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“Cities are bad for the environment” – myth debunked

In fact, cities have a much lower carbon footprint compared to non-urban areas and must play a crucial role in the fight against climate change.

Blog post published on 25 July 2023 by Valentine Quinio

This blog originally featured as part of the APPG on Net Zero’s ‘Net Zero Myth Busting’ report.

Cities are commonly perceived as places of excessive consumption, pollution and traffic congestion that do a great deal of environmental damage. But the truth is, cities play a crucial role in the fight against climate change, and urbanisation can be climate-friendly.

Cities actually have a lower carbon footprint than non-urban areas: the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns generate 45% of all carbon emissions, with London alone accounting for 10%. But cities are also home to nearly 55% of the population, which means that on a per capita basis, they have a much lower carbon footprint than non-urban areas. On average, a person living in a city or large town emits 2.3 tons less carbon (or 35 % less a year) than the average non-urban resident.

Firstly, high-emitting industrial activities tend to be based outside cities. That’s only a small part of the explanation. The second, more important factor, is down to the way city dwellers live their lives. Both transport and domestic emissions are lower in cities than elsewhere, and this relates to the way our daily lifestyles – from how we go shopping or commute to work to the type of building we live in – is hugely influenced by the characteristics of our immediate built environment.

Density, something that is specifically unique to cities, encourages and enables greener lifestyles: in compact urban environments, low-carbon transport options are more accessible and attractive because journeys are shorter and can more easily be walked or cycled. Public transport is more viable, too, because of higher demand. And denser housing, like flats or terraced houses, are more energy-efficient, resulting in lower carbon footprints.

The same pattern applies between cities. A commonly used comparison is Barcelona versus Atlanta: both have about 5 million inhabitants, but Barcelona’s denser urban form results in a much lower carbon footprint per head. Here in the UK, Oxford and Telford have similar populations, but Telford’s built-up area is 61% larger than Oxford’s, and its transport emissions per head are twice as high as a result.

This means that progress on meeting emission targets will not be ‘place-blind’. Not all parts of the country can be expected to reach Net Zero at the same time, or decarbonise at the same pace: cities will have to lead the way, and play a disproportionate role in helping the UK hit its Net Zero target. This will be particularly important when it comes to cutting emissions in transport and housing, two areas that have seen very little progress in recent decades.

Perhaps, this will also come as a surprise, but the challenge going forward is that many UK cities are still not dense enough. That’s in part because of the way the UK has built, over several decades, too many residential developments on the outskirts of cities, far away from jobs and isolated from public transport.

This has important implications for policymakers at the local and national level who care about Net Zero. For the UK to have a chance of meeting its 2050 target, changing this approach to development should be the starting point, because it makes many other interventions – like encouraging people out of their cars – much more effective. Cities like Paris, Barcelona or Madrid offer positive examples of ‘gentle density’ levels that UK urban areas should learn from.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to meeting the Net Zero target. But alongside other policies that help decarbonise the economy, recognising the important role cities have to play, and reaping the benefits that density offers, will take us much closer to the finish line.