving road transport policies. One such study of London compared a 2030 business as usual future with three low carbon scenarios – more trips by low emission vehicles, increased active travel, and a combination of the first two. For similar carbon savings, the low emission vehicle scenario saved 160 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) per million people per year in 2030; the active travel and combined scenarios saved about 7300 DALYs per million.

Climate mitigation policies that increase the acceptability, appeal, and safety of active urban travel, and discourage travel in private motor vehicles will provide larger health benefits than those policies that focus solely on lower-emission motor vehicles.


[1] ‘in well-designed cities’ is an important caveat – poorly executed urban density will likely not achieve multiple benefits.
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  • Home
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    • Sign up for occasional updates from NZAIA
  • Impact Connector
    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
    • Issue #9 Impacts of Covid-19 >
      • Introduction to Impact Connector Issue 9 – Impact assessment and Covid 19
      • Covid-19 fast-track consenting: climate change legacy key to success
      • Tourism – the long haul ahead
      • Making sense of the impact of Covid-19: planning, politics, and the public good
    • Issue #8 Social Impact Assessment >
      • Challenges for Social Impact Assessment in New Zealand: looking backwards and looking forwards
      • Insights from the eighties: early Social Impact Assessment reports on rural community dynamics
      • Impact Assessment and the Capitals Framework: A Systems-based Approach to Understanding and Evaluating Wellbeing
      • Building resilience in Rural Communities – a focus on mobile population groups
      • Assessing the Impacts of a New Cycle Trail: A Fieldnote
      • The challenges of a new biodiversity strategy for social impact assessment (SIA)
      • “Say goodbye to traffic”? The role of SIA in establishing whether ‘air taxis’ are the logical next step in the evolution of transportation
    • Issue #7 Ecological Impact Assessment >
      • The future of Ecological Impact Assessment in New Zealand
      • Ecological impact assessment and roading projects
      • EcIA and the Resource Management Act
      • Professional Practice and implementation of EcIA
      • EcIA in the Marine Environment
    • Issue #6 Landscape Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Lives and landscapes: who cares, what about, and does it matter?
      • Regional Landscape Inconsistency
      • Landscape management in the new world order
      • Landscape assessment and the Environment Court
      • Natural character assessments and provisions in a coastal environment
      • The Assessment and Management of Amenity
      • The rise of the THIMBY
      • Landscape - Is there a common understanding of the Common?
    • Issue #5 Cultural Impact Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Potential of Cultural Impact Assessment
      • The Mitigation Dilemma
      • CIA and decision-making
      • Insights and observations on CIA
      • Achieving sustainability through CIA
      • CIA - Enhancing or diminishing mauri?
      • Strategic Indigenous Impact Assessment?
    • Issue #4 Marine Environment >
      • Introduction
      • Iwi, Impact Assessment and Marine Environment
      • Sea-Bed Mining Application in Taranaki
      • The wreck of the MV Rena
      • High Court RMA Controls on Fishing
      • Initiatives in the Pacific Islands
      • SEA in an NZ context
    • Issue #3 Strategic Environmental Assessment
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    • Issue #1
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