Author name: Steven Edwards

If you’re worried about climate change, consider sharing a car instead. #ClimateCrisis
Jo  Balham Retweeted
ShareOurCars @shareourcars
A reminder that owning and driving a car is the equivalent carbon to 20 flights to Rome per year. If you’re worried about climate change, consider sharing a car instead. #ClimateCrisis

Finland’s goal to go net zero by 2035 and then carbon negative was based on equity as well as science, but it won’t be easy to reverse forest loss

Finland has passed arguably the world’s most ambitious climate target into law. It aims to be the first developed country to reach net zero, in 2035, and net negative – absorbing more CO2 than it emits – by 2040.
According to Net Zero Tracker, only South Sudan has a more ambitious net zero date than 2035 and, as a developing country, its 2030 target is highly dependent on international finance.
The target was set based on analysis by a group of independent economists from the Finnish climate change panel. They worked out what Finland’s fair share was of the 420 GT of carbon dioxide that the world can emit and still have a two-thirds chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Thalia Verkade

We take it for granted that the streets outside out homes are designed for movement from A to B, nothing more. But what happens if we radically rethink how we use these public spaces? Could we change our lives for the better?
Our dependence on cars is damaging our health – and the planet’s. The Dutch seem to have the right idea, with thousands of bike highways, but even then, what happens to pedestrians or people who want to cycle at a more leisurely pace? What about children playing outside their homes? Or wildlife, which enriches our local areas? Why do we prioritise traffic above all else?

Nicu Calcea
In 2005, Rebecca was looking for a place to live. She chose a nice street in Bromley, London, just next to the quiet Crystal Palace Park and relatively low on traffic.
“It was the wide, avenue-like appearance of the road, with its villas and Victorian houses, that I loved about the road,” she tells City Monitor.

This ambivalence is evident in the secretary of state’s foreword to the plan. At one point he says, “We must make public transport, cycling and walking the natural first choice for all who can take it”. Yet, elsewhere, he says, “It’s not about stopping people doing things: it’s about doing the same things differently … We will still drive on improved roads, but increasingly in zero emission cars.”

Nicu Calcea @nicucalcea · Jul 12
The traffic that was once flowing through motorways and other major rows is now spilling into your backstreet.

One of the most common questions I get asked is “what are the best cities in the world?” I have a few different answers, but I usually look to shift the conversation to a question I think is more interesting: Which cities out there are doing remarkable things to get much better right now?
Since most of my work around the world advising cities on what I call “advanced urbanism” is in its simplest sense about helping cities get better, inspiring examples of recent successful urban change can be worth their weight in gold.

Brent Toderian is a global thought-leader on cities, an acclaimed city planner and urbanist with Toderian UrbanWorks advising cities and progressive developers all over the world, and the former chief city planner for Vancouver. Follow him on Twitter @BrentToderian.

People > cars
Adam Tranter @adamtranter · Jul 13
What might our cities look like if we prioritised people, not cars? Here’s a visualisation of what Marble Arch, London’s 5-lane mega-roundabout, could look like if we did just that. Visualisation: @jan_kamensky for #ShimanoFutureCities project