Urban and transport planning pathways to carbon neutral, liveable and healthy cities
According to data from the United Nations, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Suboptimal urban and transport planning in cities has led them to be hotspots of air pollution and noise, heat island effects and lack of green space. What are the effects of these conditions, and what are the solutions?
Outdoor air pollution alone kills nine million people a year – a number that could be significantly reduced as the current COVID-19 pandemic has shown. A recent health impact assessment study in Barcelona found that around 20% of premature mortality was due to factors related to suboptimal urban and transport planning. Cities are also large emitters of CO2, one of the main factors behind the climate crisis.
Cities might be the problem, but also the solution as they are centres of innovation and wealth creation and tend to be more responsive and agile in their governance. Therefore, cities could and should take measures to become carbon neutral, more liveable and healthier by changing their current urban and transport planning practices. In this webinar, we will discuss some measures.
Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen PhD is a world-leading expert in environmental exposure assessment, epidemiology, and health risk/impact assessment with a strong focus and interest on healthy urban living. He has edited three books on exposure assessment and on environmental epidemiology, and one on integrating human health into urban and transport planning, one on transportation and health, and has co-authored more than 450 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and 35 book chapters. In 2018, he was awarded the ISEE John Goldsmith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Environmental Epidemiology. In both 2018 and 2019 he was among the 1% most cited scientists in the world.