Summary:

• ■ Baguio City receives substantial amounts of rainfall every year but its residents are water insecure.

• ■ As a result of rapid population growth, the demand for water in Baguio City has outpaced the capacity of the Baguio Water District (BWD), a government-owned and controlled corporation, to supply the water requirements of residents.

• ■ The Baguio Water District has yet to successfully fulfill its mandate of providing adequate, safe, and affordable water to the city.

• ■ Addressing water insecurity in Baguio amidst the challenges of climate change will require the participation of all stakeholders such as government, private companies, city residents, and nongovernmental organizations.

INTRODUCTION

Baguio is a small highly-urbanized upland city located approximately 250 kilometres north of Manila, the Philippine capital, and 1,400 metres above sea level. With a land area of 57.5 square kilometres and an estimated population of 366,358 in May 2020 (PSA 2021), its population density is higher than most Philippine cities and towns. It is labelled the “summer capital” of the Philippines because of its cool highland climate, which draws foreign and local tourists who seek respite from the generally hot and humid Philippine weather, especially during the months of March, April and May. It usually experiences rainy weather for six months every year, from May to October, and dry weather for the rest of the year. The city receives more rainfall compared to other Philippine towns and cities. Baguio holds the Philippine record for receiving the highest annual rainfall (9,006 mm) in the country in 1910 (WWF-Philippines 2014, p. 13).

Established in the 1900s, Baguio was originally envisioned to serve as a rest and recreation site for American colonial administrators. Designed by American planners at the time to support a population of 25,000 (Morley 2018, p. 4), it had only 841 inhabitants in 1904 (Estoque and Murayama 2013, p. 246). By 2010, the city had an estimated day-time population of 700,000 and a night-time population of 318,676 (Estoque and Murayama 2012, p. 316). People residing in outskirt areas but working within the city account for the disparity in day-time and night-time populations. The city’s night-time population, which reflects Baguio’s real population, is predicted to double by 2045 (Opiña 2014).

Summary:

• ■ As the assistance requests for climate adaptation increase, donor-funded projects’ approaches will be essential to ensure sustainable and resilient communities.

• ■ Japan’s ODA strategy shifted from the “quantity” to “quality” of projects in the early 2000s to increase the competitiveness of Japanese infrastructure and expertise worldwide. But the inward-looking nature of Japan’s ODA which emphasizes priority on Japan’s economic growth is hampering the introduction of climate-progressive approaches.

• ■ Japan’s recent policy change towards infrastructure system export pushes Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) strategy to provide more technical and infrastructure-based projects in developing countries.

• ■ Integrating Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) in Japanese ODA projects will not only ensure the connection between the activities in biodiversity conservation and climate change, but also strengthen the outcomes of the assistance projects to build a sustainable and resilient society.

INTRODUCTION

As the global average temperature increases, natural disasters occur more frequently and intensely (IPCC 2021). In order to mitigate such negative impacts from global warming, it is essential to have appropriate and sustainable adaptation measures. How then are the adaptation measures and approaches determined, particularly in donor-funded assistance projects?

Japan, as one of the largest bilateral donors among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries, has been playing an important and influential role in aiding developing countries since it joined the Colombo plan in 1954. As a strategic international assistance policy, the first Official Development Assistance (ODA) Charter was enacted in 1992, and it was further revised in 2003. The ODA Charter was again updated and revised as the Development Cooperation Charter in November 2015.

Globally, Japan continues to demonstrate its commitment to share its infrastructure capabilities. This commitment was further advanced by the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s flagship assistance, the Partnership for Quality Infrastructure: Investment for Asia’s Future. Under such an initiative, Japan committed to provide US$110 billion in infrastructure assistance for Asian countries, including ASEAN. Japan has long been praised on its technical capabilities on infrastructure projects, but as the global community is increasingly concerned about climate change impacts on vulnerable communities in developing countries, it is critical for Japan to revisit the ODA Charter and its principles in incorporating climate change and cross-cutting environmental issues, in particular the climate adaptation aspect.

Even before climate change surfaced as a critical challenge for cities, the stresses of rapid and mass urbanization were already problems facing many countries, especially developing countries. The nexus between the climate crisis and urbanization is so distinct that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepared a regional fact sheet dedicated to the vulnerability of urban areas in its Sixth Assessment Report. The impacts of climate change are clearly exacerbated by urban characteristics such as the lack of vegetation, the abundance of dense concrete structures, and intense human and economic activities that raise temperatures, alter water cycles, and increase the risk of flooding. Coastal cities, in particular, face the added threat of rising sea levels (IPCC 2022). In a way, climate change has not only magnified the problems of urbanization but has also added another layer of complexities to the mounting challenges that cities face.

Southeast Asia is currently home to four major agglomerations or megacities (cities of over 10 million people); Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City (Citypopulation.de n.d.). The speed of urbanization in the region is particularly striking. In the 1960s, only a quarter of Southeast Asia’s population lived in urban areas, today more than half live in urban areas, and this number will increase to two-thirds by 2025 (Leggert 2015).

Southeast Asia is experiencing some of the world’s fastest changing demographics, and also one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change. Three Southeast Asian countries; Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand are among top ten countries that have suffered the greatest economic damage and number of fatalities from climate disasters (Eckstein et al. 2019).

On the city scale, the region is also home to the most vulnerable cities to climate risks. A report by consultancy firm Verisk Maplecroft ranked urban centres worldwide based on their environmental and climate risk, revealing that 99 of the 100 most threatened cities are in Asia (Nichols 2021). Topping the list is Jakarta, which experiences land subsidence, heat stress, water scarcity, natural hazards and pollution due to a combination of climate change and human activity. Close behind are other Indonesian cities Surabaya and Bandung, which are similarly plagued with extreme levels of environmental risk.

Summary:

• ■ The conventional conception of urban areas as non-food production centres needs to be challenged.

• ■ Food insecurity has become more alarming due to price instability and disruption of the supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic has added further strain on community food security.

• ■ Agroecological principles in urban agriculture have the potential as an alternative for cities to achieve food security.

• ■ Through agroecology, the community co-creates farming knowledge and changes the food system to fit their needs and capacity thus they are able to improve their resilience in adapting to the climate impacts.

INTRODUCTION

In 2022, the state of global food security came under scrutiny due to developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The significant role that these two countries play in the global food system, specifically as major fertilizer and wheat producing countries, alarmed neighbouring countries in the region and other food importers. This situation certainly put more pressure on the global food system, which has already faced various challenges. Prior to the conflict, there was a continued rise in food production costs that placed more pressure on smallholder farmers and consumers. Add in the impact of climate change, and global food security has become more uncertain than ever, with increasingly likely food shortages and instability in the future.

On the other hand, the role of food production has been divorced from cities after waves of industrialization hit nations around the world. Cities have been transformed into administrative and industrial centres, and other economic activities are viewed as more capable of producing higher value output. The agricultural sector as a food producer is lagging (Mat et al. 2019). Similarly, in the context of the agricultural sector, driven by the argument of comparative advantage, countries have given more focus to several high-value crops while importing cheaper agrifood produce. As a result, farm-to-fork distances increased and the interdependency between countries intensified. This business-as-usual form of the food system is argued to be unsustainable in facing the unpredictability caused by climate change (IPES-Food and ETC Group 2021). Thus, agroecology is being tabled as a muchneeded alternative in the food system.

Summary:

• ■ There has been a proliferation of tools to monitor and measure the impacts of climate change, including the framework of the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which has been endorsed by leaders in the G7 summit recently calling on mandatory climate disclosures.

• ■ This chapter highlights the different elements within the TCFD, such as strategies, governance, risk management, metrics, and targets, to investigate further shortcomings in existing tools and their gaps in carbon reporting.

• ■ This chapter explores possible challenges in the Malaysian property and construction sector and proposes recommendations to address them.

• ■ A novel TCFD Index (TCI) is recommended to measure the degree of incorporation of four elements (strategy, governance, risk, metrics and targets). TCI will be helpful to both academicians and practitioners involved in city development who are exploring tools to integrate climate resilience.

INTRODUCTION

The impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented, from shifting weather patterns which threaten food security to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding (United Nations 2019; Wheeler and von Braun 2013). This phenomenon is caused by the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs), primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), produced by a wide range of human activities (Nature Conservancy 2007). As populations, economies and standards of living continue to grow, so does the cumulative level of GHG emissions. The Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates the cumulative CO2 emissions since preindustrial times and provides a carbon budget for future emissions to limit temperature from increasing beyond 2 degrees Celsius (United Nations 2019). Given current ongoing emissions, it has been predicted that the global mean temperature will continue to rise above the preindustrial level. With polar ice cap melting and warmer oceans, average sea levels are estimated to rise from 24–30 cm by 2065 and 40–63 cm by 2100 relative to the reference point of 1986–2005 (ibid.). The reality is that the impacts of climate change will continue to persist for many centuries even when emissions have stopped.

Summary:

• ■ Global climate governance is shifting from a state-centric to polycentric mode. Cities and city networks play a central role in polycentric climate governance.

• ■ Cities and city networks cooperate in a symbiotic relationship in pursuing climate goals.

• ■ This study highlights that Jakarta directly benefits from its cooperation with the C40 Climate Leadership Group (C40), the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and CityNet. At the same time, these city networks’ subsistence and relevance depend on their roles in fostering collaboration.

• ■ The question remains on how this cooperation can effectively assist the Government of Jakarta to achieve its climate change mitigation and adaptation targets and develop a more robust and effective climate action policy in the future.

INTRODUCTION

For decades, states were seen as the main actors in the concerted global effort to tackle climate change (Kern and Mol 2013). Countries engaged in multilateral forums such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) or the Group of 20 (G20) at the international level. Countries also participate in regional organizations such as the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the African Union, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the regional level. However, scholars argued that state-centric and prolonged negotiation processes yield only incremental progress, if at all. Under the climate negotiation process, decisions were agreed upon at a slow pace (Hovi and Skodvin 2017; Downie 2012; Falkner et al. 2010); mistrust and contested issues exist, for example on differentiated responsibilities and capabilities between developed and developing countries (Dubash 2009; Wang and Gao 2018), and lack of legally binding and accountability mechanism lead to less ambitious commitment by countries (Hovi et al. 2016; Gupta et al. 2021).

Under the Paris Agreement, the climate regime has applied a combination of top-down and bottom-up systems based on participating country’s national and sectoral initiatives. The initiatives are translated to mitigation and adaptation measures adopted and implemented by networks of international, regional, national, and subnational public and private actors (Jordan et al. 2018; van der Heijden 2018).

Summary:

• ■ Historic urban landscapes are complex, dynamic, linear systems with infinite interconnections and relationships working with, alongside and against each other.

• ■ Floods or flash floods can be seen both as manifestation of disruptions across multiple intersections that comprise the urban environment and a consequence of the systems behaving exactly as they were designed to.

• ■ This chapter explores the possibility of using flood mitigation and management strategies and approaches, not just as a means to solve problems but as vehicles of systemic change by looking at flood mitigation and management practices in George Town, Chennai, India and George Town, Penang, Malaysia.

• ■ The official strategy towards flood mitigation and management in both George Towns has been a technology-centred approach focused on engineering resilience into existing systems to enable them to face perturbations and come back to equilibrium. There is a lack of acceptance of community knowledge and collective intelligences within flood mitigation measures.

• ■ The knowledge systems approach, envisaged as a five-phase cyclic dynamic feedback loop, recognizes the need to look beyond improving and collating existing knowledges, towards “co-creating” new knowledge systems.

INTRODUCTION

Cities are complex systems with “infinite interconnections” (Burns 2007), and contain systems and subsystems, working with, alongside and against each other (Flood 2010). Historical cultural landscapes connect complex knowledge systems, tangible and intangible, of the past in the present. Urban flooding is seen as a systemic problem and a manifestation of disruptions within these complex systems and their connections (Rehman et al. 2019). Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (United Nations 1992) enshrines the promotion and facilitation of “public participation in addressing climate change and its effects”. Mitigation and management of urban flooding demand multi-pronged solutions that include all parts of the government, civil society, media, public and private sector organization and all levels of the community. However, decision-making processes that do not recognize the subtleties and complexities of the social, cultural, political and economic patterns only pay lip service to the idea of the community engagement process. Such simplistic approaches to participatory decision-making has resulted in the exclusion of the economically and socially vulnerable frontliner, facing the brunt of urban climate change impacts from participating in the decision-making process.

Summary:

• ■ Ho Chi Minh City is a prime example of urban climate risk, with one of the highest assessed levels of (future) risk of all coastal cities worldwide.

• ■ The city’s urban expansion into low-lying flood plains reduces flood detention and retention capacity, thus increasing flood risks.

• ■ Various climate risks to the city have been assessed in the past. However, previous assessments were often limited to purely future scenarios of climatic hazards and undertaken at a city-wide scale, neglecting the distinct finer, structural, and socio-economic heterogeneity that characterizes the city.

• ■ Traditional environmental protection approaches such as climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and flood governance need to be integrated in a local or more precise “block-scale” planning.

INTRODUCTION

Concern for climate change impacts to the cities and urban regions of Vietnam is rapidly increasing due to the compounding effects of natural hazards, climate change and strong urbanization. Unprecedented changes to its cities and regions have played a key role in the country’s economic growth, modernization and poverty reduction strategies. However, disasters and climate change increasingly challenge the sustainable development trajectory not only for the cities themselves, but also of the national and regional economic system.

The emerging megacity of Ho Chi Minh City (10°49´ N, 106°37` E), formerly known as Saigon and often abbreviated as HCMC, is characterized by rapid environmental and socio-economic transformations. As Vietnam’s largest city, HCMC suffers from frequent and chronic flooding. Flood events occur individually, but more commonly in combination with high tides and fluvial flow events. Tides along with overburdened or blocked drainage and sewage systems and channel encroachments exacerbate flood risk. The occurrence of localized urban flash and pluvial flooding, a condition where water not being able to enter the drainage system or ejected from the drainage system, following high intensity or prolonged heavy rainfall leading to overland flow and ponding, is a common occurrence on many of the city’s streets. While the city has a long tradition of living and coping with small floods and has built up a certain degree of resilience, events still cause injury, damage to property and infrastructure, as well as interruption of essential services and business supply chains.

The varied and contextual experiences of each Southeast Asian city in addressing climate challenges detailed in this compendium are all unique in their own ways. It may be difficult to generalize these experiences but the examination of these cities’ experiences in addressing climate change suggests three principles that are well worth bearing in mind for future research and policymaking.

First, understanding the implications of climate change at the local community level is essential. Cities often face financial, administrative, and decision-making constraints in implementing decisions that are adopted by national governments in international climate agreements. Yet non-state actors can and must play a critical role in helping national governments meet international obligations. Hence, it is critical for cities in the region to identify their most pressing needs and priorities to mobilize concerted actions.

However, cities in the region also have their unique adaptive capacity to manage various urban issues through their community cohesion, local networks, and localized knowledge. Throughout the years, these assets have provided Baguio, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Georgetown, and Hue with the capacity to moderate potential damage and cope with the consequences of natural hazards.

Second, urban planning and city governance play an essential role in shaping cities’ development agendas and embedding environmentally conscious practices in city-making. Through building codes, masterplans, spatial management, and organizational approaches between central, federal, provincial and local agencies, cities can push for new and innovative developments in building climate resilient infrastructure and creative funding to improve adaptation and mitigation actions. Multi-level governance and mutually reinforcing climate networks can form powerful approaches to dealing with complex issues.

Third, collaboration among and between different groups of stakeholders is vital to facilitate transformation. While it is true that national governments are expected to direct climate agendas in cities, they often have limited capacity, knowledge, and technical knowhow to identify solutions. The private sector’s support to invest in bankable projects for climate resilience, donors’ assistance in defining project phasing and resource mobilization, and civil society’s role in providing input on impact assessment will advance collaboration across disciplines and realize pragmatic solutions.

Climate change causes severe risks to ecosystems, human health, and urban growth.

Summary:

• ■ The Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA) has long struggled to balance environmental protection and economic growth. The problem of flooding in the metropolitan area has been linked to several factors such as urban development, land-use changes and natural disasters.

• ■ This study examines to what extent Nature-Based Solution (NBS) infrastructure, a cost-efficient intervention to assist cities prevent floods, can reduce flood occurrence in the JMA.

• ■ This study suggests the importance of hygiene behaviour and NBS infrastructure as well as a potential correlation between economic performance and disaster in the JMA.

INTRODUCTION

The Jakarta Metropolitan Area (JMA) has long struggled to balance environmental protection and economic growth. The term JMA (Sadewo et al. 2021; Rukmana and Ramadhani 2021) (6°10‘30”S 106°49‘43’E) is used in this study to analyse the relationship between urban expansion and flooding in nine cities and municipalities. The problem of flooding in the metropolitan area has been linked with several factors such as urban development, land-use change and natural disasters (Wihanesta et al. 2021; Budiyono et al. 2015; Mishra et al. 2018). The decentralization of authorities at the district level has brought further complexity, with variations in interest and policy leading to different environment management strategies between districts within the JMA.

The complexity of environmental management in the JMA begins with the industry re-allocation towards neighbouring districts such as Bekasi and Tangerang regencies in the 1990s. The following figure depicts the JMA region with its core (cities in Jakarta province) and peripherals (several cities and regencies surrounding the core), West Java and Banten provinces, and non-JMA regions (see Figure 9.1). Currently, peripheral districts in the region have the highest employment and value-added shares in Indonesia, whilst the metropolitan cores have declining firm and employment densities (Hudalah and Aritenang 2017). The JMA can be seen as the main economic driver of the country with more than 56 per cent of multilocational industry headquarters located in the metropolitan area, especially in three sectors: electronics; automotive and transportation; and food and beverage.

There are limited studies examining the impact of floods on different parts of the metropolitan area and the extent of infrastructure variations that determine these impacts.

Summary:

• ■ The Philippines Climate Change Act 2009 mandates local government units (LGUs) to plan and prepare for climate change by developing a local climate change action plan (LCCAP).

• ■ This study examines the planned climate change adaptation (CCA) and mitigation (CCM) activities of selected cities in the Philippines as reflected in their LCCAPs.

• ■ The study has shown that the LCCAPs of selected cities have substantially addressed the priority areas identified in the national climate change adaptation plan (NCCAP).

• ■ There is a clear commonality among the policy areas to address water sufficiency and knowledge and capacity development to combat climate change. On the other hand, actions related to ensuring sustainable energy were the least consistent among the reviewed local governments.

INTRODUCTION

Climate change has significant impacts on urban life. Rising global temperatures cause sea levels to rise, increase the number of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms, and increase the spread of tropical diseases. In the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, expansion of urban areas was estimated to be on average twice as fast as the growth of the urban population. Consequently, the expected increase in urban land cover during the first three decades of the twenty-first century will be greater than the cumulative urban expansion in history with more than half of the global population residing in urban areas, compared to only 13 per cent in 1900 (Arias et al. 2021; Seto et al. 2014).

This anticipated growth in urban population and development entails exponential growth of urban infrastructure, which directly stimulates the increase of emissions across multiple sectors. As noted above, the average per capita CO2 emissions embodied in the infrastructure of industrialized countries is five times larger than those in developing countries.

The Philippine’s archipelagic nature and geographic location have made its cities highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, natural hazards, and environmental degradation. Metro Manila, the national capital region, is at high risk from extreme weather events such as typhoons and floods, as it has exposure and vulnerability. Metro Davao, the largest urban agglomeration in the island of Mindanao, as well as the cities of Cebu, Tacloban, and Iloilo in the Visayas, are likewise exposed to climate change impacts (HUDCC 2016).

Summary:

• ■ Climate change has profoundly impacted many heritage sites on Vietnam’s central coast, notably the Complex of Hue Monuments.

• ■ Heritage conservation has been acknowledged in more recent climate policies. In particular, Vietnam’s Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement in 2020 realized that the loss of cultural heritage and local knowledge is among the significant impacts caused by climate change.

• ■ However, measures tackling climate change at the national level are too broad; hence it is challenging to apply them to particular cases, such as the Complex of Hue Monuments.

• ■ Vietnamese authorities, including central and local governments, have put different policies and measures into practice to safeguard precious cultural heritage. Existing legislative frameworks might not be enough to support the implementation. Therefore, more detailed technical frameworks are needed.

INTRODUCTION

Climate change has recently become a common concern for the international community due to its profound impacts on socio-economic growth at the global, regional and local scales (Orr et al. 2021, p. 1; Dastgerdi et al. 2019, p. 4). Given their importance in accelerating economic development, cities can play a crucial role in shaping policies for advancing climate ambitions (Jones 2018, p. 63). According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), cities are regarded as drivers of transformative actions because of their ability to handle sectoral, demographic, spatial and ecological challenges of climate change as well as disaster risks (Bartlett and Satterthwaite 2016, p. xxv). Also, cities are increasingly active in promoting and fulfilling agreements such as the Paris Agreement (2015) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals (Paris Agreement 2015). These frameworks highlight the importance of urban communities in responding to climate change.

Many nations expend significant efforts in creating policies that help to support the most vulnerable social groups and regions (Phuong et al. 2018, p. 518). Many countries have actively fostered knowledge exchange, produced training and educational programmes, promoted social networks and bridged administrative levels and scales in responding to climate change (Armitage et al. 2011, p. 996). One example is through heritage preservation.