COP 27 – Greening Everything: Putting back more than we take out.

If we want to confront the climate crisis successfully, greening everything and here especially our cities is key, argued Alan Simpson in the fifth talk of his COP 27 series. Rather than paving over everything in our cities, which is often the cause of flooding, we need to enlarge our green spaces. 

Non-woodland trees are one of the key elements in greener cities. They function as CO2 storage, offer cooling in summer and provide nesting space for birds. In short, they are an essential part of our general well-being. Vertical gardens too are excellent for biodiversity in cities as well as the absorption of greenhouse gases. Pavement planting as in Montreal/Canada, for example, combined with streets free of cars are another important step.   

As always, positive examples do already exist. Thammasat University has the largest urban rooftop farm in Asia, covering 22000 square meters. In Copenhagen/Denmark, people have planted fruit trees in the streets with a direct impact on people’s nutrition and general well-being, while providing food for birds at the same time. Miyawaki forests in cities are part of the solution as is Madrid’s plan for a forest belt around the city. In the UK, Rotherham’s rivers of flowers are an example of what can be possible when greening our cities. In Uttar Pradesh/India, 800000 volunteers planted 50 million trees in one day. The list goes on.  

In Nottingham, we could establish vegetable and fruit gardens on University ground in a collaboration between students and the local community. Anchor institutions such as the local hospitals could commit themselves to buy local for their catering operations. Volunteers have already lined up for greening the courtyard of the Clive Granger building on University Park. Planters in roundabouts could be filled with berry bushes instead of ornamental flowers, streets could develop wild edges. The solutions are there, what is necessary is the political will to enact them!

Andreas Bieler

Professor of Political Economy

University of Nottingham/UK

Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk

12 December 2022