If governments do not act quickly to discourage the building of cities for cars, the international effort to control global warming will become much more difficult, reports a new study by the Worldwatch Institute. Sprawling urban areas are helping to make road transportation the fastest growing source of the carbon emissions warming the earth's atmosphere.
" Wind turbines, energy - efficient cars, and other new technologies have received much attention in recent debates over energy policy, but we've been neglecting the role that urban design can play in stabilizing the climate," said Molly O'Meara Sheehan, author of City Limits: "Putting the Brakes on Sprawl". Local concerns like clogged roads, air polution , and deteriorating neighborhoods are already fueling a reaction against sprawl. Understanding the role of sprawl in climate change should only speed up the shift towards more parks and fewer parking lots
Recent shows that sprawl already damages people's health. Each year, traffic accidents take up to one million lives worldwide. In some countries , the number of lives cut short by illness from air pollution exceeds those lost to accidents. and by making driving neccessary and walking and cycling less practical, sprawling cities contribute to weight problems by depriving people of needed physical exercise .
By the end of the decade, the majority of the world's people will live in urban areas. Urban design decisions made today, especially in the developing world where car use is still low, will have an enormous impact on global warming. Adoption of the U.S car - centered model would have disastrous consequences.
In thirty years, China , excluding Hong Kong, will have 752 million urban dwellers. If each were to copy the transportaion habits of the average resident of San francisco in 1990, the carbon emissions in urban China could exceed 1 billion tons.
" Some cities in developing countries have already proved that a strategy of the de - emphasizing cars and providing public transit instead can work" , said Sheehan Starting in 1972, the city of Curitiba in Brazil built a system of busways and re-zoned areas along the thoroughfares and is now enjoying better air quality and more parks for its 2.5 million people